Just when I think we have covered all possible minutia of govt, you think of something else that needs to be gone over!
I do like what you have written about the limits on what can be taken away during an “emergency”, but I particularly like this part: (d) Any emergency decree may be overturned by citizen referendum or congressional vote at any time.
It is quite unfortunate that we have to think this way, but currently if an emergency is declared anywhere in the world, my first thought is: is there actually an emergency there or is this just a power-grab or psyop by some monied “elite” group?
I don’t quite know what you mean when you say “on-chain”… I have done a lot with crypto and when someone references the technical part of “blockchain” it generally (to me) looks like a bunch of “matrix” style gobleygoop that is unreadable except for a blockchain technical expert. Why not just say that it must be easily accessible on the govts website.
Govt websites creators have so far been given unlimited freedom on what they choose to publish there or not publish. Why not have strict reporting requirements for all things in govt? And have punishments for failure to do so.
I realize you created this policy to apply to how LL is currently operating, but I wonder how an emergency would be handled under the ideal govt structure, a digital direct democracy… A citizen vote of __% to declare the emergency? A vote on a list of prepared methods on how to counteract the emergency? Who would be eligible to write the options to counteract it?
Thank you for the complement! My logic behind saying on chain is so there is an immutable record of who, what, when, where, so there cannot be any funny business. Under your logic of saying publishing on the website isn’t always updated frequently to the point where if an actual emergency were to occur it may be overlooked. We could say that it must be published in the official app instead.
Your digital direct democracy idea is certainly thought provoking, the only issue depending on the type of emergency, time could be crucial if a volcano eruption or an earthquake occurred. I want to say there should be a few different triggers particularly for natural disasters of mass destruction. It should be a small percentage that can petition it to be started because let’s say in an earthquake the entire digital infrastructure could be down and only those that are not directly impacted may be able to activate the emergency. That is a good question and there should be several ways to get the emergency declaration activated but haven’t had enough time to figure out what all options there should be yet.
I really think though that government should play a minimal role in emergencies and should only act as a liaison or a gathering central place for private businesses like the Red Cross and others to coordinate their efforts into a unified structure. I have had emergency management experience having been a county Assistant Emergency Coordinator for the Volusia County Amateur Radio Emergency Service back over a decade ago and know first hand that if the government were to step aside private charity, businesses and communities do a much better job. Where I lived at it was a rural community and people didn’t wait for others to show up they went out and cleaned the debris as soon as the hurricane left the area.
Well the blockchain still takes a human to sit at a computer and type stuff into it, it’s no different than the govt website. Perhaps there should be a stream of outgoing info and all govt personnel are authorized to publish posts of a short length to the outgoing stream. It doesn’t really matter the venue (blockchain, govt website, twitter, instagram).
I wonder if this could drastically affect accountability if even a govt clerk is authorized to post publicly. It should say the person’s position so that the public can judge how it wants to take the info. If a low-level govt clerk can publish directly to the public that there is an abuse of power, it could curtail a lot of the bad actions that get swept under the rug that happens within govt.
I previously wrote about how I witnessed a disagreement at a public meeting where a county official had sold a govt tractor to himself at a huge discount and the head county official was calling him out in the meeting and peer-pressuring him to sell the tractor back to the govt. Even though it technically happened in a public meeting with recorded minutes that are forever on file, no one in the public bothers to look at such things. But if the clerk at that meeting posted to the govts social media stream that this official was potentially scamming the govt for money, there probably would have been dozens of people calling in complaints and attempting to have that official arrested.
On the topic of emergency management, we might need to classify emergencies into routine and unique. Our normal govt systems respond well to routine emergencies. If there is a fire, the municipal fire chief or ranking Forest service official is in charge, with other agencies in support roles. If there is a shooting, law enforcement is in charge with other agencies in support roles. It is the unique emergencies, like a supposed vicious “virus” that is dropping people dead on the street, where the public may need to take the reigns from idiotic officials.
Your points about disclosing who is actually making a particular statement I think is very bold and necessary, it’s like a backdoor whistleblower that is there if it is needed.
The biggest issue I am trying to curb with the policy I have created is the extraordinary “emergencies” like the global “illness” from 2020 from ever being the end all be all super powers that gives around the world pushed for.
Well you are right on in your thinking that this is necessary. The digital direct democracy could always be there to wrestle control away from idiotic/corrupt officials if evidence starts saying it is necessary.
I have another story of corruption that came to mind from this thread. A battalion chief of a small fire dept in TX was putting himself in for hours worked that he didn’t work, and he was verbally abusive to subordinates to keep them on edge and protect his shady dealings.
Not really that wild of a situation, it should have been able to be sorted out pretty easily. Only the head chief refused to take any action (not sure exactly why) so the situation dragged on for many months. It took the entire staff signing a petition that said that they would all quit if the chief didn’t fire that bad battalion chief. And he was finally fired, but it was pretty traumatic for the guys to have to put their jobs on the line. And the guy that got fired still got away with all the embezzled money he took, and if he hadn’t been verbally abusive, he probably never even would have been fired and would have had a 20 year career embezzling $10-20K every year.
Another story in my periphery was a chief of a 50 employee fire dept who started hiring his family members until 5 of the 50 were his family members. The personnel brought it up many times and nothing was done. It took the story leaking to the city news before the chief voluntarily quit.
I just bring up these stories to say that I ran across corruption/embezzlement several times in just the 5-10 fire and EMS depts I had connections to. Imagine how often these types of things happen across the country every year. And most of the time it’s not very well hidden. People know what’s going on, but they don’t know what to do about it.
Sorry to make this all about these stories, they’ve just been on my mind for years.