Rebuilding a New America in the New Millennium

It could be time for another revolution, but one driven by ideas, plans, and technology, not tea and blood. From just one small seed springs a forest.

The Declaration of Independence - Original Edition

From the Declaration of Independence (1776 Edition) - When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…

The Declaration of Independence - Millennium 3 Edition

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with the current system, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the reconstruction of the system. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. These rights are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Upon the onset of the Next Millennium, in this 2000th year AD, the second of these rights, Liberty, is in peril and directly threatened by the decay of the system, specifically, but not limited to the particular status of the financial aspects of the current system -- To secure our rights, Governments are instituted by the people to derive certain powers from the people, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, and their duty to change such systems or entities.

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All the talk of ideas that sound like they’ll shake the foundations of the system, such as a flat tax, or changing the social security system to a private based investment system have made a lot of waves as general concepts. Campaign finance reform is another, but guess what?! All these plans are just masking the real problem. A problem that is so entrenched in our system that just mentioning it in this article is considered a risk by the author of this article. The root problem of our political and financial systems is that there is a vast concentration of power in the country elected officials in congress, financial institutions, banking institutions, and insurance types of institutions.

First of al the congress was empowered to be the taxer and spender of the Country at a time when the citizens of the Country were not ever thought to have been taxed. The congress was never empowered by the constitution to force the citizenry to give them money, and then to redistribute said monies. They have no right to collect our money, whether for general income taxation or for the reason of a National retirement plan.

One of the main problems with financial companies is that the big secret of a few decades ago leaked out to the general public at large. The wealthy and large financial companies hate the fact that the general population has become aware of such ideas as mutual funds.

The problem with financial institutions like insurance companies and banks is that they offer a small pittance of a reward for those who have not discovered the wonders of mutual funds and then turn around and invest their money in such a fund earning 10, 20 or 30% on that money and kicking back a few points to the person holding their hard-earned money with the bank. Insurance companies use the same concept and therefore are considered as much of a bad investment as storing your money in a bank.

The stock market has never lost money over longer periods of time. In fact, the argument against privatization is this: Investing SS money into, let’s say, a private mutual funds includes a risk with the taxpayer money and that is not acceptable. MY GOD MAN, the risk of a medium-risk mutual fund is nearly zero. The risk of investing your money into the US Government in the form of taxes into a Social Security system means you are guaranteed to lose at least 30% because the government is inefficient. Most of your SS money is lost in the government management system as soon as they get it. Good god man, there is NO mutual fund run by legitimate investors in the history of mutual funds that has ever been guaranteed to lose that much money the very second you invest the money.

There is more and more talk about flat tax plans, campaign finance reform, privatizing of government programs, etc. The problem with these plans is this: “The politicians still have some control of the money flow. They do NOT deserve such power constitutionally, nor are they very good at handling this task. The money should be completely removed from control of the congress as soon as possible. No money, other than that collected from tariffs should be controlled by congress or ANY other government agency! We the people should have absolute direct control over how our tax money is spent. If Sherry Boehlert from the Mohawk Valley area of Upstate New York wants to secure emergency funding for his area because it is economically depressed he should have to address the American people as investors in the system and try to convince them to vote to distribute funds to the area to aid in revitalizing his area. A direct vote would eliminate his power as a long-term politician and virtually eliminate the pork barrel spending that many people are sick of hearing about. This is not to say that the funds acquired by Sherwood Boehlert were not justified, BUT it should d have passed a stronger muster.

Congresses job, these days anyway, is thought of as primarily collecting and spending money. Even though the congress was planned to handle such matters when it was founded, the writers of the Federalist Paers, in my opinion, would have been very remiss at the idea of a congress that had its hands in every single citizens pocket.

A more direct form of democracy is required with respect to spending OUR money. The idea of congress owning 30% of our income has become so acceptable in this society that tax relief, meaning that the congress CONFISCATES less of OUR money, is referred to as SPENDING by the government. Imagine a society where taking less of YOUR money is referred to as spending by the government. MY GOD, what is your problem! Most Americans accept this description that is what scares me the most!

Flat tax and privatization are necessary options, but don’t go nearly far enough. We need to STRIP the money away from congress. Strip out the trillion dollars from their control and I guarantee that campaign reform will no longer be issues that we worry about. The average American has become so much more knowledgeable about investing that they will begin to realize that everything written in this article is true, and much like a well written computer virus, these ideas will slowly begin to take hold, spread and begin to shake down the very foundations of our society.

Congress and companies like banks and insurance companies that use a lack of knowledge about things like mutual funds to profit. Congress bases it’s ability to confiscate income on the fact that the average American does not realize that congress never had the constitutional authority to take our money, and especially never had the authority to redistribute the money as though it was a lottery for those who do not wish to work or for those who have powerful senators.

It is very interesting how the government(s) of the country have passed laws that require certain levels of insurance for drivers. One example of a way we are forced to squander our personal income by law. Well, isn’t it a good thing that everybody is insured so that if I accidentally kill somebody, they can recoup the lost spouses income and become whole again. Here’s the problem with that fuzzy logic. If every single American who spends, let’s say for sake of argument, $1,000 per year on auto insurance, invested that money into one single mutual fund, we could pay every claim made to insurance companies, and maybe more, and still have money left over to disseminate to the general public each year. Or, better yet, take to proceeds from the interest earned on the insurance part of the master plan and invest it into the retirement portion of the master plan.

Now imagine that all money gathered by all governments in the US is invested into mutual funds. EVERYTHING! Now, rather than our investment back into our country is gaining an average, and easily expectable long-term return of 15% per year rather than losing 30%. In addition, any money used will be voted upon by a direct vote of the investors in the plan, the working American people. Of course, we will, as a compassionate people build in certain safeguards so that those who have been unemployed temporarily do not lose voting privileges too quickly.

