Corporate Government

SpaceNut · 2018-11-10 22:15:56

So long as there are 2 sides to every topic there will always be discontent as it seems that we can not get along in that one side must be always right and the other is wrong.

RobertDyck · 2018-11-11 02:26:00

kbd512 wrote:

It's interesting that in the section entitled "Ensure no war", the end of the paragraph describes exactly how so many wars have started.

No, it's not. Wars are started when government commits armed robbery to take resources from someone else. Whether it's their own citizens who have to take up arms to stop them, or far more often it's one government trying to take resources from another. World War 1 was started over who controls a Mediterranean port. Russia didn't have a port, established allies to gain one. The Austria-Hungary empire wanted to ensure Russia didn't get it. Then Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austria-Hungary empire was assassinated in Sarajevo. That resulted in World War 1. All for a port.
reference: Wikipedia

kbd512 wrote:

I guess we should "Ensure no human nature" while we're at it.

So you're saying humans are trouble, and can't be allowed weapons to resolve conflicts. And we need a police authority, that can police governments to ensure they don't commit armed robbery. Ok, that's what I proposed.

kbd512 wrote:

I think a "no weapons period" law is perfectly reasonable in a civilization surrounded by delicate and highly-pressurized structures that are the only thing between their inhabitants and a swift death.

Ironic considering the number of times you have posted here about the need for citizens to own weapons.

My proposal is that there is no countries on Mars, no states, no entities that can engage in war. The "national" government has a major responsibility of enforcing that. If anyone tries to establish a military, the national military will slap them down. Soldiers and politicians arrested. Towns are allowed, states are not.

kbd512 wrote:

Organized and armed factions are kinda required for wars to happen. Eliminate that and wars become exceptionally unlikely and difficult to prosecute.

That's what I just proposed.

kbd512 wrote:

I'm still unclear about what's funding the government, but will wait for further explanation.

The title of this discussion thread is "Corporate Government". That means the Corporation is the government. Funding for the "national" government comes from the Corporation. That also provides strong encouragement for the national government to be minimalist. Because the Corporation will not want to pay for large government.

kbd512 wrote:

Right after you said "no tax", in the very next paragraph you talked about assessment of what is essentially a property tax. I think fees (taxes) for usage or consumption are fair enough ways to fund public entities entrusted with protecting the public.

Ok. That's local, it funds the city or town.

kbd512 wrote:

I disagree with the idea of permitting local laws to deviate from national law. There doesn't need to be local laws against theft, rape, robbery, or murder.

I said local laws cannot overrule national law. National laws will be minimal, basically "Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal". I further said there's detail for lawyers: assault and battery are illegal (national law), and theft/robbery/extortion/embezzlement are illegal (national law). However, rape gets more complicated. Some have claimed that if a 17-year-old girl has consentual sex with a 19-year-old boy, that constitutes "statutory rape". Consentual sex is definitely not going to be illegal by national law.

kbd512 wrote:

Anyway, I like the overall idea but think some of it needs more work.

Terraformer · 2018-11-11 15:21:16

On the topic of libertarian government: It's important, of course, to distinguish between the local and planetary government, which you have done. And I think in the abstract "you can do whatever you want as long as you're not harming anyone" is a reasonable-sounding rule. The thing is that every action every person takes affects other people for better and for worse. You suggested, for example, that people should be able to buy and sell codeine without regulation or prescription. I don't feel the need to say that it should necessarily be handled at a planetary level, but I would say absolutely that highly addictive substances like opioids (of which codeine is one) should have limited circulation. If a town did want to make drugs legal and available, well--that would be a good example of freedom, democracy, justice, and prosperity coming into conflict.

Mars is a stern General. A colony that tries to act like Freetown Christiana will become available for salvaging fairly quickly. If the people of a town want to become a wretched hive of scum and villainy, that won't affect anyone outside of their town. So why should they be prevented from doing so?

It's a lot harder to externalise problems on Mars. Here, if you pollute your air, you pollute everyone else's. On Mars, it sticks around and only affects you and your colony.

