System Agency: Hear My Neighbor Speak
Feedback is essential. You cannot adjust the controls of a system if you aren't listening to the output. You have to know how the "code" of our laws is actually affecting the people living within the system.
Recently, I received a significant piece of feedback from my new neighbor, John Curtiss. His letter, "Hear My Neighbor Speak," is a powerful diagnostic of our democracy. John captures the essence of what I call "System Agency". It is the power of an individual to participate in and decide who we will become as a people.
John writes:
"…the American dream is the belief that a people can justly and amicably govern itself. That any citizen can participate equally in governance, by voting, by communal involvement, or by serving in office."
John’s message is a call to action for all of us in Arizona’s 1st District. He understands that for the system to work, the "users" must be active participants. He is exercising his agency by helping us clear the technical hurdle required to get a new voice on the ballot. He has signed our petition, canvassed for signatures, and written an incredibly powerful and humbling letter on our behalf.
If you believe, like John does, that we have the agency to decide who we will become, I invite you to join our crew. To get on the ballot and start debugging Washington, we need your communal involvement.
If you live in CD-1, please help us meet our goal by signing our petition, volunteering to canvass, or gathering signatures in your neighborhood.
Engineering the Outcome
Requirement: 1,525 Valid Signatures.
Our Goal: 2,200 (To ensure a 45% safety margin).
Deadline: April 1st, 2026.
The Full Letter: Hear My Neighbor Speak
By John Curtiss
No one wants to argue politics these days. Times being as they are, that is understandable. So I ask you only consider what I have to say before judging it. Thank you.
2025 was a trying year for America. Whether you voted for the president or not, what bothers me greatly is the tremendous divide prevalent in our society today. It seems like no time I can remember or relate to, and though I am relatively young I also struggle to find instances in our storied history as a nation where the vitriol between opposing political parties was both so public and so extreme.
Granted, there was the Civil War, but we cannot seriously have fallen apart as a country so much in only 160 years as to be willing to kill over 600,000 of ourselves again. And as scary as the world is today, we are no longer fighting over the right to own human chattel. We are arguing over our own values like the sovereignty of free nations and how law enforcement should fundamentally treat free citizens, but let's ignore that for now.
Instead let's agree. Times now may be terrible (or not, I suppose, depending on your view), but there have been worse times before in our history. Whether during the Civil War, Great Depression, or either of the World Wars, the promise of a brighter future ahead was bleaker than it is today, and yet times improved. And we may now be split into a thousand demographics, by choice or not, but we are all Americans. We all share in the collective faith of our nation equally, so we each depend on all of our collective belief in that nation. Luckily hope is not lost. Hopelessness is a decision, not an immovable state of being. Our predecessors did not lose faith; neither can we.
If you disagree with me, if you feel that there appears to be no pathway to a better tomorrow, I understand. For a long time, so many people have been wronged habitually, institutionally, and personally. And when so many people feel so wronged in the exact same manner, it is virtually impossible for all of them have imagined all the wrongs done upon to them. In many ways, many Americans of many backgrounds truly have rightful grounds to be upset today.
Still, if you disagree with anyone being upset about the cards life has dealt them, if you feel life has also been unfair to you and since that life is fundamentally unfair all a person can do is deal with it themselves, I also understand that worldview. To a large extent, each person and citizen of our and every nation bears responsibility to themself to take accountability of one's own life. We cannot control what happens to us, but we can control our responses.
So here is my response to what is happening, in Arizona and America, today. I believe the American dream is still alive. I overheard someone say in public recently that "the American dream is a complete lie". I disagree. The traditional notion of the American dream—where a citizen of our country can, with self-reliance, hard work, and merit alone, completely change their station in life is antiquated. With the housing market as it is, with the tremendous costs of rent, groceries, healthcare, insurance, student loans, and other basic costs of living weighing down so many by so much, it is unrealistic to expect today's younger generations to feel that the future promised to their parents to a lesser or to their grandparents to a larger extent still applies today. After all, Social Security is due to run out in less than a decade.
And yet, to me, that is not the American dream. To me, the American dream was the one in the minds of our founders. To me, the American dream is the belief that a people can justly and amicably govern itself. That any citizen can participate equally in governance, by voting, by communal involvement, or by serving in office. To me, this principle, that any of us can have a say in all of us, is the keystone of both our system of government and national identity.
Our identity is not thousands of years old or rooted in ethnic tradition. We are a melting pot of global cultures founded on two basic principles: do not tell us who to worship and no taxation without representation. To that end, our forefathers created a system of government that has withstood the test of time. Our nation's 250th birthday may be in 2026, but really the America we know and love was founded in 1789 with the signing of the Constitution. And in that very Constitution, in the very first Article, on the very first page, the founding fathers established the Legislative Branch. Furthermore, after writing the Constitution the founders also had the foresight to add in our first ten amendments in the Bill of Rights, and the very first amendment guaranteed each citizen and the press the freedom of speech.
Our core government was to be of the people, by the people. Unfortunately, this core tenet is under attack today like no time before in our history. Never has the fundamental social contract between our government and our people been so hotly contested. Democracy only survives in an educated society, and so many factors from a lack of prioritization and politicization of education to the media's lack of interest in the name of the truth in exchange for higher viewership ratings and serving self-interests have made being a responsible, well-educated citizen as difficult now as at any time of my life. This does not mean it is impossible, however. A single citizen still can make a difference.
If you still believe that today, then you believe every taxpaying citizen ought to have the right to vote. And if you believe that, you also believe every qualified citizen ought to be able to run for the House of Representatives established in the very first sentence of the Constitution. So you believe that any citizen ought be able to vote for any other qualified citizen for office.
My neighbor Daniel Lucio is running for Congress, and I am not writing to endorse him or ask you to vote for him. I well know that no one wants to be lectured about politics by anyone. So I am not asking for your vote for my neighbor; I am simply asking for you to sign his petition to allow his name to appear on the primary. I could tell you how generous he and his family have been to my family in helping us acclimate to our new home and neighborhood. I could tell you how smart he and his wife and kids are. I could tell you how much he cares about his fellow citizen, state, and country, but really none of that matters.
To me, the only thing that matters is that aforementioned American dream. Do we live in a country where our neighbors can run for office, or do we not? If we do, my neighbor should not need a PAC—which he doesn't have or to be in cahoots with corporations or lobbyists—which he is not or to even collect donations which he has not begun to—in order to run for office. He ought to be allowed to run by virtue of being an upstanding citizen alone which he is. I want to live in an America where Daniel Lucio is allowed to speak his piece to the public and have a seat at the debate over the future of his children's country.
Frankly, so do you. Regardless of your political beliefs, I am sure you believe in your right to believe them. I am also sure you would like for your own neighbor who you know and trust to be allowed to run for Congress without the corporate political machine.
To that end, please, if you live in Arizona Congressional District 1, sign my neighbor Daniel Lucio's petition to be allowed on the Democratic Primary ballot. He only needs 1,500 signatures, but his campaign is aiming for 2,000 to be safe from any legal challenges from those who do not want him to have a voice. Please do not allow my neighbor to be silenced before he is even handed the microphone.
Thank you for your consideration, and I wish you a happy year in 2026. I am hoping better times are ahead for all of us, collectively and individually. I look forward to a tomorrow of mutual respect.
Respectfully,
Your Neighbor,
John Curtiss