You can govern yourself. You can govern with others. You can learn about political planks and political platforms, how to do governance, and about political organization. It's about active citizenship, civics, a more perfect union, and we the people. It's about participation. So, the focus of these many posts is on democracy, justice, citizenship, governance, co-operation, and democracy.
Abdication
Too many American citizens have give up their citizen rights and responsibilities. Their are reasons for their abdication, but that does not rectify their personal losses and their loss of national identity.
RCS
What are our protections? How do we keep from being lost in the great world? Family helps. Neighborhood helps. Statehood helps. Our nation helps. But we need a more. Dialogue may help get the needed more.
"The philosophy in the classroom today is the philosophy of the government " by Norman Williams
I am not sure this is true. I believe that parents and citizens are responsible for their schools and that which is taught in the classroom. When they abdicate that responsibility Children and youth begin to suffer. They note promptly that something is not right in school or classroom. They usually do not like it, but usually figure "that's just the way things are, and go through the motions as best as they can. Later many of them figure "there is a reason for this" and the begin to consider the nature of the reason for the way things are. Is it teacher? Student? Those above teachers? Above students? Just who is responsible for the way our public schools are?
"The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world."
by George Orwell
I think that our concepts of honesty, experience, and good evidence could take up a lot of slake. I Orwell meant by ''the world," people. Things like truth fade out of people. I bet there is a reason for that.
"The public will believe anything so long as it is not founded on truth."
By Edith Sitwell
This seems an exaggeration and not quite true. It seems that most of our public is educated in our public education systems. It seems that the public is made up of the ones responsible of our public education systems. What happens when they fail to honor their responsibility. We may believe lies or falsehoods, but that is usually not a favorite doing of ours.
"Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea"
That is republicanism and democracy and the idea that governance is in the hands of the citizens and is their responsibility. When they do not uphold that responsibility the fall into ignorance. What was the reasons for your parent's and your grandparent's reason for the way they governed. What was their understanding of republicanism? democracy? What was the reason for their way of governance? A republic was not to be governed by a small elite, nor by a church. A democracy was the abundant participation of the people in their own governance. The more people the better. The people have usually been considered to be citizens of the state. It was considered by many that the governance practiced be the people was better than rule by a king, most of the time.
by John Gunther
What do you think? Who is responsible for you and yours? Who is responsible for your neighborhood? Your health? Your organization. Your county? Your co-operation? Your education?
rcs
Organization, Effective Citizenship, and the Power to Do and what it is About
Your organization can make you a more effective citizen. There seems to be a new or renewed urge toward new political organization and active citizenship these days. Many of us have a growing understanding of democracy. We see that more active citizenship brings more democracy.
A new organization is much like an old organization. It takes people to organize, but many of those organizing are new, not old. Persons new to organizing, especially political organizing, have a lot to learn. Their energy and enthusiasm will be an important aid to their progress.
An organization may have a beginning in individual minds, but its realization will be in a group. A group of people is most often a mess and a mess of people is not an organization. To become an organization there are doings such a mess of people must do. They can begin with a bit of togetherness and continue with a growing ability to cooperate.
Agreement that a new organization is necessary or a darn good idea can be a useful beginning. Agreement, perhaps tacit, to work together can be another important step. Finding ways to cooperate is important. Old organizers found many ways to facilitate cooperation.
Soon the purpose of the organization must begin to be identified and clarified. Clarification of purpose is an ongoing process and activity. This may often be begun by a small group of leaders, but must be carried on by many others.
Say that the original growing group is made up of citizens who have discovered that they want a brand new political organization. They have some willingness to work together. The also have understandings and misunderstandings to work out. A lot of work.
Members of this very new organization need to maintain an ongoing understanding of the aims, values, and wants of others in the organization in so far as they affect the organization. Not easy, but important to their ability to increase their effectiveness.
An important benefit of an organization is that which needs to be done, need not be done by one or a very few, but rather can be shared among and by all members. In fact the more involved with the important work of the organization that are all members, the better the moral and effectiveness of the organization is likely to be.
The members of a well functioning group can feel themselves to be effective doers, and can be those effective doers in fact.
There are some doings and practices which have helped others to start and maintain their organization.
~ Consider how you intend to keep in contact.
~ Begin identifying your goals and aims.
~ Clarify goals and aims.
~ Restate goals and aims.
~ Arrange to have each member help to achieve these goals and aims.
~ Take care of all business promptly.
~ Arrange for the ongoing education for all members.
~ Practice dialogue skills.