IanM · 2018-11-11 19:22:56

I stand by my concept of Federalism outlined here. Essentially the following would be given to the federal government:
-Currency
-Bankruptcy
-Intermunicipal commerce
-Citizenship, nationality, and immigration
-Administration of the Outback
-Military (although municipalities would still be allowed to erect and maintain police forces) and Defense

While the rest would be given to the municipalities, which would be considered sovereign entities in their own right, like the US and Australia but unlike Canada and India.

louis · 2018-11-11 20:27:22

This seems a bit quaint to me when we have (on Earth) crypto currencies, trillion dollar companies that don't make profits, borders that aren't borders, and military who are afraid to appear threatening!

IanM wrote:

I stand by my concept of Federalism outlined here. Essentially the following would be given to the federal government:
-Currency
-Bankruptcy
-Intermunicipal commerce
-Citizenship, nationality, and immigration
-Administration of the Outback
-Military (although municipalities would still be allowed to erect and maintain police forces) and Defense
While the rest would be given to the municipalities, which would be considered sovereign entities in their own right, like the US and Australia but unlike Canada and India.

JoshNH4H · 2018-11-12 00:28:59

Terraformer wrote:

Mars is a stern General. A colony that tries to act like Freetown Christiana will become available for salvaging fairly quickly. If the people of a town want to become a wretched hive of scum and villainy, that won't affect anyone outside of their town. So why should they be prevented from doing so?
It's a lot harder to externalise problems on Mars. Here, if you pollute your air, you pollute everyone else's. On Mars, it sticks around and only affects you and your colony.

This is a nice idea in the abstract but there definitely are some problems. What if 60% of the settlement wants to be a wretched hive of villainy and scum, but the other 40% would prefer to operate as a peaceful and friendly village where due process and property rights are respected? This is a good example of how democracy can be in conflict with freedom and justice. I don't know how aggressive the central government should be about enforcing the four principles I laid out above, but there are certain things we know about how societies should work. Among them, rule by criminal mobs is bad.

Terraformer · 2018-11-12 11:08:32

Well, what did they write in their town charter? If they were silly enough to allow a simple majority to destroy it, I won't feel too bad for them. The 40% knew what they were signing up for when they moved there, and they can leave and move to another settlement if they don't like it.

JoshNH4H · 2018-11-12 12:29:28

Sooner or later people will be born there, and even people who are not born there are part of a community which (even if it takes a turn for the worse) there are real costs to leaving. There's also no real guarantee that there will be somewhere for them to go.

The minarchist architecture sounds good in theory, but in practice it seems like there are ways to organize a society that result in better outcomes for more people.

Terraformer · 2018-11-12 14:01:25

*shrugs* If 60% of the population are intent on getting everyone killed, then no law is going to restrain them. If most people don't care to do maintenance, there's going to be major problems anyway. Harsh environments have laws of their own, enforced with the death penalty.

kbd512 · 2018-11-12 16:08:53

RobertDyck wrote:

No, it's not. Wars are started when government commits armed robbery to take resources from someone else. Whether it's their own citizens who have to take up arms to stop them, or far more often it's one government trying to take resources from another. World War 1 was started over who controls a Mediterranean port. Russia didn't have a port, established allies to gain one. The Austria-Hungary empire wanted to ensure Russia didn't get it. Then Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austria-Hungary empire was assassinated in Sarajevo. That resulted in World War 1. All for a port.

The salient point of tyranny is that tyrannical people involved have a penchant for disarming or denying to the people they wish to victimize any effective means of fighting back, right before the mass murder begins. War is just organized mass murder. Who a war is prosecuted against and why is irrelevant to most of the dead people who never wanted to have anything to do with it, but were never given a choice in the matter.

RobertDyck wrote:

So you're saying humans are trouble, and can't be allowed weapons to resolve conflicts. And we need a police authority, that can police governments to ensure they don't commit armed robbery. Ok, that's what I proposed.

I'm saying that human behavior is the problem and unless you separate what it means to be human from humanity, then the problem won't be solved by any ill-conceived social engineering experiments, which all criminals will simply ignore, as they already do.

To quote my Chief, "There's nothing wrong with a little shooting, so long as the right people get shot."

RobertDyck wrote:

Ironic considering the number of times you have posted here about the need for citizens to own weapons.

Most Americans don't live in delicate and highly pressurized structures, far removed from the ability to obtain outside help to repair them. The one or two floating around in orbit do and they don't have any use for firearms aboard ISS, either.

The Police here in Houston will arrive just in the nick of time to draw chalk around your dead body. It's a question of capability through proximity and availability. I can't afford my own Police Officer, so I have to both pay my government for the privilege of having someone I can never depend upon when I really need him or her and pay to defend my family.

