Reforming the U.S. Gov't

[Gods_Mercenary]

Career politicians would be swiftly eliminated

But then how would you get anybody but the super rich and unqualified to run? it's not like most people who are highly educated are willing to take a job that they'd spend two years at and then be gone for good.

[Autolykos]

Quote by: Fonceai That's why I suggested that the money be split equally among candidates. Voter registration is at the voter's leisure. Either way, if you can have a party of one or a party of a thousand, if they can only put up one candidate, then why bother dealing with giving money to a party that will probably gobble up some of it for their own purposes and functioning?

The problem is that they can put up more than one candidate.

Federal offices eligible for election would be: the Representatives (however many), the 100 Senators, and the 5-man Executive Council. However, the first two are held on a state-wide basis, while the last one is held federation-wide. The terms for the different offices may also be different.

As we discussed over AIM, it may not be desirable to have separate sections and fund schedules for the separate offices. Then again, since the number of elected federal offices is at a rather manageable level (three), it may be feasible to have separate voter registrations for each federal office. What do you think?

Why not just eliminate parties altogether? Or maybe the alternate question... what are the benefits of political parties? Once upon a time, they existed to allow people to presume the knowledge of the stance of a candidate on every issue because they were a part of a party. Democrat meant that the candidate stood for X on issue Y. But now that there are so many issues and so much extremism, I see parties as being useless.

Political parties, combined with wholly or mostly private campaign financing, serve as a major bottleneck to political candidacies -- especially in winner-take-all systems like the United States. Take away private campaign financing and winner-take-all voting, and the efficacy of political parties would seem to be significantly reduced. The reason is that political parties' greatest use is for fundraising. Indeed, I would submit that fundraising is political parties' ultimate raison d'être. Without even the possibility of private financing, what use do political parties really have?

I suspect that there would be no political parties per se in such a system. Other private organizations -- namely think-tanks and other special-interest groups -- already take on the non-fundraising roles of political parties today, so there's no reason to think that they would not do so in their absence. So rather than saying "Candidate X is a Democrat", one would say "Candidate X has been endorsed by the following think-tanks..."

- Rob

[Autolykos]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Career politicians would be swiftly eliminated But then how would you get anybody but the super rich and unqualified to run? it's not like most people who are highly educated are willing to take a job that they'd spend two years at and then be gone for good.

Note that I said office-holders would be ineligible for consecutive terms. That is, they could hold office for one turn, sit out the next, and get elected to the following term.

- Rob

[Gods_Mercenary]

So what if you had two politicians cooperating to switch off each term?

[Autolykos]

The best answer, I think, lies in paraphrasing your own question: "So what?"

- Rob

[Gods_Mercenary]

Exactly, you'd still have career politicians, and all their evils.

[Autolykos]

You seem to suggest that the ideas we've discussed in this thread will have no discernible effect on the phenomenon of career politicians. Am I correct in this observation? Further response will follow based on your answer.

- Rob

[Gods_Mercenary]

From your first post, yes, I didn't read the rest of the thread looking for that particular point.

[Autolykos]

Okay. Here are two more questions:

1. Do you think the phenomenon of career politicians is undesirable? Why or why not?
2. If "Yes" to Question 1, what do you think can be done to eliminate the problem?

- Rob

[Gods_Mercenary]

1) yes, and no. It's the best way to do it with out a complete overhaul of the constitution. It's not particularly inducive to true representative democracy.

2)We can convert to a intellectual oligarchy or some other undemocratic form of government, beyond that, I see no solution. Pols are free to make a career of whatever they want.

[Autolykos]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary 1) yes, and no. It's the best way to do it with out a complete overhaul of the constitution. It's not particularly inducive to true representative democracy.

A complete overhaul of the Constitution is pretty much what we've been talking about here... it's certainly something I'm in favor of.

2)We can convert to a intellectual oligarchy or some other undemocratic form of government, beyond that, I see no solution. Pols are free to make a career of whatever they want.

I see the ban only on consecutive terms as a compromise measure. Personally, I'd have no problem if one were never eligible for reelection.

Are you in favor of a less democratic form of government? This question is not meant as an accusation.

Finally, I suggest you read the entirety of this thread. :)

- Rob

[Gods_Mercenary]

Less democratic, probably, although I don't see even intelligent or informed people getting any more smart. It would certainly remove the problem of pols pandering to the uninformed masses with realistically unfeasible and idiotic goals. The Constistution was designed to only be changed slowly, an undertaking that the American public (and politicians) have niether the patience nor the interest for.

[Fonceai]

Quote by: Gods_M The Constistution was designed to only be changed slowly, an undertaking that the American public (and politicians) have niether the patience nor the interest for.

That's an interesting statement that got me thinking.

When the Constitution was written, how interested was the average "citizen" in participating in political issues?

I'm guessing that even back then people just wanted to be left alone to work and survive and live their lives.

The only difference that I can possibly assume is that then, the politicians were the ones who wanted only the best for the citizens but also didn't want to make the gov't too much like Britain.

As a result, they left the door open for less-noble politicians.