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So how would you fix the government?
azith28
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, we debate different topics here all the time, but I think its fair to say that we have a larger problem that superseeds all of the different problems we discuss no matter what side of the debate you come down on. That of the polarization of government to actually be able to get anything done due to partisanship.
Lets use as two examples of this, One from the right, and one from the left. That of 'life begins at conception' and 'Global warming is entirely mans fault'.
We are NOT going to discuss the truth or falsehood of these statements. These are just examples of two major issues that help to put someone completely on one side of the political street or the other. They are also issues that lets be frank...chances are the politicians never want completely solved because choosing a side basically gets you x % of the voting block and they would rather have a solid block by picking a side based on the voting area and turn the choice into a numbers game in the voting district then really care about the issue.
They may make some small progress by inches just to get a boost but saying your for or against one of these topics will generally get you so much of the vote despite actually doing anything against it or not.
We also have the problem that these topics can throw a monkey wrench into literally any bill to stop it. A bill that will balance the budget? well of this 3,000 page bill there is one line giving money to planned parenthood or global warming hype....so obviously we need to get everyone against the whole idea.
One question about the recent debt committee failure. It was their job to find so much money to cut from the budget. Now why exactly is it that it was an all or nothing proposition? Are you saying that it was completely impossible for them to come back and say 'we agreed to cut 50% of what we needed to" its still a failure of its purpose but damn, why not get at least that much done?
The simple truth is that the system has become too partisan to get anything done, and short of the times that one side or the other gets control of both house, senate and presidency, thats not going to change. So what changes would help fix this problem?
Personally I think we need a further control over the three branches of government. Voting power to seperate the topics that will never be solved vs the problems that need to be fixed.
My own suggestion would be to create a second senate and house. Via a national vote, we would choose topics that would be forbidden to be touched in the primary senate/house. Basically a Social law (secondary) vs financial and economic house and senate (Primary). If 50.1% of the people vote to shove abortion and global warming into the social houses, then NO legislation in the primary house/senate can budget money or make law that has anything to do with it. It must come from the secondary house and senate. Those laws still go through a house and senate bill then to the president, and sure there is still much to argue about in both sets of house/senate but it cuts down on the bullshit, or at least seperates it from the practical needs of the nation.
This second house/senate may never accomplish anything with its own topics. But frankly thats happening now, its just affecting everything else around it while its accomplishing nothing for itself.
Personally I think the growth of government via this suggestion would typically be something i would be against. more politicians are not my idea of a solution. However if it gets the batshit crazy 'holy rollers' and 'eco-saviors' and 'gay-haters' and 'gay-marriage' advocates away from the stuff that needs to be done first, it would be worth it.
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
azith28 on
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Remove the electoral college.
Make lobbying and 'contributions' from Corporations Illegal.
I have always thought about limiting the terms for senators and house representatives, but I'm not sure of the repercussions of that.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I'm going to completely disagree, I can't think of any reason a leftist politician wouldn't want to solve global warming. I'll agree about abortion, it's a drum the Republicans beat to rally the base, but global warming isn't the only environmentalist issue, it's just the one most fuck life as we know it. Global warming has actually been an albatross around the neck of the left because such a large percentage of the populace doesn't care or doesn't believe it.
These same people would necessarily be involved in the attempt at a solution due to them already having their tendrils in the system. The only solution is to remove the people and subserve ourselves to uncaring machines.
The beautiful simplicity of this post is why it's so great. Yes FPTP is what's screwing us pretty hard.
I'd add, kill citizens united and have publicly funded elections
Yeah, while we're practically the first modern democracy, we missed out on a century or two of improvements and innovation in voting and parliamentry systems.
It would be nice to have proportional seating in one of the legislatures so minor parties are more viable, but our system just isn't set up for that at the moment.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Sure it'll screw some people, but I'd rather be screwed by math from an impartial computer program than by some asshole redistricting me so his seat is permanently safe. My vote already doesn't count.
