The Peoples Council
Part 1 - Protection
Publish Date - 25th July 2023 - 4020 Words
Larry held the mic and began speaking.
"A good way to clearly see my idea is to take a look at what we have now.
Currently the responsibility and duty of protecting people and maintaining peace has fallen to a small group of thugs called the police.
Per individual, they rank as the most effective criminals the world has ever seen.
Strange that we rely on the people who cause the most crime to protect us from crime.
And look, I’m not having a dig at police here.... well actually I am as someone has to say it like it really is.
Most reasonable people are scared shitless of cops.
They see a cop on the road and they instantly have heart palpitations.
Most people only follow ‘the rules’ because they are scared of getting fines or assualted by police.
Most of us good blokes and gals are far more worried about the coppers than about any other unorganised criminals.
It’s the organised criminals who are always the most dangerous.
Some people say, 'I saw a cop doing something good once' they aren't all bad'.
You know, I once saw a man who was famous in the southern part of this country for being a brutal biker.
A gangster who tortured people who didn't pay up.
I saw him help an old lady carry her groceries to her car one day.
This was undoubtedly a good deed.
But did it excuse all the other crime he committed and make up for it all?
Well of course not.
He was still a gangster, he had just done one good deed.
Which is better than nothing, but it would be better if he stopped being a gangster all together!
There is no such thing as a good cop. Just like there is no such thing as a good rapist, a good carjacker or a good serial killer.
Except a cop is much worse, as their actions are legitimised and have public approval as noble and honourable.
Rapists and serial killers don't usually work in organised groups with an array of the latest weapons and equipment.
It's much easier to stop a lone rapist or murderer than it is to stop an organised gang such as the police. This is why the police are by far the most dangerous threat to any peaceful individuals or societies.
Overall, people who engage is such evil behaviour are bad people.
They may do good things from time to time, but their general philosophy towards life and other people is immoral and objectively wrong.
But look, they’re also victims of the same trickery we’ve all fallen for at some point or another.
The best way to defeat an enemy is to turn them into friends.
Yes, at the moment, the police are our enemies, that’s just the harsh truth.
We all know who they work for and it sure as heck ain’t us.
They only follow orders from politicians who write the laws, they don't give a damn about morlaity or doing the right thing, all they care about is ensuring they have a paycheck and the way they do that is by being obedient.
But, it may be possible to befriend these people and bring them back to the light side.
We owe it to ourselves to try at any rate.
I mean it will take a better man or woman than me to convince the police to stop serving the dark side, but hey, someone has to try, just not me!
If there are any coppers in the room now, please don’t hit me with your whacky sticks, I have a freedom of speech and ain’t hurting anyone, calm down.
Anyways, enough about my rant.”
The crowd laughed.
“Back to the structure of what happens today.
Whenever there’s trouble, instead of people resolving issues themselves or calling their neighbours to help, they call upon a central command to come and save the day.
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it could be better.
If a fight broke out down the street in front of a bar, normally people call the police to break it up and then to arrest and detain the two fellas.
They then take them through a lengthy judicial proceeding that ends up punishing them both through fines or even locking them into a cage.
Instead of going down that route, which might only discourage further fights because of fear of punishment, we use a different method.
And for the record, before I continue, I want to state that I do not support the idea of punishment and revenge, I stand by rehabilitation, resolution, remedy and rectification.
The R system Alex was talking about.
Even for those dirty
coppers, yes even you bastards deserve the right to be rehabilitated. Maybe, that is up for serious debate I have to admit as their crimes are worse than the average petty criminal.
If all of the above doesn't work, then and only then may punishment be an option, although this would be in very rare cases and not the standard practice.
Ok, back to the fight example, Say for instance that same fight broke out in front of the bar.
Instead of calling the police, the people around the fight break it up, which to be fair, does happen frequently even today.
The friends and surrounding people break up the fight and then insist that the two brawlers actually continue the fight, surprising I know, but hear me out.
They suggest to continue the fight, but not right now.
They suggest to go to the towns martial arts facility the next day when they’re sober so they can punch it out in the ring, which is a controlled environment.
What’s likely to happen is that by the next day, the alcohol has worn off and they don't want to fight anymore, or if they do, they go to the centre, fight the other guy with gloves on in a ring with a ref and certain rules that make sure they don't accidentally kill or maim each other.
Or there could be dedicated 24/7 boxing rings located near a cities bar district which they head to right away.
There's also a high chance through this experience they are able to actually drop their differences and become mates.
It’s weird I know, but men can be strange.
Beating each other up has been known to bring many a men together.
All this ‘I’m going to sue you’ nonsense only breeds hate.
