Other Process Based Reforms
A Vision Of What Else We Can Implement With a Left - Right Coalition
On this page are other process based reforms that could theoretically be used to unite the left and right and produce a much better government. These are in no particular order as different types of people will find some more compelling than others.
The reason these are not part of the main list is because (1) it is necessary not to have a list that is too big from a perspective of being realistic, (2) some of these proposals will be more applicable to some nations than others (i.e. Proposals 9 - 11 are really important for third world nations with a prominent bribery culture), (3) the main list theoretically allows one to elected better representatives that should be able to then accomplish these proposals without as much effort, and (4) the proposals on this page are going to be less universally accepted because there are legitimate objections to many of them.
For example, with Proposal 14: Grand Jury Empowerment, there are a lot of different ways that can be handled. If not done properly, this proposal could lead to miscarriages of justice. But if done properly, it can lead to much better results than an obviously flawed system we have today. There are just too many ways available for corrupt judges to influence cases with the current system.
The same doubts can be said of Proposal 19: Special Judicial Procedures to Deal with Gangs and Cartels. That has to be handled with a lot of care to prevent abuse of power. But anyone living in countries Mexico will tell you, the system there is not working, and it is completely unacceptable for armed thugs to be defacto in control of a government. There has to be a balance, and you need to reform the government itself through the 1984 No More agenda before you can even discuss implementing something like this that needs careful consideration outside of the risk of influence peddling.
But these are the types of things that need to be addressed if we really want to move forward with developing a more just and fair society for the people. And these are proposals that should be able to gain bipartisan support.
Proposal 8: Standing Grand Juries Issuing Ranked Indictments
All criminal indictments will need to go through grand juries of randomly selected citizens. The grand juries will remain standing for a period of time and can hear multiple cases. In addition to a decision to indict or not, there shall be an ordered rank of which cases are most important to go forward. Citizens and private parties can approach these grand juries with evidence of crimes, and the grand jury can assign private investigators or law enforcement personnel to investigate, and if necessary private attorneys to prosecute. Limits inherent in the judicial system such as court time and prison capacity will determine how many of the top ranked slots can go forward for prosecution. Any case not chosen in the top slots can be deferred to the sitting of the next grand jury to rank against cases that are brought before them. Juries will be informed of their right to jury nullification if available (see Proposal 13) and there will be a defendant advocate present to advocate in abstentia for the defense.
Ranked choice with limits prioritizes the most important cases such as murder and theft over victimless crimes and political prosecutions
Reduces the probability that violent offenders are let out early due to prison overcrowding because resources are a consideration upfront
Better trial court resource management increases the government’s ability to preserve a defendant’s right to a speedy trial
The ability of civilians to come forward with evidence and for private investigators and prosecutors to be assigned increases the odds that powerful people with friends in the police and prosecutors offices are prosecuted. This is realistically the only way to old such corrupt individuals accountable, given their ability to bribe and blackmail public officials.
A public advocate helps to prevent the one-sided situation in many cases that allows one to “indict a ham sandwich” because the prosecution can basically say anything completely unchallenged to a grand jury in the status quo.
Proposal 9: Standing Grand Juries for Government Accountability and Mandamus Actions
These are similar structures to Proposal 9 except that these grand juries only hear cases against public officials. Citizens can approach these grand juries with evidence of crimes committed by public officials or with complaints that public officials are breaking the law. These grand juries can then issue swift writs of mandamus actions against corrupt officials, and with super majority votes repeat offenders the juries will be given the power to fire any official in the government including the president for not doing their jobs or corruption. If bosses order government employees to break the law, the jury can take that into account and fire just the boss or both employees (under the theory an illegal order should not be obeyed).
Access to swift mandamus actions without needing to hire council to go before a judge should help citizens with problems arising from corrupt officials demanding bribes
The ability for a jury to fire corrupt officials better holds officials of the executive branch accountable when fraught with corruption that goes all the way to the top
A separate entity for handling crimes against government officials will prioritize abuse of power cases
Citizens are much more likely to rule against government officials versus judges who might be close political allies
Proposal 10: Online Transparent Finances
The government general ledger, including all agencies, state governments, and entities majority controlled by the government, should all be held in a central database that can be accessed by any citizen at any time through an online interface or online software that can be used to access this database. Any classification of national security data should be held to strict standards (see Proposal 15) and only obscure the Payee by replacing it with a unique number for that particular Payee. The money flow amounts should still be visible, so all accounts can be balanced, and no funds are unaccounted for.
