The premise of this presentation is that the United States is currently undergoing a severe decline in its ability to maintain a positive societal environment for the country. The current political party system is becoming much more divisive than it is cohesive, where the drive by various sub-groups to attain more power irrespective of the needs of others is leading to anarchy rather than to a stable society.
This paper offers an approach that is intended to improve the probability that the Democratically Based Civilization of the United States will not continue its slide towards collapse, but that it will implement creative solutions to the problems causing that decline. I have developed a 7 step approach to getting a large number of Americans involved in designing/inventing the kind of society in which they feel they would have the best chance to attain a happy and productive life.
The proposed project will utiltize the internet to collect and organize all the information, much as Wikipedia was developed. It will require 7-10 years to complete and put into place. The intent is to prepare and install the completed model at one time, rather than using a ‘band aid’ type approach. The year 2020 is the target date for full implementation of the new societal model.
I believe that a majority of Americans would willingly get involved in a project they feel would be responsive to their wants and needs, in the ways in which they understand them and express them. The project will will require input from a lot of people for five to ten years, and a willingness to present and fully discuss alternatives before making a majority decision about a model that will maximize the opportunities for a happy life for a majority of the citizens.
I do not believe that this approach can be entrusted to the current governmental structure and function, or office holders. The final step in this process will be to design the structure and function of a government that will be able to carry out its responsibility to protect and serve the American people according to the societal model which is supported by a majority of the American people.
I think the current emphasis on governmental control is backwards. The Constitution, as interpreted, has resulted in virtually all attention being placed on the rights and responsibilities of the government to determine the rights of the citizens. Current actions to transfer even more power to government officials (elected or appointed) is tending to remove most of the responsibilities of individuals and to put the government firmly in charge. Giving up our responsibility will continue to lead to loss of our rights except as determined by the government in power.
Step 1: Set up a central internet communications system whereby any citizen can provide input, modify input and vote on final statements. All aspects of the project will be transparent to every citizen.
Step 2: Begin developing statements of individual RIGHTS.
Step 3: Starting with the working list of Rights, move to developing RESPONSIBILITIES appropriate for each of the Rights. The intent here is to ask citizens to identify all possible Responsibilities for all citizens for all Rights. It is likely that the list of Responsibilities will be longer than the list of Rights.
Step 4: Create an ‘order of importance’ for Rights and Responsibilities. We will need some approach to setting values, with the emphasis always on what is appropriate for all citizens.
Step 5: The next effort will be to describe when an ABUSE of Rights and Responsibilities occurs. I do not believe that Rights can be justified without the requirement for corresponding Responsibilities.
Step 6: When an abuse occurs, what is the appropriate penalty?
Step 7: Develop the public structures (government) that are most appropriate for meeting the needs of the citizens based on the above decisions.
Wikipedia states as follows: “Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, ironically, societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.
The fixation on the old methods of the "Creative Minority," leads it to eventually cease to be creative and degenerates into merely a "
Dominant minority" (that forces the majority to obey without meriting obedience), failing to recognize new ways of thinking. He argues that creative minorities deteriorate due to a worship of their "former self," by which they become prideful, and fail to adequately address the next challenge they face.”
The new Model for a Functional Society will be based on both the instinctual basis for human behavior and on the individual beliefs governing human behavior. My belief is that mankind is the same as all other living species we have studied in that the first two drives of any specie are to survive and then to procreate. Whatever behavior is necessary to give an individual a higher probability for survival and procreation is the driving behavior for that individual. Individuals are more likely to be loyal and supportive of family members and other individuals than they are of the society in general.
Wikipedia defines/describes a society as:
“… a body of individuals of a species, generally seen as a community or group, that is outlined by the bounds of functional interdependence, comprising also possible characters or conditions such as
cultural identity,
social solidarity, or
eusociality. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive
culture or
institutions.