RobertDyck wrote:

My proposal is that there is no countries on Mars, no states, no entities that can engage in war. The "national" government has a major responsibility of enforcing that. If anyone tries to establish a military, the national military will slap them down. Soldiers and politicians arrested. Towns are allowed, states are not.

I'm at a loss as to where we're going to find these completely benevolent dictators. It sounds like you're talking about setting up Soviet Russia with snazzier chops. Your solution to preventing the entities that MIGHT go to war and commit mass murder is to ACTUALLY commit mass murder, unless you're naive enough to think that everyone involved in the uprising will just lay down their weapons.

RobertDyck wrote:

That's what I just proposed.

If you say so.

RobertDyck wrote:

The title of this discussion thread is "Corporate Government". That means the Corporation is the government. Funding for the "national" government comes from the Corporation. That also provides strong encouragement for the national government to be minimalist. Because the Corporation will not want to pay for large government.

You're not very familiar with General Motors, are you?

RobertDyck wrote:

Ok. That's local, it funds the city or town.

The corporation somehow funds itself without taking money from the people it's governing?

I guess I'll believe that when I see it.

RobertDyck wrote:

I said local laws cannot overrule national law. National laws will be minimal, basically "Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal". I further said there's detail for lawyers: assault and battery are illegal (national law), and theft/robbery/extortion/embezzlement are illegal (national law). However, rape gets more complicated. Some have claimed that if a 17-year-old girl has consentual sex with a 19-year-old boy, that constitutes "statutory rape". Consentual sex is definitely not going to be illegal by national law.

I'm not sure how to handle such a case, but I think we've hit upon a point of agreement.

Trying to use the law to dictate morality beyond behavior that is clearly definable as destructive to society is always a slippery slope. There used to be laws against gay people getting married or just having sex with each other. Why would society care if two adults had consensual sex? Beats me. I don't care what people do on their own time and their own dime, so long as they don't demand payment from me.

The idea looks good on paper. The legal framework is fairly reasonable. The use of force stuff needs more nuance, or I fear another tyrannical dictatorship established by people espousing utopian ideals. If you think nobody will take their earthly ideas with them to Mars, you're dreaming.

RobertDyck · 2018-11-12 20:32:38

kbd512: You realize the United States is the world's greatest exporter of military arms. The United States is the only industrialized country in the world that allows citizens to concealled-carry. The United States is the social experiment, not Canada. And the result?

Now I realize Mars will be a frontier. That means you have to defend yourself against bandits. That's why I propose defensive weapons would be Ok on Mars. However, weapons of war would not be. If you still argue, then list how many M16 carbines you posses. How many AK47? How many fully automatic guns of any make? How many armoured fighting vehicles (tanks)? How many fighter jets? They're illegal in the US, so why would you think they should be legal on Mars?

kbd512 · 2018-11-12 20:47:56

Robert,

Take away murders from gangs selling drugs and those numbers fall right in line with what you'd see in other countries. I care not how someone choose to end their life because I care not what they do with their own body, so long as they hurt no one else.

But yes, we're the most profitable exporter of military weapons. Canada is one of our best customers.

I don't own any machine guns such as the M-16 or AK-47, but they're legal to own according to federal law as long as you have the right paperwork on file with the BATFE. It's perfectly legal to own your own tank or fighter jet in the US and rich people routinely use them as air racing toys and for mock aerial combat, similar to Red Flag or Top Gun, but without tens of millions of taxpayers' dollar spent on the gas bill. Some of the older tank models cost about as much as my Escalade. You better have deep pockets to pay for the gas, though. Getting the ammo for them can be problematic, but people manage.

RobertDyck · 2018-11-12 21:00:31

Look. Even in the US a city is not allowed to posses a military. Why do you obsessing over that? Is it the NRA fairy tale about taking up arms against your own government? Ruby Ridge was about a citizen melitia that trained to do just that. President Clinton sent Janet Reno and her gang of thugs to assassinate them. Waco was really the same thing. You're not going to take down a government with guns. You take it down by electing a Donald Trump.

kbd512 · 2018-11-13 01:13:56

I don't support the idea of a city having a military for all the good reasons you already listed. What you think is reasonable, what I think is reasonable, and what the government thinks is reasonable are likely to be three very different things.

