We, the Pairs

Von Richard Beiderbeck www.koinae.de

The old French word “pair” means: “equal”. The “Pairs” are people, who are equal – first of all: equal in freedom and in rights.

Equality means legal and social justice and equal rights for man and woman.

We, the Pairs, confess ourselves to all this and we think, that the principle of hierarchy, which is practised in armies, churches, political parties, commercial enterprises and in any government, administration and bureaucracy, is getting out of time and is no more up to date. The reason therefore is the world wide net and the progress of information technology. We are moving forward to a society, controlled not by a government, or leader, or party or a social group, but controlled by the citizens themselves. The medium of this self-governance will be the internet.

As long the development of the information technology and the change in the society have not reached the state of maturity, we agree to the existence of hierarchies, governments and administrations, because we are loyal citizens and not anarchists. We also are tolerant against religions, even much more than some of them against us, the “non-beliefers”.

But in our own circle, we Pairs are, what the old French word “pairs” means: equal. We don’t have a president ore some kind of leadership, and of course, man and woman are regarded as equal. Pairs are brothers and sisters in mind.

However, our circle is not equal to the rest of the world. It is exclusive and aristocratic. You cannot be a Pair, if you don’t have some qualities, abilities and if you don’t behave and belief in a certain way.

A Pair is a lady or a gentleman. A Pair is polite and cultivated. The use of force or threatening with force is barbaric, and a Pair will never do this.

A Pair must be educated. If you don’t have education, every political or religious charlatan is able to impress you with his rhetoric an sophistic and you are no more free in your personal and political decisions.

You cannot be a Pair, if you are not free.

You cannot be free, if you live in need or misery. If somebody is addicted to drugs or to gambling, if he has more debts than he can pay back, he is not free.

You cannot be a Pair, if you are not wealthy. But it is not necessary, to be rich.

You are also not free, if you have to much money, because you are busy to make even more money, ore to show and to spent your money ore to rescue your money from all these, who want to get your money.

You are not free, if you are a follower of a religion, which tells you, that god in heaven and his representatives on earth are your lords and you have to do everything, what he and his representatives want you to do, or to say ore to belief.

You are not free, if you belief in magic and witchcraft, because you live in fear to get a victim of magic spells or magic forces.

You are not free, if you belief in a political ideology, because your thoughts are caught in a trap.

A Pair must be a world citizen, but also a federalist and a patriot. There is no contradiction between these three world views. In the best interest for our nation it is to be in exchange and in friendship with the whole world. There will come a day, when the whole mankind will be united in a federal democratic world republic. But the emphasis is on “federal” and on “democratic”. The majority of the population of the world lives (or has it’s roots) in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Federalism means, that the local majority decides about the politics concerning the own region, the own nation and the own continent or subcontinent.

As a world citizen, a Pair must be able to communicate with people from other countries - and there must be a common language: the English. Every Pair should be able to communicate in English. But since a Pair must be educated, a Pair from an English speaking country should be able to speak one of the other great world-languages.

The political aim of the Pairs is, to reform the political parties and political life by applying the information technology to politics. The Pairs don’t want to abolish or reject democracy – just in the opposite: we want more democracy.

In this concern, we go far beyond the ideas of the people, who want more plebiscites.

What is the basic idea of democracy ? The control and the balance of power - not only political power, but any kind of power, which can also be economic power, or influence on the media or influence on the people by religious leaders.

How is it possible to control all this different forms of power ? One way is to limit the time of power and to end it by new elections. Another way is, to divide the power into several parts: executive, legislative and the power of the courts of justice. And to control all this by the media and the public.

For us, the Pairs, this is the right way, but society is far from having reached the end of its way. The development of democracy never comes to an end, it is always in progress. The world wide web opens now the opportunity to achieve more democracy by better control of the power and the powerful people. Every citizen can take part in the control of the mighty people, and everyone can decide himself about politics concerning his own life.

Now it possible, to know where an politician gets his money from, and how much he gets. The same with his party. And the same with a manager of an commercial enterprise or a religious leader. Of course, all these people are not pleased from this kind of data transfer in the internet. They have a holy cow, called “privacy” and “data security” and “informal self determination”.

