Top-down.

You are placing yourself at Kafka's door.

Elaborate?

I worked in a company that was getting a lot of complaints. So, the management decided to open a complaint section online. The section was closed off to the general public and general customers, but if you wanted to make complaint, you'd be told how to find it.

You could go there and post a thread and complain to your hearts content. People could be in wholehearted agreement and fully support you. But it meant nothing. It was a cathartic outlet. It gave you the chance to air grievances, but no way to address them. Management never saw the complaints but they kept people from going to a real means of having them addressed.

In my province, first we are required to adhere to Agenda 21, the queen, the federal government and the provincial government. By the time the local government gets a say, the say is co-opted within the strict bounds of the overriding government, Queen and UN. You can squirm a little to the left or right but cannot actually change anything.

It gives you an outlet, a cathartic release that will never bother those that actually rule and prevent those complaints from reaching the ears of most.

Kafka wrote a book called The Trial and a short story featuring just this idea.

I agree! Start in your town.

I've recently been saying "statism starts at home."

Start with your friends and family. Normalize critical thought. Find actionable intelligence and take action. FOIA public records. Film village board meetings. Run candidates. Write and support referendums.

In addition to all the reasons you cited. Most federal and state politicians get their start in local or smaller state offices. If you can head these corrupt individuals early there's a better chance to get quality people in there.

The guy who started rootstrikers used to be a very vocal advocate of term limits. Then CA passed it...and it gave the lobbyists an even stronger hold over government because you had all these newbies who needed a lot of help and the lobbyists were happy to help...

I mean, it seems to be damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Yes. I think the real secret to ending corruption in politics is no longer allowing private funds to go to candidates. Only public funding allowed. Everyone gets the same amount of $. The FCC requires each media outlet X number of ads per candidate, the same number and time slots for everyone, no additional ads allowed...

I think that's a pathetic suggestion. The way to remove corruption from politics is to remove politics from out life. Beyond the direct governing of our own affairs, dispute arbitration can be decentralized and group projects can be directly democratic and done by consensus.

Fuck the FCC and fuck centralized coercion.

How to remove politics from our life if not through politics itself? This might be some bs matrix reference lol but seriously one would need to first organize a way to reduce power and governance by making the citizens aware, then getting them involved, and then electing more libertarian folks and eventually reducing power in government to an insignificant amount, leaving them as basically judges and oversight committees that contract deals with private companies for all services.

Problem 2: no term limits...

That's what elections are — term limits. This comment gets it.

For local stuff, uninformed voters generally vote for incumbents.

FTFY

And term limits != tenure limits. A term is what the law says it is. A Senator's term of office is six years. If she gets re-elected, she is a two-term Senator. If people would stop wishing for the unicorn of term tenure limits and ride the horse they already have — regular elections — we might get somewhere. I think you should serve as many terms as people will let you. As long as you can beat all comers in free and fair elections, with no big money donations and as little incumbent advantage as can be worked out, you can serve til they carry you out feet first.

This is part of the reason why I hate the whole 'state's rights' or 'leave it to the states, not the government.'

'States' doesn't mean 'people of the states', it means state governments. They have a history of oppressing their own people, and some continue to do so. State boundaries are drawn like fucking Africa, and 2/3rds of them were not a thing prior to the US government; just lines on a map. The rural-urban divide is greater than and cultural shift on a straight line that ignores mountains and rivers.

State governments should not be held to a standard different to the standard we hold the federal government, and people's rights will always be more important than state's rights.

Everyone that wants states rights wants them specifically because we know politicians become corrupt. Its much easier to canvas your own state to petition a problem. If it gets bad enough you can run and have a genuine chance at being electedas a state rep, mayor, alderman, even governor if you really try... Whereas you have probably 0 chance of being elected president and a very slim chance of being elected as a house rep.... Its much easier to influence local government and take part in it.

I audit mostly local governments (financial statements) and most of the people that work there are not smart enough to conspire TBH.

Maybe give a contract or two to a friend, but that's about it.

