The Balance between Conservatives and Progressives - Why Consensus is the Next Stage
Liberal and Conservative have been pitted against eachother on a civil struggle for dominance. Whatever the parties are called, this is an inevitable conclusion of our form democracy. Majority Rule entrusts the nation will always be in conflict as each side wages for the majority and multiple parties will always join back into two parties for the sake of combating their uniting enemies. That's not to say a Political Spectrum does not exist or that Liberals and Conservatives don't disagree on several important issues. But this division is being used against the people rather for the sake of utilizing the wealth of our various perspectives. The unanswered question becomes “which side is right?” and the two opponents struggle for political control to answer that question. But rock isn't right in every game, and neither is paper or scissors. Just because someone thinks differently, that does not make them wrong.
The Left Wing values openness, fairness, equality, cooperation and diplomacy. Early Civilizations such as the Incas can attribute most of their success to their method of obtaining knowledge by sending scouts to visit every other reachable Civilization and learn everything possible making knowledge synonymous with power in that civilization. Through exploration of other cultures we can enrich our own. Liberals are necessary just as the senses are. If one goes through the world only listening to themselves and never learning from the outside, they are numb, they are deaf and they are blind.
But the Left is also more sensitive, and that doesn't mean they're weaker because they aren't as military minded. They are more sensitive to corrosion from outside values and losing their own culture's integrity. This is why Conservatives are necessary. Evolution has two sides: mutation and preservation. Organisms that mutate typically don't carry mutations which are supremely beneficial and thus the necessity exists for the species to be drawn to a reliable and tested method. At the most basic level, organisms are still in a state of constant competition. And in this state, tested and reliable does not survive if it is not also capable of adapting and growing, progressing forward. As one observes the ladder of complexity, cooperation becomes apparent as a strategic move within this competitive atmosphere in order to gain an edge. Organisms cooperate because two do better than one and it becomes an evolutionary imperative. But people are also capable of betrayal. Communist Revolutions have failed because once in power, the proletariat's party transformed into a new oligarchy. African Mountain Gorillas are going extinct, greatly due to loss of habitat but partially due to competition within the group. If the Dominant Male is bested in combat, all the infants get slaughtered so the new Dominant Male can impregnate the females. This is a tragic obstacle in the path of restoring their numbers but it's also a very telling reminder that the purpose of Cooperation is still Competition and still done for an ultimately selfish reason: self preservation. The cells in your body work together to preserve your body in order to preserve themselves. If the outside did not provide any sort of threat, then what are we cooperating for? If no one cares for preserving the methods and values of their home, they've already proven their values are worth nothing and ready to be conquered by a stronger opponent.
In short Liberals exist to explore new ideas so the society may grow while Conservatives exist to preserve old ideas so the society does not corrode. The balance where the two meet is how a culture evolves and becomes more powerful. Old ideas cannot stand up to reliable new data is eventually dropped, new ideas that cannot persevere against loyalty to tradition are purged. Just as the Scientific Method breaks ideas into Hypotheses, Theories and Laws, the mechanics of our government and legislation must also incorporate multiple levels in order to account for the spectrum of gray. Rather than accept this basic truth, the Left and Right have dug deeper trenches, failing to find anything rational about the other side and have fallen on the brink of civil war. This is, at least, the game the Media plays. This is natural, the media is after ratings, crazy extremists provide the best ratings. Moderate thinkers do not. However, this is also obviously a purposeful move by Big Media to keep the population from uniting against our common enemy. If it were not, why is Ron Paul, whose placing invariably well in polls, being ignored and twisted into a joke by the Media? Because he's representing values that do not completely coincide with Conservative Rhetoric so to be taken seriously he would have to run as a Liberal. But by running as a Conservative he's bringing up issues that have been pulled out from under the rug of Conservatives in this country. So caught up military support and christian values, they failed to see their own politicians transform this nation into a Socialist Dictatorship run by Oligarchs in the private sector. Competition has been overrun by a Cooperative collective of financial institutions which have our politicians employed and have essentially usurped our Democracy. The Federal Government is now a Publicly Traded Company where the private sector bids on our Congress so they can do the job of transforming everything their sight into a Conglomerated Financial Institution.
