Civics 101 - The Two Dogs Way

When I started blogging, it was just for shits and giggles. You know, to blow off some rants because my friends were tired of hearing it. I thought that I could simply bust open my purse and let the bitching out. I was wrong because people asked me questions and I subsequently started remedial classes on economics. Slide over to the Google search bar on the right side of this page and type in "Economics" and you will see those posts if you are interested. Hell, no, that's too damn hard, just click HERE. Trust me, even a moron could understand it the way that I teach because I teach to who I know.

Today, we start a new feature on government because not one damn person can understand it other than me obviously. I will begin this treatise by explaining how the vast majority of our city governments work. Why start with cities, Mr. Dogs? Well, Scooter, it's because you should never attempt to deal with anyone in government above that level. Once you get past your neighborhood, chances are really good that you do not personally know those folks and they will NEVER do a damn thing that they are elected to do. That is the honest truth.

Do not try to find this on Wikipedia, because they do not even recognize a Representative Republic as a form of government, which is what the United States of America is. It is NOT now, nor has it ever been a DEMOCRACY. NEVER. NEVER. NEVER. Remember, our country's name tells us what it is. It is a "united" bunch of "states." The States in our country took the gianormous responsibility of handling their own damn business and gave the Fed very limited powers. The Federal government is there simply to facilitate the coordination of the goings on between and amongst the states. Oh, and provide for the common defense. Wonder what the Hell that means? Our borders, maybe?

Our local governments work a little differently than our Fed, so lemme tell you about 'em.

Here we go.

Let's pretend that this graphic represents a city of near 300,000 people. This is not representative of any city in the world, mind you, it is a made up place. Or for Republicans, fictitious.

In our city, we will use a Mayor-City Council form of government, because it is the one with which I am most familiar. You can have a form of government that has a strong mayor or a weak one. For the weak one, just think about Queen Elizabeth of Pee-Peeland, the mayor doesn't do a damn thing except pick up a paycheck. Let's go with the strong kind of mayor. Our mayor is the administrator of the city and he works closely with the council. Council members are elected from their local neighborhoods and polling places called "districts," which are further broken down into even smaller parts. Let's call those things "wards."

The numbers on the graphic represent neighborhoods or "wards." In my mind, our city has 17 wards, but I chose to just show nine for clarity.

Anyhoo, these wards are run by elected officials that live next door to you. If you have a problem with what is going on in your 'hood, you go see your "Ward-Boss" and he/she/ambiguous other will try to fix your problem. If he can't do it, it is HIS responsibility to carry it further, this is how a REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC works. You are the most important INDIVIDUAL, but it works like an upside down pyramid. Rarely will an individual citizen get to speak at any government meeting higher than the office of their "ward-boss" unless they get put on the agenda of their city council. This is somewhat easy to do if you are a tax-paying citizen because you are contributing to the system. If you do not own property, it is going to be difficult to go before the board or council because they owe you nothing at all, because basically, you DO NOT exist.

If you show up to any government meeting and are NOT on the agenda, and then subsequently become an asshole, let's just say, screaming and yelling and disrupting the meeting, YOU ARE GOING TO GET TASED, DUMBASS. That is just how your local government works. And it is a damn good system, if you are a law abiding citizen.

Oh, and the Mayor runs off to Houston when there is work to be done.

This is a graphic of our next step, the State. We'll take that up in our next installment.