From my experience, it's mostly both but they are controlled or corralled by wealth and smart corrupt people

I starting to wonder if my local government hiring stupid people is a conspiracy in and of itself. It seems to be incredibly easy for them to make mistakes that cost someone money, and unbelievably hard to get said mistake corrected. If it was one department wouldn't think it was a conspiracy, but its every department!

In my hometown, it seems to be a combination of hiring stupid people or people whose political party runs on a platform of shrinking goverment down to a size where it can be drowned in a bathtub.

Most the conspiracies are out in the open. Property taxes. Tax increment financing. Nepotism. Grant writing. Spending tax revenue. Traffic enforcement. Municipal ordinances. The court system.

It's rather easy, and stupid takes to it like a duck to water.

How can I find more info on these "comissions" in my locale

I can't wait for the part where the people in your watchdog commission start having campaigns against them to discredit them or start being paid off.

Why?

Sort of an improper use of figure of speech. I don't actually want that to happen, it's just unfortunately what usually happens.

This is why I ask questions before accepting what I read at face value.

Yeh, it's happened historically. Look at Hunter S. Thompson's run for Sheriff of Aspen or that young recently deceased fella running as a libertarian for Mayor in Missouri.

And don't be if retaliation from the council members, don't back down expose them and their corruption

Retaliation comes in the form of the police and the court system.

I just learned recently about Hassidic Jews taking over a local school board and then purposely completely dismantled the local public education system and gave the school buildings to themselves to use for their own private schools

Yep, that's how Jews work... just like the Talmud teaches them.

Silly goyim - only they are worthy

I honestly believe that it's seriously the best thing one can do. Only when the power vested in the government is unchecked the corruption spreads. If they know that citizens are careless, they'll get power hungry and shoot for the stars.

John and Ken radio show in LA, they're very outspoken about anything mayor garcetti does and are exceptional in rounding up support, mainly because they're great at talking. They grill the shit out of every politician who comes on and won't let them skip the questions... And most questions come from the listeners who are concerned. Be involved, and also be a voice-hopefully a charismatic one- for the people. If your arguments align it's good; if you can include the citizens' concerns in with yours, it's even better. But this takes a lot of effort which most people need time for that they do not possess. You'll sacrifice until enough ppl like you get on board, then the responsibility is shared and less strenuous. Best of luck and great effort.

The problem with John and Ken is that they still believe that government can fix itself.

Can't it get better if it's checked and audited? I think it can. Government fixing itself sounds like it's run automatically but it's run by people like you and me. They're human, so they're corrupt and because of that they need to be under close watch and scrutiny by citizens.

The only way you can really keep the power of a centralized authority in check is by decentralizing it. That is how you actually give power back to the people at a more local level where it will be accountable. You are not going to fix big government with more big government.

Hell yeah, Australian local government has been corrupt as hell for a loooong time. Development deals frequently end up lining someone's pocket and there has historically been a shocking lack of accountability (no independent watchdog etc).

Haha good on you bro 😂🖒

This is why power needs to be decentralized.

Nice that you had positive results.

I joined the parent-teacher organization at my kids' school, and found out the previous pto had "misplaced" $22,000. Hired a firm to do a forensic audit, but the school administration handed over copies of all of the evidence to the former pto members and basically said "clean this up, we want justification for these expenses/missing money."

So they ended up fining the former treasurer $2000 because she had racked up that much in bank fees (now, mind you, this woman had an IQ of about 85. Couldn't figure out the excel spreadsheet they kept the records with, so she just stopped using it and started throwing receipts in a box. She was the only one penalized despite being pushed to take the position which she and everyone else knew she was too stupid to do effectively. Not trying to be mean, she just couldn't keep a budget. I don't think she should have been held responsible. The people who put her there should've been culpable.)

The rest of the pto officers were helping themselves to $600 gas cards on the regular under the auspices of "doing pto work." These are volunteer positions - you don't get compensated for your time or the use of your vehicle. They would buy elaborate decorations and party supplies and then instead of reusing them the next year, they would use them at home. I could go on and on. If there was some way for them to pilfer money from the inflated budget, they would.