But control of the mighty and super-rich people is not against the spirit of democracy and freedom – just the opposite.

The real at least two reasons, why the rich and powerful people want to hide their income:

1. They don’t want to pay so much taxes

2. They fear a discussion about the justification of their fantastic income, which is in no relation to their real work and achievement.

One of the weak-points of the parliamentarian democracy is the influence of the lobbyists on the political decisions. The parliamentarians and the parties can be bought by the enterprises and banks. And that’s, why the public has a right to know the real and complete income of an politician and his party, and to know, where the money comes from, and to know the income of any man, who has influence on the society or economy. This is democracy and not “big brother is watching you”. “Big brother” is only acceptable, if all citizens are big brothers and watch the powerful and super-rich.

The parliamentarian democracy was the only way to exercise democracy in a country as large as France, Great Britain or USA – 200 years ago. But times have changed. In the future it will be possible, that the people can take part to much more the political decisions by voting in the internet. However, there are many technical problems to solve: the identification of the voter, keeping the vote secret, exclusion of vote-fraud and manipulation of the voter and his vote. But these difficulties can be overcome – if there is a will to do so.

There also can be doubts about the ability of the citizens to understand complex items of politics. But encouraging is the book of James Surowiecki “The wisdom of crowds. Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economics, societies and nations”.

Surowiecki shows, that a group of experts makes more wrong decisions than a group of people with a very various background. And: the more people are involved in the decision, the better it is. The financial crisis was not the work of the man on the main street, but made by the so called experts.

Other books, for example Michael Maier’s “”The first days of the future” and Howard Blooms “Global brain. The evolution of social intelligence” show in the same direction.

Since Gustave Le Bons “Psychologie des foules” (psychology of the masses) and Ortega y Gassets “La rebelion de las masas” (“Revolt of the masses”) we are used to think about the “mass” as a crowd of men, who only act driven by their hysteria and their instincts, unable to make sensible political decisions. But the truth is, that the knowledge and the decisions of millions, unified and organised by internet are better than the knowledge and the decisions of a group of parliamentarians, sitting in a committee with a similar background and advised by lobbyists.

We Pairs want to reform the democracy. We are not world-improvers in an ivory tower, far away from reality and the needs of the social and political life. First, we want to reform the political parties themselves and bring more democracy into the parties.

Our political agenda is simple: to place the political power into the hands of the people and nothing to do, what is against the interest of the majority of citizens in our country and on the world.

80 % of the human mankind have never heard something about the French Revolution and its ideals: liberté, egalité, fraternité. They still remain in the Middle Ages or even in an earlier time. Their mind still lives at the times of Mohammed, Moses or Shi Huang Di, the first Chinese emperor. To bring to them the values, on which is founded the constitution of the United States of America, would be an enormous progress. But we cannot fight against ignorance with another ignorance. Violence is not the right answer to violence, terrorism is not the right way to overcome terrorism.

The best way to fight against fundamentalism is illumination.

Richard Beiderbeck, in august 2009, Munich, Bavaria, webmaster@koinae.de

Want to join us ?

It is not easy, to get member of the “Pairs”, since the Pairs are no a mass organization, but a small circle of people. These people are handpicked by myself. You cannot join, if you don’t have made my personal acquaintance and have talked with me personally. It is like applying for a very good job.

Although the Pairs want to achieve equal chances and democracy, they are an elite. This is no contradiction, because the true elite works not for the best interest of their own group, but for the common wealth. And this is, what we are missing at the so called elite, who rules the world today.

The Pairs are an organziation without money and material interest. For an organization, money and property pose more problems than they bring solutions.

We don’t have a president or managing committee. We are all equals. So don’t think: I will leave everything to the leading committee and the president. You must be active be yourself – being in contact with the other Pairs. Don’t think: I have paid my money-contribution, now I expect, that the committee will do something for my money. There is no contribution and no committee. We all are the committee an the president.

Still interested ? Then write me an Email to webmaster@koinae.de and tell me, where you live an who you are. Of course, it would make it easier, if you live near München.