Citizens Prerogative

Episode discussion topics

• This represents part 5 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50.
• Leading by example by going all-in on converting to a new economy for climate's sake.
• We can no longer rely on endlessly increasing profits, waste, and carbonization for shareholders' sake. We need to build clean local economies, live in the doughnut of sustainability, and think full circle about resource use.
• This new economy will offer the freedom of choice as to when and where you participate in the corporate concrete jungle, start your own business, or do something more creative. Learn more about how this could be possible by revisiting S3 E52 | P2: Right to A Minimum Standard of Living.
• The end game is that we all get to live a collaborative and fulfilling life within the means of our communities and our biosphere. No more borrowing against future generations for the greed of those alive today.
• The transition begins by focusing on four major areas of reform...
• Area 1: Legislation and law enforcement:
  • Enforcing anti-trust laws. Small business is better business.
  • Promoting tax policies that enable small, local, sustainable, resilient, community-oriented, businesses and institutions for the common good.
  • Promoting the replacement of fossil fuels and old-school industrialization with sustainable and renewable systems for life-support's sake.
  • Provide programs to make every home self-sustainable and grid-independent for resiliency's sake.
• Area 2: Promote government policies with a focus on relationships with the community. This includes things like:
  • Policies that provide for caregiving at the beginning and end of life in an integrated community way.
  • Policies that establish systems to help facilitate people's role transitions throughout life. Managing a multipronged career path.
  • Role transitions include things like serving as an apprentice, creator, follower, leader, teacher, and mentor. Some may be taken on simultaneously.
• Area 3: Government needs to make resources available to spur advancements in new ways to conduct business and also encourage more sustainable ownership structures like worker-owned cooperatives, credit unions, and other types of non-profits.
• Area 4: Add stakeholder seats to company boards that represent the interests of:
  • Employees of the company or their union.
  • Regulatory oversight agencies by industry, for example: financial, environmental, agriculture, aerospace, and health.
  • Department of the Treasury would be seated any time there is government ownership or equity stake in a company.
• Calls to Action:
  • Consider how you or your children might be benefitted from such an economy and have the freedom of how and when to participate in the capitalist parts of our system.
  • Consider how you might transition between the roles we described.  Also, think about how might you want your children to experience roles in their lives.
  • The Atlantic has published a thought-provoking article on the value of sabbaticals, an idea that we highlight during this episode. Check it out: What Is Life Like When We Subtract Work From It?
  • Learn more about doughnut economics and the steps you can take towards living sustainably for our posterity's sake. Check it out: S2 E25 | New Economics a la Doughnut.

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr.

More info

• We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's  page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors.
  
• Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook.
  
• Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors.

Learn more and reach out

• Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment.
• Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon.
• Please contact us with any questions or suggestions.
  

Episode discussion topics

• This represents part 4 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50.
• What it means to be in service of our nation and recognizing that this also means we are acting in service to one another and our posterity in turn. No small feat.
• Re-establish our sense of community on a grander scale with things like a civil service core and public works administration.
• A service core for public works programs would aim to maintain an active pipeline of people and small business contracts to accomplish the following:
  • Actively combat climate change
  • Contribute to infrastructure projects
  • Cover shortages in healthcare
  • Provide training for entry into new trades
  • Create public works
  • Respond to disasters
• These programs would provide opportunities for training and experience. Added value from a reinvigorated sense of national pride in doing good works and instill a sense of connectedness and perhaps a shared identity.
• Foster the development of new fully supportive programs for people reintegrating back into society. Meet people where they are as they reintegrate from:
  • Military service
  • Incarceration
  • Supportive housing
  • Treatment programs
  • Trauma recovery
• All of these scenarios require their own solutions for helping people to get established in a new life. Much like the doughnut economy, we need to think full circle in support of our citizens' human needs.
• Calls to Action:
  • Consider how you or your children and our society might be benefited from such civil service programs.
  • Find out ways to get involved in your community. Join or create your own community service project today.
  • With food prices and contaminants on the rise - you may consider starting with a community garden or participating in one near you. These can help cut the cost of fresh produce and know exactly where some of your food comes from.
  • Smile at a neighbor and say hello. Then try to practice it more regularly.