All I want you to think about is, "What's the worst thing that could possibly happen if your idea about how to govern went horribly wrong?"

Start from there and work your way backwards.

When one group of people has all the weapons that are truly effective for fighting, what will happen if they decide they want to retain power?

Once again, where are we going to get these benevolent dictators from?

RobertDyck · 2018-11-13 04:55:30

Let me put it this way. I said the Mars will have only 2 levels of government: national and municipal. In my initial post I said federal and municipal, but again others pointed out what I described is a unitary government, not federal. The national government would have jurisdiction over all of Mars, everything. Municipal government would have jurisdiction over just a town. Now who us going to enforce that? Once you have a settlement with a town government, who thinks of themselves as a government, who is going to ensure they don't built a military and attack neighbouring towns?

History: initially there were only towns. Then towns grew to cities. Each city was a country unto itself with a military dictator who called himself king. Then large cities such as Babylon decided to conquer neighbouring towns and force them to pay tribute. They weren't large nations as we would describe a nation today, just a large town that forced neighbouring towns to pay them tribute. One year the Northern kingdom of Israel refused to pay tribute to the Assyrian empire, so the king sent his army to punish them. All men of military age were slaughtered, regardless whether they fought or not. All women, children, and old men were force-marched to Assyria were they were treated as slaves. Assyria had a lot of slaves taken from neighbouring towns, all with different languages. Hebrew people had split into two kingdoms: Judea and Israel. Judea didn't refuse the tribute, so they were left alone. Heard of the lost tribes? This is it. They were forced to learn the Assyrian language and culture, to read and write their language. Writing lessons included religious and cultural stories from Assyrian culture. This is when Hebrew people learned to read and write, the Torah (Hebrew Bible) didn't exist before that. Capital city of Assyria was Babylon. Assyria still spoke the Babylonian language and culture from the previous Babylonian empire. Babylonian culture was based on the even older Sumerian culture. One project they were forced to work on was building a giant central government building in Babylon called a Ziggurat. This is believed to be the "Tower of Babel" described in the Bible. There were several Ziggurats built, the oldest is in Ur which dates to the 21st century BCE, when it was Sumeria. Ruins of the Ziggurat of Ur still exist. But most believe the "Tower of Babel" was the one in Babylon. Here is a model based on archaeology...

So who is going to prevent some despot from taking up arms against neighbouring towns?

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-11-13 05:58:04)

Terraformer · 2018-11-13 05:14:57

Robert,

The UK has it's own military. So does France, and Japan, and America, and Canada, and even Germany. It's been quite a few years (73) since those countries all had a bust up. But I suppose we should all turn our arms over to the UN to avoid the risk of tyranny.

RobertDyck · 2018-11-13 05:25:50

Last night was the first episode of the second season of the show "Mars" on National Geographic channel. It depicts a corporation that builds a settlement. They did not announce they were coming, and discarded onto the existing settlement, causing damage and almost hitting crew on the surface in space suits. They don't have enough power or water, demanding the scientific settlement built by an international space agency provide it. They build a pipe to the scientific settlement. In the last scene, the commander of the corporate settlement said "You have to know there are no real boundaries here. Not for Lucrom anyway. We're a company not a country. We didn't sign the outer space treaty and we aren't even based in a country that did sign it. So those laws... they only apply to you guys."

Without a police force, that will happen.

RobertDyck · 2018-11-13 05:50:05

Terraformer wrote:

Robert,
The UK has it's own military. So does France, and Japan, and America, and Canada, and even Germany. It's been quite a few years (73) since those countries all had a bust up. But I suppose we should all turn our arms over to the UN to avoid the risk of tyranny.

Not what I said. What I said is Mars will be one country, one nation, with only one national government. The national government of Mars will have it's own military. Towns on Mars will only be towns, they will not be permitted a military the same as towns in the UK do not have their own military.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-05-23 15:26:48

A news article on Musk
https://fintechzoom.com/fintech_news_st … l-problem/
Spacex News – Elon Musk’s “City-State” on Mars: An International Problem

Book time
Review: Developing Space and Settling Space
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/1001/1

RobertDyck · 2021-10-24 04:28:49

Not much has happened with this discussion thread in years. This is important, because it describes financing. Whoever operates the large scale passenger transport to Mars will make most of the profit. This is important because it means ship design cannot be open-source or non-profit.

