Counterculture/The Free American Republic

Formed from the collapsed Northwest Confederacy in 1874, the Free American Republic (FAR, usually pronounced as the word 'far') has the first government in the world to implement totality representation. A citizen of the Free American Republic is refered to as a 'Farite'. FAR is located approximately in the center of North America and stretches toward the west coast. It shares borders with Canada, the Lone Star Republic, the United States of America, and Kansas.

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Law and Government

The Constitution of the Free American Republic is the highest law of the Free American Republic and prescribes framework for the entire government. The most unique and defining feature of this grovernment is its use of totality representation. This is a system of representation in which each voter selects a representative popular enough to be in the house of representatives and contributes one vote to that representative's voting power in congress.

Unless a voter's representative leaves the legislature, the voter may only change his or her chosen representative once per year during a one month period beginning on the voter's birthday (or otherwise on a randomly selected date). Therefore, the electoral process is continuous throughout the year. When a representatives number of votes falls below one five hundredth of the total number of votes, her or she is removed from congress.

Citizens are elected to congress through the process of candidate petition. Any independent citizen may register a candidate petition, thereby becoming a congressional candidate. A voter may add or remove his or her name to or from any candidate petition any time his or her vote is not locked (a term that will be defined in just a moment). As soon as any candidate petition has a number of supporters greater than or equal to one five hundredth of the total number of votes, that candidate becomes a reprepresentative. At the same time, voters supporting the petition in question are removed from all petitions and their votes are locked until the next time they would normally be allowed to change their chosen representative. At that time, their votes automatically transfer to the representative they helped to elect.

The Free American Republic also has a president whose job is primarily to lead and preside over the congress. The president also has the power to suspend law when he or she deams it absolutely necessary. In the case that this power is used, an impeachment trial for the crime of abusing that power automatically begins with a national jury of all voters. Finally, the president may be assigned further powers and responsibilities by law.

The president of the Free American Republic is appointed by congress in a manner prescribed by the congressional bylaws. The president must be appointed from within congress, at which time he or she must resign from his or her position as a representative. In cases that the bylaws do not cover, the representative with the most votes is appointed.

Politics

At the present time, there are 14 major political parties active in the Free American Republic. Of those, the 5 most popular are refered to as the 'principle parties' of the Free American Republic.

Political parties in the Free American Republic operate in a unique way. There are no laws which specificly govern the Farite parties. Under the law, they are treated as any other organization (organizations are created by contracts between their participants). Each major party, and most minor parties, participate in the Candidate Exclusivity Agreement. This agreement, created in 1892, allows any of the participating parties to declare any of its primary elections mutually exlusive with any primary election of any other participating party. The agreement requires the parties to cooperate in preventing voters from voting in a pair of mutually exclusive elections. Unlike most party systems, this does allow voters to vote in primary elections of more than one party. Parties allied in a certain issue often agree not to invoke exclusivity when they intend to field candidates for congress to champion that issue. Parties will also sometimes jointly sponsor a candidate.

The current principle parties are:

The Constitution Party

The Farite Constitution Party, not to be confused with the Confederate Constitutionalist Party, emphasizes strict adherance to the Constitution of the Free American Republic. This party was founded in 1935 to promote the Health and Education Amendment. The party was inactive from 1942 until 1948, when it was resurrected to champion the Clarification Amendment. It is now one of the most popular parties in FAR. Presently this party actively discourages Farite involvement with other countries.

The Libertarian Party

The Libertarian Party was founded in 1955 to field candidates with the intention of helping to shape the changes to law required by the Clarification Amendment. The goal was to remove constitutionally unjustifiable laws that limit personal freedom. The party and most of its supporters consider the effort to have been a success. The party remained and continues to oppose what it deems unreasonable limitations on personal freedom.

The Federalist Party

The Farite Federalist Party supports granting more powers to district councils so that they are more like the states of the United States of America. Ideally, the party would like each district to be able to make local laws. The party was founded in 1970.

The Environmental Party

Justified by the health clause of the Health and Education Amendment, the Environmental Party supports laws enforcing "sustainable resource management practices". This party was founded in 1965.

The Conservative Party

The Farite Conservative Party was founded in 1981 to oppose some of the legal affects of the counterculture movement. In particular, the Conservative Party supports laws against abortion and laws against nudity outdoors on public land. It also supports limitations on the separation of church and state, claiming that they pit "Church Against State". Recently, the Conservative Party has taken a stand against the Constitution party, insisting that the Farite government should provide military and medical aid to non-Farite peoples when it is "the right thing to do".

