Creating Collaborative Law, Part I

In her 1999 commentary on her very successful Outlander series, Diana Gabaldon wrote in The Outlandish Companion how she discovered and explored the world of collaborative authorship. She describes how in the mid-1980s she started using CompuServe bulletin board forums to bounce around ideas about her first book, test passages and eventually discover the agent that signed her to a contract with Delacorte Press that launched the series so successfully.

While Galbadon rightly takes credit for the ultimate success she’s enjoyed with Outlander, she also acknowledges how important it was for her to be able to leverage existing technologies to find the right environment for success with her writings.

As you may recall from last time, we introduced Wattpad. Wattpad offers an interesting way to collaborate in a very social way to write new stories and even books. The creators claim that “Wattpad is a place to discover and share stories: a social platform that connects people through words. It is a community that spans borders, interests, languages. With Wattpad, anyone can read or write on any device: phone, tablet, or computer.” This means that people who don’t even know each other can read, write and review in a social, collaborative manner.

In a top-level sense, the “final” version our nation’s constitution benefited from a similar approach. A group led by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (the Federalists) sparred in a very open and public way with an opposing group (the Anti-Federalists) led by Patrick Henry, John Hancock and others. The two groups were using social media of the day in the form of newspaper essays, pamphlets and letters to debate in public their positions. In some cases (e.g., Massachusetts and Virginia), the public debates using published letters and essays informed state-level ratification of the original Constitution.[1]

While the Framers of our Constitution did not seek public comments on their initial “signed” creation in Philadelphia in 1787, they did in effect solicit input for what was truly a dynamic document in those early months of ratification. One could easily claim that the Bill of Rights, introduced for ratification in 1789, was an addition to the original Constitution that emerged as a result of public interactions, including a great deal of debate and disagreement!

Together, the Federalists, the Anti-Federalists and their publically-inclusive debate of both documents pointed toward a socially interactive collaboration that produced our amazingly resilient Constitution. In a non-biological way, the Federalists, Anti-Federalists and their public audiences interacted in the contemporary social networks to coevolve our Constitution and Bill of Rights, if you will.

The results were that we ended up with both the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, setting the stage for what became the framework for an adaptive form for governance that’s lasted over 225 years. While it’s not really correct to call our nation a democratic republic, that is in effect the process that guided the early evolution of the Constitution…anyone and everyone could impact its development until it was ratified by the necessary nine states in 1788 (per Article VII).[2] Through the amendment process, accommodated by the Constitution, we could continue to interact at all levels of government through existing social networks to produce more adaptations!

How might similar socially-based techniques like this work in the development of lesser law and policy today? Imagine that some of today’s most contentious laws such as health care had been developed in an inclusive, publically debated forum rather than one party essentially “ramming” it through based simply on a sufficient majority in both houses. We don’t suggest that health care reform was unnecessary but rather that it was not developed as collaboratively as it could have been. Possibly, politics could have been mitigated with a more knowledgeable public involvement and interaction.[3]

In our next piece, we’ll describe some of the mechanics involved in how such an approach could have been applied. For the time being, we wanted to draw some meaningful comparisons to the technologies of two periods (today and the late 18^th Century) and show how good things can happen when people want to get along for good reasons. Make no mistake: there was a significant distance between the two factions debating the development of the Constitution and its eventual ratification. We have to ask why we can’t apply similar philosophies of willingness to eventually agree on things that aren’t as critical as the ratification of our Constitution.

Bottom line: there is a great deal of debate ongoing in our nation about better collaboration between the two “ruling” parties to create law and policy that better reflect the Center of America. Such collaboration is at the heart of the American Promise of equal access to opportunity. In keeping with Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age, we intend to explore how new, socially-networked technologies can help get us back on the road to the same kind of collaboration that produced the marvelous Constitution that has served us since our foundations. Until next time…

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 4/4/2014.

NOTES:

[1] Beeman, R., Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution. Random House, NY, 2009.

[2] The authors acknowledge using a slight amount of literary license in titling the last post, dated 3/25/2014, “A More ‘Democratic’ Democratic Republic’”…we understand the United States is by most definitions a federal republic. Throughout our history, the function of democracy has played a limited but important role in our existence as a nation, but in the end the United States is republic form of government, with the states federated under our great Constitution.

[3] We don’t seek to dismiss blame from the “loyal opposition” – the health care law was rammed through partially because the other side wouldn’t engage, even though both parties clearly recognized that the status quo was unacceptable. Would the opposition have contributed to the process under “normal” non-polarized circumstances? Perhaps not. Should the majority have sought to put pressure on the minority until it came to the table given the sweeping universal impacts of the law? Perhaps so. History will tell us if the President’s party was right to ram healthcare legislation in any event.

A More “Democratic” Democratic Republic

Connecting to the Principles, Part 5

In the months of discussions leading up to starting Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age, we debated a lot about what to say and how to say it. As much as possible, we wanted to avoid specific political positions. We wanted to expose and discuss in detail the problems we faced as a nation when we allowed ourselves to be governed from the extreme edges, whether right or left. Also, we didn’t want to rely on one party’s interpretation of the “correct way” to govern and develop policy.

It would have been easy to criticize attempts to close the government over fringe-led positions against health-care, just as it would have been easy to criticize the very methods used to create the current health-care law. The various factions of media (red, blue, “neutral”) have all presented their versions of critiques of Congress and the Administration. Rather than piling on more criticism, we wondered about the effect these critiques had. We wanted to know how they resulted in productive change in our system of governance.

Admittedly, we haven’t introduced a lot of insights on issues like that, other than try to expose both sides of the extreme edges for what they often appear to be: power-loving men and women seeking to serve themselves before the nation. We have recalled a few instances where our nation’s leaders could actually get along and sufficiently agree to create and maintain America (e.g., the Continental Congress). We also highlighted what is possible when Americans emphasize unity, shared sacrifice and progress rather than division (e.g., the United States in World War II and NASA from the 1960’s through today’s time).

