Government and the Society It Serves

The Difference Between Waiting for Political Decisions and Making Them

Jean Pasquali

• Publisher: Mentation Publications
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780990351139
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Process
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The book deals with the relationship of the citizen with his (her) government. Concentrates on those aspects that are troublesome, as indicated by the citizens' opinions and complaints, and on those that are critical for the improvement and stability of society. These include: Family structure, education, productivity and innovation, designation of people for public office, political parties, the military, the Constitution and the citizen.Most opportunities for government improvement are associated with the clear definition of its responsibilities, the introduction of new ways to choose candidates for public office and their removal when deemed necessary, and to organize the common citizens, to take advantage of collective intelligence. This last action is now possible by the use of modern communication technologies.Details on the introduction of these actions are presented throughout the book. They are meant to be food for thought, subjects of discussion and, hopefully, as stimulus for political action.The book is dedicated to the common citizen, who is invited to learn and analyze his particular government, to compare it with those of other nations and to use his basic political power to fix whatever needs fixing. It could be useful for students interested in what to look for in their analysis of government and its effects on the society it serves.

THE CONSTITUTION

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.

Albert Einstein

Introduction

The Constitution is the basic document that formalizes the ideals of citizens, defines the principles that guide society and arranges powers in such a way that the mentioned ideals can be achieved accordingly to principles and specific methods.

In this exercise because a virtual government will be established there will not be difficulties to write the basis of its Constitution. What has to be done is define an ideal for life, the principles that are essential for that ideal and determine a distribution of powers that will allow a good performance, after having observed the results of other distributions that have not achieved the same purpose.

Apparently although the exercise is the work of only one individual it does not mean that an attempt is made to write a Constitution that will satisfy one person, because it would not be of much interest. Man, according to Aristotle, is a social and political being; in consequence, the ideals and principles expressed to me by many people under many circumstances have been collated and will be taken into account in order to include those that are thought to be representative and beneficial. The performance of several types of organizations, their best achievements, and their worst failures will also be considered, with the idea of emulating the first ones and avoiding the second ones. Perhaps, having done that, the exercise will achieve the reader’s interest by supplying a basis for the comparison with the Constitution under which he (she) lives.

The organization of some types of government has been examined: Presidential, parliamentary, mixed, modern, ancient, Aztec, Mayan and Incan. Some aspects of the Constitution of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Finland, Iran, Italy, Mexico, Myanmar (2008), North Korea, Norway, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, United States of America, Vatican City and Venezuela have been inspected. Of much help were the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter of the United Nations.

When reading these Constitutions, with some obvious exceptions, one could deduce that they are excellent and that the corresponding nations have no problem that has not been solved or is on the way of being solved. When each of those societies is analyzed, as a unit or as part of the concert of nations, it becomes clear that the reality is very different. Many national problems are of great magnitude, and the international ones, according to the moment at which the analysis is made, can be even bigger. An interesting question is: Which are the problems that are caused by the Constitution and which are those that are due to other circumstances?

In this chapter an attempt will be made to discover what parts of a Constitution could cause difficulties for the operation of a government based on it. The arguments presented could be useful in an analysis of the Constitution of many countries.

Spiritual Alliance

The basis of a governance agreement is the life model of its people. The life model that inspires this Constitution has the following wishes or aspirations:

1. To be born in a family environment based on harmony and love.

2. To have an unconcerned, healthy and happy childhood.

3. To achieve an education that prepares to understand the World around us, to work and earn an honest living.

4. To achieve a full individual development, material, academic, artistic and spiritual according to his (her) natural characteristics.

5. To raise a family where members are able to take care of their basic need.

6. To have friends with which to share, socialize and help when needed.

7. To freely express opinions and respect those of others.

8. To feel confident that the government is made up of people that care about their society, and approves laws in favor of the well-being of the commons.

9. To feel the security and satisfaction of living by the rule of law and that the administration of justice is correct and impartial.

10. To be sure that private and public property is respected and preserved.

11. To feel that the behavior of one generation does not endanger the well-being of the following.

12. To know that the nation is an international example of peaceful intentions, respect and contribution, according to its means.

13. To feel proud to belong to the people of this nation, where the people are all its inhabitants and where the people are the Sovereign.

This life model is shared by all the people of the virtual country. Because all agree on it, it has an enormous moral power and it is considered as the basis of what the Greeks called the spiritual alliance. Any action that goes directly or indirectly against the achievement of this life model will be considered a hostile act against the Sovereign.

Principles

It is difficult to introduce new principles in a Constitution in modern times. The majority of countries forms part of the United Nations and has signed the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, where most, but not all, the principles of government and individual rights can be found. This means that most Constitutions have very similar principles, although they are not exactly the same for each case.

The principles of the Constitution of the virtual country are as follows:

1. The citizen is entitled to political, economic, social and spiritual liberty. Has the power to take independent actions in anything that is not specifically considered illegal by the Constitution.

2. The nation is sovereign.

3. Sovereignty resides in the people and cannot be transferred. The people are the Sovereign and the government is a service that is under the observation and adjustments that the people decide.

4. The Constitution determines the ways in which the people interact with government.

5. The Constitution determines the functions of government, for which the government is responsible; the rest belongs to civil society. The civil society is the realm that is not public; it is the society of citizens in their private relations and activities. The Republic will make use of the subsidiarity principle, by which it is understood that the action of the State is limited to what civil society cannot achieve. The State is the entirety of government agencies of a sovereign country.

