The Current Political Landscape

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

--Ronald Reagan

This bit of propaganda marks the moment when we began to regard our Republic as an enemy of the people. A monumental achievement of corporate propaganda funneled through the mouth of a popular US president that devastated our Republic. Things have never been the same. Corporations continue to weaken our Republic on a daily basis and our institutions are failing to defend her. The Executive is a criminal racketeering enterprise. The Judiciary is too busy masturbating over how great they are at interpreting law. Congress is trying to defend itself from literal authoritarian takeover.

All right, let's get busy.

The Political Landscape of the past​

The political landscape in the US has been traditionally controlled by corporate broadcasters. The reality created for us was a perpetual battle between The Democrats and Republicans where Democrats represented the "progressive" position and the Republicans represented the "conservative" position. The parties actually represent the interests of wealthy individuals, corporations, and institutions. Their "progressive" or "conservative" positions are illusions they to control you. Whenever an issue would be advantageous to the American Public but not to entities paying them, the parties put enormous pressure on representatives to vote against the interests of their electorate.

Independent Media has exposed this system for what it is. It has caused fundamental realignment in how the General Public sees our political environment. Let's explore.

Redefining the political axis and the Republic's position​

The political axis the media pushes is Democrats on the left, and Republicans on the right. It is a lie. The current political axis is Populism versus Authoritarianism. The expected state of a Republic by the People is much closer to populism than authoritarianism. Perfect populism has problems that we resolve with representative democracy, but at its core it represents the desires of The People. The Constitution represents The People. The three branches of government, the stock market, and our legal system are all subservient to The Constitution and therefore The People. They will show deference.

This is not a measurement of subjective opinion, it is a measurement of objective fact. It is a mandatory alignment of the Republic to exist as such.

The GOP is firmly on the authoritarian side of this scale. The GOP is actively doing everything possible to lock the American Public out of the Democratic process and avoid accountability for their actions. Party leadership stopped listening to its members long ago. There are good representatives in that party who truly represent the electorate, but the party leadership blocks efforts to support them. The GOP is beyond redemption and I have targeted it for destruction, but I would happily support representatives that reliably demonstrate support for their people at the expense of their party leadership. It must be continuous, and only has meaning if they are taking a risk to do so. Continuous voting against the Epstein Files release, but then supporting it when it was clear that the GOP would lose the vote doesn't count because it is insincere.

The DNC leadership is also highly authoritarian, but not to the same degree as the GOP. The DNC leadership still pushes the corporate narratives, but they are unwilling to directly usurp authority toward these goals. The party leadership will still their thumb on the scale for the corporate supporters, but without directly violating the rules of our Republic. The party might be redeemed in a populist revolt if we ensure that candidates can be elected through Independent Media support instead of being chained by Corporate Media. You need experienced bottom-up leadership, and your party is probably looking for experienced leaders from Generation X here.

Now that we have talked about the Republic's alignment, let's talk about the individuals in it.

Policy alignment of the people within the Republic​

To play within our Republic, individuals must follow our rules and respect other players. Dictators and plutocrats are not welcome here. Democracy is reserved for the individual. Organizations of any kind have no power within our Republic. People can form groups and work on the goals they want to see implemented, but an organization acting upon on the democratic process is prohibited. Only the individuals chained by our Constitution can play here.

I look individuals along two main dimensions: Social, and Economic. To properly understand these you must clear your mind of party rhetoric. Those views are party views and cannot represent individuals. Come to your own conclusions and do not adopt theirs. You are allowed to come to the same conclusion as others, but ensure it is you who concluded it rather than someone telling you that you like it. I'm serious about this!

Social Dimension​

Social dimension is generally about personal liberty versus the good of society. Progressive individuals tend to favor personal liberty, and Conservative individuals favor a stable society. They are both correct when they agree with the electorate in a district. These will be very different between Minot, North Dakota and San Jose, California. This is just representative of culture in our local communities and it's this diversity that makes America great.

I live in a built-up area on a fairly busy street across from a park. When I look outside I expect to see a clean and safe environment and people enjoying the park. I expect to see no significant trash, tents on the sidewalk, nor criminal activity. I also do not want to see curfews, religious messaging, or tons of restrictions over what I can do. I would respectfully ask the Mayor to remedy those things.

It's the balance between individual freedom and an orderly society. It's less about things that you want personally, and more about what the community as a whole would like. I think it's important that we measure this.

Economic Dimension​

The only economic system that consistently works for a Republic at the scale of the United States is capitalism. This system is roughly defined as an economic system driven by individuals and companies. They determine what society will produce based on whether other people are willing to pay money for its output. In other words, society produces T-Shirts from cotton fabric because consumers are willing to pay enough money for T-Shirts to make it worth the material and labor to produce them.