Also: enforcing seperation of church and state with the same sort of will that the US government reserves for things like rooting out cannibalism. I'm saying this as a christian (the kind that understands that jesus was basically a socialist) btw.
I'm not sure it's really true that the system is too partisan to get anything done. It's certainly less partisan than it has been at other times in our history. Regarding the Senate, I think you guys are insane to want to kill it off. Better we repeal the 17th, return to a real doctrine of limited powers, and start devolving some of these problems to state governments. That would also neatly sub in for your "social Congress" idea, and it'd fix problems people are trying to solve with all these new ways to tinker around like what electricitylikesme suggested, it'd answer most of the complaints about the US Senate and it'd be more faithful to the founding documents (rather than needing basically a complete rewrite and rebalancing of power).
Furthermore, I think your idea that "practical things that need to get done" are separate from "social issues we can never solve" exposes some underlying assumptions not everyone agrees with.
It'd still be regions vs. federal. There's no reason why state governments couldn't get together and act in concert... they do it all the time with regard to water rights and other issues. The issue is that we've hamstrung the states at the same time we've loaded them down with strings-attached funding and mandates they can't avoid no matter what the residents think.
No, rather than removing them, what we need to do is empower them again. Limited powers doctrine, revive the Commerce clause, and get the Federal Government to back off a bit. Not a huge amount! But a bit. The return the Senate to its proper place as the deliberative body representing the interests of the States, (as opposed to the House's direct representation of the People), and I think we'd see some progress.
It would be nice to repeal direct election of Senators, though.
Rigorous Scholarship
but seriously, violent revolution followed swiftly by seizing the power myself-- If I'm in charge then I know the ones in power would serve my interests.
Or. Maybe you do.
A line-item veto remains a terrible, unconstitutional idea that skews the balance of power between the Congress and the President way too far in the direction of the Executive.
Repealing the 17th Amendment is also a terrible idea, especially since it'd do nothing to make the Senate less partisan (since gerrymandering on the state level has made state legislatures as partisan, if not more so, than the Congress) and the issues with Senate obstructionism could be just as easily solved by filibuster reform. You know, the filibuster that, unlike direct election of Senators, is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution?
Also, considering how flawed and oppressive state governments have been, historically, I'm pretty adverse to shuffling more nation-wide policy decisions to them. The EPA, for example, theoretically at least solves the issue of state governments gutting environmental regulations in order to attract more investment and businesses.
1: Mandatory Public financing for all elections.
2: Ban Soft money (Issue ads) Sole exception is for issue ads related to a direct ballot initiative in which case a publicly determined equal amount will be given to proponents and opponents to run their campaign (No other outside political expenses allowed.)
3: Independent Ethics body, with powers to remove sitting senators/congresscritters, are elected by the people. May bring special charges of incompetence or corruption against congress/senate/executive/judge. Standard of evidence is to provide enough evidence to suggest decision making process has been reasonably compromised in an official and is punishable only by immediate removal from office without compensation. This body would also independently determine all pay rates of elected officials and judges.
B: Electoral Reform
1: Get rid of first past the post and move to a preference voting or STV system for all elections.
2: Create independent body to determine if there is still a strong necessity for congressional districts, if there is, it should redraw them and if not it should abolish them.
3: Re-jigger the numbers of congress, the senate and their duties so that they will most accurately reflect the true will of the people, without giving any individual too much undue power and without giving huge preference to rural or low population areas.
4: Ban any form of electronic voting machine that is not open source and does not produce a human verifiable paper trail.
5: Compulsory voting, with elections day declared a national holiday.
6a (optional): Research new electoral system that will completely eliminate the need for parties in politics while using the above.
C: Legislative Reforms
1: Eliminate the fillibuster.
2: When Yea/Nea/Present is voted on any legislation a full "Congressional Opinion" must be supplied. This lists exact objectives for this vote (What they wanted to accomplish) reasons they believe this vote will achieve those, and factual sources they have informing them that they can reasonably expect this vote to accomplish those. Any sitting senator or congresscritter that blatantly votes for stupid, false or crazy things may be subject to charges of incompetence brought against them by their constituents if their voting pattern betrays they are ineffective at accomplishing their stated goals or display a pattern of voting for things their constituents do not care about.