Regardless of a given party’s dogmatism and over-confidence about “being right” that pervades the fringes of at least two political parties, no one person can know everything. We can think and do the best we can, leveraging a proper dose of humility, and try to move our nation forward. And it appears we do that best when we connect with each other and keep the communication lines open. That’s why the Connected Age part of this website is integral to the blog.

With this post, we are going to start focusing on the Connected Age side of FAPITCA for a bit. In keeping with the title of this piece, we want to look at ways to create a more inclusive “democratic” way to do politics and policy development in America. We want to explore techniques and tools that bring us closer together as a nation rather than pull us further apart…ways that expand access to opportunity.

A recent article in the NY Times, Web Fiction, Serialized and Social, got us thinking about web-based governance. This is hardly new, as E-Government and Web-Based Government Services have been discussed and implemented to varying degrees in recent years. Anyone who has visited My Social Security knows how much access to information Americans can have concerning their own individual role in the economy, for example. This type of access relates to personal information and is typically subscriber-based at an individual level.

We all subscribe in different ways to the success of America, however, and most of us don’t have a lot of individual and collective input to the process…yet. Next time, we’ll tell you how we think we might enhance the opportunity we have of Fulfilling the American Promise using the Connected Age tools available to us today. We think this approach might actually minimize the extreme edges, incentivize better politics and policy development and make us all better citizens at the same time.

If you’re into homework, take a look at the kind of technology that a tool like Wattpad offers (from the NY Times article) and see what you think. Hint: look at the title of this post again! Until next time…

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 3/25/2014.

Editor’s Note: Also starting with this post, we intend to take Harold Morowitz’s advice from a couple of weeks ago and start writing shorter pieces. If the Message is the Medium as Marshal McLuhan noted, we want to help our readers get the message through a more accessible medium!

Reflections on Normandy

A few years ago, I had an epiphany of sorts that helped lead me to want to collaborate on a project like Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age. It was a beautiful spring morning in Normandy. It was brisk, but the rising sun cast a warm glow across the Normandy countryside and on Omaha Beach (yes, that Omaha Beach).

I was at the Memorial in the Normandy American Cemetery doing my morning routine before the cemetery opened. As usual, I was all alone. I walked the perimeter of the cemetery plots to make sure all was in order—grass perfect, headstones clean and no limbs or–heaven forbid, trash–and then tested the carillon to make sure it was functioning properly by playing the National Anthem of our country.

As the Star-Spangled Banner was playing, I stepped out from the basement of the Memorial, stood at attention, facing our nation’s flag and then looked down upon the beach and the seemingly endless crosses and Stars of David before me. It was just me and the remains of 9,387 Americans, many of whom died on the beach below in June, 1944.

As the sun began to illuminate the beautiful chapel which sits in the middle of the cemetery in its warm but soft yellow glow, something hit me pretty hard. It was an image of our nation, strong and incredibly magnetic, pulling my very being into its grasp even more than it ever has before. I deeply felt how my nation is so important to me. I intimately felt what it stands for and that no election or policy would ever break that bond, that allegiance, that love that I hold for America.

It was just as the Affordable Care Act was creating a stir and a few people had raised the notion of seceding from the United States based on opposition to the Act and the federal overreach they perceived it to be.  I realized then how far some Americans had gone astray.  As a native Texan, I was concerned that some people in my home state would dare to suggest secession for any reason, much less their belief that somehow America wasn’t worth holding onto and holding together. Worse, the Governor of Texas had used a bit of reckless language which was further inspiring others to feel that secession was worthy of consideration.

In the humbling presence of thousands of our war dead, I self-affirmed that there were very few things that could ever lead me to wish to seriously question my allegiance to the union that is America. These wonderful brave soldiers died on this beach in 1944 to ensure America could stand in the future, in the face of any threat, foreign or domestic. I pondered what would tip me over that very precarious edge to even hint that a state of this nation withdraw from America.

The only things that came to mind that morning were material damage to the sanctity of our elections, pervasive violations of our right to freedom of speech or religion, or perhaps significant censorship of the press or acts of violence on the part of the government to innocent citizens. Perhaps these or other concerns would raise to this level if I thought more about it…but disagreements about tax policy or healthcare?  How could anyone, particularly an elected official, make this suggestion, even in jest?  How could people even suggest that Texas be a party to ripping apart the greatest, most glorious experiment of self-governance over a difference in how to approach healthcare?

I wanted the people advocating this extremist approach to come and stand before these men and women buried in this cemetery and to explain why these soldiers’ sacrifice was great but not great enough to deal with disagreement over our nation’s healthcare system. It might seem to some that there was an expiration date on the value of the blood spilled here, but I knew that couldn’t be the case. That would mean these soldiers’ deaths would only be worthy of inspiring us for a few decades. That would mean that now that the expiration date had apparently passed; we were free to disassemble our nation over differing opinions over healthcare or other policy differences.

Perhaps the advocates of this extreme approach were just letting off steam, but as I stood overlooking that beach in Normandy, it was alarming.

Have some of our citizens lost faith in their fellow Americans to use the system our forefathers gave us? To his credit, unlike many leaders in our nation, this Governor honorably served our nation’s military as a pilot in the United States Air Force and has widely recognized the value of our “great union,” but it would be helpful if he and others could more carefully exercise their leadership role.

We need our leaders to help Americans come together and embrace the truth that our system is strong and resilient enough to temporarily indulge or tolerate inopportune policy. We must recognize, providing we maintain confidence and competiveness in our electoral system, that a policy will either succeed or fail and that free elections will either result in continuance, improvement or discontinuance of the policy.  We even survived prohibition!