This doesn't mean we close the book and go home. Unchecked capitalism tends toward monopolization of markets and authoritarian rule to maximize profits. The corporations and wealthiest players use their power to suppress the will of The Public for personal gain. We check this corporate power with the Republic to ensure capitalism serves the people without becoming tyrannical. This tyranny is what the Republic must fix right now or the Republic will not survive. If the Republic dies, the path forward is very grim.

Can we close our books and go home now? Nope. We still have to figure out how The Republic and Capitalism can work together for the benefit of The Public!

Control of The Republic over capitalist entities​

There is an axis describing The Republic's control over the entities of capitalism. Non-human constructs will show deference to The Public, and this includes legal entities produced by capitalism.

The first important rule here is that capitalist entities cannot attack the Republic. They have no power within our Republic and attacks on it are attacks against The People. In a correct justice system in my opinion, any lawfare by non-human entities against the institutions of our Republic should be judged as if they were perfectly defended by The Public. This isn't a guaranteed win for The Public, but it removes the legal advantages gained by wealth and puts The Public on a level playing field.

Now that we have established who is in charge, we must be a good leader.

We need enough control to ensure that corporations do not become monopolies or oligarchies. We must severely punish those seek to undermine our Republic with malice. We must insist on Transparency and Accountability in all things government. The People must benefit from capitalism, not just a few sociopaths. Too much control can also be a problem with over-regulation, but clearly we are on the side of too much capitalistic freedom at the moment and it must be curtailed.

Government functionality​

This is where things get more fun. We will have a lot of work to do here after I finish destroying the GOP and we yeet the current administration from power. This axis generally slides between government that provides more services but costs more versus government that provides fewer services but costs less. If we look at this in such simplistic terms, we're gonna get fleeced. Fortunately, we have a Congressional Budget Office to help figure this stuff out after we send the current administration packing.

The CBO can predict the economics of policy, but the public still needs to figure out if it is good. This is hard for several reasons that I won't go fully into here. One problem is that the sums are huge. I can roughly estimate value up to around 100 million in some areas, but for the most part as with many others it's often beyond my skill given the amount of time I'm willing to spend. I think we need to simplify these things for The Public. Maybe like a list of line items in a budget and an AI we could use to inspect specific items to see what it does, how much it costs, and perhaps government analysis on the wisdom of the investment?

Most of all it needs Transparency and Accountability so that the public can verify we are realizing what we are paying for.

Government Spending is an investment, not a charity​

Just as we don't want corporations robbing us, neither do we want handfuls of citizens robbing us. It is a mistake to throw money at programs without understanding it. There area lot of scammers and shell companies out there just itching to pick The Public's pocketbook.

We certainly want to help people but we want a return on that investment. If we have a limited amount of money to help with people who cannot afford rent then who do you help? First let us define an arbitrary goal. We want recipients to become self-sufficient and pay their own rent going forward. We measure in 6 months to see how many people are back on their feet and how many are not.

It then makes sense to prefer people most likely to meet this goal. A person that's been unemployed for 5 years with an extensive criminal history is a risky choice. A person with a recent child that was laid off and having trouble finding work is a much better candidate for this program.

At the end we can see how well it worked and make changes as needed.

When you start to look at ideas from this perspective, you quickly see where we gain value. A free IRS E-File tax system for the American Public is a no-brainer. It saves The Public billions of dollars directly. It simplifies things for the IRS saving them money at the cost of maintaining the service. The IRS has all records anyway, so they could just send us our 1040 each year and we accept them as is or make changes and then file.

A US Government Digital Identity Provider for the American Public is a little more costly and probably somewhere in the 10 to 100 million dollar range (very hard to estimate without more data). These are the benefits it would provide:

• Strongly authenticated digital identity for every person
• This one account replaces the Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc accounts from each individual identity provider.
• Personal data is controlled by our provider instead of private companies, and only released to a service provider with authorization from a popup that you personally approve.
• Online age verification without disclosing your name or age.
• Assurance that in business transactions a person is exactly whom they claim to be, and it is verifiable whether online or in person.
• Digitally sign the works that we personally create.

When we look at benefits, this is mind-blowingly good. A reason we don't have this now is because corporations aren't pushing for it. They make a lot of money from using our personal data without our consent and this completely wrecks that business model. A second reason is that the phrase "US Government Digital Identity Provider for the American Public" has very specific meaning that most people do not understand. Many people reading it right now who think they understand it and have started forming opinions in fact do not.

Government is for the people, by the people. If we do not act NOW (as in RIGHT NOW) to thwart the authoritarian takeover happening RIGHT NOW then we lose The Republic. Losing here is enslavement of yourself, your children, and all of their descendants forever. This is not an exaggeration, it is quite real even if it feels surreal. Please support your Democracy and defeat the corporations and wealthy individuals seeking to permanently rob us of our amazing Republic.