How to fix the US government

[Borg69]

^^^ Why are we punishing the sharks!?!?

[MikeW]

The only thing that's been said here that I think would really backfire real bad is the free political campaigns. All that would do is open the doors up for every type of whacko like the ones who showed up for the Idaho Governors Debate a few months ago except there would be more of them.

I'm going to vote for what some guys on armed forces and veterans forums are saying.
Politicians and anyone who is a public leader or employee should be held to a higher standard of honesty than gas station cashiers who can be fired just for lying about what time they came to work or left. Keep the law real simple. Any one of the them who gets caught doing anything that even looks shifty is out of a job. Any of them caught telling the public anything but the truth, underhanded deals or funny money deals gets hauled off shot in the head and their body dumped at sea to feed sharks.

It wouldnt take but 2 or 3 of them converted to shark food to scare some honesty into the rest of them.

I've been suggesting we bring back this:



for years.

The problem, again, is short of a bloody revolution, you're not going to be able to make any of that happen. We *already* have LAWS in place that apply to US more so than to THEM. But worst of all, LYING is how politics works. Deceptions is the rule, not the exception. So are greed, graft and all the rest of it. Laws are only as good as our ability to enforce them.

[StingRay]

u r right mike

[Rareboy]

Get rid of Gerrymandering by creating an independent districting commission.
Take the corporate money out of campaigning.
Develop a multi-party system.

[LJay]

I continue to be impressed by the turnout for the Scots referendum. If we voted in numbers like that things would change.

[Aike]

Anyone who believes that the current manifestation of the US Government is "dysfunctional" doesn't understand what its function now IS. (Hint: It isn't to serve the American people except for breakfast, lunch and dinner to the fat cats who OWN them.)

Very much this. Governments (and by no means just the U.S. government) are interlinked with corporate interests in ways that can't just be dealt with by regulations because the government plays a crucial role in the functioning of the entire capitalist economic system. Bailing out banks with trillions of dollars is perhaps the most obvious case but the entire monetary system as such relies on the government, which is able to guarantee the value of money (and therefore the value of financial assets as well). Moreover, as corporations have gone increasingly transnational, governments have been forced to comply to all sorts of economic imperatives imposed on them by big business (see, for example, race to the bottom).

Want to change the nature of the government? You need to abolish capitalism. Don't just simply blame corruption or whatever but pay attention to the social context or the economic environment, in which governments function today.

[East]

Fixing the US Government means getting rid of the corporate and other interests that pull our governments strings....

They own all of our "elected officials" and they ultimately work for them and advance their interests...not us....

The bandaids needed in the meantime...

I agree with Rareboy...three excellent suggestions...

Gerrymandering has made the House a joke. It is so NOT representative of the population...

Unlimited corporate and individual campaign spending is the nail in the coffin

We need independent voices who are NOT part of either party...multi parties would be great. I am tired of voting against someone rather than for someone and it is depressing to think this will be the case until I die...but I will vote anyway because a vote against someone is better than not voting at all....

[Virge]

About what Ray said about converting dishonest politicians into shark food. There's some good reasoning behind it.

The bar is lower for politicians, public figures and bureaucrats than for anyone else in US society for honesty, responsibility and integrity.

If a painter estimates $1000 on a job and gets halfway through with it and goes back and says it's going to cost $2000 that's tough shit for the painter. When a politician or bureaucrat tells us the new healthcare system is going to cost 20 billion but government accountants say it's going to cost twice that much -- oh well -- tough shit -- taxpayers have to pay for it and not one fool loses his job for a multi-billion dollar mistake or lie!

If you buy a house that's promised to be damage free and ready to move and you find out its roof leaks, the plumbing is messed up and it needs new wiring you can sue and even prosecute the realtor who sold it to you. When politicians and bureaucrats put together a big plan to solve problems but it creates more problems than it solves --- oh well --- no one is fired and they just build on new programs to solve the problems they created.

While they are campaigning to be elected they tell the public all sorts of lies about what they will do and what their opponent has done and no matter what they say they will do they never follow up on it. --- and no one is ever prosecuted for it.

THEY get to pass laws giving themselves pay raises and all sorts of benefits. Try doing that at your job.

If anything they should be held to HUGHER standards than the rest of the people in the nation rather than lower ones.

[LJay]

Yeah, like I say, the more voter participation the harder it is for politicians to get away with this stuff. Tell them, by voting them out of office summarily, that you will not put up with this.

We have to do this and we have keep it civil and legal. In other words, we can be a nation of both good manners and laws.

[Virge]

Ljay, let's face it and be honest. More voter participation? I remember a thing on ABC news after the 2010 elections where they interviewed voters as they left the polls. They asked random easy questions about about government. The answers were embarrassing. The three branches of government are not the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. There are not 500 Senators. ( I forgot the rest )

Just last week I was TOLD drivers licenses are a constitutional right by a man who's on the local town council.

With people this dumb voting it's no wonder dishonest politicians keep getting elected. The last thing we need is more voters like them. You have to pass a test to drive a car but you don't have to take a test to vote on the fate of a nation? It makes me wonder.