~ Arrange for members to have opportunity to be educators.
~ Enjoy your participation.
~ Keep in mind that teaching one another is important. Outside help can be very good, but seldom as good as that which we do for ourselves. As we teach, we learn.
~ Demonstrate abundant and appropriate trust of one another.
~ Keep in mind that the fewer the secrets the better. "No secrets" is a good policy.
~ Be inclusive. as a policy, help anyone who wants to be a member to be one.
~ Encourage equality.
~ Remind one another that each of you is important to and responsible for the maintenance of your organization, its philosophy, and its doings.
~ Lay out clear steps for achieving important and doable goals and plans for your organization.
~ Aims and goals ought to be not only doable and important but also be an attractive and challenging big deal.
~ Set out one or two doings or goals to be worked on today. Your organization will benefit by having important things to be done right now.
~ Keep in mind that there is much to be done and that each member ought to help with those doings.
~ Make clarifying the "grand vision" of your organization an ongoing activity. "Learning, teaching, and practicing democratic self governance for all" might be an example of such a vision.
~ Aim to govern yourselves by practicing self-governance.
There is a 'comments' window below for comments on the content of this posts. Wen you use this blog to post about the posts on a different blog. Begin with the name of the blog and the title of the post. You could even include the URL address.
This post had more than the usual popularity on Mago Bill.
Thank you for reading and sharing.
rcs
Why do you not have a complete understanding of this? Why is there an American citizen who does not? We need to teach ourselves. We can learn to teach one another well. We can govern ourselves. In a democracy the citizens are responsible for making the rules and laws, maintaining the rules and laws, enforcing their rules and laws. The rights and responsibilities of citizens seems heavy until one remembers how many we are.
RCS
Our Constitution can direct us to the way we choose, support, protect, and agree on our laws to our benefit. Our constitution has a democratic intent. Where there is lack of participation democracy fails. Its up to us. I am writing to my fellow U.S. citizens here. However, other readers may benefit.
Among the ideas we seem to have forgotten may include the following: We make laws which we agree to support. Those laws can be changed. Our laws are by us, for us, and of us. All of us. We have designed laws which give us ways of protecting them and us. When there is no we and no this doesn't work very well.
Many of the most important of our laws have roots extending deep into our beginnings, our origins. Some can be traced to before the Roman republic. I believe some go back much farther. They have been lost to many from time to time, but enough of us have kept them in heart and mind so that they still exist in the hearts and minds of what I hope is enough of us. Some have been kept in writing in our Constitution.
I continue with some of the long kept ideas. Its okay to question the nature of our laws and we must continue to interpret them together. Its our right and our duty to change a bad law or to throw it out completely. Its good to think that our Constitution is our baby and to remember not to throw out the baby with its wash water. Its also good to remember that letting a law just die is not only sad, but also dangerous to us.
Like all of our laws our Constitutional laws may be changed, we have agreed that they may be changed. However, Constitutional laws have been made to last for much more than just generations. There is more than one of the Amendments we have made have proven and are proving not so lasting. Some have them to be our holy and sacred word. That may be true. but they are our words and our laws and we may change them. But it is also true that some of our forefathers have done a very great deal to preserve them. They thought that they had very good reasons to do so, I do to. Our Constitution is often called a social contract among us. We are parties to it. How many of us can break our promise to support it before it is broken. How can it be reconstituted when it is.
Many in the US and others as well consider the Constitution of the the United Stares of America to be the best ever written. I hope that we won't let it just die. It may be written, but its life is in our hearts and minds. When it is changed many may find the changes unacceptable and that the changed constitution is not the one they pledged to support. So, a majority vote to change it may far from enough to change it an 80% to 20% might not be enough. We must make even very small changes very carefully am make sure that all of us understand them. Our Constitution is ours to interpret, maintain, support, maintain, enjoy, and to benefit from. We need to all keep learning to do that good job. As we fail in that we fail to be us. Our Constitution and our understanding of it is at the heart of our common culture. It may well be the very heart of that culture. It may be of even more value than we now understand.
We put our Constitution into writing to let the men and women of the world know the basics of the law we follow and also what we are prepared to protect. We ought to read it with a very great deal understanding. We ought to to practice being aware of how we are all interpreting and understanding the words in which it is written.
Our right to be responsible for our Constitution was not easily gotten nor easily kept. When we are not alert, aware and vigilant, it slips away from us. We need be eternally vigilant to keep this prime right. Its a good thing that there are a lot of us because it takes a lot of us to do this job ours. Many believe that our common understanding of our Constitution is maintained by our national dialogue. I believe that is worth a thought, a good one.
