welcome to the
Think Different Campaign
Santa Cruz district 4 style
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End corrupt, division politics from our two-party system -- it's time to Think Different! (video)
Dear friends and neighbors. Do you wonder what it feels like to reject your political party loyalties? Are you tired of the constant "we" versus "them" division and animosity across the nation, state and community? Are you through taking your cues from a news anchor? Are you open to begin coming to terms with the gross contradictions in your party's agenda? Do you feel used by your party? Do you question why our politicians don't practice what they preach, operate under a different set of rules, and amass fortunes in public service positions?
Do you feel powerless and left out of the system the moment you walk out of the voting booth? Do you want your voice to have a genuine and direct impact in the shaping of your local community ("Individual Good" / "Community Good") rather than handing that authority over to the local foot soldiers of a massive political machine, individuals whose mission it is to prioritize their party's self-serving interests, while they simultaneously place band-aids over the wreckage** done to small communities by their party's failed, top-down, social engineering experiments and special interests-laden policies known as the "Public Good" (part 4 video)? Do you hope to one day throw away your knee-jerk reliance on Groupthink and Partythink to rediscover your inner voice and your ability to think freely, independently and critically again? Are you ready to be unshackled from your self-imposed tribal slavery that has taught you to despise whoever sees the world through a different lens, rather than through the lens of your political party and its complicit media?
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** skyrocketing inflation, hyper-inflated gasoline prices, stagnant wage growth, a widening income gap, a shrinking middle class, greater welfare dependence and welfare categories, oppressive taxation, unpunished crime, staggering homelessness, home ownership erosion, a spiraling drug epidemic, ...
Does the term "Power to the people" still have any meaning or relevancy to you anymore?
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If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then read on ...
Keep Santa Cruz Weird, Not Broken
There are two dynamics at play in Santa Cruz that are perpetuating the city's downward spiral ...
... that many Santa Cruzan's can no longer tell the difference between "weird" and "broken." This is the essential message in our tagline: "Keep Santa Cruz Weird, Not Broken."
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AND ...
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... that many Santa Cruzan's feel it would be a betrayal of their party to walk away from it when, in fact, it is their party that has already walked away from its traditional liberal base. This blind allegiance to party, also known as tribalism, and its intolerance to anyone who thinks outside party boundaries has stifled local government pluralism, individualism and the free market of ideas and solutions to better meet our community's challenges (see PARTS 3 & 5 videos).
The City of Santa Cruz is run by a political party, not by the residents who comprise it...and it's destroying the city. This is what political monopolies eventually do when left unchecked. For decades, a single party has owned the city council, the chief of police, the district attorney, the budget and the media. It uses its authority to deny dissenting voices a public podium, contrives narratives to fit the party's agenda without a peep from the local media "watchdog," provides little transparency on how public funds are distributed, and deploys a complicit legal system that looks the other way when party actors operate outside the law (learn more).
Only party ideas are permitted, thus granting it rightful ownership to every problem this city faces. You only get one side of the story--their side--so who else are you going to believe? Like bullies on a playground, there is no questioning their policies or methods. It's their media. It's their podium. This is what monopolies do when no one is standing in their path--and it's only getting worse. Political monopolies are damaging to any democracy. Even Santa Cruz can't escape this fact. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, even at the local level. So, our tiny voice is here to disrupt their story. To call it out. To say that "all is not well here."
Today, the choices made for Santa Cruz are in the hands of a political party (driven by special interests)--not in the hands of the residents or the community as a whole. Residents have given up their power of choice to the party and it will always prioritize party and special interest goals and objectives first before addressing the needs of any community. But, what if you had the power to say "no" to them and, conversely, what if they lost the power to say "no" to you? We know how to re-balance the power equation in your favor, both legally and peacefully ... and we call It the Nonpartisan Movement.
what is the
nonpartisan movement?
Download the Frequently used terms (PDF) in our campaign
Download the Quickstart Guide (PDF) for the nonpartisan movement
Read our Manifesto (PDF) to be read at the first city council meeting
Proponents of "Big Government" cannot simultaneously call themselves "Liberals." The two are opponents in the Power of Choice tug-of-war.
The Nonpartisan Movement is an early-stage, technology-driven political movement based on a hybrid composition of two operating models working side-by-side: one-half political model & one-half business model. This unique movement is planting the seeds for a new paradigm shift in local government to give the people back their true voices in shaping their own communities by transitioning from a representative democracy (greater government control) to a direct democracy (greater individual and community control).
Revisiting the Definition of Liberalism
Oxford Dictionary
A political ideology centered upon the individual (see individualism), thought of as possessing rights against the government, including rights of due process under the law, equality of respect, freedom of expression and action, and freedom from religious and ideological constraint.