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr.

More info

• We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's  page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors.
  
• Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook.
  
• Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors.

Learn more and reach out

• Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment.
• Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon.
• Please contact us with any questions or suggestions.
  

Episode discussion topics

• This represents part 3 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50.
  
• Transforming the institutions of our learning system for a more perfect union.
• We live in the age of infinitely expanding knowledge and automation. The past is not our future.
• This means that we need a whole new perspective on learning for posterity’s sake and the future of our republic if they can keep it.
  
• Forget memorization, short-cuts, and standardized tests. This Edutopia article hits on the major points of what the research says about testing. Recently, the UC system moved forward with suspending the use of SAT and ACT for entrance requirements.
• Time for a change and we have a proposal in mind:
  • Teach young people how to learn skills, discern facts, think properly, and use their agency to find purpose and contribute to their communities.
  • Foster development of skills to continue growing, navigating life, and fending for themselves in whatever environment they may live.
  • Instill in pupils the practical habits necessary to collaborate and solve problems.
  • They should learn how to discover and rediscover who they are, know their purpose, and maintain an alignment with nature. By nature, I mean working in cooperation with one another and the environment. 
  • They should be provided with a knowledge base of practical information.
    • This includes a complete perspective of the world’s history as we know it. One that represents perspectives of a fair cross-section of all groups and fully explains why things are the way they are.
    • Also, practical ways to understand and navigate our modern economic environment as a consumer and a business.
    • Ultimately one of the primary goals is to help people develop their leadership skills and gain an understanding of civics and how our institutions work.
• By the end of schooling, our people should be ready to participate in the next steps of their purpose-driven lives. Regardless of choosing apprenticeship, vocation, art, science, or academia, everyone should be prepared for the next phase of life after high school.
• We might advocate for a free associate degree through an accredited community college in the short term and long term more needs to be done.
  
• We propose equalizing the playing field and the funding to provide a more equal education for all. This major change could work like pooling all county tax dollars for education into one state fund to be distributed equally based on enrollment. Give each child a funded fair shot.
• Calls to Action:
  • Consider how you or your children might have benefitted from such a learning program as described in this episode. Then answer these questions:
    • Why not make changes for the better?
      
    • What changes would you support in a radically different system and why?
  • Find out ways that you may influence or join your local school board in order to begin the hard work of introducing these ideas to the community at large. If we want to change, we have to act.
  • Explore local opportunities for apprenticeships available in your area. Either for you to retool yourself or for your loved ones to be aware of. These can be sponsored through local trade groups, unions, community colleges, and vocational institutes.
  • Don’t rely on the system to care for you or your child’s learning. Life-long learning is critical to have any chance of fulfilling a life’s purpose.
  • Keep growing and learning. Do it alone or with others. Do it now. So much is accessible at your fingertips through any internet-enabled device.
  • We only outlined the bones here, so stay tuned as we dive further into this during a future episode.

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr.

More info

• We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's  page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors.
  
• Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook.
  
• Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors.

Learn more and reach out

• Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment.
• Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon.
• Please contact us with any questions or suggestions.
  