3: All congressional activity and in general as much if not all of the daily lives of the elected officials while present in Washington should be recorded in its entirety even if not released immediately for posterity's sake and to aid in Ethics committee procedures. Every meeting must be recorded, in fullness, with verifiable
4: Congress is hereby disallowed from voting their obligations away to the executive including the use of declaring war. They may also pass no law retroactively immunizing or granting power to any body or person. If no one may be retroactively criminalized then no one may be retroactively decriminalized.
1: Remove or rework Executive order system. The executive may order its agencies to conduct business only in a way pursuant with powers granted to the executive and within the confines of the current law.
2: Executive may not deploy the military without authorization of congress for any reason short of national emergency. With national emergency strictly defined as: Situation where there is enough evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that an attack on domestic U.S. Territory is imminent or has already occurred. In all other cases the executive is required to lay a full case of facts before congress for each military action and make a case as to how the action will directly be within the interests of the people. This is to be recorded for posterity's sake even if classified information is a source, if the hearing is closed to the public it must still be recorded and later declassified as soon as is reasonably possible so as to ensure any and all evidence for any military action is able to be later reviewed by the public at large.
3: Review of all agencies under the purview of the executive to see where they might be streamlined, merged and otherwise consolidated in an open and logical fashion to improve their efficiency, remove redundancy, etc.
E: Judicial Reforms
1: End the War on Drugs
2: Supreme Court and all courts are now subject to reviews as congress is, to the ethics committee. Supreme court judges may now be immediately removed for conflicts of interest and for incompetence.
3: Complete re-review of legal system will be conducted to rewrite laws regarding responsibility and economics to favor the interests of the public at large versus multinational companies.
4: Asset Seizure review, due to the unprecedented nature of the economic climate assets must be seized and redistributed to reclaim the country. Complete review of economic catastrophe is undertaken and all large asset holders considered responsible or complicit within it become open to having their assets seized and redistributed in their entirety as well as their companies dissolved if they were particularly egregious offenders.
F: Economic Reforms
1: Full review of private central banking system, detailed current and historical audit of all Fed business and inquiry into the utility of private central banking. Goal will be to determine fully what form, if any, banking is allowed to continue in by reviewing the system for its ability to help those most in need and support national prosperity. Will be conducted by independent committee and will report both on the state of our old system, what it did, how effective it was, and then proposal will detail all changes that must be made to the current system so that it will be able to best achieve the objectives of supporting shared national prosperity and prevention of poverty.
2: Independent de-monopolization committee. Will review current global market system and in particular related to the United States power will determine any and all negative economic actions taken by United States companies that have hurt national prosperity (such as shipping jobs over seas, fighting the ability for their workers to unionize, etc.) Committee will review all actions and then submit detailed proposal which will explain how, when used in concert with any monetary system changes recommended by the banking committee, will create a United States market system which will not allow for the same abuses committed in prior years by companies to continue. This in essence will be kind of a joint two-committee presentation since you can't change the money system without the market system and the market system you get depends heavily on the money system.
3: Nationalization Committee to review any and all business sector areas to determine what parts of the market are best served by a private market system and which would be best served by a singular local/state/national provider and will be responsible for creating an open, standards based, accountable process for nationalizing and managing such industries (examples being utilities, roads, fire, police, etc.)
4: After the above three have returned their reports. Taxation committee to be formed to fully review the taxation system in light of the above policy changes to re-imagine taxation only as is necessary to support the greatest possible prosperity and shared welfare for all peoples in America.
G: Media Reforms
1: Bring back the fairness doctrine in all media.
2: Strict labeling of infotainment and legitimate journalism.
2a: Infotainment may be for-profit, but must contain clear, readable, universal disclaimer during program that it is not to be taken as truth or legitimate information and is only for entertainment purposes.