So that's one example of not needing police and how community protection does not have to be literal people volunteering to fit a role and function.
Community protection can be embedded into society through clever ideas and technical solutions like this.
Although of course it’s better to prevent the fight from happening in the first place, which can be done when one looks themselves in the mirror and figures out their shit.
Also better education about the dangers and downsides of alcohol and more intelligent entertainement options other than behaving like idiots.
Plus a town full of people volunteering their time to help is also useful.
Another big factor is to give responsibility back to the people.
If you see something happening in front of you that is wrong, you have the right to do what you can to stop it then and there, if you have the courage, confidence and skill to handle a situation, then do so.
Modern society has programmed us that we are not allowed to step in and resolve situations and it has to be done by “professionals”, lest we be punished for trying to do the right thing.
Obviously if a situation is to be handled by an amateur or a professional, it's always better to opt for the professional, but in real life, matters can be time relevant and a pro may not be available and action taken by an amateur is better than no action.
Not everyone has the confidence or skills to resolve violent situations, but you sure feel a lot more confident stepping into a situation when you know your initiative will be backed up by all the others around you who are inspired to help because of your initial bravery.
Instead of calling the police when you hear a domestic dispute next door, you knock on your neighbours door to grab some back up then head over to the disputing house and assist where you can.
That’s what police do anyways, they are just people like you and me, they are not special.
The idea of community protection is 5 pronged.
I’ll slowly get around to explaining all 5 points, one step at a time.
First is to
implement better technical solutions such as encouraging fights to
take place in the ring or by having better educational programs about alcohol or by inspiring different forms of entertainment which don't revolve around drugs and booze.
Second is to encourage people to take more action themselves and to become more responsible for the things they care about, such as community protection and peoples safety. Essentially empowering the common man to work in the name of justice when their is an absolute need.
When people in the community are aware of the Lore & morality in general and feel empowered to step up and do the right thing, we’ll see a lot more good people ready to take action then in society now.
Compare having only a small group of people dedicated to town safety and security, such as the police, compared to everyone in the town dedicated to safety and security, it’s an absolute no contest.
Third is to copy the idea of the police, the system where you have a group of volunteers dedicated to community protection, and instead of using that system for harm, population control and political enforcement, that group of volunteers act out the idea that police are meant to represent.
To protect the innocent and peaceful.
With the third idea, what we could do is have people volunteer to be part of the towns Community Protectors.
There would be no rank or hierarchy, only people with more experience and skill and some with less.
Hierarchy is only necessary when it is required. Hierarchy is only required when the purpose of an organisation or group cannot be successfully achieved without hierarchy.
If a project or purpose of an organisation would lead to chaos without hierarchy, then it's needed.
If hierarchy leads to increased order and effectiveness, then it is required.
As we have seen demonstrated, hierarchy in groups that involve force, such as police, only leads to more chaos and tyranny.
This is why it is so important to structure Community Protectors in a way that they can effecitvely operate without needing hierarchy.
The nature of Community Protectors are individuals who work as decentrlaised members part of an organisation that operates on centralised principles.
Every individual who volunteers to be a Community Protector would be doing so as a volunteer who is not getting paid and who can quit at any time.
They would all be trained on Objective Morality and would receive special martial arts training that can be used to break up fights with the least possible damage to the opponent.
They would not be following the orders of anyone else.
They would all use their own initiative to work together and to make the best judgement calls they can for each situation.
There would be no one who controls all of the community protection volunteers and who has ‘authority” to tell them what to do.
Instead of a lion commanding a herd of sheep, it’s like having a pride of alpha lions working together.
Are you really alpha if you can’t work co-operatically with other alphas?”
“They all act independently and only respond to injustices committed in front of them and to calls from people requiring extra help.
Which to be frank, if we do this right, or even close to right, calls should be once in a blue moon.
That’s how we measure success.
If we keep getting calls from people needing help, obviously things need improving, don’t they?”
People nodded in agreement.
“If no one in a town call’s for help, must be a pretty safe and respectable town aye?”
A gentleman at the front said “Seem’s obvious when you put it like that…”
“That’s right, this ain’t rocket science.
It’s all a piece of cake when you deprogram the nonsense those greedy buffoons have conditioned us to believe.
To be very clear, an injustice is only when a lore of morality is breached and there is a clear victim.
If you were to safely pass through an empty intersection, except there was a red light, why on earth should you be punished for that?
Nothing happened, except you safely drove through an intersection!
There needs to be either a victim, someone that was very close to being a victim or the intention to cause a victim, for there to be an injustice.
Let me say that again.
If you didn't hurt someone, didn't come close to hurting someone and had no intention of hurting anyone, then no injustice has occurred.
