It is an interesting dichotomy!

We pummel the hell out of our elected representatives for flip flopping and or changing their position to match that of the prevailing opinion but we want them to be responsive to our political thoughts! What is this shit?????

A few years back, my good friend Jim Palmer (pragmatic fiscal conservative – social liberal) and I were talking politics over a couple bottles of wine – beer or whatever and he was telling me that his dad had a very good theory as to how to run for congress. The candidate should put forth directly that his core beliefs will be put on hold completely and that he would be a “vessel of public opinion”. That is to say that if elected he would assiduously track public opinion on every side of every vote that he would be called on to make and then vote in alignment with the majority of his constituents. He would be released from constantly making boring speeches to change public opinion and raising money from special interests and could devote all of his political time to helping his individual constituents and tracking the opinions of his constituents. Any speech that he made could be started with the words, “I am “so and so” and my thoughts and opinions are meaningless – I am here to represent the opinions and agenda of the majority of my constituents. So I will now sit back and listen to the people. I am your representative.”

How do you think that would fly? I realize that a president is expected to be a leader but I honestly think this would be a good approach for congress.

On a similar note of reflecting the mood and attitude of your constituents my good friend Joe Conrad ran successfully for two years as the dorm president at Penn State on the “Do Nothing” platform. “I pledge to – do nothing – I will not hold office hours, I will not participate, condone or endorse activities or charitable events. I pledge to do nothing.” He would win in a near landslide because his message resonated with the constituency! But the established student government rules did eventually force him to have office hours. In that case he would generally sit in the office and chat up cute girls or take care of school work. He is now a math professor at a school out in California – but I think he missed his calling. Hmmm Senator Joe Conrad.

A Brilliant Plan…

To fix the government for everyone.

I was thinking the other day (don’t laugh it happens occasionally) about one of my favorite posts from a few years back. The Post was about Disconnection and it was on December 9th 2002 if anyone wishes to revisit it. Its still true today. But it occurred to me that the reason that congress has abysmal confidence levels from the electorate, that voting numbers are dwindling, that the tea baggers have been necromanced by fox network and the occupy movements have developed  is due to the fantastic inequity and the ability of the government to totally disregard the will of the people. I see this as a completely politically neutral thing – neither right nor left. Everyone is completely pissed off that congress or the government is doing nothing and that we have no control of our government or political system.

The policies and obfuscation on the issues are being used by special interest groups to polarize the electorate and keep them focused on their issues of passion. The special interest groups and government don’t want these issues to go away or be solved. They never want the electorate to focus on the real issue  – THE GOVERNMENT IS NO LONG UNDER OUR CONTROL. We live in a representative democracy! A government of the people, by the people, for the people promoting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Wrong again yak breath!

Ok then what should be done?

- Only people are people. Corporations, foreign governments, organizations, unions, vegetables and minerals are not people – only people are people. Only people may donate to any politcal party.

- Stop the bribery and latent bribery in congress via lobbists and lobbying organizations. No member of congress or anyone in their employ may ever, repeat EVER, be employed by any organization seeking to promote any policy in congress. No congressman can accept anything (anything) from anyone – except through regular political donations from private citizens. Transgressions should be handled by the criminal justice system not congressional censure. There should be jail time and complete access to civil suits. These are recommendations from perhaps the most notorious lobbyist of all time Jack Abroamoff!

- Make all laws that apply to insider trading etc. applicable to anyone in the government. Make it manditory that government officials investments be handled by transparent blind trusts.

- No closed door sessions! Ok defense and national security issues may be closed but it must be justified.

- De-monopolize the media. No one person or corporate entity may own more than one media outlet in any market area. No more media propaganda moguls!

- Stop voter disenfranchisement. make elections on saturday. Everyone should have the time and ability to go to the polls.

- Eliminate all impediments to the construction of additional politcal parties.

- Congressional numbers should be increased so that all congressional representatives are closer to the constituency.

- Term limits. We shouldn’t have career politicians in congress.

- Campaign costs should be capped and campaigns should be handled in the public forum via publicly sponsored debates and a publicly sponsored website that allows all the candidates to express their view daily and a matrix of issue related questions applied to all the candidates. No shady funded political action committees.

- It should be much easier to recall any political figure – forcing a new election. They must be made to bend to the will of the governed. If the governed are piss off they should be able to act.

- I would also like to see the libel laws put back onto political campaigns.

That’s about all I’ve come up with to make government do our bidding. Once the people are in control of government I don’t see the need for big protests – we’ll get what we want collectively and we can’t complain, what ever the government ends up being its ours and we can change it next election.

If anyone has any other ideas about getting the government back into our hands lets hear it.

The Holidays…

Are over so now its trying to snow. Christmas was fun at my sisters as always. We had a zany go round of the auction gift thing and had lots of wine, beer, ham, potato salad, and oyster stew! Its was a great evening. We left the boys with Joan for the night to play with cousin Riley and journeyed to Pickering Ontario EH for Art Walker’s infamous Boxing Day Party. Well let me tell you…. it has reason to be infamous! The 50 and caesars and shots of liquor were there in abundance (a fantastic spread of food too) as well as some of the worst music I have ever heard! The only problem it was me behind the mike when that occurred. That is not to say that there weren’t numerous other attempts to see how badly a song could be butchered. Unfortunately due to time constraints we had to party and run. We would have loved to spent more time with our most gracious hosts Art and Jan Walker! But we had ~ 5 hours to drive and Bart was beginning to whine at my sisters door missing his daddy.

We are now into the teeth of winter. I went into the cellar and kicked on the vaunted antisnow generator and was immediately admonished by HAL for not waking him sooner so he could make wagers on the contest of the century – “A Test Of Titans” as he put it…. the republican primary. I told HAL that the reason that the republicans aren’t really fielding a candidate or looking for a competent one is that no one replaces a car that is paid off and running well. The Antisnow generator is in excellent condition but I will have to replace a gasket in the compressor. Its an integral part of the device actuating HAL’s eyebrows. He won’t video chat online until I get it fixed. He complains it makes him seem like Al Gore!