2b: Journalism must be non-profit, is subject to strict monopolization/size controls to prevent news from being dictated nationally by a single entity.
3: Mandatory non-discrimination of traffic (Net Neutrality) on basis of content enforced by law in any medium.
4: Independent Journalism review board that may fine or bring sanctions against a news organization shown to be lying or attempting to obviously mislead, misinform or otherwise purport propaganda as unvarnished truth.
I think that kind of sums up some of what I'd like to see in about as general terms as I can. I'm more the type that wants to just tear most of what we have down and rebuild a lot from scratch via constitutional convention, but eh that's just me.
I share your concern over the line-item, but I think it'd be possible to balance by including a simple majority override in our hypothetical amendment. Also, if we amended the Constitution it wouldn't be unconstitutional anymore!
I don't really care about making the Senate less partisan... I don't believe partisanship is a giant problem. Also, I don't believe the filibuster is a giant problem now, any more than I did when Republicans controlled the Senate. The issue with the 17th is that there's now no body representing the States at the Federal level, and there should be. No one is looking at legislation from the standpoint of preventing the Fed from blackmailing the States into compliance.
Devolving power to governmental bodies closer to the People ought to be something everyone can get behind, but it seems this is itself pretty intractable. Just in a single page, some of us want to eliminate many governmental bodies and consolidate power at the top while restricting the minority party, and some of us want to reduce consolidation and spread the power around.
Isn't that how a bill gets passed in the first place or am I missing something?
You really think a significant portion of the electorate being completely unrepresented is "fine?"
Winner take all voting is retarded, and a good reason why people don't show up to vote.
Expanded house of reps. Some district represent multiple times the number of people represented by the various 2 senator-1 rep states.
Standardize district construction. Moving line East to West or North to South depending on state orientation.
Weaken the senate. No filibusterer, Change the appointment approval process to an appointment rejection one. They have 180 or w/e days to reject the appointee or they get appointed.
Care to explain how? Because I'm just dividing up and setting clearer powers. If you're talking about the idea of an independent ethics committee being able to remove elected officials mid-term. I really do believe it needs to be done. I'm open to completely tweaking the standards of when it can happen but we need a clear and immediate way to remove elected officials from power when they are:
1: Voting to be partisan and not to actually help their constituents
2: Not voting based on facts
3: Voting entirely on short-term interests.
4: Voting in a way that favors lobbyists or moneyed interests instead of their constituents.
5: Voting in a way that, when considered with other evidence, shows a case of their decision making process having been compromised and to not be favoring the best interests of their constituents. (Scienter is a ridiculous standard for fraud/corruption and I'd much rather lower the standards in that way but make the only punishment immediate removal from office. You may think of it as destabilizing but we need newer mechanisms to enable immediate feedback against corruption, and incompetence in all officials.)
Its like you looked at the USSR and went...we should copy that
e:
Section F in particular is just pants-on-head stupid.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
To override a Presidential veto, you need 2/3rds of both houses to vote for the override. That's a very high bar to get over in any circumstance. I'm suggesting that a line-item veto amendment include a simple majority override for those "baby vetos" in order to maintain the balance of power between the Executive and Legislative.
Fallout, your ethics committee can remove any official, including Supreme Court justices, with no appeals process, whenever they want. You even included a "too many crazy ideas" clause, and you've got absolutely no mechanism for determining what constitutes a crazy idea, and no way to argue about their definitions with the supreme ethics council. There's no concept of precedent or the rule of law... it's absolute madness. Tinwhiskers is right... it's very much like the way the soviets ran things.
I agree with the sentiment, but professional all volunteer military is way way way more effective.
That line of thinking is like "if you don't ware a seat belt you'll be safer cause you'll be more cautious driving".
Mandatory enlistment/alternative service upon graduation of HS would maybe be a bit better, Ala Israel.