To be sure, both political extremes can fall prey to this…recall the many Americans who threatened to leave America after President George W. Bush was elected?

But here’s the essence of the American approach: it’s still an experiment. Play by the rules, the “ruling party” makes its best and most considered policy on behalf of the American people, and we all see what happens. The side that is closest to right will ultimately succeed…we have elections to ensure that happens. Perhaps the Connected Age technologies we’ve been talking about in this blog will help us make more sense of the electoral process as we continue with the American experiment, but in the meantime we’re doing pretty well honoring the commitment and sacrifices so many Americans have made throughout our history.

As I looked out over our fallen American heroes, I realized that advocates of this “my way or the highway” approach must be either reckless, ignorant, or just plain “not thinking.” They fail to appreciate and respect the history of the founding of our nation. Many unfortunate policies have been adopted, but we corrected them without rendering asunder the nation (with one obvious, thankfully temporary exception).

The new American Center needs to always listen and respond to legitimate concerns, but guide extremist solutions to the margins so we can devote our energy and creativity to responsible solutions that have the potential to unite us rather than divide us. We owe this to the men and women I had the honor of safeguarding that beautiful morning in Normandy.

Originally posted by Chuck Hunt, 3/18/2014.

Editor’s Note: From time to time, we will post pieces that reflect deeply personal experiences that demonstrate why we feel it is so important to take on the effort embodied by Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age. This post is one of those pieces. The comments in this post specifically discuss the author’s perspectives and are not intended to convey those of any organization with which he is affiliated.

Millennial Perspectives

Greetings, readers. I would like to preface this blog post with a little bit of info about myself, because I really want you to understand where I’m coming from. I’m 23 years old, grew up in a northern Virginia suburb, and have recently graduated from a four-year degree program at a state university.

According to “traditionally” established titles, I am a Millennial, a term which seems not only to be growing in popularity among sociologists, but also looked on with some skepticism by parts of the older generations. I suggested the change of appearance of Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age, and also recommended that my father, Carl, broaden the spectrum of topics discussed in the blog. This widened perspective, in theory, would be more appealing to multiple demographics, and would bring the Millennial generation into play.

Most of us aren’t quite ready to enter the political arena with an established agenda for change just yet, but many of us are and have been formulating powerful opinions based on the (inter)national events of the past two presidential terms. Our best hope, in our beginning quest for a more stable political environment, is to seek a deeper understanding of current political machinations. With this information, we will know what to avoid, and where to best focus our efforts for quick, efficient, and beneficial political evolution. I would like to thank my dad for provoking my interest in this project, and am excited to be able to contribute to the blogging effort.

On this initial topic of Millennials, I have read some of the latest work from the Pew Research Center (Millennials in Adulthood). I don’t know that I would agree verbatim with what they found in the study, but they got the gist of it. I feel as though I am politically and spiritually independent, and have never really experienced a strong urge to conduct myself otherwise. I would prefer not to delve into the facets of my spiritual and political beliefs at this time, but will contend that they do play a large role in charting the course of my continued adult development.

But I digress. The biggest nit I have to pick with the “Boomer” generation can be summed up in a paraphrase of the old adage: “You talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?” One of the older generations’ primary concerns, based upon observed frequency of discussion, would seem to be the preservation of an America that is “at least as good as theirs was.” What I read from Congress and state legislators, however, paints a somewhat different picture. Far from being worth a thousand words, this picture is quite the opposite; when one side presents an idea about looking out for the interests of the future generations, the other side fires back, using the ever-penetrating bullets that are “cost”, “time” and “difficulties”.

If there is nothing else that the human race has collectively established, we can agree that life is difficult. It most likely always will be, and with that understanding, I’d like to take this chance to posit that change requires work, and work is often difficult. This should not be a point of contention…more of a universal constant.

Most of our perceived political leaders, scaling from community to nation, have developed a nasty propensity to argue, often to the point of producing a “product” no sane individual would clear for consumer use. I’d give the average legislative product these days a rating of 2 out of 5 stars. Frequently, the same cannot be said for our foreign policies and initiatives, begging the question of whether Congress is more interested in saving the rest of the world before America. That seems woefully unproductive, and is most certainly not conducive to the improvement of domestic conditions in any venue.

My generation, and even the one before it (Generation Y), is setting the stage for what America will be when our kids start leading the nation. With respect to current parties in power, I hope on behalf of our future leaders that our erstwhile gang can pull themselves together in the present, and courteously accommodate the transition to the next generation of movers and shakers. With your help, eventually from the sidelines, we can begin to rebuild the concept of the American Dream, and fulfill the American Promise of equal access to opportunity set forth in this blog.

Your intentions were good, Boomers, and you don’t seem to be leaving us with a completely defective product. We don’t need continued reinforcement for bad habits though, like political infighting and attempts to govern from the edges instead of the center (where our forefathers started in the late 1700s). As many of you are acutely aware, it takes a lot longer to break a bad habit than to form a good one. So you should probably get on that.

I have plenty of faith that we, as a country, can get back on track. Avoiding unnecessary wars is a good place to start, and paying a little more (read: a lot more) attention to the environment wouldn’t hurt, either…we have to live here after you’re gone. The Pew Report said that overall, Millennials are “Upbeat about the Nation’s Future”; we need your help to make sure we stay that way.

In closing, we Millennials are well aware that you have to leave us something to work with. So please consider that, while you’re arguing about politics and voting to repeal laws of the land that have already been adjudicated in the highest courts. And to the older voters who keep electing these people who represent the extreme edges of politics: please stop electing these people who represent the extreme edges of politics! They can’t distinguish between good and bad government.