Key features:

One government for Mars. The planet will not be split into several countries, there will be only one country for the entire planet. This is critical to prevent war. As long as there are multiple countries, there will be "Game of Thrones" style conflict. That has happened throughout human history. We don't want war on a planet without a breathable atmosphere.
No states, provinces, counties, or other sub-sovereign levels of government. Only municipalities: cities, towns, villages.
National or federal government will be minimal with minimal laws. This allows cities to effectively be city-states. Discussion on NewMars pointed out to me this government cannot be called federal, it's unitarian because there are no sub-sovereign levels of government. However, in discussions over Zoom during this year's Mars Society convention one group pointed out what I describe is a federal system. Because there's a separation of powers between the national government and cities. Since cities are effectively states, that means this is a federal system.
Land allocated by a federal/national government land title registry.
Cities will be allowed as much land as a city; it cannot claim as much land as a county or state. No back-door means to create sub-sovereign entities. And a city of 10,000 people will only be allowed as much land as a city of 10,000 people. It cannot claim as much land as a metropolis of several million.
Land not allocated to any municipality will not have any other government. The majority of Mars will be "outback" to borrow an Australian word. No such thing as a rural municipality. If an individual purchases land from the federal/national government land title registry, then that land is not subject to any municipality. So the homestead will be subject to federal/national laws only, nothing else. And federal/national laws will be minimal.
No municipality will be allowed to expropriate land that is registered with the federal/national land title registry. And if a municipality does grow, a path must be maintained for rovers from the homestead to outback. The municipality cannot surround and starve a homestead to force them to sell.
Municipalities will not be allowed to have a military. They can have a police force, but no weapons of war. That means no tanks, fighter jets, ballistic missiles, surface-to-air missiles, mortars, landmines, etc. And no repeating firearms. That means no automatic rifles such as an M16 or AK47. And "bump stocks" will be classified as automatic weapons, so also banned.
The federal/national government will maintain a military, the only military permitted. The primary job of the military will be to prevent cities from going to war with each other, and to prevent them from having a military.
Individuals living in a homestead in the outback will be allowed the same weapons as municipal police. Of course no one will provide said weapons, they will have to either purchase or make them themselves.
Municipalities can establish restrictions regarding firearms, but such restrictions will only apply within municipal limits.
Large corporations employing 1,000 people or more will have to pay something to the federal/national government, but small or medium size business will not. No income tax, personal or corporate. No sales tax. No luxury tax. No import duty, no export duty. No tax of any sort. Of course municipalities would be free to charge what they want. Expect a fee of some sort equivalent to municipal property tax. This means an individual in a homestead in the outback will not have any tax of any sort what so ever. Of course he/she will have to build a homestead with life support to recycle oxygen, water, grow food, sewage treatment, garbage disposal, etc.
No driver license required under federal/national law. However, municipalities will be expected to establish a driver's license within their city/town limits. Operating a motor vehicle within a pressurized habitat could result in puncturing the pressure hull. Operating a vehicle outside, close to pressure structures could also puncture them. However, outside city/town limits, no license required in the outback.
No restrictions for alcohol, prescription drugs or narcotics. What you put into your own body will be your own business. Of course an employer could choose to fire you if you show up for work drunk or high. Up to the employer. And municipalities could establish restrictions, but again only within their territory.
No federal/national regulations about education. However, the federal/national government will maintain a website with educational material, free of charge. So home schooling will be possible. If municipalities chose to establish school board(s) or mandatory education, that's up to them, but no federal/national laws.
No federal/national healthcare system. I struggled with this one. I live in Canada, we do have a healthcare system. But Americans objected to it, and I couldn't figure out how to finance it without some sort of tax. To ensure zero tax, healthcare will be private.

tahanson43206 · 2021-10-24 08:06:01

For RobertDyck .... is there an example from human history of a successful society organized along the lines you've described?

There may well be one. I can't think of any, but I am only familiar with a tiny scattering of glimpses of human history.

It seems far more likely to me that the Chinese will solve the problem for everyone, if they succeed in settling Mars, as I fully expect them to do.

They appear to be creating a hive mind, able to nurture extremely intelligent individual humans to achieve at levels only previously seen in the free societies of the West.

For thousands of years, they have been finding talent randomly distributed by genetic variation in the population, and nurturing that talent in whatever direction the emperor needs at the time.

