Fixing a broken system

[unixronin]

For those who haven't seen it yet, this essay on reforming the US political system makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Some of the author's key points:

• Absolute term limits for ALL high elected offices -- eight years in the House, the Senate, and/or the Oval Office, combined, and term limits for political appointees as well.  It's public service; it shouldn't be a lifetime career.
• No more lesser of two evils -- put a binding "None of the above" on ALL ballot choices, including for the Presidency.  If "None of the above" gets more votes than any candidate, nobody is elected for that office, and there has to be a new election for it with all new candidates.
• Shorter election seasons -- You get 60 days to get your message across, instead of spending two years of your first term working on getting elected for the second.
• Shorter congressional sessions -- Congress should sit for only 60 days at a time, then go home, "because nobody's life, liberty or property is safe when Congress is in session."
• Representative Congressional pay -- the pay you get as Congressman, Senator or President is the median income for the constituency you represent.  You say you represent average Americans?  Learn to live like one.

Comments

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I agree. The system as built is too easy to game. People are all different, and have different motivations. The way things are now, it's far too easy for people who have power to retain it by simply emphasizing divisions.

Though there is certainly some portion of things that are the fault of apathetic populace.

-Ogre

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I maintain that the ability to "emphasizing divisions", will only work on a populace that is not engaged. OTOH, there will always be divisions in what people want, we will never have a homogeneous population.

Democrats and republicans both want a better America. What that means and how to get there are comically different. Are you saying that people should not be able to vote for someone that represents their views?

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Are you saying that people should not be able to vote for someone that represents their views?

No, I'm saying we can't do that now.

Here are two basic problems with the government as it stands today, as I see it.

Given that we started out as a Constitutional Republic, there are supposed to be some limitations on what people are even allowed to vote on. Thus the concept of the "unconstitutional law". Now, I don't know what a good braking mechanism is, to prevent the majority from overwhelming the minority, in the event that the majority wants something the minority has, short of "good education" to tell people right from wrong. No, sadly, I don't have a better definition of what a good education comprises.

Another problem is that our elected representatives represent too many people. This is part of what re-enforces the strict two party system we have ended up with. So, minority votes basically get drowned out, because it takes so many votes to get one of the seats that it's an almost impossible hurdle to climb in any one geographic location.

So we need to have a much larger congress. About one congressman for every 30,000 citizens is where we started at the founding of the country, and it's a good place to go back to. They'd never get anything done, because there would be too many of them, and minority voices would finally have a venue and nominal amount of power that represented the actual interests of the population of the country. I'm also thinking that voting districts would need to be eliminated, to remove the gerrymandering temptation. If a candidate can get 30,000 votes, from any where in the country, he gets a seat. Every citizen gets one vote, for his congressman, to represent him. Senators should remain limited to 2 per state, and the 17th amendment should be repealed, so they are again chosen by state legislatures. In this fashion, we return to the true bicameral system envisioned by the architects of the constitution, with the Senate representing the interests of the States, and the House representing the populace.

-Ogre

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Are you saying that people should not be able to vote for someone that represents their views?

No, I'm saying we can't do that now. (Part two.)

I never really explained what I meant by this.

Basically, there are so many people represented by any given congressman, that the elected play a balancing game of pissing off just enough people, and rewarding others in just the right amounts, to play them all one against the other, for his own gain, so that when it comes time for elections, the populace is divided enough that they can't come together to remove him from office.

Combined with the fact that there are a lot of people who don't understand the concept of "not a pure democracy" because they've been fed through the government school system which, shockingly enough, fails to impart this sort of knowledge detrimental to the interests of the people who run it, leaves us with a population that doesn't even understand some of the things they should be livid about.

-Ogre