America needs a responsible political system to be the best we can be; the Founders knew that, and that’s why they created a government intended to adapt and evolve with the adapting and evolving American people, from the Center out. Congress, please take some time to familiarize yourselves with an African tradition known as the Sankofa Process. Think of it as the homework you’ve been neglecting to do since you got elected. You don’t have to look back before you move forward, but avoiding this process can definitely compromise the end result.

Josh out.

Originally posted by Joshua Hunt, 14 March 2014.

Compliments to the Complements

Connecting to the Principles, Part 4

Millennials have sought to build a social life that is more visible, more networked and more transparent than any generation before them. To be sure, Gen Y’ers and even Boomers have used online social networks in numbers that would likely have surprised anyone 20 years ago…some might say “everybody’s doing it!” Millennials have grown up connected, however – that’s why they’re also called digital natives. The effects of all that connectivity compose the basis for one of our main premises in Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age.

There are some important questions to ponder about all this though. What are the effects of an online social life? Are we over-connected? What are the consequences of the new forms of connectivity in terms of the future of collaboration? How do we make collaboration work better in the connected age?

These are some of the questions we posed to ourselves as we articulated the Principles last month. We thought long and hard about collaboration when postulating that competition and compromise are key complementary components of our political process. We also thought about collaboration’s effects on capitalism the way it’s practiced in America. We were driven to think about this because our current Congress seems to have forgotten how collaboration works, even though we see business succeeding more and more through collaboration in the connected age.

So with this post we’re looking a little more closely at the complementary relationship of compromise and competition and the resulting outcome of improved collaboration in the connected age. We’re also examining how this improved collaboration is exploited by Millennials. Focusing on connectivity, a look at collaboration through this lens helps us better understand why competition is good, and so is compromise. If we learn how to balance the two, in collaboration, we can rebuild the American Center and perhaps even draw more from the extreme edges back to the Center.

Just to review, a complement is “something that completes something else or makes it better…or makes perfect.” While we’re not describing a perfect relationship in our thinking, we are proposing that competition and compromise work together…complete each other…to make it more likely for collaboration to succeed. If we only rely on competition of ideas or ideology to improve our ability to lead, and in the process avoid compromise altogether, we are destroying the potential for collaboration to work…that’s not leadership.

Since we’re all human, none of us can get it right all the time, no matter how strong the ideology behind our beliefs. There aren’t even two sides to most arguments in Congress so how is it even possible to be right all the time? How is it possible to think only in terms of the “other side is wrong” and has nothing to contribute? How did the concept of compromise become a negative? If we could answer these questions collaboratively we might find a way forward. Fortunately, at least two US Senators are trying to address these issues…that is leadership.

The “normal” way of doing business in Congress in recent years appears to be built on only competition, spurning compromise because that is allegedly some sort of sign of weakness, or failure to be responsive to a particular voting base. But that’s not how our nation came to be. In 1775-1776, ideas competed but the Continental Congress recognized that compromise made those competing ideas stronger when effectively blended. The Founders inherently understood that successful collaboration requires that compromise and competition work together to improve the chances of achieving good policy and valuable outcomes.

This isn’t just the case in government, either. In the FAPITCA Principles, we proposed as an objective that “American capitalism is largely based on the complementary functions of competition and compromise between buyers and sellers in the market.” This means that one party, sellers, provide value to the other party, buyers, through a complementary relationship that brings together a market that might not otherwise exist. This happens in the normally collegial world of academics, as well. Value is added through the synergy of compromise and competition.

The Millennial generation leverages their digital native nature through their online social life and has benefitted from the effects the synergy of competition and compromise has on collaboration. At any early age, they began to play online games together and discovered the power of cooperation and compromise to overcome the big “Boss” adversary in each level of the virtual world in which they played and interacted. Typically, they never even met their playing partners.

Millennials have friends, by their definition, on Facebook that they’ve also never met and yet still share ideas and learn from each other. The same is true to a considerably lesser degree to the older generations but it was tougher since it was like learning a new language at an older age. Millennials grew up with speaking this language!

Competition and compromise are the effects of the digital age that the digital natives have accepted and in which they now thrive. The consequences of this life (the life of the generation from which we’ve borrowed the Boomer and Gen Y environments, as we discussed in the last post) are leading to fascinating findings that will soon be informing the growth of the American Center.

An appreciation of this change is happening everywhere but the halls of Congress, apparently. The Boomers squatting on the edges of that hallowed venue have just not sufficiently learned enough of the lessons of connecting in this age. They have not learned the value of compromise as a complement to competition to make it possible to collaborate on issues like healthcare, employment, immigration, the environment, redistricting, campaign finance, military missions and expenditures, social welfare and almost anything else we could imagine. What collaborative tools they have at their disposal if only they could truly immigrate to the connected age!

Unfortunately, we’re not prepared to say that any effects or consequences the digital natives are experiencing in the connected age will flow into the halls of Congress and State Houses anytime soon. They all think they are connected and doing the peoples’ business using the tools of social media like the Millennials. The problem is they’re primarily using these tools to get reelected, and all too rarely to take care of the nation and their constituents. That’s the biggest difference between those so-called political-digital immigrants and the digital natives of the Millennial generation. That’s where leadership will come in, but that’s for another post – we’ll get to that soon!

Next time, we’ll be publishing our first guest blog post…from a real Millennial! We’re delighted to highlight the perspectives of the real future of America, and hope it opens the door to more posts from the generations younger than the Boomers who are currently the “caretakers” of America. It’s time that the learning and sharing flow both ways.

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 3/11/2014.