So are you going to actually tell me why? Or how? Or are you going to just continue to sit there and make insinuations that anyone who listens to me will get sent to the gulags and/or executed? Someone who can't explain how, in detail, something is stupid obviously lacks the intelligence to be deserving of using the word. ;p
Yes, I completely agree. That is what I really meant when I was thinking draft.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Those are some moderate ideas. I could get into slightly more radical things like high taxation for strictly entertainment television, high taxation on fast food/junk food and subsidize local grown food, subsidize local manufacturing jobs, huge tax breaks for small business, prosecution for companies that employ overseas slave labour, busting up unions (to be replaced by a government headed organization that enforces fair working conditions/pay), government financial assistance for purchasing homes, government subsidized higher education (for those that qualify), ban most forms of lobbying.
The law was changed in 1913 specifically because the lack of direct election to the Senate was completely riddled with corruption, nepotism, and political bickering.
EDIT
Fallout2man has some good idears.
What I'm saying is that the bill originally passed with a "simple majority" so why even have a line-item veto?
As a military person, I agree with this. You gotta find a balance between a draft and a military that is alienated from the very civilians they are fighting for. Draft = bad idea, but the current methodology has resulted in a complete disconnect between American society and our armed forces in both directions. There is a distinct sense of entitlement and elitism amongst military members that I've noticed (particularly with respects to the OWS protests).
Having some mandatory service, but not necessarily military, would be nice because it a) reinforces the morality of self service over personal greed to a small extent b) helps bind the civilian populace to the government employees so it's less "us vs them" attitude c) means anti-war folks can still be "drafted" (just not into the military).
Also, I wouldn't mind that after we let that run for a few generations, we get a voting privilege system similar to what Heinlein envisions in Starship Troopers. Mandatory (and possibly lethal) public service for the right to make decisions that affect the public at large.
Bills often stall because they include a "spoiler"... it's a bill for education, but somebody manages to get an amendment into it mandating all guns be melted for scrap. A line-item veto would allow the executive to strip out the silliness, allow legislators to appease their constituents and pass more bills knowing the really objectionable pointless part will get removed (because the President already threatened to do it) and prevent the Executive from gutting portions of bills he hates because the Congress can easily reinstate them if there's broad agreement.
It's easy to pass a big bill with one dumb provision in it, but it's much harder to come back and specifically say yes you want to add that provision back in. It changes the power dynamic in negotiations amongst the Congressmen, and between the legislative and the executive.
A subtle change, but I think it'd be effective.
1: Crazy vote is defined as pursuing a congressional or judicial path (As evidenced by written opinions) where the objectives sought with each ruling run contrary to the effects of the ruling, and after being dully informed that their pattern of voting runs contrary to their objectives continued their patterns of ruling/voting (Crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.)
1b: Stupid vote is defined as having no factual sources to inform the reason for a vote on an important issue, or to have cited sources known to have been false but still are used anyway to inform a reason for voting. This can only be determined over a pattern of several votes as with the above. (In other words stupidity of voting is determined by establishing due diligence of research in reasons for voting. People who vote primarily not for factual reasons can be determined to be incompetent.)
2: That doesn't mean the committee cannot have a charter or limited set of powers. I think the idea would be that the Ethics committee though would be like a separate fourth branch of government, it would be elected with a national charter of powers (Which could only be changed via national referendum) and its members would serve terms like other elected officials but the business of the office would be primarily to police all other branches of government. If you think we need some kind of an appeals process that's not entirely out of the question either. But I need some cases of how it could be misused to understand how it should work. This would allow it to be the hardest to corrupt if it was subject to a national direct election and its charter of powers was always only able to be changed in any form by national referendum on it.
3: I'd like to hear your proposal for how we could accomplish the same. We need stronger ethics controls and we must have the ability to boot people mid term. We need to define standards for how this stuff happens, yes. And that's why we should discuss these. You tell me how the system can be abused or lead to problems, I propose ways to solve those, we continue until the idea becomes entirely workable, or entirely unworkable.
You'd have a lot fewer people occupying Wall Street if they didn't have to spend so much money at school and still have no job prospects. You come out of the service (in some capacity, doesn't have to be in an armed context), not only do you have some job experience, but also your G.I. bill help.