Sure there may be some fine details about specific situations, which Objective Morality as a whole covers, but for now I hope you get the point.
The point is, for there to be a crime, there must be a victim.
Think about all the times when you’ve been punished when you didn’t commit a crime.
Now try and tell me we don’t desperately need change…”
A man that had called out earlier called out once more “You can say that again!”
The crowd cheered and clapped.
Larry continued without skipping a beat.
“Every volunteer who would like to join the community protectors would have to pass specific tests to show that they know the difference between right and wrong and are unable to become corrupted.
As any peoples biggest threat is always from approved and legitimised military forces that start off as protection groups like this.
Just look at the current police force, they have become the greatest threat to our freedom and well being that exists.
Unless you live in a peaceful oil rich country without a central bank, then it’s foreign armies that are your biggest threat.
So how can we ensure we have a safe town that is able to deal with fights, domestic violence, disputes and the main issue, protect ourselves from organised terrorist forces like police and other government alphabet agencies, CIA, FBI and all the rest?
So step 1 is implementing better ideas for problems. Or as some nowadays say, ‘technical solutions’.
Step 2 is everyone stepping up and doing their part, no matter how big or small. Every single voice of reason counts, more than you know I’d say.
I want to give you a quick example here.
If a mans beating up his wife and the whole street comes to the house to intervene, even the little old lady saying ‘no stop that’ is going to make an impact on the husband changing his behaviour.
The more people of the same mind standing and speaking for justice, the more likely that justice will prevail.
The standard you walk past and ignore is the standard you accept.
Step 3 is to start a volunteer based community protection service.
Step 4 is to try and win police and military to our side and join the good guys.
Step 4 will be the hardest to implement, but if we work together, it may be possible to show them that there is a better way.
Now, another strategy to improve town safety, that many people may find controversial, is gun ownership.
Carrying guns is part of step 1 as its a technical solution for maintaining peace and preventing crime.
Gun ownership is not as scary a thing as many people may think.
The opposite is actually far scarier, not being able to own a gun.
Imagine only the bad guys being able to have access to weapons. Not good!
You see, owning a gun and knowing how to use it evens the playing field.
“Now Alberta” The elderly lady in the front row waved “is able to defend herself from a 100kg man who may be trying to rob her.”
Alberta said “Oh I pity the fool who comes to my home and try’s to burgle me!”
The crowd laughed loudly.
“Without guns, crime can be very one sided to whoever is bigger and stronger.
The bad guys don't care about rules or laws or morals and values.
If they are going to commit crime, they may use a gun if they feel it will help them perform crime better.
The only way to really deal with this threat is to have more guns in the hands of the good guys.
The media tries to make it appear that the wild wild west in America was a wild place to live because everyone had guns.
Not true.
When everyone has a gun, the likelihood of crime drops significantly.
If you were a criminal, would you be more or less likely to try and rob a house if you knew that they would be armed?
Look at Switzerland now.
Most people have a semi-automatic rifle in their homes and crime
is virtually zero from what I've heard.
Now, I’m not suggesting just anyone can get a gun.
What I am suggesting is that you be required to pass a psychological profile to make sure you are of healthy mind and know when to use a gun and when not to.
You’d obviously
have to thoroughly understand Objective Morality.
You could get your ticket through any qualified psychologist who is trained in gun profiling, then you need to pass a physical workshop which educates and trains you how to use firearms safely.
When I first got my gun license, there was none of this. No psych profile, no practical training, no morality checking, nothing.
Of course, bad guys could still get guns, but it would be much more difficult.
The current system now for gun control is a laughable bunch of amateurs.
Our system will be far more professional than what we've seen so far.
What I’m suggesting is a big step up in safety compared to what we do now and it also increases more freedom by allowing people to have access to any and all types of weapons and it increases safety of the town by putting everyone on the same playing field.
Bad guys are going to have guns regardless of the rules or laws.
The best way to solve this is to have more good guys with guns.
The more good guys with guns, the less likely bad guys with guns will use them.
Of course, as always it would be your choice whether you own and carry a gun.
This is also a massive deterrent for foreign invaders.
If a foreign military were attempting to invade and occupy, it would be much much harder for them to do so if every able bodied man and woman owned military grade hardware and had at least basic weapons training.
Instead of only relying on a small group of people part of a centralised army to protect us, which is normally less that 1% of the population, we could have the whole population armed.
If that’s not a deterrent to foreign invaders, then I don't know what is!
Along the topic of militaries and weapons, I also suggest we form a local militia.
This would be full of volunteers who would like to form our own local army, air force or navy, depending on our resources.
This local militia will reflect the same values that the rest of the community does.
Based upon voluntarism, respect, objective morality, real democracy and team work.