Resisting Demography: Then and Now

Connecting to the Principles, Part 3

In the introduction of a new book, The Next America: Boomers, Millennials and the Looming Generational Showdown,[i] author Paul Taylor notes “Demographic transformations are dramas in slow motion. They unfold incrementally, almost imperceptibly…”

Thanks in part to the connected age, we see changes differently than we did before. We now see that more minorities vote more often, we observe greater acceptance of social change than was possible even 25 years ago, and of course, the widening gap between the very rich and the rest of us is increasingly evident.

One wonders if King George III and the British Parliament of the 1760s – 1770s experienced this same phenomenon of changing demography that our nation’s government is experiencing today. Without the benefits of the connected age, it was far more challenging to process the changes that were occurring. Clearly, George didn’t understand the price he would pay for failing to grasp the shifting demographics of the time.

There are many statistically-based reasons for the demographic impact Taylor describes but in the end it is about change. America has experienced a great deal of change throughout its nearly two-and-a-half century existence. Fortunately, we usually dealt with change sufficiently well to maintain our global reputation as the Land of Opportunity. Even today, we still offer an environment for new opportunities available nowhere else in the world…so far.

Why only “…so far?” Up until the last couple of decades, we had a more resilient political system that could normally, somehow, cope with change and bounce back without long-term, systemic dysfunction (the Civil War was one glaring example). We were able to generally cope because we tended to embrace America as a platform for freedom, security, opportunity and growth (even if we were less than universal in application). Politics, money and personal power were somehow sufficiently mitigated to allow the “public interest” to generally prevail.

We, by design or by a wonderful accident, made sure (at least in theory) that almost anyone who was born here or came here from another land could have the same opportunity to succeed (or to fail). Obviously we sometimes fell short of that mark, but at least we were better at it than other nations. Of course, that was back in the day when competition and compromise could stand as complements instead of opposites!

Here’s a question, though: Has America of the last 20 years or so begun to look like King George III’s England? The American political system and too many of its voting citizens have been clinging to a time that existed before America’s current demographic transformation began; they have been pining for the “good old days” that can no longer exist. So did George.

The strategy to cling to this past can damage our nation. It creates a vast internal conflict between our political leadership that threatens to cleave us the same way America broke away from England…where one side took an intransigent position from which the other side had to no choice but to rebel and go their own way.

It was a different time in the 1770s, of course, and the America of the 21^st Century should wake up every morning thankful that our forefathers had the courage and creativity to break away from England and form a “more perfect union.” But the lessons we should learn from England letting America slip through her fingers should help us understand what could happen to a future America if our leaders don’t behave more like our Continental Congress than the Congress of 2014.

Lest we mistakenly think that it was easy to make this change and revolt from England in 1776, we should remember that a same, or even greater, level of disagreement existed between members of the Continental Congress who wanted independence and those who wanted reconciliation. It was not an easy decision, nor was the outcome confirmed until the final vote was cast.

In an earlier blog post, we referred to a recent work by Richard Beeman, Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor,[ii] recounting the years 1774-1776 leading up to the July 2,1776 resolution vote for independence from England. While we haven’t started doing book reviews in FAPITCA, this one would be a good one with which to start.

Even though we all know the outcome, Beeman recounts as a good mystery writer might, how the final vote took place on the heels of great differences existing only a month before. He shows how a group of dedicated, well-meaning elected colonial representatives finally agreed to step forward and build a new nation. In the end, the two sides set aside their differences, came together in the real meaning of congress (e.g., “make decisions”), and decided that American unanimity was more important than any other alternative.

This was perhaps the most important decision America has ever taken, and the two sides figured out how to get the job done. In a meaningful way, Beeman actually describes a model for our own reconciliation between disagreeing parties today – the representatives of 1776 sought to build a nation and we need our representatives to seek to preserve a nation.

The primary inhibitor to change today is our politics and the people we elected to lead us. Rather than look at demographic change and diversity as an opportunity, they choose to see it as a threat. This is just what King George III and the Parliament of England did in the mid-1700s. They clung to the remnants of a world that was changing all around them and chose to defend that way of life rather than exploit the opportunities that diversity and change were bringing to them and indeed all of Europe at that time.

The revolution we face today is one of demographic challenges to the old ways, as Taylor notes. On the surface, we seem to have one party that is at least open to the changes, but still clings to the old ways of lobbying and lust for power and money. Further, its legislative intent is typically viewed with suspicion in terms of whether it is advancing what is good for America or only the party. They are opposed by a party that almost systemically avoids change unless it benefits a core constituency; it too is subject to the same distractions of lust for power and enrichment. In either case, power and money appear to be at the root. While not all change may be good for us, there must be national debate about change, without a power and money agenda, to intelligently discuss rather than reject it out of hand.

If we want better and more effective government at every level, we have to embrace demographic change and turn it into an energy that lets us elect and influence leaders that can see as far as the Continental Congress did.[iii] We must change ourselves and elect leaders that will guide our nation and communities towards a less divisive path that learns from the past while looking towards the future.

Where England and its political system misunderstood the demographics of the late 18^th Century, we need to learn and transform our politics to better cope. This transformation, enabled by far greater connectivity than the 18^th Century, can lead to a stronger, more diverse nation, with even greater equality of opportunity.

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 3/4/2014

Notes:

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[i] PublicAffairs/Perseus Books, Philadelphia, 2014

[ii] Basic Books, New York, 2013

[iii] The authors recognize that not all members of the Continental Congress shared the same vision of the future, particularly given their disagreements. Beeman does a very nice job explaining those differences and exposing the lack of foresight of many of that original Congress. Nonetheless, the representatives possessed enough honor and commitment to the new nation that they converged on the common cause that created our nation and created a means to eventually perpetuate our nation through the next important event: The Constitutional Convention 11 years later.