Individualism is an expression of your unique choices and your community's choices--not the choices made for you by massive political parties (collectivism) feeding on a diet of special interest money. Liberalism rose up to protect individuals from Government encroachments (Part 5 video) into personal rights and freedoms of choice, so the movement would not be advocating augmenting the intrusive powers of government. Yet, government is always getting bigger, not smaller, and Liberalism (Individualism) is struggling to stay afloat as a movement. Oddly, it is the 1960's liberal generation who now seem to be the staunchest supporters of "bigger government" and of wider government scope and reach, shooting its own movement in the back in the process. The Liberalism of today has simply been hijacked and distorted in the illusory belief that a political party serves as protector of individual rights and freedoms. This couldn't be further from the truth and is delusional (part 2 video). Big Government, no matter what side of the aisle holds power, exists only to serve itself by driving narratives to divide and conquer the governed, which is why liberalism arose in the first place--to fight for individual freedoms against an ever-encroaching government that persists in its mission to enslave individuals by eliminating their right to choose a uniquely personal path to self-determination. Any government or political party claiming to be the guardian of individualism and of individual rights should sound a loud warning bell, as this would challenge the fundamental principle of Liberalism: that government acts persistently, with cloaked intent, to strip away individual rights in order to extend its control over us and the choices we make. This is simply the natural order in the relationship between government and the individual. Sixties Liberalism had a strong and healthy distrust of government ("question authority"). Today, that pearl of wisdom sits on a dusty shelf, like an aging high school trophy, inside the Liberal community ("obey authority").
Our Government's greatest weapon against the individual is the two-party system (division politics, tribalism)--a mechanism used to divide us, to turn us against one another, to divert our attention away from its incursions into our freedoms and, ultimately, to subjugate us. The people's greatest weapon against government is direct democracy--a nonpartisan and unfiltered (pure) form of self-governance that equalizes and unites individuals while shielding them from government intrusions on their individual (and community) rights and freedoms. only through direct democracy can traditional (classical) liberalism be revived, rightly exercised and flourish.
"That government is best that governs least"
Henry David Thoreau
Meanwhile, there is a secondary component to the Nonpartisan Movement that can be considered more "materially" beneficial to its resident base: the Business Model. This would be the potentially significant financial windfall to the entity we simply refer to as Node Zero--the first municipality to adopt a direct democracy platform and develops & deploys our unique software concept called the Direct Democracy Experiment Software Policy Engine, or DDESPE (part 6 video). This business opportunity shall only be granted to node zero by virtue of its first adopter status as both developer and end-user, filling the role of the proverbial "lab rat" in the Direct Democracy Experiment and rewarding it with ownership stake and control of the software's intellectual property--a well-deserved honor for building, validating, deploying, utilizing, and advancing the software system. Residents of Santa Cruz District 4 are poised to become node zero on November 8, 2022. Node zero shall be known as the epicenter of the direct democracy revolution across this land.
Cutting-Edge Democracy ... "On Demand"
Introducing the world's first,
software-based,
Direct Democracy platform
While the political model is about building portable, scalable and secure software tools to establish an easy-to-use, direct democracy infrastructure and policy-making engine, The business model is about wealth and Job creation that directly benefit participating district residents via the propagation of a licensable ddespe software solution to other municipalities in the United states and worldwide.
Note: all ideas, concepts, visions, product architectures, product roadmaps, and business models in relation to the Direct Democracy Experiment Software Policy Engine (DDESPE) are currently the express property of the First Amendment Rights Preservation Society, Inc., a Santa Cruz, CA, nonprofit.
The two models <click to learn more>
What Fuels The Nonpartisan Movement?
Speaking Out For Those Who Can't
A Message from the Candidate
"An oppressive regime that wallows in its insolence, self-deception and self-righteousness shall ultimately petrify in its own paralysis. Santa Cruz politics (and tribalism) has systematized and sanctioned the oppression and persecution of its political minorities. It is unable to compete on ideas, so must stifle its challengers. The free-thinking people of Santa Cruz deserve better than this and must speak out against it." Click icon to read full text.
** For details supporting these claims, please refer to the FARPS Santa Cruz Free Speech AudiT. This was a stealth audit to determine whether the City of Santa Cruz adhered to its legal and moral obligations to protect the 1st Amendment (Freedom of Speech) and 14th Amendment (Equal Protections Clause) rights of its residents. The audit's disturbing findings became the flashpoint that led to the birth of the Nonpartisan Movement. The true "victim" class in Santa Cruz is the cluster of residents unable to speak out, marginalized by its own government and stripped of its constitutional protections for challenging the city's public narratives. There should be a full and independent investigation by the residents of this city in relation to the FARPS' claims so voters no longer remain blinded to the actions of those into whom they put their trust and faith to govern over them. The FARPS organization welcomes any nonpartisan, investigative journalists to tell its story.
FARPS = First Amendment Rights Preservation Society, Inc.,
a Santa Cruz nonprofit defending Americans' 1st Amendment rights.
The powers we grant to those who represent us are being grossly misused and must be returned to the people so that each voice may be equally heard and each individual may freely participate to effect change in the community. Loosely speaking, this is known as pluralism. Yet, there are reasons that go beyond the trouncing of our constitutional rights why power must be restored to the people, and those reasons will be revealed throughout this campaign material.
Our Vision Goes Well Beyond Santa Cruz
It's Time We Re-Balance the Power Equation!
Game-changing proposals like this cannot be delivered in digestible sound bites. The public deserves a proper accounting for how a political micro-movement like ours plans to redistribute power, legally and peacefully, from two massive and corrupt political parties back to we, the people. Put another way, we're proposing to do nothing less than to deconstruct (decentralize) the entire power structure and to hand back its broken pieces, brick-by-brick, and equitably, to its rightful owners--and that's you. Just think of our movement as the Populist version of "the Great Reset."
Impossible, you say?
The ramblings of a lunatic?
What's he smoking, you wonder?
find out!
Learn more by navigating around this site or visit our YouTube channel
(your representatives surely will)
With your help, it can be done
Thank you for considering me on November 8th, 2022.
Greg Hyver
Nonpartisan
the direct democracy candidate
santa cruz, CA
district 4
2022
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