Episode discussion topics

• This represents part 2 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50.
• The right to a minimum standard of living can provide for the general welfare as our Constitution clearly states. Regardless, without a solid foundation and fair rules, our people will not flourish.
• Everyone should have equal rights to the following:
  • Justice under the law. Perhaps courts should become blinded to their biases, not just figuratively, but literally. Cut out extraneous sensory data from decisions that carry the weight of life or death. Judges making bail decisions are not as good at their job as AI. Talking With Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell reports this and explains how biases and other behaviors that are known to psychologists come to play in making us bad at judging others.
  • Compassionate healthcare for all regardless of affordability. People should not go bankrupt for healthcare and we need to start with access to healthful foods and end with the liberty to die with dignity. Credit bureaus even recognize the moral quandary around debt from healthcare and have decided to stop carrying this information in our credit files.
  • Equal pay for equal work and a livable minimum wage. Nothing is more priceless than one's limited time on Earth. It's pretty clear. What else do we need to say?
  • An environment left conducive to life. Borrowed from comments on biomimicry, the study of nature to leverage its designs for our problems. Nature's designs tend to yield products that leave the world ready for more life to grow. Our products should do the same wherever possible. We discuss more on this in S2 E25 New Economics a la Doughnut.
  • Our right to liberty requires us to demilitarize the homeland, both our citizens and law enforcement in kind. Also, we need to keep the likes of automated warfare limited, like the nuclear and biological kinds are. Beware the tale of Skynet - it will be privately owned.
  • Additionally, we need to reserve prisons for only the most violent offenders among us and offer a fair shot at a second chance for full liberty. This needs to be available to all who serve their time and change their ways in support of the common good.
• Calls to Action:
  
  • A minimum standard of living with liberty and dignity can be achieved for us all using a universal basic income. This will have the added effect of releasing many new inventors, thinkers, and creators to emerge from under the oppression of low wages and high expenses. Being beholden to jobs is not the pursuit of happiness. Rather we should be learning, growing, and contributing to the common good. That is what counts.
    • We call it "The National Floor." It's a floor for people and their main streets, wall street, and our government.
    • It provides a basic income, where no income exists, for all of those living under the jurisdiction of our laws, taxation, and economy.
    • The add-on effect of these direct payments will generate a trickle upward feeding a basic self-sustaining level of economic revenues for all businesses and governments, as well as savings for those employed well enough to be exiting the program.
    • People are the ones most motivated to solve the problems in their lives if only one has enough to eat and a roof over one's head to think. Government programs cannot be a sustainable solution as they are one-size-fits-all and take agency away from people to figure it out themselves.
  • This will require us to fundamentally re-examine ourselves and perhaps our longest-held beliefs. Only our lack of openness to imaginative solutions can hold us back. We should have the liberty to choose how and when we participate in the economy because our life's purpose and the pursuit of happiness must take priority. We discuss this more in S3 E41 The Best of Times.
  • Did you know that poor financial health can cause poor physical and mental health? Science has shown this and also that in time we become accustomed to this state. It is high time we free ourselves from oppressive and sickening poverty. Instead, let us invest in a brighter and more purposeful future for us all. Economy and citizens hand in hand skipping into the sunset of prosperity. Read more on how Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function, albeit a subscription is required for the full report.

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr.

More info

• We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's  page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors.
  
• Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook.
  
• Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors.

Learn more and reach out

• Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment.
• Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon.
• Please contact us with any questions or suggestions.
  