Thomas Paine on Honor and the Congress

Connecting to the Principles, Part 2

Almost a year before Thomas Paine published Common Sense, he served as the editor for The Pennsylvania Magazine. He was still known as Thomas Pain, his family name, when he published a brief piece in May, 1775, about the use of titles among the aristocracy called “Reflections on Titles.”

Pain, recently emigrated from England, soon changed his name to Paine to distinguish himself as a new “American” free to write about topics that would become increasingly important to the cause of independence from Great Britain. From personal readings in high school and college of Common Sense and his other works, as well as 1776 America’s reactions to Common Sense, most Americans today know how vital Paine was to the cause.

About titles, Paine wrote “Virtue is inflamed at the violation, and sober reason calls it nonsense.” He went on to note “for when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon” discussing what he considered to be unthinking and unchallenged acceptance of traditionally granted but unmerited title and rank.

There was one exception Thomas Paine noted about titles and their uses in “Reflections on Titles.” His words, published well before he was known in America as a writer for the cause of independence, praised one specific group in particular. “Reflections on Titles” could serve well to motivate that group’s progeny 239 years later. Paine’s observations honor the body of our nation’s founders who invested so much to create America. Note Paine’s thoughts that should inspire even today:

Modesty forbids men, separately or collectively, to assume titles. But as all honours, even that of Kings, originated from the public, the public may justly be called the fountain of true honour. And it is with much pleasure I have heard the title of Honourable applied to a body of men, who nobly disregarding private ease and interest for public welfare, have justly merited the address of The Honourable Continental Congress.

Paine wrote this brief but timely piece along with a number of other important (or at least interesting!) works that led up to Common Sense. In contrasting those who aspired to titles, mostly from his native country, he of course referred to the assemblage in Philadelphia who eventually pledged “Our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” The words with which he praised the Continental Congress in 1775 should have inspired generations of Congresses and even state and local assemblies.

Sadly, this admiration from our nation’s past seems less fitting today.

Paine as a Connector to the Public

Paine also noted that the “public may justly be called the fountain of true honour,” an observation that suggests that it was indeed the public who must be responsible to bestow the title of “Honourable” to the Congress, then and now. As a matter of precedence, this would also suggest that the public must be intellectually capable of determining upon whom it would bestow the title of “Honourable”.

It is the general claim of Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age that the public, particularly the Center, is in fact capable of bestowing this title. But one must wonder how many members of the Center today would in fact apply Paine’s definition to the current governing body of this nation.

Part of “qualifying” for the title of Honorable, to modernize the term, is an adherence to a set of principles based on our Constitution, as well as an application of “common sense.” The Constitution (including the Bill of Rights) provides an exceptional framework for governance and serves as a foundation for the principles of honorable governing.

It seems fair to say that all Americans, and certainly the Center, want the people they elect to represent them to be honorable servant-leaders of our nation. The gulf that exists between our political parties today precludes effective governing. The term “honor” is not even part of the dialogue when discussing contemporary politics at the national level. We proposed an initial set of Principles and Objectives in a recent FAPITCA piece that we feel could resolve the current dilemma, enhance the vocabulary and add value to a quest for the return to eligibility of the title “Honorable” to our governing bodies.

It’s worth noting that Thomas Paine was also a master of the connectivity of the 1770s: the accessibly readable pamphlet. He connected by delivering content that appealed to a great many people while still maintaining its intellectual essence. Paine used the language and network of the time to stimulate people to think, share and yes, be inspired to learn more and to intelligently lift America from the “Monarchical tyranny” of the British King and Parliament.

We believe the Center must also become masters of the tools of communication and learning in the current world: the Connected Age. As we noted in the Principles of FAPITCA, as “leaders of America in the 21^st Century, we must leverage the technologies of the ‘connected age’ on behalf of our people to connect and bind us rather than to divide us.” We must apply the principles and lessons from honorable men and women who have gone before us.

When the Center connects to our electoral process and ensures responsible outcomes that help unify us instead of divide us, we get closer to enabling the honor in our elected bodies Thomas Paine praised in 1775. When the Center engages and pressures elected officials to stop listening to the extremists and their lobbyists, honor returns to our political process. At that point, our elected bodies return to being of the people…for the people, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address. Our elected officials become leaders once again.

It’s our responsibility as the Center to help our leaders achieve this greatness. It would just be “common sense” to Thomas Paine.

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 2/28/2014

Editor’s note: The next-to-last paragraph of this post was slightly edited on 3/1/2014 for clarity.

Connecting to the Principles, Part 1

The “Connected Age” is a major factor in the work we propose to discuss in Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age. Perhaps that seems to be a tautology, but in the world of Facebook, ubiquitous blogging and personalized content provided through the web or cable TV, the “connected” part of our world is becoming like the air we breathe. Most of us no longer even think about it until we lose our network connection or stay in the rare hotel that inexplicably doesn’t offer Internet access!

In a way, we could have proposed the title of our work to be simply “Fulfilling the American Promise” but that could have deemphasized the role connectivity plays in American society today. A simple title like that could even overlook the power of the connected age in linking and separating us all at the same time. That connectivity is just too big a part of our lives to ignore even if it is like air these days.

The next few posts will explore some of the effects the connected age has had on America over the years, with an emphasis on how it’s shaped the Center of America and influenced the fulfillment of the American Promise in the time in which we live. We want to build on the discussion of connectivity, the Center and the Promise around the FAPITCA Principles we published last week.

Given that we defined the “Connected Age” in the Principles as a “‘change agent’ environment that can either strengthen or weaken our democracy,” we better talk about the nature of a “change agent” more in the next few posts and what we mean by strengthening or weakening us. We also wrote that the Center “must leverage the technologies of the ‘connected age’ to connect and bind us rather that divide us.” That probably demands some more discussion, as well. Finally, we talked about the complementary relationships between competition and compromise in American capitalism, as well as the need for diversity, but didn’t relate any of that to the connected age. In the next posts, we’ll better define what we mean since the connected age empowers complementary action so deeply.

