I know what I'm about to say may seem a little radical but i think that it's time we adopted governments similar to our European allies such as Germany or Switzerland. That form of government I'm talking about is Parliament. Let's face it, here in the USA government is very black and white......their are only two parties with any power, Democrats and Republicans, so your either one or the other, but that would all change in a parliamentary form of government. There most political parties big and small would be represented.....Dem's, Reps, Communists, Socialists, Greens, Libertarians, etc. An advantage to having many political views represented is that it forces the parties to work together and it 99.9% ensures that no one political party will dominate the floor. I know this all seems a little unconstitutional but I think we and a nation could use a change in government.
- Sign in or Sign up to post comments
- send to friend
- report as spam
I agree Chris H. The representative form of government is obsolete. However it is still better than Euro style governments. What America needs is more input from the people and fewer decisions left to the politicians.
2)Every registered voter gets a pin number or a internet password to a government site directly to your senators and congressman. All important bills should have a non-binding straw vote to obtain an opinion of the people. This would eliminate a letter or e-mail campaign to skew the vote. If you don't bother to cast your opinion you have no right to complain.1)My suggestion is to outlaw earmarks and amendments to legislation, if it is a good project it should be voted as a single item.
3)The straw vote should be published in the newspaper and online so district voter could see what their fellow citizens wanted. The politicians would have to justify why they did not vote with the majority of the public. These records need to be held for a few years and if the politician consistently votes against the will of the people should be an impeachable offense.
4) Any politician convicted of using his office for personal gain be stripped of his title and every bank account, houses, cars, any other investments confiscated. He should be left with zero assets.
The last item sounds extreme however politicians are employees of the people and are voted into a position of trust. Governments rule at the whim of the people and should be held accountable.
The problem with government today is that it is now set up to be TOO responsive where we now have Congressmen shamelessly pandering to every Tom, Dick and Harry citizen demand and special interest demand. And on Elected Congressmen, we are electing setient thinking beings (hopefully and NOT weathervanes) and taking any power away from an elected official is just making that process more pandering and more responsive in ways that will continue to drive this nation into profligate oblivion - see $50 Trillion in actuarial entitlement debt.
Personally I would love to see a Congressmen and Prez who will stand up and say clearly to the American people we cannot have it all and that we WILL have to prioitize our "Oughts" with our "Cans". Every body tends to love their Congressmen and their special interst/tax break, but hates Congress and Special Interests in the abstract. Time for all of us to own up to this cognitive dissonance folks!
These guys are NOT dropped from outer space. We as citizens need to be more responsible in the voting booth, active in learning about the issues and holding them to full account and deelect, before we moralize on the Congressmen they elect. "The problem Dear Brutus is us and not the stars."
DC - 3rd ward - milligansstew08@yahoo.com
http://milligansstew.blogspot.com
the following quote from alexander tyler,university of edinburgh in 1787 is right on:"a democracy is always temporary in nature.a democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discovery they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.from then on the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury,with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy,which is always followed by a dictatorship." "the average age of great civilizations is about 200 years. during that time nations will progress through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, to great courage, to liberty, to abundance, to complacency, to apathy, to dependence, and then back to bondage." any questions?
I agree the government is too reponsive but to the wrong people. They respond to polls, Letter writing campaigns, special interest groups and their money, corporate donations, and party lines. A majority of politicians total ignore their voters. If we demanded that they take straw polls from the voters using a pin number or password per voter everyone would have a say in the votes. This would eliminate the pandering to special interests and all the other politcal posturing. These politicians would have to explain their votes to the people that elected them
If we are going to turn this country around, we need to look back at how we built this country. The United States became the richest and most powerful empire in the world when we declared ourselves an independent nation. As Americans, we built our own businesses where we manufactured items with our own resources and sold and distributed to our own people, Americans. We designed and built our own inventions right here in America, and we even grew our own vegetation and raised our own cattle to make and sell food products to our people, the Americans. We were truly independent at one time, and free as well, but if we keep heading in the direction we are going, all that independence and freedom may be jeopardized.
We need to limit trade greatly, for one thing. We should rely on trade solely for resources our country does not posess and cannot manufacture with other countries and likewise. Instead we trade products such as automobiles and a vast majority of items we use or eat everyday at the expense of our own economy and the benefit of a foreign country's economy. We need to stop this. We need to bring American jobs back to America for the good of the American people as well as the stability of our economy. We did it before, we need to do it again and stop worrying about the other nations in the world. If the other nations want to be like America, then they need to adopt the same philosphy our founding fathers adopted more nearly 230 years ago and build themselves from the ground up, just like we did. Thank you.
Well, historically, the most productive and best form of government is the "benevolent dictatorship". However, those are very rare and usually turn into something like Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro. Unfortunately, we can't really change our government without radically changing the constitution.
HOWEVER, what I think might work as a possible solution is this:
Have the Congress hire a "CEO" that would simply delete, change, alter programs and basically weed out waste, fraud, abuse until the Congress fires him. The President would have veto power over each decision and the Congress could fire him at a moment's notice if they didn't like where he was going. Basically an efficiency/policy expert with a lot of power except that he wouldn't be able to hold onto his job if he couldn't produce results.
A Democrat seeks complex solution to simple problems
A Republican seeks simple solutions to complex problems
A reasonable person seeks simple solutions for solvable problems
Well, historically, the most productive and best form of government is the "benevolent dictatorship". However, those are very rare and usually turn into something like Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro. Unfortunately, we can't really change our government without radically changing the constitution.
HOWEVER, what I think might work as a possible solution is this:
Have the Congress hire a "CEO" that would simply delete, change, alter programs and basically weed out waste, fraud, abuse until the Congress fires him. The President would have veto power over each decision and the Congress could fire him at a moment's notice if they didn't like where he was going. Basically an efficiency/policy expert with a lot of power except that he wouldn't be able to hold onto his job if he couldn't produce results.
Of course, this would be entirely unnecessary if the Congress stuck within constitutional limits.
A Democrat seeks complex solution to simple problems
A Republican seeks simple solutions to complex problems
A reasonable person seeks simple solutions for solvable problems
What benevolent dictatorship has been productive? We tear the Constation in half and then say it doesn't work anymore after working very well for two-hundred years and then we say let's try something else? (which is not necessarily working well). One, do nothing and our form of government will Soon change to the European form of Government. Two if you want the known winning combination back then fix what we were given by God the Constitution and form of government which worked in the first place. He won't be mad and we we'll prosper once again but not without Him.