Episode discussion topics

• This represents part 1 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50.
• No taxation without equal representation. Make elections and taxation consistent and fair for all.
• We need to un-jury-rigging the elections system by taking on the following principles.
  • Make competitive districts where ideas rule the debates, not personal attacks.
  • Ensure equal, safe, and secure access to voting for all. Perhaps using automatic registrations and universal mail-in ballot options.
  • Make the popular vote reign for the presidency and let us move on from the ill-designed and long failed electoral college system. One person one vote should be the rule and the practice.
  • Provide for a fair, effective, and low-cost campaign finance system.
• Oh, taxation! No one wants to pay taxes. Paying our fair share supports the common good and it is the right thing to do. After all, those things described in the Constitution cost money and we all can benefit from the right investments.
• Keep our progressive bracket design where each bucket of income gets taxed differently based on dollar amounts, not sources.
• Keep tax-deferred accounts like IRA, 401k, HSA, and the like available with maximums.
• Tax all income and unrealized gains annually. Including deferred compensation packages and opening unrealized losses for deductions in kind.
• Retirees pay no tax on something like their first five or low six figures for couples.
• Everyone paying their fair share includes currently untaxed entities like sports teams, non-profits, and religions.
  • Sports teams can afford it and have a duty to give back to the communities from which they profit.
  • Non-profits can handle a little tax. Let's give them their own brackets like retirees.
  • The government shouldn't be in the business of ordaining groups of people as established religions (Amendment I to the Constitution) and certainly not bestowing upon them the divine benefit of paying no taxes. There should be no official state religions.
• The business minimum tax rate should be competitive to international peers with a higher burden on industries with environmentally insensitive components. After all, the government (we the people) is usually paying to clean up their messes.
• Calls to Action:
  • In the past we have called attention to House Resolution 1 - The For the People Act which was passed by the house earlier in 2021, at the beginning of this 117th instance of Congress, and will not pass the Senate.
  • Now keep your eyes and ears peeled for some flurry of smaller changes to specific mechanisms of our elections systems. For example, review the bills related to H.R.5746 - Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act which may get passed if differences between House and Senate versions can be resolved this year. The link jumps to a list that shows much of the "nickel and dime" approach being used to address deficiencies in our electioneering.
  • Find out if your state is assigning its slate of Electoral College Electors based on the popular vote based on an achievable idea long overdue: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (thanks Wikipedia). If it isn't, let your state legislators know you want it to be so.
  • If you think liberty to vote is being "nickeled and dimed," the list of bills focused on taxation, literal USD, is dizzying. This is an area where our principles on the macro-level play an important role in simplifying the system. This simplification must be motivated by a simple principle. One that is hardwired into our cooperative nature. An ancestral sensibility that our primate cousins share. The one, among them all, which is paramount: Fairness (thank you to scientists and PBS). 

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr.

More info

• Racist language may soon be gone from Alabama’s constitution. A tale of a constitution twisted to the extreme, it is believed to be the longest or most amended in the world. It was created in 1901 with the express interest of securing white supremacy in the state. It was written by a powerful and wealthy white male minority.
• We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's  page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors.
  
• Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook.
  
• Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors.

Learn more and reach out

• Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment.
• Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon.
• Please contact us with any questions or suggestions.
  

Episode discussion topics

• A whole episode, or actually a whole min-series of episodes, regarding calls to action around a new strategic plan to save our republic and try to save life on Earth.
• The Five-Point Plan will be described in later episodes and it will call on each of us to refocus our attention on the purpose of our nation.
• This episode introduces the series with an introspective exercise to see ourselves in the potential of the union and how the union can unlock the potential in us all.
  
• To recommit ourselves to this most audacious of experiments in self-rule as freedom's promise lives here more than anywhere else on Earth.
• Let us remind ourselves that the purpose of the United States is made clear at the start of the Constitution. Let us review sentence number one together:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

• Calls to Action:
  • The next 5 episodes will present a platform of actions we need to take quickly to save ourselves from oblivion. We need radical change to bring forth a reformed republic that propels our ideals of liberty and justice for all forward towards fruition and helps people use their gifts to advance the nation and save the Earth.
  • There is no going back to another time and if there is any chance for a tomorrow, then now is when we have to act in order to make it so. Stay tuned by making sure you're subscribed to the Citizens Prerogative podcast through your favorite podcasting app!
  • Read and re-read the Constitution of the United States. The U.S. National Archives is a shining example of real American heroes and they have everything available online for free.
  • Challenge and inform your opinion on such matters as those raised here in the five-point plan.

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr.

More info

• We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's  page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors.
  
• Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook.
  
• Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors.

Learn more and reach out

• Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment.
• Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon.
• Please contact us with any questions or suggestions.
  

Episode discussion topics

• What's going on so far?
  
  • Games mostly.
  • Connectedness and some sense of community.
  • Why not university too?
    
• Who’s out there right now?
• What about NFTs?
  
  • Play to Earn (P2E) options yield in-game coins that can be redeemed for NFTs or other products from in-game stores.
  • Property and skins can be purchased for coins or cash that are backed by NFTs.
  • Some companies are selling their virtual property for the possibility of an NFT in the future.
    