Meanwhile, there were line items for things like $1000 to each of the school's libraries, $300 to each elementary school teacher for classroom supplies...that were never doled out. Educational priorities were abandoned, all they did was run shit-ass candy fundraisers and sugar-laden junk food parties for the schools while dipping into the coffers as much as they could get away with.

School district insisted upon covering it up. Threatened our real estate resale values, gave us shit about damaging the school's reputation. Having kids in the district with years left before graduation, one treads lightly and chooses one's battles. It never made the press.

Seeing that corruption at even the lowest levels of "government" just put the cherry on top for me. Change the system from within? Yeah....no. Fuck that noise. I just don't have the kind of energy necessary to fight corruption, stupidity, and apathy at every fucking level of the system.

I'm tuned in, turned on and quite intentionally dropped out. 

I was so jaded, I took my kids out of school and home schooled for years. The Great Lice Cover-up of Aught-eight also played heavily into that decision, but that is a story for another day.

My hometown was very corrupt and scandalous, our mayor was a pill head also which he had been arrested for. After an atrocious audit on the city the state of Florida might just go ahead and take it off the map.

The more local the politician, the more corrupt.

But, you also have to be careful, because the local boys have a tendency to kill people if their con is going to get exposed. If they are locked in with the police, you can be in great danger.

This is a problem that affects every community, everywhere. Here in the UK there is outright corruption in the town councils. Many close the doors once they realise that there is a journalist in the audience. Asking questions will get you removed. FoI requests become torturous because of their complete incompetence.

There's also a tacit understanding that local politics is a deathly dull affair with lots of little hitlers exercising too much power and it's pointless trying to confront them about it. The local press won't cover it, the national press thing a countrywide problem is a local matter only. Bungs, bribes and backhanders fly left, right and centre. Nepotism and insider trading abound unchallenged.

No-one listens. No-one cares. It's the same everywhere.

The local government and court system of my small rural county is completely ran by free masons.

Exactly! Grassroots is where everyone should begin purging the system. Sure people can keeps tabs of the administration but, your local government needs to be checked.

Amen. PA uses the township form of government, which means when you get 10 guys and 3 buildings, you can form a local government. It is the recipe for outright state criminality.

It can be. We have a pervert in the neighborhood who has been caught peeping in windows, among other things. One neighbor actually got a restraining order. Nevertheless, he receives the full protection of the township because he is pals with a police seargeant. I have been threatened with arrest several times telling the pervert to fuck off and mounting cameras on my house.

I put the cameras up after the pervert vandalized our property. Nevertheless the police still threatened me until I told them I had hired a lawyer to deal with the township.

Sounds like my hometown. There's an alderman who is a pedophile. After a lot of local outrage, his case was brought before a grand jury. Thing is, the charges the D.A. pushed were ones that had passed the statute of limitations. The GJ couldn't indict because of it and he is still free to molest kids.

To make things worse, the pedometer apparently also has some sort of blackmail material against the mayor. In a televised city council meeting where they were considering a motion to censure, he was overheard telling the mayor "be careful what you say",after which the mayor moved to eliminate several of the points of censure.

Anyone interested in reading up on this,Google Tony Thomas Savannah pedometer alderman ssod

Anyone interested in reading up on this,Google Tony Thomas Savannah pedophile alderman ssod

I did. That is filthy.

Yep, it sure is.

You would think local news would be all over a story like this, if for no other reason then the ratings. Yet,they barely touch the story and that is only because of a local blogger raised so much of a stink about the case that they had to cover it.

OP is real American

From my experience, it's mostly both but they are controlled or corralled by wealth and smart corrupt people

Everyone that wants states rights wants them specifically because we know politicians become corrupt. Its much easier to canvas your own state to petition a problem. If it gets bad enough you can run and have a genuine chance at being electedas a state rep, mayor, alderman, even governor if you really try... Whereas you have probably 0 chance of being elected president and a very slim chance of being elected as a house rep.... Its much easier to influence local government and take part in it.

I put the cameras up after the pervert vandalized our property. Nevertheless the police still threatened me until I told them I had hired a lawyer to deal with the township.