CHAPTER –53- The new Government

The new Government that developed started with the issuing of credits
and kind of evolved from there. As soon as the Government started issuing
credits they found that certain kinds of skills were becoming scarce because so
many people with those skills had left Government service, striking out on their
own. In order to lure those people back to fill the hard to fill positions they
started offering to pay some workers more than the basic thousand credits per
month. Soon the thousand credits had just became the minimum wage. As the
society grew and matured the need for skilled workers in every field was
realized. The most critical need was in the medical and technical fields.
One of the first thing the new society had done was to start schools to
provide children with a basic education. That naturally lead to starting colleges
and Universities to provide those interested in special skills the vehicle to
acquire them. Once again Earth was forced into tapping into Mars for help.
Mars had been running schools of higher education for centuries and some of
their universities had developed rich traditions. Better than half the population
of Mars had a college education. Mars sent teams of educators to start the
Universities on Earth and to staff them. Mars was where most scientists had
gravitated. In the early 23rd Century Mars was a far more sophisticated planet
than Earth.
It was also an interesting phenomena that ever since the institution of
free interplanetary travel Artonians had been flocking to Mars to complete their
educations then returning to Arton to apply what they had been taught of Mars.
The natives on the inner Islands of Arton were almost as developed as the
Martians. Earth not only called out to Mars to help organize higher education
but also to Arton. Artonian teachers and professors were highly sought after
and were considered the best instructors because of their patients with the
students and because their students were perceived to learn more in a shorter
period of time.
The first major University to reopen was San Diego State University
followed by UCLA, Cal Berkley and Stanford. When the law schools reopened
everything went to hell. The court system had to be reestablished, then Police
Departments had to be formed to feed the Court System. Civil law soon reared
it's ugly head and lawyers proliferated, not only prosecutors, but the whole
gambit of public defenders, private practice attorney's and public agencies for
child care, mental hospitals and everything else that fed that system. Old law
books were drug out and reprinted. The Constitution of The United States was
revised. The voters approved the revised constitution. In the revised form there
was no longer a representative form of Government but rather everyone voted
on every issue. Anyone who wanted to introduce a bill could. New bills were
filtered through elected committees and eventually presented to voters who
voted on them directly. A television station presented both the pro's and con's
of every issue. People could sign on either their personal communicators or
computers were required to give their password before voting on the issue.
There was no Executive branch of government. The local committees were
only paid a nominal sum for service to the community. There was a citizens
committee that supervised the police but any split decisions called for a public
vote. The members of the Supreme court ran for the office, anyone running for
the office had to have the required number of years of service as judges in the
court system. They had to take a written examination, an oral examination, a
physical examination and a thorough background check. The results of these
examinations were made available to the public, the public then voted on their
favorite candidate. A judge was allowed to serve on the Supreme Court until
some other judge challenged him for his position. Challengers would be allowed
time to plead their case on public Television, followed by the Incumbents
rebuttal. Then the public would vote on whether the challenger should be
allowed to challenge the Incumbent or not. If the public voted to allow the
challenge then the examinations took place. After the results of the
examinations were known the public would either vote for the challenger or the
Incumbent. Honest men of good faith and conscience were seldom challenged
but a scoundrel would be ousted in no time. Most of the members of the
Supreme court served for life or until they chose to retire.
The concept of privately owned real property had never really caught on
because there was so much of it. There were, however recording books at the
local court house where a person could describe the property that he used for
his personal residence. In the United States there were the old plat maps, lot
numbers, addresses that could be referred to in giving an accurate description
of the property. Each person was also allowed to record on one piece of
recreational property. The size of any claim was limited to the amount of land
required to make the property viable. If a person was running a thousand head
of goats on a ranch he might claim that he needed ten thousand acres, but if
he lived in a condominium complex he might only be allowed to claim his
undivided interest in the complex and his personal interest in the unit he lived
in. A person could claim anything they wanted to claim but if another person
disagreed with that claim he could call for a hearing where the issue would be
decided by a judge. Most people managed to work land use out between
themselves and seldom was a hearing called for.