  • Make sure you know what you're getting for your USD.
    
• Some truly revolutionary aspects of it:
  
  • No safer way to explore the world of humans out there.
    
  • No cheaper way to meet people from across the world.
    
  • It also may be less taxing on the environment than traditional forms of travel. Assuming the cost of energy to run the game or associated blockchains isn't exorbitant.
• Calls to Action:
  
  • Perhaps watch or read Ready Player One.
  • The easiest way to explore the wide world of the metaverse:
    • PCs.
    • Headsets.
    • Sony is staying in a walled garden, not joining the metaverse.
    • Oculus Quest 2 is the latest Facebook offering.
  • Consider this:
    
    • Think about how you would want to use the metaverse or see it used. What experiences do you imagine?
      
    • Pressure and haptic sensor feedback systems are coming online to make it all feel more real.
    • Watch this short clip from PBS Newshour on sensors and rewiring nerves to stir your creative juices.
  • Stay subscribed to Citizens Prerogative and tuned in for future episodes.

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr.

More info

• We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's  page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors.
  
• Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook.
  
• Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors.

Learn more and reach out

• Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment.
• Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon.
• Please contact us with any questions or suggestions.
  

Episode discussion topics

• What a mess: Profit-motivated niches and confirmation bias zones abound. Anything that you read or watch that only confirms what you already believe is traveling a well-worn road of confirmation bias. Treat it like junk food. Find something else to read, watch, or listen to that challenges your perception.
  
• Just like tobacco products, processed mock foods, and social media. Big media products (from the likes of CNN, Fox, MSN, etc.) or bogus media products (from the likes of NewsMax, OAN, etc.) are engineered to be addictive and unfulfilling so you keep coming back for more.
• Fear and anger are laced into their products to stoke our emotions and hijack our thinking with these emotional responses. Those offer a subconscious backdoor of hijacking your survival instincts via the amygdala in your brain (a.k.a. our lizard brain - of fight, flight, or flee fame).
• Watcher beware the energy vampires, this channel will suck your life and may kill you. Fear and anger shorten our lives and erode our rational minds.
• There is no warning or nutritional labeling for media, so it is near impossible to verify the validity of news (what is junk or food) without exiting your bias zone to see what other points of view are being presented on the same subject. That also sounds like work for a lot of people, but it's not more than changing the channel. But leaving the comfort of your bias zone can be scary, bring your courage and remember they're only words. The worst of which lead us to hate one another and see each other as less than human or possessed.
• Creating distance and controlling how much you let in into your life will help create more calm in your environment - big media is designed to be addictive, by triggering strong emotions. It is not motivated to be informative or nutritious, it is junk food full of sugar and cortisol, the stress hormone. Here is an article from psychology today for reference, "Anger's Allure: Are You Addicted to Anger? Reasons why anger can be a hard habit to break."
• This is one of the few times I might think of the good old days, say when you knew you were reading a tabloid by its cover. Now there's a blend of it mixed into everything under every cover. One needs to be skilled up and vigilant to avoid it.
• Calls to Action:
  
  • What is one to do? Use your agency and freedom of will to control what information you consider.
    
  • Get on a media diet by getting a handle on your media faucet. You need to be in control of your consumption and enforce limits for yourself as a habit. It is up to each of us to protect ourselves. Look away. Turn it off. Tune it out. Take a break. For instance, use a timer or DVR to allow yourself to watch specific programs, with a purpose, within a fixed time frame like one hour. Too many of us just leave the TV or YouTube on steady stream flooding our environment and disrupting or distracting our concentration.
    
