RB is the sole unchangeable plank & bylaw of a Ranked Ballot Party,
the only practicable third party.) We imagine running on the single
issue of RB, promising a citizens’ advisory board based on Organized
Communications, “OC”, small randomly assigned discussion groups
electing reps to higher & higher randomly assigned levels, by means
of
RB, ‘til one small group, most exactly in the middle of all voting,
remains at the top, to guide us in the rest, which group by its
merest
invitation to speak inevitably names the perfect compromise & next
winner That’s the instant part. You do the same, from the most
local
on up.
By the power of its example alone, RB will give us practicable
instant
worldwide true democracy. Virtually no democracy has ever been
attacked by another. In a world of only democracies, there would no
longer be need of the counter-productive wastefulness of armies, war
or the preparation for war. RB will bring us that & all else: a real
solution to terror, a perfect marriage of Freedom & Justice,
Tradition
& Modernity, Palestinian & Jew, Free Market & Communalism, all the
fairness, payback & make-up one could wish for, clean back to the
Cro-
Magnons, ecologically sustainable politics, what’s best for all
workers, instant global women’s liberation, world-wide luxury, a
rationalization of the drug wars, human unity, the Freedom of Justice
& the Justice of Freedom, perhaps the only possible solution to the
world’s only real problem, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (once
they
both are made to have to adopt RB), even integrity. RB is to the
horse
& buggy two-party system as shopping in the Mall of America is to
shopping in Soviet Russia. The majority of the problems we face are
due to the heavy-footedness of the two party system. RB lessens the
power of the extremes, whether authoritarian, economic or sectarian,
except through what they can gain by persuasion, which is only what’s
just. While it would be equally useful for all else, RB’s real power
is perhaps most clearly shown in the case of Iraq. Unless its
Parliament comes to select the Prime Minister by means of RB, it may
not hold & the country, region & world will be in danger of going to
war over some ancient grudge, oil well, multi-ethnic city, or
sabotaged pipeline. While the new constitution does call for the
selection of the President by a 2/3 vote in the first round (even if
only by the parliament & not the people) (who may then decide who
will
form the new government) & then by a run-off between the top two vote
getters in the second round, if that fails to move all three tribes
to
nominate centrists, then the resulting handful of old men in a back
room will fall far short of RB’s ultimate retail politics. RB would
be equally useful for all electoral systems (parliamentary or
presidential, the parliaments choosing their PMs by RB from among
their members, lest they produce another Hitler or other extreme)
coops, collective leaderships, tribal groupings, religious
confessions, political parties, associations or, even cabals.
Whoever
gets there first wins. For leaders to best represent their country,
or district, whether chosen at large or by a representative body,
they
must be the perfect compromise, most exactly in the middle, as is
given by RB. Yet because it gives minorities a real say in which
member of the plurality/majority gets chosen, RB is the only thing
that will lead Iraqis, or anyone else, to support any plan more than
inadequate confederation. It will result in “phantasmagoric
subtlefaction”, real-time alternatives to all proposals, from
wherever: market, coop or social, or tribal, theological or
universal,
answering infinitely more questions at a time than the two party
system’s “who is least bad”. Both more Liberty & Justice can be
found
in RB than in any ideology. With brakes & reverse comes no more need
to suppress popular movements around the world. RB will give us
subtlety, responsivity, light-footedness, long-sightedness,
objectivity, economy, unity, accountability, integrity & victory over
extremism. Palestinians & Jews will give up fighting over a sliver
of
desert & become members of global cooperatives, all the various forms
of hegemonism, whether up front, subterranean or unconscious, will be
given up, in exchange for leading the world to the light, & America
will finally realize the need for an adequate, howsoever minimal,
safety net as the price & foundation of a free market.
Help put this idea, in time, to as many as possible, before
“Clockwork
Orange” (overpopulation), “1984” (high-tech dictatorship), cosmic
collision, tectonic, economic or environmental collapse, or
literalist
or criminal contretemps. The cost of a full page national ad
(sufficient to put RB to virtually all the world) would be repaid in
no time, once all that money gets put to actual productive use, at
pre-9/11 US annual defense spending of $10,000 per family. Ten to
the
power of ten (ten levels of groups of ten) would be sufficient to
organize & unite all mankind.
RB is very freeing. Because it always chooses the candidate in the
middle, all who support it are perfectly top-dead-center, with no
more
need to fear self expression. Politics will become a family
discussion around the kitchen table, with no more jumping back &
forth
between extremes, or absence of the economists’ requirement of
predictability for growth. All that’s needed is to let go of the nut
& get your fist back out of the knothole, to free yourself, & to rest
in the knowledge that RB will give us perfect Freedom & perfect
Justice, at one & the same time, even if not necessarily in the form
imagined, as if anyone would then care. For instance, no woman ever
got pregnant to have an abortion, but RB will make the point moot.
Good enough for New Zealand, Australia, Kerala India, Iraq, London,
Ireland, Cambridge Mass, Burlington & 95% of the townships of
Vermont,
Pierce County Washington, St Paul & Minneapolis Minnesota, the Utah
Republican Party for the selection of statewide candidates, the
platforms of both the Green & Libertarian Parties & 50 college
student
bodies across the US with more places coming every year, but not good
enough for the rest of us? It must be in somebody’s interest! How
can any wish it of others if they do not have it themselves? Having
spent every spare moment from the invasion, to the vote on the
constitution emailing every Iraqi we could find about RB, we would
like to claim some little credit for the reforms they did adopt. The
only imaginable definition of Freedom (& Morality) is “Do as you
wish,
but harm no other”. The maker & sustainer of this world (& cosmos!)
could have no need of one bit of it. The fiercer the history of the
planet, the sooner it would have been blissed out behind ethnic
homogeneity, & thus democracy. Tax consumption, not investment, &
spread the productivity around. All powers to their lowest
appropriate level. All human evil is due to the out of phase
fluctuation of population & food supply, so no-one alive is
responsible for the mess we find ourselves in, except for what they
do
now. Justice is the redress of past violence, Freedom the current
absence of violence & Nonviolence the only basis of all Morality.
Just go out & collect signatures, asking those who sign to collect
them for you as well. The more the merrier. (The “additive” form
of
RB is to count the first choices & if no-one has 50%, to add in the
next choices, & so on until someone finally does.) “Consider that
which is common in the sight of all men.”
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