And the Rhetoric in the US has shifted so dramatically Right Wing that Liberals are outrunning the right wing mob fervor of the Tea Party. Campaign Funds and Ignorant Mobs are the new vehicles of political change. Even if we managed to remove the corruption from Congress and start a three or a four party system, it would invariably return to this state. I do not believe the Founding Fathers failed, I believe they achieved a complete success for the enemy they faced at the time. But it would be criminal to say the government they built and the laws they built were complete for all time. Once more, we must advance forward. Not as Libertarians or Socialists but within a Republic capable of compromising for the benefit of everyone. The time for majority rule is over. The time for dramatic campaigns that may as well be beauty pageants is over.
On a National scale, average people are not suited for making decisions. The average person is best fit for making decisions related to his own community. Conversely, centralized government agencies are not suited for making decisions related to individual communities because they are incapable of reading the communities individual needs as well as the community itself. This is why Democracy works best on a smaller scale. Consensus Based Democracy doesn't work in a room larger than three hundred people without fragmenting into parties (the object of the game is to have each individual represent their own opinion and not fall into mob behavior). Even that is pushing it but the line must be drawn wide enough to encompass the difference between rural and urban populations. Besides, this room of people is not reaching a Consensus for the Nation, simply for the community they live in. This where our Federal Government must start. This is the foundation it must rest on, a collection of communities the size of small towns or neighborhoods. These Community Forums would lead Consensus Based Democracy on all issues related to their community in order to find a proper compromise they can all coexist in. Coexistence is the key to this, we're not trying to reach consensus to figure out how to make a utopia (which would be impossible). We're reaching consensus to keep things running.
From there, they elect a Councilor to take part in the Municipal Council. This is where Majority Rule still comes into effect though minority cosigners are a possibility for close votes. However, at the Municipal Council, Councilors from each community must reach fair compromise for all issues related to the Municipality. Continuing up the ladder, they elect a Delegate to meet at the District Assembly for all issues related to the District and to elect a representative to meet with the state which sends someone to meet with Federal Congress. In every level of government, people would be held accountable to a room full of Constituents. With each ascending level, the room becomes smaller and the speaking more manageable. Everyone gets a voice, a veto on legislation relevant to their court and a vote on the Representative, Mediator and Enforcer for each echelon of government. The Representative takes their collective opinion to the next echelon of government. The Mediator organizes and prioritizes issues to be brought before the Constituency. The Enforcer administers the legislation. They appoint their own subordinates.
This bases everything on trust. People must earn the trust of their constituents because they'll be meeting with all of them face to face and their voting record will be held completely transparent to their Constituency. This also creates a system of Trickle Up Legislation whereas legislation which works well in Communities can be adopted for the Municipality and so forth so ideas are tested before they're put into action on a wide scale. In fact, requiring compromise on all levels of government would be impossible without trickle-up legislation. This also creates a government in layers where the responsibility of the Federal Government is to build the most basic frame of law upon which everyone can agree and allow the states and lower divisions to build upon that in a progressive fashion. This means Federal Law trumps the State in matters where the State tries to remove Federal Legislation (And so forth down the ladder) but the lower echelon's additional ordinates, sanctions or rights cannot be invalidated by higher echelons unless they are obvious attempts to circumvent higher law. For instance if the Federal Government creates regulations to protect the environment, individual communities could not circumvent those sanctions by claiming it's a human right to pollute the environment. However, if the Federal Government provides no environmental protection, it would not be able to enforce this lack of constraint against other divisions.
No electoral college, no disconnected town halls or state governments that stand apart from the Community-based system. Every government position is now encompassed into this ladder. To help give you a better idea I thought up some terminology in order to map out this Tribal Ladder. (The numbers are the population capacities)
Echelon.........Constituency... ....Session......Representative. ...Mediator.......Enforcer
Community....(300)Citizens.... ....Forum........Councilor..... .......Trustee.........Official
Municipality....(200)Councilors. ..Council.......Delegate...... .......Director........Administrator
District...........(150)Delegates. ...Assembly...Senator....... ........Facilitator.....Minister
State.............(100)Senators... ..Senate.......Consul......... ......Chancellor.....Governor
Federation.....(50)Consuls.... .....Congress.....Emissary........ .....Arbiter..........President