There is no worry that people who are, let’s say mentally unstable, will lose certain benefits. To assert this possibility is to assert that the American people are inherently uncaring and would cut off the unfortunate to save a few dollars. It is this will of the overall population, including myself, a staunch Reagan supporter and Rush listener, who believe fervently that we need a safety net to protect those who, by no fault of their own, need help to live a lifestyle that is commensurate with life of an average American. My uncle is a quadriplegic and, despite the liberals claiming to help everybody in the world, he still has a hard time trying to be self-sufficient because there is no real good solution. The new constitution with its profitably enhanced plan, will allow more money for these types of endeavors.

The New Plan…

First, we as people, hold a constitutional convention. We write an addendum to our constitution that specifically denotes a few basic principles. Of course, these are generic principals that are key points of concern to be addressed, and the actual drafting of such a document would not be simple.

Principals of the constitutional addendum named, “The Financial Amendments of the first Constitutional Convention of the People of the United States of America”

1) No additional monies shall be collected without the super majority consent of the investors of the US citizenry.

2) Expenditures will be debited from the collective investment of the investor citizenry of the US for insurance (replacing insurance companies), retirement (replacing social security or, per each citizens option, investments), short-term set-backs (i.e. replace welfare), and general investment needs (replacing banks).

3) Expenditures requested to be debited from the collective investment shall be put to a direct pitch and then vote of the general citizenry/investors.

Results…

Congress will be snapped back into place with respect to their duties as they pertain to large sums of money. This reduces the power base. Congressman, the IRS, and so many others derive their power from the fact that they control our money. Many lifelong politicians will no longer wish to spend a lifetime in the congress, thereby returning control of the system to business people, or other non-politicians who will more directly represent our beliefs.

Systems that currently lose 30%per year will now earn 20% per year, thus leveraging the collective investment.

Voting…

There is a mathematical and statistical superior way to vote than the one we use. One man One Vote is mathematically idiotic and reflects a basic ignorance held by even a majority of the founding fathers with regards to the mathematics of polls and sampling theories.

‘Approval Voting’ vs. ‘Plurality Voting’

I strongly believed that Ross Perot’s impact on the 2008 election would be to prevent the re-election of George Bush. Thereby defaulting to Bill Clinton. I saw man y people I know cast their vote for Perot as a protest. Even though they were certain that they could end up with President Bill Clinton as a result of their protest.

Now imagine three people who can each cast 10 votes, or say they can split their one vote into tenths. One is not ‘for’ Clinton as much as he is ‘against’ Bush because of the economy. The second is a typical republican voter who is mad at the whole system, and going to vote for Perot as a ‘protest’ vote. The third is tacitly ‘for’ Bush because he liked him, is not blaming him for the economy, and does not like Clinton at all. Now we have a three way tie where we would typically have a two to one vote for Bush.

OK, here we go. Each voter gets to cast 10 votes at a time. The Perot voter awards 6 votes to Bush and 4 to Perot, thereby getting in the protest vote, while still giving Bush a leg up on the Clinton people. The Tacit Bush voter gives 3 to Perot and 7 to Bush. The Clinton voter gives 5 to Clinton, 2 to Bush and three to Perot making the final tally Bush - 15, Perot - 10, and Clinton - 5. The same three people, two completely different results. This removes the third or forth parties from ‘spoiler votes’ to viable candidates and more accurately reflects the opinions of the people.

The voting frenzy feeling should be removed from the formula. People feel rushed in the booth and make mistakes. We should vote via secure connections on the Web, or at least, via a computer at the polling place with more user-friendly interface from the look and feel to the amount of time you have. All polls should be opened and closed at the same exact time in one time zone. So all voting is done at 9pm Mountain Time. Then, and only then, can the networks access the data, and make their projections without affecting the outcome. No exit polling should be allowed that attempts to predict the outcome.

Get Out The Vote -OR- Sit Out The Vote? - Why do we try to push people into the voting booths? Why is it so important that MORE people vote rather than less? Are we in a race with other countries to get a higher percentage of people to show up to vote? It is my strong belief that people who still claim that they ARE UNDECIDED, literally days before the election should stay home! Yes Sit Out The Vote! You obviously have no convictions to the beliefs of any party running, and you flat out don’t know who to vote for. What can possibly happen in the last few days that will make you sure that any of the candidates is the right choice? If you aren’t sure, or are uniformed, then STAYHOME. There are people who spend hours each week reading and debating issues they feel strongly about and who, because of this level of understanding of the people and issues already have very strong beliefs as to who to cast their vote for. If you are not, then don’t go negate the persons vote who has done their homework thoroughly. We do NOT have a responsibility to vote. You have the right to vote. You also, as an American, have the right to stay home and watch TV. If you do believe that it is a responsibility to vote, then let’s change that just a bit and say, “You have the responsibility to vote responsibly as a well informed citizen.” Otherwise grab a seat and Sit Out The Vote.

Freedom of the Press, OR FROM the Press - The press should always be free from the possibility of the government having the ability to control it in ALMOST any fashion. The British have a very good mixture between the press being free while not allowing the press to be a lose cannon. The press can not be ultimately held responsible for even negligent reporting because they are so veiled in the protective coating of the constitution. They can freely report on the front page that you were arrested for child abuse on the front page. They can then also bury the story on the back of the last page when it turns out that you spanked your child on their butt with your hand when they attempted to bolt across the highway while you were turned away for a second to put your bag in the car. The press should not be this FREE! You should be able to sue them and force them to get as much coverage for the follow-up as they devoted to the original story.