Like other groups, a society allows its individual members to achieve individual needs or wishes that they could not fulfill separately by themselves, without the existence of the social group. Society, however, may be unique in that it is
ontologically independent of, and utterly
irreducible to, the qualities of its constituent individuals.
As a reality
sui generis, or "of its own kind", it is
emergently composed of
social facts that often hinder rather than help the pursuits of the
subjects that form its physical and psychological underpinnings.
More broadly, a society is an
economic,
social or
industrial infrastructure, made up of a varied multitude of individuals. Members of a society may be from different
ethnic groups. A society may be a particular ethnic group, such as the
Saxons; a
nation state, such as
Bhutan; a broader cultural group, such as a
Western society; or even a
social organism such as an
ant colony.
The word society may also refer to an
organized voluntary association of people for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes.
Sociology is the study of society and social behavior.”
The definition(s) of a society are a necessary start. The active elements within a society can be identified and described through the process described later, which is based on the Democratic Principles presented in the Constitution of the U.S.A. It is critical that we determine what gives our society meaning.
The primary function of a society is to provide the support individuals need to develop to their fullest potential while at the same time enabling/requiring individuals to support the social structure.
The specific functions of the society will require that an appropriate structure be invented that will enable the functions to operate for most of the citizens. Additionally, the description of the working society must be as unambiguous and literal as possible. This will require an adopted formal language which everyone will be required to master before receiving full rights within the society.
The kind of society we eventually adopt will depend on several factors, among them are what individuals want and what they need in order to be happy and productive citizens. The biggest problem will be related to fulfillment of instinctual needs without limits. Drives for power and wealth in support of survival and procreation must have limits for individuals set within a society. Neither individuals nor subgroups nor the society as a whole can be permitted to overuse non-renewable resources.
As stated in Wikipedia, “Manfred Max-Neef and his colleagues developed a taxonomy of human needs and a process by which communities can identify their "wealths" and "poverties" according to how their fundamental human needs are satisfied.
This school of Human Scale Development is described as, "focused and based on the satisfaction of fundamental human needs, on the generation of growing levels of self-reliance, and on the construction of organic articulations of people with nature and technology, of global processes with local activity, of the personal with the social, of planning with autonomy, and of civil society with the state."
Max-Neef classifies the fundamental human needs as:
subsistence,
protection,
affection,
understanding,
participation,
leisure,
creation,
identity and
freedom. “
My proposal is to engage all citizens of the United States of America who are able to understand what is being done in developing an up-to-date 21st. Century Societal Model and then developing guidelines for maintaining the Constitution of that society.
The beginning point for me is the beginning of the current Constitution; i.e.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The Constitution then describes the characteristics of the government that would be constituted to govern the country. This is followed by 27 Amendments that present the rights of citizens and the responsibility of the government to preserve and protect those rights.
The Bill of Rights ( Amendments 1-10) speaks to protecting citizens from abuse by the government. This is followed by Amendments 11-27 which further describes what the government can/cannot/will/won’t have the power to do to and for the citizens.
I think the current process is backwards. The Constitution, as interpreted, has resulted in virtually all attention being placed on the rights and responsibilities of the government to determine the rights of the citizens. Current actions to transfer even more power to government officials (elected or appointed) is tending to remove most of the responsibilities of individuals and to put the government firmly in charge.
Giving up our responsibilities will continue to lead to loss of our rights except as determined by the government in power.
Let’s now go the other way, and first determine not only the rights of citizens, but our responsibilities as well. Then we can determine what kind of structure the resulting civilization/society will need to have based on those rights and responsibilities.
This can be followed by establishing those penalties to be placed on citizens who abuse the rights of other citizens. Finally, if needed, we can design a government that provides services and protection to all citizens; but with those changes necessary to make it directly related to the appropriate function of the government.
The process I propose is similar to that being used by those people who are developing Wikipedia (
http://www.wikipedia.org/). A further possible reference is ”Wikipedia- The Missing Manual” by John Broughton. I am suggesting a procedure that can involve input from every citizen capable of understanding what is being developed.