  • Choose to be open to information that you may not agree with. It doesn't mean you have to change your position. Strategically it makes sense to understand all counterarguments so that you may better see the whole landscape. Also, be open to changing your mind when it aligns with your innate, natural, or common, sense of morality.
  • Choose your time and your content with care. It's your choice how to spend your limited time on Earth. No pressure.
    • Pick sources that give you multiple perspectives covering any given topic so they can act as plot points in triangulating the relative truths among all the stories. Each reporter presents their version of the truth based on the information they were able to obtain or blanks that are choosing to fill in.
    • Aim to have a balanced and fact-filled diet. Think of the food pyramid or building a diversified portfolio of information sources. Don't only eat potatoes or trust only one type of source for information. That is not good for you or your brain. Beware the fast-food of journalism, "entertainment media." If it makes you scared and angry, then it's not entertainment. If it does not make you more informed, then it is not journalism. Stop wasting your life on it.
    • Support independent journalism. Reputable sources are worth a subscription.  Also, beyond picking a single news site or magazine, you can check out some of the new curation-based services like INKL and others.

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr.

More info

• We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's  page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors.
  
• Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook.
  
• Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors.

Learn more and reach out

• Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment.
• Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon.
• Please contact us with any questions or suggestions.
  

Episode discussion topics

• Make sure we take action to secure our right to vote by electing candidates that support voting reform for equal ballot access and representation in congress.
  
• The misinformation campaigns have the people confused by design. Everything is held hostage by money from the rich feeding into a two-party monopoly that has eroded any sense of confidence in our institutions.
  
• Regarding the history of "direct" elections where citizens, not legislatures, cast ballots for federal offices, the popular vote wasn't always popular. Still isn't in many parts. Citizens can now vote for Senators and that only began in 1913 and voting for Presidential Electors was being handled by some state legislators, instead of citizens, up through the 1860s with exceptions that continued to occur up through 1876 with a recent close call back in 2000. Wikipedia covers the Electoral College here for more information.
  
• Quoting the article from above, "The Constitution gives each state legislature the power to decide how its state's electors are chosen and it can be easier and cheaper for a state legislature to simply appoint a slate of electors than to create a legislative framework for holding elections to determine the electors."
• There are all too many state legislators willing, ready, and able to take our votes back from our control, more like things used to be, and submit their own ballots on our behalf when it comes to elected federal positions. We can lose our liberty and our vote. It's been far worse in the past which makes for uncomfortable precedence.
• The day for service in the name of Martin Luther King Jr. was just last month in January and February, when this episode is being released, is Black History Month.
  • In that spirit, we give thanks to a human whose vision and yearning for equality echoes through to now. Our hope for a more equal, a more just, a more perfect union, is set upon the vision he articulated, and it sets the stage for a better tomorrow for us all.
  • In his words, "The time is always right to do what is right." He also reminded us, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." 
    
• With those thoughts in mind, it is easy to see how we're now staged for some unsettling changes. We will need to lean on his wisdom as we weather the storms against civil rights ahead. Couple those figurative squalls with the unprecedented changes that our food sources and habitats are about to experience in the physical world. Viruses are just the beginning of the coming plague of infectious fallacies and climate catastrophes.
  
• What we shall be mindful of…
  
  • The rise of daddy-knows-best totalitarianism through one-party rule; much like the kingmaker playbooks of China and Russia.
    
  • The extreme among the right-wing in America is looking to return our republic to some of its worse roots, highlighted by elitist minority rule, “Only I can fix it” mentality. This is in opposition to a plurality among us who are vying for a better way: equal representation, taxation, and a fair shot at fulfilling one's purpose.
    
  • We need to care about fairness in the system, it impacts our daily lives and fosters trust in our institutions. We have seen this work well on many occasions and other systems around the world provide us with even more examples to borrow.
  • A system still powered by the gyrations between the greedy who get rich and the poor who work to make them so, cannot last. The pursuit of happiness by the rich is conducted on roads paved by the poor, who are not left in a position to pursue happiness by their participation in the system. It doesn't need to be this way. No homelessness, ignorance, sickness, or hunger need apply in the process of lifting one's self by their bootstraps. For our house can have a floor and our a nation can have roads that we can all travel on!
  • We need to see ourselves in each other as fellow citizens under our laws because we're the only ones we got in this world. All the others are autocrats and their bureaucratic handlers. 
• Calls to Action:
  
  • It's not clear we can count on the current congress to be able to prevent the backward slide into a republic from the good old days, where only a few can vote and own property. Please do not allow your state representatives to steal your vote. Check out this great article from History.com on how Electoral College Electors are chosen, hint: it's decided by state legislatures.
    