Much of this data is considered public information today, but it takes a lot of time not only on behalf of the public to deliver FOIA requests, but also on behalf of employees who might spend extra time sorting the requests. There is no reason this cannot all be online, cutting out the middle man in a modern age.
Transparency will allow outside observers to better account for government tax dollars and quickly identify waste, fraud, and abuse. Political opponents in particular will be well incentivized to point out abuse in election campaigns. This should serve as a deterrent to fraud.
Data like this will allow voters and legislators to make better informed decision on budgets
Proposal 11: First in First Out Applications Enforced by Software
Governments are tasked with approving a lot of documentation such as migrant applications and business licenses. Under this proposal, a software system will be set up to issue these licenses with digitally signed time stamps based on the work of government officials. The software enforces provisions that prevent an application that was submitted later in time from being approved before any submitted earlier. There can be timed stoppages that can account for having to send for some certification by an outside agency; however, the application comes back in to its place in line after that certification is granted. This same software will be used for people and political opponents to see real time efficacy of the staff, including statistics as to how long applications take to be processed.
This prevents officials from “mothballing” applications to extract bribes. The software prevents the official from being able to arbitrarily move an application to the front of the line if a bribe is paid.
The public can get real time feedback on the efficiency of the officials. Any bribery operations if not stopped by the computer would become apparent from the shape of the time to approval distribution.
Proposal 12: Direct Election of Cabinet Officials
The position of president or prime minister will be eliminated. Cabinet officials of major departments will be elected directly. A committee of cabinet officials, the legislature itself, or a jury of citizens can be put in place to facilitate coordination between departments when there are meaningful disputes between department heads. Important less than Cabinet level departments could also be directly elected. A public relations office will take on the public facing duties of a president in terms of communications to the public. This person can serve as the “inspiration” for the nation that people often want in a President, without the person having any real power. However, each cabinet official has the right to have their own press offices contradict any lie told by the public relations office.
Presidents have too much power. The veto power should be taken away (see citizen’s line item veto) and executive power should be divided up to decrease the probability of creating an executive dictatorship.
People have different areas of expertise. Someone good in business might be a horrible negotiator in foreign affairs or a horrible military leader. People should be selected based on their area of expertise, not based on who has a close relationship with the president who happened to be elected because he had the backing of moneyed interests or charisma.
It is harder to buy off multiple people than one important person seeking nationwide office.
Citizens have different preferences of leaders for different positions in government. Those preferences should be reflected in cabinet positions.
Security and Secret Service protection for one person is a waste of money. No one person should be that important in any nation. If that person needs such special protection at taxpayer expense, then the person has too much power. One possible exception is important military leaders in a time of war.
A public relations officer can serve what we really want to have from a president: open lines of communication, charisma, and inspiration. People with that sort of stature in the public eye should have the least real political power. Adolph Hitler might have been a great orator able to inspire masses of people, but he was the last person you want to have any real power.
Proposal 13: Jury Nullification and Explicit Instructions Towards Those Ends
People are given the right to trial by jury, particularly in criminal cases. In cases involving politicians and powerful people that might be able to buy off judges, they should be mandatory as determined by the grand jury issuing the indictment. Instructions to the jury in each case will explicitly include that they can judge both the facts and the law of the case.
The right to trial by jury prevents corrupt judges from sentencing innocent people to jail
Jury nullification prevents unjust laws from being applied to individuals on trial. For example, jury nullification prevented a lot of fugitive slave laws from being enforced prior to the US Civil War. Such should be less of a problem after the 1984 No More Agenda is passed; however, it will take time to get rid of all the unjust laws on the books through the sunset clauses. This will serve as a supplement to Standing Grand Juries in preventing such bad laws from being enforced.
Judges often actively prevent juries from knowing about their right to jury nullification in the US despite the fact that the first Supreme Court Justice John Jay acknowledged jury nullification was a key feature of US jurisprudence. Therefore we need detailed instructions stated to every jury letting them know regardless of what the judge says, they have the right to determine both the facts and the law.