That is happening today, with Mr. Xi playing the role of emperor.

In another topic, kbd512 recently repeated his view that most humans are lazy and will sleep if given the chance.

That is a view of Western human beings that the Chinese will surely relish, as they plan their moves to sweep lazy Westerners out to the Mars equivalent of the Australian outback, with no weapons of any kind, and no ability to create them.

(th)

RobertDyck · 2021-10-24 10:04:17

Example? First, going to Mars is an attempt to build something new. If your argument is that it can't be done because it hasn't been done before, then you'll never invent anything. Forget space, because rockets can't fly. Forget flying because humans were never meant to. Forget automobiles because horseless carriages are unnatural magic.

But what I describe isn't that radical. Maximum freedom is what the United States is founded upon. I find it strange that an American would argue against freedom. The United States did not have income tax until 1913. Collecting income tax required an amendment to the Constitution (16th). In the early days of the United States, money to fund the War of Independence was raised by lotteries, not tax.

A federal system? The United States has that now. The major difference is I suggest restricting states to a single city, not a broad swath of land. City-states are not at all new, that's how civilization was organized for thousands of years. Ancient Greece was city-states, without any organizing federal government.

As for China and a "hive mind", isn't that what Western civilization has fought against for decades if not centuries? And the idea that communism produces increased productivity is laughable. The Soviet Union long had the problem that farm workers on collective farms would stop work as soon as any equipment broke down. Instead of fixing it, they would call it and take a holiday, wait for some technician to come out to fix it. The Soviet Union found production from tiny private gardens had several times productivity per unit area of land. When people own it, they care.

The dream of Mars has always been to start over. To get away from the unreasonable excessive overbearing regulation that exists in all countries on Earth today.

tahanson43206 · 2021-10-24 10:26:09

Utopian visions have appeared from time to time. They all fail eventually. Some never get started at all, because no one want's to experiment with them.

They all fail in the end, because succeeding generations consider them more trouble than they are worth.

Your vision looks like Afghanistan (or many other failed states) as I project it forward.

There is nothing to bind human beings to a shared goal other than selfish focus.

There is no reason for anyone to trust anyone else.

The two centuries of hard work building up trust in the United States can be and very likely has been destroyed by a single individual, tapping into a strain of selfishness that has been here all along.

The fishermen you bring to our attention, who worked the waters of Newfoundland, were ** all ** raised in a society where norms were well established. They ** all ** had education sufficient to allow them to earn a decent living. They had a shared cultural structure.

Each one of them knew right from wrong, and (apparently) chose right with remarkable consistency over many years.

The culture you have described, with education optional, and poorly done if done at all, is a recipe for a descent into poverty at an astonishing rate.

(th)

RobertDyck · 2021-10-24 14:32:55

tahanson43206 wrote:

Utopian visions have appeared from time to time. They all fail eventually.
...
There is nothing to bind human beings to a shared goal other than selfish focus.
There is no reason for anyone to trust anyone else.

The same is true of the United States. Did the US fail?

tahanson43206 wrote:

The two centuries of hard work building up trust in the United States can be and very likely has been destroyed by a single individual, tapping into a strain of selfishness that has been here all along.

Are you trying to refer to Donald Trump? I posted before that I never liked Donald Trump. However, he tapped into a major flaw in the United States. The system has been manipulated to favour the rich. Donald Trump promised to fix that. I never believed him, after all why would a billionaire want to take away power of billionaires? To my surprise he did put in some small effort to fix it, but it was far too little. Many years before Trump, an ivy league university did a study: chances of a bill passing through Congress vs number of voters who contacted their Congressman about that bill. The study found it made absolutely no difference what so ever. Then they graphed it again, this time only including individuals who donated $1 million or more to the Congressman's election campaign. They found a perfect direct correlation. The United States is no longer a Democracy, it's now a Plutocracy. That means rule by the rich. And the rich control both major parties. There are more than two political parties in the United States, but only the big two get any attention from media. The media is part of the problem. When the "Citizens United" court case was brought to the supreme court, the group just wanted the right to spend money for a particular political issue. Chief Justice Roberts asked them to completely change the case to be far more general. Basically, Chief Justice Roberts rewrote the case. Then he failed to recuse himself from this case, he sat in judgment of the case that he wrote. That's an impeachable offence. Yes, the US Constitution provides for impeachment of "high officials" as well as the president. If the president is impeached, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides over the Senate during trial, but if a justice is impeached, the Vice President presides over the Senate. It's always the other two branches of government. This didn't happen.

