Our Lives Matter!
Tags: Success, Society, Democracy, BlackLivesMatter, Life

Our Lives Matter!

We should not have a society in which a discriminating race decides everything that matters.

Photo by Etty Fidele on Unsplash

In the big picture, skin color is not that important. We should live in a society in which someone’s skin color is considered unimportant. Strangely enough, skin color is a factor in life, and we need to work harder inside our brains to make something that is not that important unimportant indeed.

How to move forward centers around two questions:

What kind of society do we want to live in?

How do we improve the current power structures in the United States?

Anywhere we look, the outcomes of an imbalanced nation are visible. Too often we hear about abuse of power by police, by politicians, by people that help themselves or help just a subgroup of people.

In plain English: There are too many bullies in the United States today and we need to figure out how to diminish their numbers.

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When something as ordinary as someone’s skin color is a decisive factor in general outcomes, then something is wrong in a society. It is as if people with big ears get first choice and that is plain backwards.

People cannot be discriminated against, small ears or not.

With this in mind, let’s look at the United States.

The power structure is unique in the world.

There are two levels of government: the Federal government and the State government. Their peculiar combination is such that the States are undermined in their independence, while the Federation is weakened in making strong decisions. If these two levels were two eyes, one would definitively need a pair of glasses to see things sharply.

Asking for help from either level of government is problematic. The Federal government can make the strongest rules, but it is weak with implementing them fully in all fifty states. Meanwhile, each State claims its own independence to the extent possible. When push comes to shove though, they will abide by the rules of the nation — but only when all other options are exhausted. A tug-of-war is visible among issues and many of them remain unresolved for decades. A street race takes place with its goal not well-defined.

The United States has three parties: the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Power Vacuum. There is a lot in the United States that does not get organized. Even deciding what parts of society should or should not get organized is itself not well-organized; the way we organize ourselves is happenstance. If there ever were an anarchistic nation successful on this world stage, it is the United States.

The upside of anarchy is that all can show in their own time and in their own place what they are made of. This really is the power of the United States because each of us has to be the best he or she can be.

The downside of anarchy is that there is no restriction on those that move into negative territory and eat up as much positive territory as they can get away with.

Where some, for instance, can make money freely in unrestricted large amounts, governmental spending for education is restricted within a tug-of-war setting that includes a power vacuum of indecision. Where freedom exists in absolute form for some, the freedom to become one’s own person through education is restricted.

Our Lives Matter!

Not receiving the best education possible for all young people in the United States starts a spiral that continues throughout live. For our society as a whole, it means we are welcoming foreigners with good education among our ranks and giving them good salaries. Yet this also means that we organized ourselves to spend society’s education money on them and not on educating our own. We hand money to foreigners with high degrees of education and we can then not afford to train all of us to the extent we should.

This is how we organize ourselves today — by partly not organizing ourselves — and ending up with a substrata of under-educated people. There is a race involved with getting good education and the losers will not receive it.

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This abuse of power is seen again with the police. Where we can see our police as heroes when they come to our rescue, or see them as good regulators in their more ordinary duties, they can also become bullies when they overextend their power and push folks with little ears into a corner, or worse.

A substrata of non-regulation exists in our nation and it is visible anywhere we look: education, public transit, healthcare, justice, representation. Parts of our society are not organized well and power is not spread out well. Unfortunately, it is impossible to organize all parts well in the current setup of power; the balance of power in our nation contains a large gap. Some have more power than they should and under current conditions this cannot be reigned in.

Our democracy contains a gap!

There are two forms of democracy in the world: the inclusive and the exclusive form of democracy. We have the exclusive version with many voters not represented in the end result. Only the majority obtains the seats. Large voting minorities are not represented by their choice unless they became the majority in a district themselves. A race is taking place, and the winner gets our entire cake.

Not only do we end up with just two parties taking up most seats and having the debates among them, we also fail to fill in the gap — no matter our best attempts. If this is a full-color world, then the United States paints its words in red and blue only.

