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Moderate Government

If you have read my other posts you may have noticed my use of this term Midland.  Midland is a fictional place where those of us middle minded folks would flock to if this idea of centrism and moderation really took off.  To be clear, Midland could be coastal or in the middle of the country, it could be anywhere.  In terms of demographics, we would want a nice mix of all ages, men and women, all the skin colors, all the religious beliefs, all the political beliefs, a nice mix of short and tall folk.  But all Midlanders would have one thing in common, an open mind.

So how would we govern each other?  Some of my ideologically pure anarchist friends would stop me right there and propose a lack of any official government.  They would propose we govern ourselves voluntarily.  Roads would be managed privately, schools would be private, police and other forms of security would be private.  They argue competition in these areas would increase the quality of the service.  Just imagine competing private roads.  Imagine competing private security firms in the same neighborhood.  To save hours of reading and debate let me just say that I disagree with them on their absolutist views of absolutely no form of government.  However I do agree with them that government starts with the individual as the first and most important sovereign entity.  As human beings we are all fully equal sovereign units who should voluntarily choose to participate in city, state and national governments.

For Midland, I would propose that we have bare bones government centered around protection, roads, schools, and possibly basic health care clinics.  Outside of Midland I do not see why we would need any government other than a small council that would work together with nearby towns.  Midland would be completely autonomous and free, and would not answer to a state or a country.  In fact we would be a city, state and country all in one!

Here are a few numbers regarding autonomy/governance/population.  Belgium has roughly the same amount as people as Ohio, but they are a country and we are a state within a country.  Cincinnati has roughly the same amount of people as Wyoming but they are a state and we are a city within a state.  Why can't Cincinnati be a state?  Why can't Ohio be a country?  Better yet, why can't Cincinnati be a country?  The globalists need us to continually aggregate upwards if they are to ever achieve global dominance through one world government.  It is much harder to steal from people and control people when you are dealing with tens of thousands of self-governing countries instead of 195.

In terms of money, how much should go to this break even not for profit and absolutely no deficit/debt governance fund?  Enough to pay the bills with a bit of a cushion for economic slow downs.  Instead of income taxes there would be consumption based taxes.  Instituting consumption based taxes discourages consumption of the services which drive the costs because everyone tries to avoid paying taxes is a general truth.  This also means that those who consume the government services are the ones who pay for the services.  In business we call it activity based costing.  In a manufacturing environment it is critical to track your costs down to drivers so you know how much it really costs you to make something.  You then use this manufacturing cost as a basis to mark up your product to cover your administrative costs and desired profit for the owners.  If I do not drive on the roads why should I pay for them?  Subsidizing causes overuse and abuse.  The large companies that monopolize the roads with their large heavy vehicles should pay for the damage they cause to the roads.  We can do this quite easily and fairly with minimal administration through fuel taxes.  Would homeowners without children want to pay into the school tax?  I would but maybe other Midlanders would disagree with me and that is OK.

Bottom line, income taxes discourage work and we don't want to do that.  We want to discourage consumption and have taxes that are consumption and activity based to isolate and tax those that actually utilize the services.  Police and fire could be paid through sin and luxury taxes (alcohol, tobacco, sugar, sporting events, movies, drugs) which would still make them voluntary (you don't have to consume those things) and would lower our healthcare costs simultaneously!

This form of taxation is in stark contrast to the current form of taxation in the US.  We send about 25% of our income to the US government, less to the state and the least to the city where we live.  But it is the city who is responsible for the police, fire, roads and schools (essentially most of what we really need a government for).  But if we flipped the script and kept most of our money locally it would mean less money for the gangsters to pilfer and plunder and less murdering through wars.

How many should serve on the council that governs us?  Currently in the US we have about 600 people in the house, senate, supreme court and executive cabinet to govern over 300 million people.  That is a 1/500,000 ratio.  How can one person govern 500,000 people?  The answer is they can't and they can only really answer to the super rich who fund their elections.  These 600 people govern about $3.5 Trillion in government spending which is almost $6 Billion per person.  This is oligarchy defined!  So to answer the question of how many people should be on the governing council in Midland?  Basically the opposite of what we currently have in the US.  Maybe governance ratios in the 1/1,000 to 1/5,000 range would make sense.  This would realistically allow for the council members to actually govern their constituents and allow for the constituents access to their governors.

And the council of governors would be entirely volunteer or possibly a nominal stipend to cover basic expenses, and there would most definitely be term limits to make sure we always have a fresh crop of minds with new perspectives and ideas.

The council would not actually be able to both draft the laws and vote upon them.  We want separation of duties.  The council would draft legislation and post them online for 3 months allowing Midlanders to debate then vote upon the laws directly.  Kind of like a nice mix of direct Democracy and Republics.  Straight up Republics are outdated and no longer needed, we have the internet.  Some of the founding fathers warned against direct democracy (which they called mob rule) but that was before the internet.  We could still protect ourselves against mob rule and "fickle social trends" by having the 3 months gestation period.  We no longer have to hope that our representatives do what they say during the campaign.  We can ensure it through this simple separation of duties.

And Midland would also post all expenses and spending online for all to see.  Full transparency in where all of our money is being spent.  If someone spent $15,000 on a park bench we would all be able to see that and that behavior would be eliminated.

This is all entirely reasonable and actually very much within the framework of the US Constitution and federalism, how we were originally meant to be.  The founding fathers of this country warned against corporate control and large federal government.  They knew what would happen, the pirate gangsters would swoop in and steal from us.  And here we are neck deep in fascism.

Midland USA can be anywhere, and should be everywhere.  Most of us are Midlanders at heart.  The globalist who seek to control the world are a very small % of the population.  They are like the wizard of Oz behind the curtain with the big speakers, scaring us to believe there is more there than there really is.  But its all just smoke and mirrors.  If those of us in the middle stop fighting about these marginal social issues and stick together on the basic philosophy of governance, we could pull open the curtain and reveal the handful of old men are standing there without pants on, literally pissing themselves and scared because we finally woke up and their gig is up.  Power to the peeps!

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