Since the summer of 1990 I have heard US citizens say they believe the system is so fundamentally broken that it can't be fixed by any election, only a revolution can fix it. This was in-person talks when visiting, was before the internet existed. This belief may have existed longer, that's when I started talking to average American citizens. I tried to convince them not to take up arms against their own government. I keep thinking the last Civil War went very badly. I tried to convince them to find a politician who agrees with their views, then help that politician get elected. If they can't find one, then one of them should run for office.

Trump failed to fix anything, but he made promises to these people that he would try. These American citizens believed the system is so fundamentally broken that if it can't be fixed, it must be destroyed so the citizens can start over. Trump failed to fix anything, but he was successful at destroying it.

tahanson43206 wrote:

The fishermen you bring to our attention, who worked the waters of Newfoundland, were ** all ** raised in a society where norms were well established. They ** all ** had education sufficient to allow them to earn a decent living. They had a shared cultural structure.
Each one of them knew right from wrong, and (apparently) chose right with remarkable consistency over many years.
The culture you have described, with education optional, and poorly done if done at all, is a recipe for a descent into poverty at an astonishing rate.

A planet with no breathable atmosphere will require education. You don't need some government to force it. As for education in the 1400s...
Sparticus Educational: Education in the Middle Ages

In 1330 only about 5% of the population could read or write. It was extremely rare for peasants to be literate. Some lords of the manor had laws banning serfs from being educated.
...
Law passed by King Richard II and his Parliament in 1391.
No serf or villein.... should put his children to school.

History Learning Site: Medieval Education

All lessons taught in a grammar school were in Latin. Lessons were taught in a way that boys had to learn information off by heart. Whether they understood what they had learned was a separate issue! Books were extremely expensive in Medieval England and no school could hope to kit out their pupils with books.
By 1500, many large towns had a grammar school. One of the oldest was in the important market town of Maidstone in Kent. Schools then were very small. Many had just one room for all the boys and one teacher who invariably had a religious background. The teacher would teach the older boys who were then responsible for teaching the younger ones.
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The sons of the peasants could only be educated if the lord of the manor had given his permission. Any family caught having a son educated without permission was heavily fined. Historians today feel that this policy was simply an extension of those in authority trying to keep peasants in their place, as an educated peasant/villein might prove to be a threat to his master as he might start to question the way things were done.
Very few girls went to what could be describes as a school. Girls from noble families were taught at home or in the house of another nobleman. Some girls from rich families went abroad to be educated. Regardless of where they went, the basis of their education was the same – how to keep a household going so that their husband was well kept. Girls might learn to play a musical instrument and to sing. But the philosophy of their education remained the same – how to keep a successful household for your husband.

Modern society will require literacy. You must be able to read and write to use the internet. You can't send a text message if you don't know how to write. And all citizens will be required to use complex machinery: spacesuit and airlock to go outside, life support machinery to breathe, etc. The environment will demand education much more effectively than any law. But if a town or city thinks a law is required, they can pass one.

kbd512 · 2021-10-24 16:31:36

tahanson43206,

One man will never cause or fix problems caused by nearly everyone in a country, to one degree or another. To ever believe otherwise is a logical fallacy of monumental proportions.

President Trump didn't break anything or anyone. His entire administration was a mass media-induced mass-hysteria experiment to determine if enough people can be convinced that anyone who attempts to point out all the fundamental problems we have that aren't going away, so that real problems receive some real attention, can instead be demonized to the point of total disconnect with objective reality.

Prior to running for President, nobody from the Democrat Party so much as farted in President Trump's direction. They didn't care about him, except for their dog and pony show, because he was a campaign donor to them.

This is what started their unending insanity (President Trump's three unforgivable sins):

1. He made the Democrat Party and Republican Party look stupid, not because he's any kind of a genius, but because they are so insufferably stupid and evil and greedy. - Thou shalt never bear true witness.

2. He was a Democrat who switched to the Republican Party. - Thou shalt never think for thyself, and then change ideology if the current ideology is destroying your fellow countrymen.