Proposal 14: Jury Empowerment
Juries are given much more responsibility during the trial process. Juries will be selected randomly without input from judges. Juries will hear and decide on all motions. Juries can directly ask questions of the judge, the lawyers, and the witnesses in open court. The judge is just there to maintain order and serve as an advisor to the jury.
A corrupt judge can influence a jury case by rulings what evidence gets withheld and what a jury can see. They can also dismiss a case against a powerful person before the jury even hears the case
It is easier to corrupt one person with a bribe than a group of random people not necessarily having political connections
Justice in a case is more important than perceived procedural correctness. Juries asking questions can help them clarify things in their minds and bring up things that lawyers do not think about. It will also help clients in cases where one side or the other are paid to “throw a case.”
The idea a judge can be unbiased, despite a greater likelihood of being approached for a bribe, and a jury cannot be is absurd. If a judge can hear arguments impartially, then a jury should be able to. Most court procedures treat juries as if they are infants unable to reason or objectively consider facts.
Jury selection has become a farce. A jury of ones peers includes “everyone” including their inherent biases. If someone has been falsely accused of a crime because they have been falsely targeted by their race, that is a perspective that should not be automatically excluded from a jury. That is a real world experience that can inform a decision. There is no such thing as a completely unbiased person. A better way of selecting juries is randomly selecting them and then having a two standard deviation (95%) majority decision (the exact percentage can be debated) needed for conviction to account for in some cases having people that are too biased to make a decision or those that are outright bribed. Plaintiffs and defendants who have unlimited money to spend on jury consultants should not get an unfair leg up in a jury proceeding.
Proposal 15: Hard Restrictions on Classified Materials with Mechanisms to Prosecute Overclassification
Overclassifying becomes just as much of a crime as leaking classified materials. A board shall be set up of officials from different cabinet offices with security clearances to review classified materials. This can also include one or more officials with security officials elected publicly as transparency advocates. Any officials from the office that made the classification will get a vote, only those from other departments. If something is classified when it should not be - such as actions that are embarrassing to the government - the committee can decide to declassify it and recommend prosecution of the official that classified it. In any criminal suit brought against someone for distributing classified information, the person classifying it shall also be judged by the jury. This way prosecution for distribution of classified materials carries just as much risk to the government officials as the person who made the classified materials public.
Governments around the world classify stuff that is embarassing or hides actual crimes committed by the government. A brief examination of Wikileaks and Snowden materials shows this to be the case.
The only way to keep this from happening is to hold government officials accountable
Whistleblowers will be more empowered to go public with materials that hide government crimes knowing the government will be unlikely to prosecute given the risk the people responsible for the overclassification are more likely go to jail in cases of clear abuse of power
There need to be clear guidelines on what can and cannot be classified so only the most sensitive materials such as military capabilities and vulnerabilities are classified.
Proposal 16: Dual Cameras on All Law Enforcement Officials
All law enforcement officials shall wear at least two recording devices showing different perspectives when interfacing with the public and conducting their duties. The recordings shall be timestamped and digitally signed at the end of each day or shift. If both devices malfunction, then any arrest or investigation they do in such a state is invalidated.
Police officer corruption does happen, and a friend of mine who was a cop has personally told me police officers routinely lie on the stand to get a conviction, even when it is not necessary. In fact, I have been told a few horror stories including about police officers shooting one of their own when an officer was making too much noise about department corruption. In another cops found a lot of cash at a house, then the chief of police told everyone to get out of the house, and was later seen going into that same house right after. There have been cops who have made the news having been caught planting drug evidence when they did not realize their cameras were on.
It is much harder to fake video from two simultaneous perspectives, and the odds of both cameras going out at the same time is astronomical outside of some type of electromagnetic pulse (and exceptions can be written into the law for such situations).
It is particularly important to have these measures with victimless crimes where there is no victim to give testimony. The government can easily plant material such as drugs, child pornography, classified documents, and illegal weapons at a person’s house and prosecute them if they want to get rid of a whistleblower or political activist. This is another reason most of these victimless crimes should be eliminated; but, until that happens you need to at least put in place measures to try to prevent abuse.