We have long known that we must learn, relearn, and practice healthy and effective ways to support and protect our laws. We have also learned that we must help our youth to do the same. We act can help to keep the ongoing review of the effectiveness and Constitutionality of our laws simple, common, and honorable.
Thanks to citizens who came before us, our Constitution has been kept relatively short and sweet. Remember that our Bill of Rights is an integral part of the Constitution. It is sweet and very short. Your copy is so small that it can easily lost, but free copies are usually available. You can down load a copy or read it online.
Like all else our Constitution needs to be interpreted. Our Supreme Court judges are are doing that continually. We can do the same. The principles are important, but not too difficult. However, sometimes their application offers difficulties. Our national dialogue can help us understand how it has usually been interpreted and how it is being interpreted now. To keep ourselves safe and strong we all need to keep the principles in mind. Recently we have not been doing so, nor have we been teaching our children the use of them. We could restart the process of having those principles in mind by getting the concept of democracy stirring in mind.
For those who want to learn more there is much that on can do to get and understanding of meanings and usages in mind. Just reading the other post on this blog can help as can other blogs discussing democracy and/or our Constitution can help a lot.
For many of us, talking about Constitution or democracy with a friend or family member can be productive step.They probably know less than we do. You might find out some interesting a couple of people what they think democracy is for. You could make finding a website dealing with a democracy that you like and telling us about it; the same the Constitution. You can probably find a lot of nonsense too. A search for active democracy can be interesting, so can a search for active citizenship. Beginning to read or to reread the Constitution can be revealing. I like our Declaration of Independence.
Our Constitution expresses our ways of governing ourselves, but may seem to lack details. Important parts if it are about our rights and responsibilities in governing out communal selves. As you read you can consider who has oversight of the doings of government. If you read it again you may begin to see the messages of democracy and self governance. It is much about out our participation in keeping to the path to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness open and clear for all of us in government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The Bill of Rights of out Constitution spells out The rights we have agreed to protect.
We can all get help to understand how the meanings of our Constitution have been interpreted and understood by wise men. Some of best sources of sound help can be found in the writings among the statesmen to be found among our Representatives and Senators and also among our better Supreme Court justices. It seems to me to be best to learn from than one source.
There are lies and nonsense online but also a lot of great information. High School history and civics books can be a help. College political science texts and histories of US government can be another useful source. There are excellent and horrible popular works to choose from. Actual US documents such as the Declaration of Independence are a marvel.
As we learn we find there is no law against using our own good sense and our own understanding. We can use our understanding of words such as:justice, lawful, co-operation, participation, democracy, and governance as well as the reality they point toward.
The great majority of us can agree that taking a person prisoner for the fun of it or for the profit in it is wrong and outside out of our law. Should I become that prisoner, I believe I would feel it definitively wrong. We can probably agree that there must be a very good reason for making one a prisoner.
Long ago a way was worked out to deal with the case of one of us being taken and held and of doing so without bloodshed. We have adapted that way into our Constitution. That way has seemed useful and just to many for centuries. That way may be called honoring a writ of habeas corpus. Habeas Corpus has been an important part of our Constitution from beginning of that Constitution. As we have not been doing our duty as citizens, the "writ" has been seriously weakened. I might have done my duty had I been bit more organized.
We have the right to learn the meaning and use of what we may call are right of Habeas Corpus. We can even make changes to our Constitution. We also have the duty to each other to do so well.
Many have understood habeas Corpus something like the following: Bob, our fellow citizen, has been taken and held. We confront the takers and holders and say, "We know that you have Bob; in accord with our law you must put him before us and in our hearing accuse him of so badly abusing our law that you have the right to hold him prisoner. Then before us, other accepted peers, and a accepted judge, you must prove to us, without a doubt, that you have taken Bob legally and in accord with our laws. If you cannot so prove you must release him immediately. If you continue to hold him, you go beyond our laws and we may now ring all our righteous force upon you to cause you to release him. We trust all others within our law to aid us."
Today the counter part of the ancient Writ of Habeas Corpus is our most basic defense against tyranny. The meaning of habeas corpus is more important than the word. Understanding that meaning makes us stronger as does our familiarity with Common Law and our Constitution. By learning to quickly recognize encroachment of tyrannical tendencies as a a danger to you and I the better we can protect ourselves and our law. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Its good that we are many.
It's time for me to end this post. It has become longer than many of my posts. Try using the "comments" section below to say hello to me an perhaps comment on the contents of this piece.
