The Maelstrom of Violence

[pbrower2a]

(08-21-2017, 01:45 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(08-21-2017, 10:20 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-20-2017, 01:24 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: The government has been largely ineffective from the outset.  If one's goal is to address social issues then the state is the last place to change because the US is and has been for a long time an elective democratic republic.  This means that our so-called leaders do not actually lead but follow.  You must change the culture before you can change the politics.  Any other way of thinking is backwards.

If you like autocrats, then your argument holds.  Yes, democracy is messy and slow -- always late to the party.  I would prefer faster change too, but let's not forget that change is not universally for the good.

I lived my youth in the '50s and 60s.  Government worked then, though imperfectly, because public power is always opposed by private power that operates faster and is focused on the needs of the few.  Unless you can install a perfect government, you'll never have your ideal wish, regardless of the system you chose.

My ideal system would never exist, just like yours wouldn't.  Ideal systems have a nasty habit of breaking down when they encounter the real world.  That being said, democracy is messy and slow and an autocratic system is more efficent, but unfortuntely more prone to revolution.

Quote:

Kinser Wrote:As for the government itself, I've long looked forward to it being burnt to the ground.  I've long advocated razing the whole rotten structure to build something else in its place.  The only difference is I'm on the right now instead of the left.

First, you design a better replacement, then you tear down the old system.  So far, no one has taken any steps in that direction.

Okay but you would hate it.

Ideally we'd have a legislative system similar to current, but with Senators seclected by the State Governments as their role is to represent the needs and desires of the states rather than the population of those states.  The population already has representaves....it's called the House.  We would also impose a hard rule of one rep per million of population with a minimum of one rep per state.

I would leave the supreme court alone.  Amazingly that part of the government isn't all that broken.

The presidency would be diminished in power in favor of the legislature.

The vote will be restricted to men over the age of 21 who own a minimum of 50K dollars in real property or have a yearly gross income of 25K dollars.

People who do not have an income, those on public assistance and women should not be permitted to vote.

Citizenship will be restricted to persons born on US soil whose mother is also a US Citizen.  All others are aliens, and could be subject to deportation.

I have a feeling you would hate this system even though it most closely resembles that framed by the framers of the current constitution.
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We have a political system established nearly 230 years ago, reflecting the social realities of the time (a big chunk of the new American Republic had slavery), the economic reality of still being in an agrarian era, all but a few parts of the settled pa4rts of America having frontier characteristics, and just having achieved formal independence from a political order whose political system Americans chose to do nothing to replicate (a despotic monarchy with a Parliament condemned in the Declaration of Independence almost as much as a nutty king).  The recent colonies about to become States had had no strong connections before the Revolution wanted no centralized government.

We have had the best political order possible considering the time and circumstances of its founding. But we did have a catastrophic war over slavery, and it took until the Civil Rights Act of 1965 to formalize the concept of "All Men are created equal". Now we have Donald Trump.