The Rebirth of Shrink the Government
In the next few weeks, coinciding with September 17th, Constitution Day, celebrating the signing of the US constitution, I’m launching (again) Shrink the Government. The blog is associated with The Citizenism Initiative of The James Madison Project.
Where Shrink the Government was initially a stand alone blog where I had planned to make psychologically informed observations about our politics, the reborn Shrink the Government will encompass a larger and more activist agenda and provide a treatment plan to support a number of initiatives. The activist plan includes the development and deployment of The Case Presentation, “My Political Tool Box for the 21st Century” to more effectively engage within the Political Ecosystem . There are many areas (symptoms) in our political landscape that would benefit from “Shrink the Government”. While improving our political environment is the goal, we will start by focusing on a very specific yet devastating problem, The Pain Opioid Epidemic, to “develop the civic muscle” and test our the approach which will then be applied to Cancer of the US Political System and other Diseases of the US Political System.
The effort is driven by the vision articulated in the principles that form the foundation of American democracy. The blog’s goal is to provide psychological insight about our politics. It will be closely associated with a framework, which I call Citizenism, to reclaim the role of the citizen in the political ecosystem. In addition to focusing on principles and theoretical aspects of Citizenism, we provide a tool box to help citizens more effectively engage within the body politic. Here is a brief description of my path to Citizenism.
Nearly a decade ago, shortly before the dawn of the Obama Presidency, I embarked on a political journey that focused on the state of our healthcare system. More specifically, as a psychiatrist working in the healthcare system and as a healthcare consumer troubled by the many challenges confronting individuals in accessing, affording and actually benefiting from our medical system. I quickly recognized, in the summer of 2009, that to have a meaningful impact one must engage the political system as a citizen. Over the next few years, citizen engagement became a hobby. I set up Shrink the Government as a framework to comment about political events using a psychological perspective. While I continued to focus on the healthcare system and how it can better serve us, I delved into the political foundations that bind us and the pathology that divides us. The process of learning more about the political foundations of our democracy has been energizing. The lessons learned and the connections forged have served me well. The many articles read, lectures, attended, courses taken, conversations and “heroes’ discovered have been essential for moving forward as I prepared for and cope with the Trump presidency.
One particularly informative guide has been the architect of our national government, James Madison. James Madison was concerned about the viability of the United States and alarmed by the role of the States in maintaining the Union and factions in threatening civil liberties. Madison with Hamilton and Washington, laid the foundations for the constitutional convention and played a central role in designing the architecture (DNA) for the national government and principles as well as the revolutionary concept of allowing the people to ratify the constitution. As revolutionary as the efforts of the Founding Fathers were in establishing the framework for a representative national government, the structure of the organism they brought to the world lacks a “users manual” for citizens to most effectively assume their obligations and to be part of their government.
Citizenism provides an organizing structure for the efforts I have been engaged with. It is an ambitious, multi-year experiment that seeks to reclaim the centrality of “We the People of The United States” in public discourse and focus of government policy. Furthermore, the project’s goal is to explore and invigorate the reasons for our federal government as articulated in the US constitution: “in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”. A key initiative of Citizenism is to explore a more foundational concepts that inspired our founding fathers, and described by the Declaration of independence the vision that is at the heart of our nation…The Pursuit of Happiness…
As the role and funding of the health care system is once again emerging in our partisan political landscape it is my plan to re engage with the efforts of Citizens4health and the various initiative to make the health care system the best it can be and the political process that is undertaken healing for the nation. Starting with an invitation to create the vision and goals for the health care system, citizens4health provides a local platform, (HealthyPhilly, Montco Health for All) and Hospital watch.US.
I invite anyone that is interested in solutions to the challenges facing our democracy to joining our effort.