My vision is that the project will involve all citizens able to participate. My intent is to use volunteers for every aspect of this project. This project will be conducted by individual citizens, without any direct form of governmental or other organizational input.
Step 1: Set up a central internet communications system whereby any citizen can provide input, modify input and vote on final statements. All aspects of the project will be transparent to every citizen.
The Wikipedia approach provides a very workable model for collecting, disseminating, approving and archiving the input for this project.
Step 2: Begin developing statements of RIGHTS to be included.
The current Bill of Rights provides a good starting model.
The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are summarized below.
1Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition.
2Right to keep and bear arms in order to maintain a well regulated militia.
3No quartering of soldiers.
4Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.
5Right to due process of law, freedom from self-incrimination, double jeopardy.
6Rights of accused persons, e.g., right to a speedy and public trial.
7Right of trial by jury in civil cases.
8Freedom from excessive bail, cruel and unusual punishments.
9Other rights of the people.
10Powers reserved to the states.
As individual descriptions of Rights are collected they will be categorized and made available for input/modification similarly to the Wikipedia development model. Any individual can provide statements of what rights they think all citizens should have, or modify or add to the suggestions of others.
It may be that this process does not generate any new Rights, but it is extremely likely that it will provide a better description of the specifics for each Right. This might produce a working list of upwards of 1,000 specific Rights. It seems that there will likely be as many as 50 different categories of Rights. Volunteers will join one or more category designations to provide input. This should provide very specific descriptions of needs and wants of individuals as Rights to be made available to all citizens equally.
Step 3: Starting with the working list of Rights, move to developing RESPONSIBILITIES appropriate for each of the Rights. The intent here is to ask citizens to identify all possible Responsibilities for all citizens for all Rights. It is likely that the list of Responsibilities will be longer than the list of Rights.
Step 4: Create an ‘order of importance’ for Rights and Responsibilities. We will need some approach to setting values, with the emphasis always on what is appropriate for all citizens. Individuals are not created equal in any known measure of human traits, whether intellect, size, gender, physical abilities and so forth. All citizens can have equal Rights under the Constitution, with equal Responsibility for actions within the society.
Step 5: The next effort will be to describe when an ABUSE of Rights and Responsibilities occurs. I do not believe that Rights can be justified without the requirement for corresponding Responsibilities.
Different categories of abuses would include civil and criminal, personal and public, business and arts, and perhaps moral and ethical. With millions of citizens providing input, this process should provide ample clear and concise statements of what will be considered an abuse.
Consideration of States' Rights and National Rights must be reviewed. In order to create a more cohesive nation it may be necessary to adopt a basic set of individual Rights and Resonsibilities, period, with no acceptance of different citizen Rights and Responsibilities in different States.
Step 6: When an abuse occurs, what is the appropriate penalty?
This step requres both a reorganization and rewriting of all Civil and Criminal Laws. All laws must be written in a manner that can be understood by any citizen with a sixth (6th) grade education.
A proactive approach should be developed to help citizens avoid abusing others. One requirement could be that every citizen be able to go online to a ‘Rights and Responsibilities Forum’. This Forum would be operated similarly to those that currently provide feedback concerning problems with computers.
Types of penalties can include punishment, incarceration, isolation, re-education, etc. Alternative forms of treatment/punishment need to be researched and developed. Perhaps some incarceration could consist of home arrest monitored by an ankle bracelet or surgically implanted computer chip that first provides information about the location of the individual, and then a built-in stun-gun effect if the individual tries to leave the arrest boundary.
Step 7: Develop the public structures(government) that are most appropriate for meeting the needs of the citizens based on the above decisions.
Some components of the current government structure and function would still be appropriate, but most likely much would be changed.
If the model proposed here is followed (and continually improved by using the same or a similar process) then the structure needed to ‘preserve, serve and protect’ should be much simpler and more effective than the current one.