So, that’s where we’re headed…

For this time, and to further lay the foundation for the discussion of the connected age as a part of FAPITCA, we’ll point to one historical instance of a great environment for the sharing of technology and knowledge that preceded even the Renaissance in Europe. This example comes from a dear friend of Carl’s, Dr. Harold Morowitz, The Robinson Professor of Biology at George Mason University. Harold’s example speaks to a time of diversity and sharing of thought in history that should help us all see things a little differently in America today. We should see that success in environments such as our own current political setting is possible if only we open our ears and minds to listen to other ideas and seek to preserve equal access to opportunity to share, learn and grow.

Harold reminded Carl about the House of Wisdom in Baghdad around the early to mid-800s (AD). While we no longer have our world history books from college to provide authoritative citations and quotes, there is enough cross-linked information on the web to help (there’s that “connected age” stuff again!). We recalled that Baghdad was a cultural and economic center on the Silk Road during that age. It was common to trade and share ideas and even religious perspectives to help enlighten all who would invest the time to listen and participate in two-way conversations.

According to one very accessible history site (Go Social Studies Go), this period was a “great time of learning and discovery (that) came from Christians, Zoroastrians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, as well as Muslims.” In other words, people from every major spiritual belief came together to share ideas and to talk to each other, and more importantly to learn from each other.

While Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, fighting tribal wars and being subjected to political-religious dogma that challenged the value of objective knowledge (sound familiar?), The House of Wisdom and similar institutions were preserving spiritual and scientific insights that had been revealed and documented up to that time. Historians have argued that the Middle East world of that time preserved science for the West until Europe entered The Renaissance and objectivity about the value of knowledge returned.

We won’t debate the historical facts or sources right now, but we will draw a couple of conclusions as we look forward to the next posts. A spirit of collaboration and sharing go a long ways towards preserving and advancing objective knowledge. Connectivity, even as demonstrated as a hub of trade along the Silk Route of ancient times, can be a great force for moving people forward…this in spite of the competition among spiritual beliefs such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and the other faiths of the day.

The proverbial observer from another planet could not be blamed for confusing the current battles in our governing bodies in America with the religious-based wars to which humans have subjected themselves throughout the “modern” ages of the last 3,000 years or so. People on each side talked past each other, created specialized vocabularies to restrict ideas and objectivity, pushed to the limits of (and beyond) the existing law to achieve their narrow purposes and most of all, did these things in the name of a belief system in which only they could be right and everyone else wrong.

Americans in the Center are smarter than that. Some of them may believe differently than others, particularly in spiritual matters, but they all believe in America and her future. That’s the power and focus we want to achieve with FAPITCA. The edges are free to believe as they wish, but they are only a constructive part of the American community to the extent they acknowledge this same freedom for their fellow Americans. There are other nations less appreciative of this freedom if people at the edges find the American level of freedom intolerable. The narrative embraced by the Center celebrates this freedom and objectivity.

As the Center starts to find its voice again, perhaps America will discover the danger of hyper-personalized and edge-based news channels. Perhaps they will begin to hear and appreciate the perspectives of others as a part of what makes the Center strong and resilient. Moreover, perhaps they can even facilitate the emergence of a new “Renaissance (in the connected age).”

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 2/25/2014

Editor’s note: Harold Morowitz teaches a class in Biological Themes in Literature this semester at George Mason University and one of the class topics has been the Melville classic Moby Dick. Harold suggested that the leaders of the most extreme parts of the “right” and “left” of America today may from time-to-time resemble their own versions of Captain Ahab, willing to defeat the other side’s “White Whale” at all costs. H’mmm! Many thanks to Harold for his wonderful, objective insights!

FAPITCA Principles: An Introduction

We just established a new page on the website to introduce the initial draft of the Principles of FAPITCA. Our last post, Preamble for Principles, looked forward to the introduction. Our post today is also forward-looking: we’re looking forward to feedback, commentary and most importantly, your help to get these principles refined and more valuable to the work of Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age.

Sometimes, metaphor and analogy help to describe the way complex interactions produce meaningful outcomes. These literary tools can explain why something is important yet hard to describe at the same time. We’re using those tools in this post to introduce the Principles of FAPITCA.

Here’s the big picture:

We believe that most Americans (far more than the “majority”) are looking for a fundamental change to the way we conduct our political affairs at all levels. Americans are looking for our elected leaders to make decisions and actually lead, rather than avoid tackling hard problems because an election is “only” seven months away. We’re all losers in the current approach to government, but the biggest loser in the current way we do the business of the public is our middle class.

With few exceptions, literature and media of the last few years authoritatively tell us that the middle class is routinely losing ground, along with poorer Americans seeking the opportunity to climb into the middle class. The bottom line: No middle class—no opportunity…no America as we grew up to know it.

It’s also a matter of return on investment. The adversarial climate in Congress and too many state houses have fostered a political environment that no citizen of this nation should feel good about investing in. If we pay taxes, whether to the IRS, at the department store or even at the gas pump, we have to doubt the worthiness of the investment we’re making in politics and policy today.

It’s a safe bet we didn’t mean for our investments to empower the conflicts in the Congress and other elected offices of state and local government that “govern” in America (this doesn’t imply the Administration is off the hook, either). The return on too much of our invested tax dollars is hugely in doubt.

We must shift these politically-based conflicts away from being a two-team, winner-take-all competition into which the politics of today have sunk. Somehow, we have to wake up to the reality that we’re all on the same team…that we must practice and play on the local, national and international levels as though we were on the same team.

Though we may favor different solutions to the challenges we face, we are not each other’s enemy. The common enemy we face is the decline of the nation we love.

