Ok. Maybe not so modest… nor even logical or realistic. But I can dream.
It is my belief that people in the United States have an unhealthy obsession with who is sitting in the White House. Just look at the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Some people hate him so much that even when he proposes things they once believed would be beneficial they now violently oppose him because the ORANGE MAN IS BAD (I particularly enjoy how Trump Derangement Syndrome causes the Cap Lock key to get stuck in place…). Then there are the fan-boys of Trump, the MAGA TRUMP IS NEVER-WRONG crowd (note the similar Cap Lock effect…). Entertaining but not very useful really.
America has some real problems with the Federal government that are of a structural nature. Voting for the lesser of two evils every four years and then getting yourself hysterical if your side lost until that person is replaced really does not fix anything. It serves more as a distraction.
Has anything really improved over the past thirty years? Are things getting better because your dog won the Best In Show Competition? I would suggest that the answer to both questions is NO, and that is because the origins of the problems facing the USA and its government are only partially to be found in the White House. The real problems are in the structure of the government itself, particularly in the Congress. As such that is where the solutions should be addressed, and our focus should lie.
If things are going to improve in the USA changes (for the better) need to take place mostly on Capital Hill. Here are my suggestions:
The House of Representatives
The House of Representatives was created to represent the interests of the People. At first each Representative represented a modest number of citizens (initially about 50,000). Now that number is closer to 500,000 citizens per Representative. I believe this is a bad thing. Representatives are no longer that neighbor who you meet from time to time at the School Board Meetings, or bump into during school sporting events. At 500,000 citizens per Representative once elected he or she becomes quite removed from the community that elected him or her.
This needs be changed. The original ratio of 50,000 per Representative should be restored. I would suggesting increasing the number of Representatives from 453 to 4500. Yes, Four Thousand Five Hundred.
Where are we going to put all those people in DC? I suspect if we keep the current overall budget for the House of Representatives the same, while reducing the budget and staff of each Representative dramatically they would all fit into the current available office space with some downsizing of each office.
No rich salaries, no stipends that give each Representative palatial offices and an army of sycophantic clerks. The Representative would be paid what a Major in the US military (O-4) receives, and would receive the same benefits (healthcare, retirement, etc.). Each would get a much smaller budget for staff, and a modest furnished office adequate to accommodate a receptionist, an aide, and the Representative. Housing would be provided along the same lines as a Major while in DC; comfortable dormitories would be provided, or a modest stipend if the Representative preferred to obtain private housing.
Higher officers of the House (whips, etc.) will get a Colonel’s pay and benefits. The Speaker will be provided a General’s pay and benefits. Upon retiring they will get the same benefits as a retired military officer of the same grade and years of service. Perhaps with this system the military will be treated better, and the Congress will be filled with people motivated less by perks, staff, salaries, and rich retirement packages? I have mixed feelings about term limits for Representatives; if voters want the same people re-elected perhaps they should be allowed to continue, but as servants of the people not as aristocrats living it high in DC on the taxpayers dime.
The Senate
At first the Senate was an institution of States Rights with each Senator being elected by the legislature of the State. This was changed by the 17th Amendment in 1913. Now Senators are elected by state-wide popular vote.
This change accidentally transformed the Senate into a ‘democratic’ House of Lords, and the Senator from an officer duty bound and dependent upon the state legislature into an independent Lord that once elected is virtually guaranteed aristocratic privileges for life.
I propose not only abolishing the 17th Amendment, but going even further and giving complete autonomy to each state in how each state chooses its Senators. One state might want to stick with popular voting, while another state might want to have the Governor appoint the Senators for whatever period of time the Governor decides is appropriate. How a Senator is chosen would be entirely the choice of the State. And the term of service and how the Senator is removed would also be the choice each State. Some States might stay with the current six year term popularly elected with no term limits, others could randomly award the offices to winners of a statewide lottery. Similarly, removal of Senators would be decided State by State in whatever manner a particular State chose.
Perhaps the only limitation that should be imposed upon the States would be to prohibit Senators from being appointed for life, and after leaving the Senate each Senator would be barred from any further Federal elected or appointed office for a period of 10 or more years.
All the costs of maintaining the Senators will be born by their respective States. Each State can decide upon how regally their Senators live while in Washington according to its own interests and desires. No Federal stipends for Senators, not even office expenses.
The goal of this is to restore the Senate to an organization that serves as a repository of States Rights. In essence, Senators would become voting ambassadors representing their State’s interests.
Finally, since the House of Representatives is increasing to 4500 it would only be reasonable to increase the number of Senators to 250, or five Senators per State. This would reduce the weight given to smaller States in the Electoral College but not eliminate it entirely. Or it can be raised to 500 senators with ten per state which would more or less track the increase in the House of Representatives.