As is obvious, all seats are occupied in both images. Yet in the exclusive form of democracy the gap is noticeable in the results. Compared to the inclusive form of democracy, yellow, green and orange are simply not present in our system.

Spin is an instrument widely used in the United States because green in the left image must be expressed as either red, blue or purple — and as desired, not desired, or unimportant. Green cannot be presented as green. The truth cannot set us free, because we are unable to pronounce the truth fully.

Green stands, for instance, for good education for all!

Green stands for large minority groups!

Green stands for addressing entrenched poverty.

Green stands for… fill in the blanks. Realize how many items do fit.

When looking at the Federal level, the State level and the local level, people with small ears are not represented in their natural numbers. The red party and the blue party contain people with big ears. Even at the local level, big ears hog the seats. When there is a race, big ears end up winning.

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The word democracy is used much for the United States, and yet one can argue that a system that contains a gap in representation can never be called a democracy. What we have is not a voting system of government by the whole population. The gap is too large to comfortably call this a democracy.

The word republic is also used for the United States, and yet one can argue that a system that votes for kings and queens can never be called a republic. The entire nation is segregated in voting districts with either a king or queen elected for two, four or six years. They ‘represent’ the district, but they are not representative of all voters — not even close. A gap exists between the voters and the ‘representatives’ taking up the actual seats.

At the United States’ table of decision making, a gap exists of large voting minorities not present — not represented — at that table. Little ears are not found at that table; they automatically lost in the race. People five feet tall do not play in major basketball leagues.

Let’s quickly discuss another important word: emancipation. It literally translates into ‘no longer hand-held’ and it points therefore to the moment of receiving freedom from being taken by the hand. Yet it also means becoming the equal to those around — being our mature selves. Emancipation entails freedom and equality.

Our American political system does not emancipate us. We are hand-held by two parties and they hold the ropes in their hands. Our system strongly supports having just two parties. Mom and Dad are in control, and no one can leave the house.

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There are opportunities for change, already today with the current setup. The United States Constitution demands that the inclusive form of democracy is used — must be used — at the local level of cities and counties. Today, these are places where either a single party of red or a single party of blue takes up all the seats. With few exceptions noted, the United States is a single-party nation at the local level and the call by the United States Constitution to use the better system is flat-out ignored.

Here is an article dedicated to that most important step:

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Skin color is something we all have. Ultimately, all human beings are from Africa and there is really just one single human race. Our common ancestors appeared on earth likely not longer than 300,000 years ago. The ones before them are our shared ancestors for certain, even though others sprung from them as well. Of all offspring of these much older ancestors, we are the ones showing our skin. Big deal!

While we are one large group, individuals do not need to like all other individuals. We all have our own preferences, and it is likely that some form of grouping based on superficial characteristics will keep occurring today and in the future. That is really not a problem.

As a society as a whole, however, we need to ensure that not the groups but the individuals can find their full expression. We need a system in which we can set each other free, emancipate each other, become each others’ equals in the eye of the law and through the systems we are using.

In our democracy today, the individual vote only counts towards the collective balance of handing the single seat to a king or a queen. The individual does not really matter in this collective system. Therefore, that system leads to the rise of undesired bullies and unwanted results and situations. We are not emancipated in this system.

The solution will not come from the big ears. They sit quite comfortably in their seats and are having a good time, infighting among themselves as usual. They love majority rule and don’t mind that it is incorrectly applied twice in our system.

Small ears of whatever make need to hold the feet of their local representatives to the fire and demand our Constitution-given better voting system in our cities and counties. It is our fastest ticket to a smarter form of organizing society; the option is already provided to us in the highest document of the land. It simply demands this form of emancipation.

There is a promise to the United States. Today is the day to make that promise reality. We need to overcome the problems caused by trying to solve our problems through a discriminating race. Removing the race is that step.