Now, in an organisation like the militia, a hierarchy does become more important.
Hierarchy is not
always a bad thing. It’s just that in reality, a hierarchy is not needed as often as it's utilised nowadays.
When I say hierarchy I mea as in “You better do what I say now otherwise we are all screwed” kinda hierarchy.
If we’re on a ship and a storms coming and the captain says “All sails set to starboard” yet you try sail to port, well we’re going to have a problem.
If a squad leader in combat says “Hold here and provide covering fire for bravo team to approach from the east” but you decide to charge in from the west, well you may get blue on blued.
Killed by friendlies.
Sometimes a hierarchy is necessary.
But it should be based on skill, experience and respect.
Just because someone has more skill and experience does not mean they are a better person and suddenly have the right to treat you like a piece of shit.
That would be proving they are the one wrong person for the job of being the leader now wouldn't it?
Military structure and captaining ships are some of the rare exceptions.
Project specific leadership, related to the town completing community projects, is different from this kind of hierarchy, as you can quit anytime without dire consequences.
So it’s more consensual agreement to respect the leader and follow their lead.
Now, this militia is made purely from volunteers.
You would not get paid and you could leave at anytime.
You could train as often or as infrequently as you would like.
Everyone would be treated with respect.
To gain rank, you must be voted into position by the people around you.
You cannot just automatically be given a position higher than your comrades.
You must earn it and you can be voted out of that position of leadership at any time.
If these ideas spread, then every town would form their own local militia.
This way, no one militia can have too much power.
Instead of having one giant army controlled by one general and only in specific geographical areas like military bases in capital cities, you would have lots of smaller militia centres everywhere, in every town.
This is also a huge deterrent against foreign militaries.
It’s much harder to invade a country that has armed forces everywhere then it is to invade a country that has armed forces only in certain key areas.
We could have all
the best tech, hardware, vehicles and equipment we can build.
Budget wouldn't be an issue on what gear we could have, especially when reach step 10, a moneyless society and have advanced automation working for us.
Before we reach that stage of Utopian development, we will build or trade for whatever we need to have modern weapons, ammunition, equipment and vehicles.
All this would simply be for the ‘just in case scenario’ that a neighboring town, city or country goes mad and wants to attack us.
At least we can defend ourselves.
Again, we keep the militia decentralised to local towns and communities.
No one individual should have power over all the militias, that’s when bad things start to happen, like the military being used against the people or being used to invade other peaceful countries.
Well it's not specifically because of that, tyranny and dictatorships happen because of bad philosophies, but it makes it much easier for tyranny to occur when there is a rigid and unquestionable chain of command.
To summarise those 5 steps of community protection once again.
Step one – Technical solutions
Step two – Responsibility & initiative
Step three – Organised protection
Step four – Convert and invite
Step five – Militia
I think that’s going to be enough for today.
Who here would be interested joining a committee for brain storming ideas about community protection?
About 70 men and 50 women raised their hands.
Great, the more the merrier, it’s always good to get different points of view.
I’ll
be holding a meeting on Tuesday night here at 7pm to discuss these
ideas further with anyone who is interested.
I hope to see you there.
Chiefs & Indians
Rebecca walked back onto the stage.
“Great work Larry, excellent ideas and I hope we can implement this as soon as possible.
I know I’ll personally feel a lot safer when we have more community protectors and less police.
Let’s hope we can work together and make this happen.
Ok everyone, that’s it for the formal presentations.
I’d like to add this before we cut to a break.
There is a saying that exists for when things are not getting done right and people are competing to be in charge.
‘There’s too many chiefs and not enough Indians’.
The best way to achieve success is to know when to be a chief and when to be an Indian.
If you’re great at software development, perhaps it’s best you become a chief in that area.
But if you suck at sewerage and waste management, perhaps it’s best to be an Indian.
There is no shame in being less skilled than another in a particular field.
There is shame when pretending to be the best when you’re not.
If you try and be the chief of all things, you may become an Indian before you know it.
Learn to lead when it’s your time to lead.
Learn to support when it’s your time to support.
The leaders can’t lead with no one to lead and the supporters can’t support with no one to support.
They are both equally valuable.
As you can see, I’m not a fan of the term ‘follower’ as it tends to imply one who does not think and merely follows.
Whereas to be a supporter, you must really know what you are supporting.
I really am glad to see so many supporters of the Utopian idea here tonight.
Let’s take a break now and resume in 30 minutes for anyone who would like to take the stage.
Thank you all for being such wonderful participants in building our new society, I’m so excited and can’t wait to see where this takes us.”
The crowd clapped and cheered and heartily started to enjoy the break, chatting excitedly amongst each other.