6. All laws have to be consistent with the Constitution. The National Assembly or equivalent body in a year’s time will make the necessary adjustments.

7. The rule of law will reign and all citizens and public powers are subjected to it.

8. The texts of the laws of the Republic will be written in terms that the common citizen can understand.

9. The international treaties and agreements that the Republic has or will sign are annexed to the Constitution. The Republic has already signed the Charter of the United Nations. The Republic will not sign new agreements or treaties that collide with these principles.

10. The right to life of the inhabitants of the republic is individual and collective. Whoever destroys or attempts to destroy, or does damage or attempts to do damage the life of others through violent actions or unconstitutional actions will be pursued and punished according to the law, as a measure for the protection of individuals and society, and the possible recovery to society of those who are found guilty.

11. All citizens will be treated equally or similarly in equal or equivalent circumstances. This regards legal treatment and treatment that depends on the discretion of officials. This is a guide for those that administer justice and officials with discretionary power.

12. Citizens are free to travel within the country and out of it, with no more limitations than those imposed by civic behavior.

13. The Republic will maintain with other countries relations based of mutual respect, peace, equality and national interests, as expressed in the Constitution.

Organization of Powers

The analysis of how the different components of the State power have functioned for the achievement of the life model expressed in the Constitution, in the different types of government and at different times, has allowed the determination of which are most important. The analysis has also allowed the visualization of changes whose introduction could contribute to the achievement of better results.

The most basic observation is that the people, the citizen, the inhabitant, being theoretically the Sovereign, after they have chosen a government or a government has been chosen for them, lose most of their power. In most situations the power surrendered by representation is transformed into machinery that is essentially insensitive to the need of achieving an ideal of life expressed in the Constitution. It responds rather to the interests of political parties, important individuals in government, government organizations with economic, political or military power, and financially powerful groups of the private sector.

This observation does not go undetected by the population. The author, who has had opportunities to talk with people of many small communities during his field work, has been surprised by the frequency with which citizens mostly between 40 and 80 years of age, would express their feelings with, “government is the people’s enemy” or “from the government we expect nothing” or “our main enemy is the government” or “the government has not noticed that we are here”. It is evident that the way citizens deliver their power to Government needs change. The change has to ensure that their representatives, at any one time, do what most people want them to do within what is allowed or indicated by the Constitution.

The powers that, in practice, seem to show the most important deviations either directly or indirectly within the central or federal government, in the different types of government and through time are, the Presidency or equivalent, the National Assembly or Congress and equivalents, the National Electoral Council or equivalent, the Supreme Court or equivalent, the Attorney General or equivalent, the Armed Forces, and the Ministry of Education or equivalent.

The reader is asked to note that this impressive list has been constructed by collecting deviations in many countries through many years. It does not mean that any one country has had all deviations listed at any one time; for that matter, it does not mean that a particular country has any deviations at all. An interesting exercise could be to take the last 50 years of one’s country and check if any of the deviations listed can be detected.

For the cases of governments of states, regions, counties, municipalities and equivalent, the deviations against national ideals, although in some cases have been serious, on the whole seem to have been less frequent. This appreciation, in principle, gives support to local governments. In them the citizens have a better opportunity to learn about the candidates proposed for the different posts, express their opinions and claim their rights.

The reminder of this chapter will be devoted to the presentation of the main ideas that support the power structure that favor the ideal of life chosen for this Constitution.

What follows is a long list of activities that will probably be skipped by the reader but that will be useful when analyzing if the government has or has not done its job. It will also serve as a guide or an alert if the government should be encroaching into activities that are not part of its responsibility, thereby increasing the budget and diminishing efficiency. These activities are:

1. To respect and uphold the Constitution.

2. To ensure the defense of the sovereignty and internal peace of the nation.

3. To prepare and approve laws, regulations and norms that help solve existing problems and prevent problems for the future.

4. To administer justice and the prison system.

5. To create and maintain the infrastructure of the official education system and a national system of scholarships.

6. To create and keep up to date a national basic communication system: Libraries, Internet, national television channel, national radio channel, satellites, etc. Its use will be free of charge (with exceptions as needed).

7. To create and maintain the infrastructure of roads, airports, heliports, seaports and mail.

8. To create and maintain an infrastructure for health care: Hospitals, aqueducts, sewers, systems to collect and treat trash, controls for the quality of waters, air and solid waste.

9. To create and maintain a national system for the control of fires and civil defense.

10. To plan and promote a national system for the distribution of energy: Electricity, fuels, etc., that is dependable, efficient and sustainable.

11. To create and maintain a national system of social security, pensions and retirements.

12. To create and maintain the infrastructure for the meetings of the people in states, cities, and towns, to comply with the Citizens’ Union (see the chapter The Citizen for explanation).

13. To create and support an infrastructure for research of government, science, and humanities with public funds, and the collaboration of the private sector. To ensure that the results of research are published and disseminated.

14. To create and maintain an infrastructure for the research in agriculture, livestock, and fishery.

15. To maintain a program for the determination of the natural capital of the nation through systematic studies in botany, mapping, atmospheric science, marine science, energy sciences, geology, geophysics, geography, hydrology, pedology, zoology, et cetera.

16. To create and maintain a national system to monitor the quality of the environment.

17. To create and maintain a research program on the natural risks of the nation.

18. To maintain peaceful and constructive relations with other nations.

19. To create and maintain an infrastructure of national, state and municipal parks, for the enjoyment of citizens and the indefinite conservation of areas of outstanding beauty or scientific and historical importance.

20. To determine the amount and nature of the taxes ...