9-0 and the Rule of Law

Opens March 4th 2024 as a bookend to his earlier video on whether Trump could be on the ballot, framing himself as a rule-of-law guy who had predicted a nonpartisan court would rule 9 to 0, which Trump v. Anderson did.

Summarizes the ruling: states may disqualify their own officials but have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 against federal offices like the presidency.

Lays out the three standards for insurrection: US Code chapter 115 section 2383 as a judicial standard, impeachment and removal as a political one, and the old Confederate standard of formally taking up arms.

Nancy Pelosi's impeachment aimed to make Trump ineligible under the 14th Amendment, but he was impeached and not removed, and none of the three standards was met by January 6.

Regardless of MSNBC and CNN framing, no conviction or removal occurred, raising the broader question of what makes good laws that cannot be abused to silence or arrest opponents.

Applies it to a poorly written Cardano constitution that could let DReps seize funds or make certain ADA ineligible to vote by simple majority without any due process.

Says whether today is a loss for democracy or a victory for the republic depends on your viewpoint, but the clear-cut interpretation gave 9-0 rather than a 6-3 partisan split among Obama and Biden appointees.

Many Republican senators privately said they would have voted to remove Trump if the ballot were anonymous, having seen what happened to Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney.

Suggests anonymous voting that verifies membership without revealing the vote could suit DReps or the constitutional committee, buildable with Midnight's cryptography though not in CIP 1694 yet.

Cites Brexit as a case where multiple ballots over time, rather than a single referendum, might have changed the outcome as people learned the consequences.

He advocates only for equal protection and equal application of the law, treating saint and sinner alike as a foundation of a constitutional republic and a constitution-derived protocol.

The rarely-shared story of being invited to bid on El Salvador's Chivo wallet and Bitcoin implementation, flying to San Salvador with the Alpha Point CEO to meet Bukele's government directly.

He passed on the deal, one of his hardest CEO decisions, because El Salvador's courts and legislature were too weak to give recourse against a powerful, charismatic executive.

Frames it as his rule-of-law philosophy: natural rights, checks and balances, and the ability to reverse or question bad decisions matter more than the temptation of making history.

The next nine months are Cardano's most pivotal, as the on-chain government wakes up and the people move from passive spectators to active participants whose opinions become reality.

Cardano can become the most significant ecosystem ever because competitors are anarchistic protocols or cults of personality that give participants no voice or path to power.

Previews the sequence: SPOs deciding the 1694 fork, then DReps registering, then a constitutional convention laying foundations for an eternal protocol lasting decades to centuries.

IO will propose foundational research the community can approve to make voting more inclusive beyond ADA-weighting, starting with Mithril and adding linear preference ordering and quadratic voting.

The melting pot of community ideas as the Treasury opens will produce the most advanced governing system ever, prompting the question of what a good governing system even is.

Argues America lacks one, since the working definition is just firing the opposing party, yet Congress has an 18 percent approval rating while 96 percent of incumbents are reelected.

Middle-class living standards have deteriorated for 25 years from inflation, contrasting a 1990s single-income Simpsons family with Gen Z couples who hold degrees yet can barely make rent.

Cites over 30 trillion dollars of US debt tracked on the USA Debt Clock, whose annual interest now exceeds the military-industrial complex, alongside rising homelessness, immigration, and costly healthcare.

A good government has a fiduciary duty to report honestly on the nation's welfare, so Cardano must objectively measure whether transactions are faster and cheaper, dapps growing, and the network more decentralized.

Points to the Edinburgh Decentralization Index, funded by grants to scientists for eight first-principles parameters, as a versioned neutral metric that administrations can be scored against year after year.

Says what you measure you can improve, and Cardano also needs metrics for egalitarianism, performance, and a macroeconomic notion of protocol value beyond the ADA price, the mission of Sean Ford's venture.

Says if Cardano cannot fire underperformers like America cannot fire its 18-percent-approval Congress, on-chain governance will have failed, but with the right North Stars it can beat corporate and nation-state governance.

Frames Cardano as a sandbox for the 18th-century American dream of protecting freedom, liberty, and property, and praises a group that ran a governance attack on SanchoNet to harden it.

IO will donate for and hold at least 50 constitutional workshops in 50 countries to mark up a constitution and elect delegates to the Argentina convention, hoping the Foundation and Emurgo add more.

CIP 1694 lets the whole community ratify the constitution through a tripartite vote, showing the world how to bring people together and protect the liberty of all users regardless of who they are.

Closes that blockchain is the magic mirror giving people integrity when they lack it, with a rancher parable that trust makes a land deal a handshake while distrust needs lawyers, the middleman blockchain replaces.