Political Divisions

Although the constitution makes no explicit provision for internal political boundaries, law divides the country into districts which may manage local courts, police departments, voting offices, and budgets for public services to be contracted. In each district the management is handled by town meetings and/or district councils. Each district also has a steward responsible for assuming the responsibilities of the president locally in the case that the district loses contact with the national government.

There are currently 377 districts in the Free American Republic.

Economy

The Free American Republic's principle export is technology. As the first nation in which personal computers were produced, FAR remains a major source of electronics all over the world. This, combined with the fact that FAR imports virtually nothing that can reasonably be produced domestically, has given the country a stable and prosperous economy.

Transportation

Auto Roads

The Free American Republic has a network of roads used primarily for public transportation. Individual car owners may use the roads for a hefty fee. In general, only large companies and very wealthy Farites own cars. The roads are maintained by several contractors with the government. These contracts give congress the power to switch to new contractors at any time without losing any of the road maintenance resources that have been payed for by road use fees.

30 private bus companies operate public transportation services on these roads. Nearly all of them cooperate in providing universal scheduling information and route planning. All bus companies which do not, have been boycotted.

Rail Roads

Rail roads run alongside most of the auto roads as well as underground and over bridges at some places. Contracts for the maintenance and operation of the rail roads are similar to those for the auto roads.

Subways and Local Roads

Many districts maintain subway systems and local roads by contract.

Airplanes

Airlines and airports are entirely private enterprises in FAR. The law only requires that "reasonable cooperative measures" be taken avoid collisions and provide security. Legal precedent supports only accreditation from the Association of Farite Aviators as adequate compliance. The AFA coordinates ground control and imposes safety regulations. The AFA is not a government agency. There is a movement to impose legal regulations and allow for military intervention in private aviation for national security.

Communications

In 1989, one of the major telephone and television companies in FAR replaced its analog infrastructure with a high speed digital network. Only two major communications companies in FAR survived the transition. They founded the communications network which now spans the globe: Internet.

In the Free American Republic Internet is used for telephone, television, and countless services for personal computer clients. Because television content need not be transmitted as a broadcast in FAR, there are no television networks as in most other countries. Television producers create shows which may be dowloaded and viewed at any time for a fee. The Internet broadcast addressing feature is used for live television transmission.

Education

In the Free American Republic, all citizens' educations are subsidized. Each year, every citizen can be reimbursed for classes up to a certain amount regulated to be approximately worth three courses. There are some courses that all must take as minors and before becoming independent citizens. The full cost of all such courses is separately reimbursed.

Businesses offering courses must meet some government imposed standards in order to be subsidized. Competing organizations establish final exams to gauge the effectiveness of their competitors' courses. The government requires cooperation with this system for participation in the education subsidy program. While many companies offer courses, there are very few schools. Most courses take place in rooms rented from third parties. Degrees are awarded by independent organizations which gauge the significance of a person's coursework.

Almost all Farites seek a Bachelor's Degree. While not all seek a higher degree than that, most citizens continue to take classes throughout their lives.

Health Care

The Farite government has contracts with several large insurance companies. The government pays, with tax money, for insurance for every citizen. The government contracts stipulate that the government may withdraw at any time keeping a certain amount of the capital from each client. In that case, the government must seemlessly switch the affected citizens to another policy without allowing them not to be covered at any time. On average a contract is dropped, and another added, once every two years.

Demographics

For all categories responders were allowed to choose as many options as were appropriate for them.

Ethnicity

Caucasian - 72%
- English - 35%
- Spanish - 26%
- German - 17%
- Italian - 16%
- Irish - 16%
- French - 15%
- Other - 27%
- Refused - 3%
Hispanic - 16%
Black - 13%
Indiginous - 13%
Asian - 10%
Refused - 8%

Religion

Christian - 57%
- Mormon - 46%
- Catholic - 25%
- Protestant - 20%
- Other - 7%
- Refused- 9%
Agnostic - 39%
Atheist - 14%
Indiginous - 6%
Jewish - 5%
Islamic - 5%
Pagan - 4%
Other - 6%
Refused - 9%

Legal holidays

Date	Name	Remarks
January 1	New Year's Day	Beginning of the year.
May 2	Labor Day	Celebrates achievements of workers. Adopted from The Lone Star Republic.
August 9	Constitution Day	The anniversary of the radification of the constitution of the Free American Republic.
October 7	Decoration Day	Honors servicemen and women who died in service.
President's Discretion	Thanksgiving	Day of thanks declared by the president, usually once each year.

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