Here’s a football analogy to help explain the way we see this (sorry…we’re from Texas, remember).

Football and Politics: Not just a Texas thing

The field on which we play is an international arena because that’s the way it is in the connected age…everything’s interconnected to us, including our adversaries. But it’s not really some other nation that’s holding us back from scoring on our current field of play. No, it’s our internal strife that’s holding us back from moving downfield towards the goal line.

Our real challenge is that there are a lot of interacting and competing interests that distract our attention from moving the ball downfield and scoring: this freezes us from deciding the next play. But, every play we run (or don’t) has consequences for America. The opposition doesn’t want us to win because they prefer to see America decline. In fact, to us, American decline is the real opposition…decline is the “team” on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

Some of us may want to pass the ball and some of us may want to run the ball, or even kick. But we have to keep in mind what the real adversary is, and figure out how to beat the decline, not each other. We can’t keep fighting about whether to run or pass. A team at war with itself is a losing team.

We have to get back in the huddle, look each other in the eye as fellow Americans, communicate, decide upon and execute a winning play. We have to do this repeatedly, every play, every day!

Our teammates who can’t perform in this huddle and on the line need to head to the bench and cheer the rest of us on to solve our nation’s problems. Any teammate who criticizes another team member for speaking with and compromising with fellow Americans needs to sit the play out on the bench…they’re costing us the game, whether they mean to or not.

Of course, it isn’t really a game, is it? This is our American way of life at stake. It’s the life of the nation we love. We owe it to our family, our friends and to all Americans to execute a winning course of action.

Whether on “the field” or off, many of us from varied political perspectives have great ideas. The trouble today is that we can’t nurture and harvest the best ideas when we can’t even speak to each other. We don’t need “conservative” solutions or “liberal” solutions…we need the “best” American solutions that we can all embrace and make work. That’s the American way to get return on investment!

The Objectives section of the Principles of FAPITCA discusses the complementary actions of competition and compromise. Together, they are the energizing components of our political process and indeed American capitalism. Understanding and leveraging this fact is how we can work our way out of the swamp in which we find ourselves.

Briefly back to the analogy…

Here’s How We “Tackle” the Problem and Score:

First off, let’s get back in the game. Let’s all contribute to Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age by first playing the same game and by playing for the same team. Let’s energize the Center of America and use the best tools of democracy and capitalism—competition and compromise—as complements.

Secondly, we’re done with analogy and metaphor for the time being. From here on, we talk specifics like Mission, Values, Principles and Objectives. We’ll discuss how to operationalize these specifics. FAPITCA is about practical solutions that bring us together in the new American Center. The blog posts that follow this one will expand on the Principles document and reflect your ideas and comments. Time for you to get involved now!

Originally Posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 2/20/2014

Principled Challenges

We honestly thought we’d have the Principles of FAPITCA posted yesterday. We were apparently overly optimistic. We gave ourselves a couple of extra days between blog posts to make sure we’d captured a concise record of what we felt were the fundamental characteristics that go into Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age. Unfortunately, optimism didn’t carry the day!

It wasn’t that we hadn’t previously discussed the main points and the details of what we thought would be the Mission, Values, Principles and Objectives of FAPITCA. Before we ever put one word online in the New American Center website, we researched, debated and talked to family, friends and colleagues about what we wanted to do. Heck, we’re brothers who really care about America, we thought…it should be no problem to agree on the details of what we’ve been talking about for years!

Collectively, we’ve devoted over 60 years to public service in various federal and civilian agencies (including a combined nine years overseas). We’re on the same sheet of music, we thought. It should be no problem for the two of us to agree on what to say and how to say it.

We did agree about nearly everything…in principle; but we couldn’t close the deal because we wanted to make sure we said things “just right” so as not to compromise our individual principles or alienate too many people too early in the effort. This from two brothers who have been in synch on national policy issues for years, both having been students of our nation’s history and political affairs since we can remember!

“Overly optimistic” is exactly what we were. We agreed on the basic principles and objectives in about three hours of serious writing and conversation and then took four days to finally come to basic agreement about how we should actually write the words in the document. We just couldn’t quite agree on some of the words or tenses. What’s it going to be like when we post it and others have a chance to comment and post their thoughts? This is hard work and it’s going to continue to be hard work!

Well, we’re still not quite there, but we will be in the next 24-36 hours (if we’re not being too overly optimistic again).

It was actually a great exercise and preparation for what’s to come. Once we get the initial draft of the principles and objectives published, we’ll have opened the door to the real debate. We realize that. We welcome it, in fact. This is what makes America so great and so close to finding the kind of agreement necessary to move us past the logjams of the current political process – the connected age lets anyone engage in this debate, even us!

If anything, the past few days of drafting the principles and objectives helped us see that America isn’t far off from getting back on track. If we can just find the will and strength to move past the current challenges…if we can just find the vigor to debate openly and objectively and actually make well-reasoned decisions about governing, we’ll get there. Our own debate about the principles and objectives of FAPITCA convinced us that if we can get the Center of America back in the game, we’ll still win.

We really do believe that America will come back and manifest the power of Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age. We’re certain that America will return to its former greatness as the Land of Opportunity and guardian of freedom and democracy…it will be better than ever. We’re optimistic America can do it or we would never have started this website and blog.

We’re almost there with the Principles of FAPITCA, and we’ll get them posted in the next day or so – once the two of us can finally agree! This first draft of the Principles is just that—a draft. It needs work. It needs your input to shape this into the nucleus for a different discussion for our nation, a discussion built around the Center of America.

In the meantime, please think about how you’ll contribute to fulfilling the Promise, whether through FAPITCA or elsewhere. Please help us engage the Center of America and get our future back.

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 2/19/2014.