Proposal 17: Local Empowerment
The vast majority of laws should be made at the most locally elected offices. The national government should have limited authority. This was embodied in the way the US Constitution was drafted with limited enumerated powers to the general government and under the 10th amendment all other powers were delegated to the states. US judges and legislatures refuse to adhere to the Constitution right now, so these protections have been rendered completely useless. But this is what each nation should put into place.
People can vote with their feet. If their state or city votes a policy they find abhorrent they can simply move. You can have more left leaning jurisdictions and right leaning jurisdictions, and they can leave each other in peace based on the desires of the citizens in that region. You get civil division and civil war when a large national or international authority tries to impose its vision on everyone.
Centralization lends itself towards tyranny. This is a debatable statement because you can find both national and local level examples of corruption. However, in general, if you want tyranny it better serves your ends to buy off the officials at the very top. The fewer in control the better. For example, the EU parliament has made national parliaments largely irrelevant. You just have to buy off EU officials and you can impose your dictates on all of Europe. This is why the large corporations and elite are promoting “globalism” and treaties such as the Trans Pacific Partnership that will give corporations more power than national governments. You can have a prosperous “interconnected global economy” without central control over those economies by the elite. The latter is what we must reject.
Local jurisdictions are where you can experiment with democracy. Try out different economic and social policies and see what works best. For example, there are many ways to do “jury empowerment.” We will need to try several different versions in the real world to see what works best. But if you just impose one version on the entire world, it will be harder to figure out if that is the best system for the future.
Proposal 18: Upper Houses Constituted by Locally Appointed Officials
Instead of national Senators directly elected by the people, they will be selected by the States. Instead of state Senators directly elected by the people, they will be selected by the counties. This is to enforce the provisions of Proposal 17. This is a check against national power that was eliminated by the United States with the adoption of the 17th amendment. There are several ways Senators can be selected: appointment by governor, election by one or both houses, or even nomination by either and ratified by a vote of the people. You can also set up a system where a Senator’s vote yes on any bill has to be confirmed by one of both houses of the state legislature.
This allows one to ensure that the national government’s laws do not impose unfunded mandates on the lower governments and does not violate the rights of the local governments as established by proposal 17.
In the status quo, most upper body leaders have too much authority, making them prime targets for influence operations. Their votes carry more weight than those of House members, and their terms are longer. One can take away that authority by giving more direct authority over their vote by the entire legislature of the body that appoints them and allowing them to be replaced at will by the lower government.
Proposal 19: Special Judicial Procedures to Deal with Gangs and Cartels
National referendums with a supermajority vote (i.e. 62%-90%) to conduct military operations against gangs, drug cartels, and terrorist operations that might not be able to be handled by conventional means. Such a vote can be called for by a standing Grand Jury in determining a given crime or series of crimes where it is feared the perpetrator will threaten to kill judges, jurors, or politicians if a prosecution is made. Prosecutors and legislators could also be given this authority. Before any vote, evidence justifying the actions should be presented to the public, and it should be an extreme measure done only in the most necessary circumstances since there is a concern about the rights of those accused or the politicization of the procedure.
In countries like Mexico, drug cartels are arguably more powerful than the government itself. In such cases normal judicial means of law enforcement are unlikely to be successful.
When authorized kinetic actions such as bombing the living quarters of cartel members by the air force or organizing citizen’s militias and posses to take out the cartles nationwide can be used to overcome intimidation by the cartels.
Proposal 20: Criminal Prosecutions for Violation of Individual Rights in Certain Circumstances
Sovereign immunity is removed for public officials deliberately violating individual rights, and they should be given actual jail time for certain egregious violations. All juries will be given the power to impose such penalities on prosecutors, police officers, or other officials for such abuse of power.
Often law enforcement officials get away with blatant abuses of civil procedure to get a person put in jail. When caught, usually the most that happens is the person is releasd from jail without any accountability for those who were responsible for offenses such as deliberately withholding exculpatory evidence to get a conviction. At best some are held civilly liable after a privately funded lawsuit.
Only if there is realistic chance of being held personally responsible for abuse of one’s rights will such abuses be kept in check
Proposal 20 necessitates a special procedure like Proposal 19. Unfortunately, in the real world, using standard procedures to go after paramilitary drug cartel organizations only results in the unnecessary deaths of a lot of cops. In these cases cops should not have to chose between going to jail themselves and eliminating a real threat to the peace and safety of a nation.
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