3. He loudly pointed out every single thing our entrenched government, the part that doesn't go away no matter who is elected, aka "the deep state", wanted to keep "hush hush", like the fact that we were sending our military into the Middle East to protect the oil, sometimes not even for America but for China and other countries as well. There was also the fact that special interests like the CIA would foment wars within other countries to keep themselves relevant. He pointed that out, too, because all of the people at the top of those 3-letter agencies are a bunch of maniacal war-mongering screwballs who can't stop messing with other people. The same is true of foreign intelligence agencies like the KGB / FSB, or whatever they're calling themselves now. - Thou shalt never bring countenance for the wicked deeds of the evil.

What President Trump represented, was a lightning rod to give our anti-social types someone to focus all of their wrath and hatred on so they'd leave everyone else, aka "We, The People", alone. The media, academia, pop culture, and the entirety of the Democrat Party absolutely fixated and obsessed over him for four straight years. They never shut up about him, because otherwise they'd have absolutely nothing to talk about except their own abject failures to lead themselves, never mind America, out of a wet paper bag. Someone could have dropped a nuclear weapon in some other part of the world, but over here there would scarcely be mention of it, unless it was to blame President Trump for it, if President Trump had "tweeted out" something that disagreed with Democrat religious orthodoxy- aka, "the worship of government".

President Trump showed the entire world how deranged and vindictive our Democrats and Republican politicians have become, simply by being himself, with all the good and bad that entails.

As near as I can tell, Democrats don't want to live in America. Democrats seem to hate the very idea of America being allowed to exist, or at least all of the ones I've talked to. Basically, they hate the very idea of leaving other people the hell alone so they can live their lives as they see fit. They never bought into the idea of America, merely spent the past several centuries trying to figure out how they could manipulate Americans for self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement, and also for turning America into a dictatorship aligned with their ideology of "government / authoritarianism worship". That's why they never stop attacking Christianity and Judaism. It's a competitor ideology that doesn't worship a person, which can be even more easily manipulated than worshiping a deity.

Robert,

Yes, America is failing. You've been watching that failure play out in real time since about the end of WWII or so. Head in the sand, much?

Democrats keep electing people who are attempting to complete that failure.

Republicans keep dragging their feet, pretending they're doing something useful, while the Democrats drag everyone kicking and screaming into the bloodthirsty maw of anarchy, socialism, and totalitarianism- tyranny by any other name. They haven't done much of anything useful since they took the Democrats slaves away from them and forced them to pick their own cotton.

Democrats indoctrinate rather than educate children.

Democrats invite hordes of illegal aliens to bum rush our borders.

Democrats totally ignore any law, whenever it suits them.

Democrats arm our mortal enemies with our own weapons while abandoning our own citizens to the barbarian hordes in places like Libya and Afghanistan.

Democrats incessantly incite racial violence by never shutting up about racism.

Democrats incessantly incite class warfare, so long as they're not the targets.

The Republicans have no influence in media, academia, or pop culture. Nobody in the Republican Party gives a rat's rear end about race or how much money the next person has. We're not the ones trying to convince boys that they're girls, or vice versa. We don't tell people to hate their own country based on events that happened before their great grandparents of anyone alive today, ever existed. Go walk onto virtually any public college campus in the western world if you want to see who actually influences those aspects of our lives.

tahanson43206 / Robert,

If you simply want a dictatorship that you find to your liking, then I've wasted my time here. However, I don't think either of you would fare very well under an actual dictatorship, which both of you would no doubt disagree with quite publicly once you saw what it will inevitably become with your own eyes, which you both no doubt feel compelled to speak out against, which would be the end of you. The intellectuals are always the first to be purged from any dictatorship, because anyone who exercises independent thought must be ruthlessly eliminated.

Whenever the both of you recognize that "The Big Plan" here is to strip Americans of their national identity, and the ties that bind us together, and to use us as chattel slaves, perhaps with better living conditions, but most likely not if China is any indicator, for the purpose of enriching the wealthy few at the expense of the great many, then maybe you'll have a different view on what's been going on lately.

There's nowhere left to run off to, except maybe in your daydreaming minds. Think they'll leave you in peace on Mars? Keep dreaming.

Like it or not, America is where humanity either rises up for common cause of liberty and prosperity, or descends into another age of darkness on a level commensurate with any of the timeless stories of good and evil from antiquity. It's our last and best hope. If liberty and prosperity is extinguished here, it'll be a relatively minor task for the evil people in this world to mop up everywhere else.

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