The President
My proposal regarding the election of the President is perhaps more radical. I propose eliminating the national election of the President. Instead, every four years the Electoral College would assemble, for a three month period. The Electoral College would be made up of the sitting members of Congress.
Each Congress person could vote as he or she likes (with the caveat that the Senators would probably be less independent from their respective States than the Representatives). During that three month period prior to the November election date anyone could be nominated to stand for the office of President and Vice President independently of each other if any can get the signatures of 25% of the Electoral College members. At the end of the three month period voting would begin. If there is an absolute winner (50%+ of the vote) then we have a new President and a new Vice President. If not there is a runoff between the top two candidates for each office the next day. Or next week. But not years of campaigning, and billions of dollars spent on advertising and lobbying the mainstream media and other corrupt special interests. By December 1st the election process would be over!
But… we will no longer be able to directly elect the President! He or she will be appointed by fat cats in smoke filled rooms!!!! Historically that is how things were done, and it worked out ok… I think it would be an improvement upon the circus we have now. However, if this system produces an absolute monstrosity, I propose allowing two methods of removing the President:
- After a two year period the President can be removed if both the House and the Senate vote to remove him or her by a simple majority in each house. Then the Vice-President serves out the remaining term of office, and
- At any time after the election of the President and the Vice President either or both can be removed by a simple majority of the States. If the President is removed the Vice President serves out the term of office, and if both the President and the Vice President are removed the Speaker of the House serves out the remaining term.
Conclusion
Lots of other things could be done to improve the current system from the crazy to the sublime.
- The Supreme Court and the entire Federal Judiciary could be improved by term limits, and making it easier to remove bad judges.
- Capping the taxing power along with the borrowing authority of the Federal government would be a nice way of limiting its power and improving the financial health of the nation.
- Supporting decentralization of regulatory power by allowing States more autonomy to decide upon their own policies regarding such emotional issues as abortion, gun control, healthcare, environmental regulations, etc. This could be done by allowing various States to form voluntary confederations regarding such issues. For example, States that want to enact a single-payer healthcare system could do so by joining together with other like-minded States and then deciding among themselves how best to manage it. Those States wishing to join could do so, and those choosing not to join would be free to establish their own independent system, do nothing at all, or create their own competing healthcare confederacy with other States. The same or similar rules could apply to almost any issue.
I have a profound respect for the Founding Fathers and what they accomplished in the creation of the Constitution. The enemy of Liberty has always been powerful and remote government. Our Founders understood this. They created a system designed to limit the power and influence of the Federal government while preserving the power and authority of the States and the People. However, from the very beginning this system has been under attack. The clever series of Constitutional checks and balances designed to limit the power of the Federal government and to further limit the power of any single of its component branches (the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary) have been systematically eliminated either by intentional amendment, or eroded by a steady stream of jurisprudence that ignored their importance.
There are also problems that existed from the very beginning that the Founders failed to adequately deal with or did not fully understand. Slavery was an example of an important issue that was intentionally ignored, and the unreasonable difficulty in removing a sitting President is an example of a mistake on their part (at least in my opinion).
More importantly and more troubling, due to the changes that have evolved over time, the initial design goal of limiting the power of the Federal government has been wholly eroded.
Perhaps it is now time to try to restore such limitations upon the Federal government by using a more modern approach while at the same time respecting the work that was done in creating the Constitution over 200 years ago.
While I think that removing “structural deficiencies” in the system would obviously be a good thing, in itself it would be irrelevant (not to mention very hard to pass) without first solving America’s biggest problem, namely the near total control the leftist loons have over the major media outlets and the major universities, because for as long as that is the case the common people will keep getting more leftist, as will the judges, politicians, etc., not to mention that the third world invasion will continue (and the third worlders generally couldn’t care less for the Founding Fathers and/or America’s traditional values), so for as long as that is the case, the country will continue to become more and more like California (and eventually like Venezuela).
True. This is more of a thought experiment than anything like reality.
Well, thought experiments are important too, if a chance to reform does come, it would be good if sane people had fully developed plans for reform ready at that time. I have similar thought experiments (but regarding Croatia of course, not the USA) from time to time, I am actually semi-seriously thinking about writing a book (but not a very long one, a hundred and something pages at the most) about my thoughts on how a successful society should be structured, plus on why the various successful societies of the past failed and how to avoid repeating their mistakes, and then probably finish the book of by writing my predictions on which countries will be the most successful in the future and why.
By the way, happy Christmas!
I forgot to add above that I would also list the reasons why the various successful societies of the past became successful in the first place.
Merry Christmas and let me know if you need a proof reader for the book!
Thanks, if I actually ever write it and decide to publish it (although I should probably move to a jurisdiction which actually supports freedom of speech/writing first, since my book would likely trigger every type of snowflake imaginable, and as we know, in the EU facts which are not politically correct are often classified as “hate speech”), I will probably send you a copy by e-mail.