  • Learning to navigate the new processes for registering to vote and casting your ballot. Check out a timelessly reliable resource, RockTheVote.org for more information on how to register and vote specifically in your state.
  • More than ever it's time to turn out in high numbers if we want a clear majority in congress to move reform forward for a more perfect union and a better future for us all. We will be releasing a platform to help formalize the issues of paramount importance right now. It is in production and will premier as a multi-part series soon. Stay tuned.
  • Albeit congress is in negotiations for minor tweaks to shore up the system like the John Lewis voting right act, etc. Hopefully, they will pass something effective. But for now, it's up to each of us to mind our vote and make sure it is counted.

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr.

More info

• The National Archives has a page dedicated to information about the Electors of the Electoral College (sounds like a Bravo faux-reality TV series) including the role and qualifications for people looking to fulfill the duties of an elector, and more. Love our archives, check it out!
• We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's  page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors.
  
• Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook.
  
• Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors.

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• Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment.
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• Please contact us with any questions or suggestions.
  

Episode discussion topics

• Why do we have it?
  
  • Flags became all the rage in the 1880s. They embodied a symbolism that was cemented during the civil war around flags and loyalty oaths to a new, slavery-free nation. 
  • Through to today, it still serves its original purpose of indoctrinating young citizens and immigrants to honor the republic.
  • According to this Boston Review article: "George T. Balch, a West Point graduate and veteran of the Civil War, organized a number of flag-related patriotic ceremonies for schoolchildren, and published the first pledge in his 1890 paper titled, 'Methods of Teaching Patriotism in the Public Schools'."
  • It is now also used by some to honor all those who have fallen in defense of our republic.
• The history (Wikipedia) shows few changes, but momentous they are nonetheless. Besides the original, plus a minor grammatical change (it was being used in schools after all), there were only two other major iterations:
  • 1923/1924 A reference to the "United States of America" was added as context for what flag, inspired by nationalistic tendencies in response to immigration and other domestic tranquility issues.
  • 1954 It was adopted into the U.S. code, laws, by congress and had the language "under God" added  to, "fight against the evil of communism and, by extension, atheism." This is according to the Boston Review article previously mentioned and it is backed up by our other research. The implementation of "under God" and " in God we trust" was all conducted during the anti-communism fever of the 1950-60s.
• All the controversies that need not be so.
  • Not for any good reason, other than maintaining the status quo, the courts have not deemed the pledge or its expressed deference to a god as unconstitutional because as a practical matter, it is just too ingrained.  Congressional legislative sessions have been making reference to a god since 1787. Of course, none of the arguments make sense, they are just lazy. What is right is usually the hard thing to do. Look at how much effort it took to remove the worse parts of slavery.
  • People have all the rights to refrain from participating in the pledge. Children in school do too, but they have to overcome a higher bar than adults. In some schools, kids face harassment by teachers and administrators for refusing to recite the pledge.
  • The U.S. legal code articulating the pledge and the proper salute to the flag, is prefaced with "should" and not "shall, will, or must."
• Calls to Action:
  • Whether hand to heart or taking a knee, either peacefully supporting or peacefully protesting the pledge is the right thing to do. Express it any way you want within your first amendment rights. That is the American way.
  • Shall we honor RWJ and restore the original pledge of allegiance from 1892?
    • "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
  • Or is it high time to adopt something like MVP's recommendation on a revised pledge to amend and extend the history books?
    
    • “I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation among the stars, indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all.”

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr.

More info

• We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's  page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors.
  
• Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook.
  
• Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors.

Learn more and reach out

• Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment.
• Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon.
• Please contact us with any questions or suggestions.