As a way of practicing some citizenship ask your Representative what has happened to out Habeas Corpus rights. With your zip code you can get his name and online address. You can as questions to the representative of your Representative how you can find something out Habeas Corpus or how to get a grant for your daughter's college education.
Or you could ask how to find out for sure if you are covered by the Write, or just where you can find out more about it. If can report on your experience here. I suggest that you do fin out who your Representative is.
Thank you for reading!
rcs
The two parties we have known and loved are about gone.
It is time for a new party with planks and a platform, and active members we can be proud of.
We
can attract citizens from all parties and from no party. A big place
for the Green Party within our fresh new party might be good.
We could ask everyone to help us find an appropriate new name.
We
can do what we can for the next elections, but build a decade long
teach-in for the effective citizenship of a grand number of fresh
faces, minds, spirits, and hearts.
You
have begun the great work of educating youth for citizenship, and it is
wonderful work that will not be completed in our lifetime.
Thank you for your life of grand service past, present, and future.
by Richard
Or,
let's have a platform. Or, let's have a plank. "A party" sounds most
attractive, but I have reason to consider a plank first and we can find planks in platforms.
The
kind of plank I am considering is political. is the name given to
fundamental parts of a political platform. Political party platforms are
made up of planks. This kind of plank does not come from a tree, but
rather from the minds of men and women. We can shape one, or more.
We
have some ideas about the nature of a political party. Historically
each person running for political office usually had a platform much
like the platform of his party. So we know that a platform is what a
person running for office stood on. I Great Britain, I believe, stood
for office rather than running for office as one does in the US. A
platform was once more about what party stood for rather than stood on. A
party and it's platform may be much about wants, interests, needs,
desires, values, and even philosophy of citizens, the men and women of
the nation.
So,
parties had platforms. An important to those platforms were its planks.
Each plank was likely to represent a specific want, interest need,
etc.
Right
now I a less interested in specific candidates, elections, or parties
and am more interested in the specifics the platform they stand on. The
specifics are best found in the planks.
So,
I am interested in platforms and the planks of those platforms, I am
interested in specific planks and sets of planks one can stand on and
for.
I
want a solid plank I can work on and see implemented in our nation. I
am interested in a plank I can be proud to stand up for. I am interested
in a plank which represents real and specific values and interests in
an understandable and attractive way.
*******************************************************************
First
we form and find some great planks. With them we can make a great platform. On
that great platform can stand a great (new) party. A party to be proud
of.
Heaven forbid that other parties should copy a plank of ours. ha, ha.
Thanks for reading.
Comment to us about the content of this post, whenever you like.
by Richard Sheehan
Or,
let's have a platform. Or, let's have a plank. "A party" sounds most
attractive, but I have reason to consider a plank first.
The
kind of plank I am considering is political. is the name given to
fundamental parts of a political platform. Political party platforms are
made up of planks. This kind of plank does not come from a tree, but
rather from the minds of men and women. We can shape one, or more.
We
have some ideas about the nature of a political party. Historically
each person running for political office usually had a platform much
like the platform of his party. So we know that a platform is what a
person running for office stood on. I Great Britain, I believe, stood
for office rather than running for office as one does in the US. A
platform was once more about what party stood for rather than stood on. A
party and it's platform may be much about wants, interests, needs,
desires, values, and even philosophy of citizens, the men and women of
the nation.
So,
parties had and have platforms. An important of those platforms were its planks.
Each plank was likely to represent a specific want, interest need, values of citizens
Right
now I am less interested in specific candidates, elections, or parties
and am more interested in the specifics the platform they stand on. The
specifics are best found in its planks.
So,
I am interested in platforms and the planks of those platforms, I am
interested in specific planks and sets of planks one can stand on and
for. I can direct my interests to the specifics of a chosen plank. I
want a solid plank I can work on and see implemented in our nation. I
am interested in a plank I can be proud to stand up for. I am interested
in a plank which represents real and specific values and interests in
an understandable and attractive way.
There is a lot to learn and we can find some satisfaction in helping one another. I am pretty sure that a plank or a splinter of it may lead to the creation of a Bill. That.s something
*******************************************************************
First
we form some great planks. Or find them in the 20 some party sites online. With them we can make a great platform. On
that great platform can stand a great (new) party. A party to be proud
of. We can learn a lot in the process.
Heaven forbid that other parties should copy a plank of ours.
We could look through the planks we find online and pick out the ones we really like a lot.
by Richard Sheehan