I have to say that I am surprised that this topic isn’t more popular among writers, the only famous book I can think of that deals with civilizational decline is “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Edward Gibbon, and that book was written in the late 18th century! One of the things I would put in my book is that books that deal properly with this issue should be required reading all the way from elementary school to university, there are of course many other changes to the education system I would advocate for, such as for example budget-keeping and pro-market economics becoming mandatory from the 4th grade of elementary school onwards, the subjects would probably be called “The basics of financial literacy” and “The basics of economics” or something like that.
Use a pseudonym.
Also, here is a very good book on the issue of decline.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Rome-Fell-Death-Superpower/dp/0300164262.
It’s Not the End of the World, It’s Just the End of You: The Great Extinction of the Nations, David P. Goldman, who used to write for the Asia Times (I think) under the pseudonym of Spengler since he often took on anti-Islamic ideas and feared reprisals. However, he has abandoned anonymity since the Islamic world is so fucked up they have their hands full just killing and murdering native born thinkers.
There have been a few others, but not serious writers. And the David P. Goldman book is expensive and hard to find. I keep hoping to find a used book somewhere but so far no luck. Do check out the archives of Spengler. http://www.atimes.com/tag/spengler/
I like his older stuff more.
Well, I would use a pseudonym in either case, since I don’t want to become famous, but you never know who works in those publishing houses, a leftist working there could leak your real name to the media, or a court could order the publishing house to reveal your real identity, so if somebody is going to publish a book he thinks is going to be controversial, it is better to do it in a jurisdiction which doesn’t have anti-free-speech laws.
The first book seems interesting, so I will read it, thanks!
In my view one of the big structural deficiencies of the USA is the fact that the states have no way of stopping leftist loons from moving to them en masse and changing their character (just look at how Washington, Oregon and Colorado have been “Californicated” for example), my proposal to fix this is to adopt a triple citizenship system (I got the idea after remembering that Switzerland has a triple citizenship system), so for example in addition to being a citizen of the United States, you would also be the citizen of Texas and whatever Texan municipality you were born in, the way I imagine the system nobody could vote or run for office in a state until (s)he got both municipal and state citizenship (you would have to live for at least 10 years in that municipality, share the values of the citizens of that municipality, etc., plus the state itself would have to approve both the municipal and state citizenship applications, which should preclude irregularities at the municipal level), therefore the leftist loons could move en masse to a conservative state, but their political power would be zero.
What do you think?
I actually really like that idea. And it makes sense that the Swiss came up with it since when the Swiss Confederation was first created there was no such thing as a Swiss identity. Rather there were at least 3 different cultures that agreed to work towards the mutual defense: Germans, French, and Italians. Thus that gave everyone the rights they wanted while protecting the communities from being overwhelmed and destroyed.
Yes, but I am not sure how it works in Switzerland in practice (I just know that they have municipal, cantonal and confederate citizenships), so I added the rest myself.
I like my idea too, but I can’t see it being adopted until the USA has a (probably (very) hard) reset, for crying out loud the Republicans are either too incompetent or too corrupt to pass something as common sense as mandating E-Verify, which should be a piece of cake to pass in comparison to my proposal, while the democrats wouldn’t even entertain the notion, since it would mean the end of illegals voting for them, dead people voting for them, it would stop their takeover of the states they haven’t yet managed to ruin, etc.
I remember reading a story about a canton and a municipality that refused to grant local citizenship to a lady who was a radical leftist. It was a very rural part of Switzerland and her neighbors went to the trouble to show up at her hearing and complain about her. I didn’t understand it at the time.
As for the USA I actually think it could be partially implemented today without any constitutional changes, but of course Leftists would contest serious changes in court and a liberal judge would probably strike down the laws. But then it would go to the Supreme Court. I just don’t think someone has a Constitutional right to become a ‘voting resident’ of another state at all. And if there is a right, like all rights it can be regulated if doing so would not be openly discriminatory of a protected class. For instance today it takes 6 months for a non-Texan to become a Texas resident. Then they get all sorts of benefits including lower tuition costs at state universities as well as voting rights. I think this might be where it gets tripped up: 14th Amendment involves US citizenship and equal protection under the Constitution. I wonder if some judge would rule that since non-residents are paying taxes and contributing to the State treasury, any restrictions on their right to become ‘residents’ would be treated as ‘suspect’ and require a reversal of the burden of proof: the state would have to prove that any restrictions are important for the state, limited to the least intrusive, and unlikely to result in discrimination.
Good on them for caring enough about their community.
As for legal challenges in the USA, since using logic based on the letter and spirit of the law went out the window a long time ago, I think it would all come down to which side has the majority on the Supreme Court, and not to whether or not it is actually constitutional.