Everyone sees this problem, from my dad (who is center-right), to myself (left). However, few people are able to offer a viable solution to this problem. They either offer a very short-term solution, or one in which our rights are sacrificed in an extreme fashion (ie violence).
We can pick out some juicy examples from both sides, from Byrd, who is older than the tree in my front yard, to the Republican senators who collaborated with Jack Abramoff (our collective memory is so comfortably short!). In 2006, we voted out who we saw as the worst offenders, but of course the incoming class proceeded to only gorge themselves on the work of their predecessors. By now a lot of us see the futility of our election system.
The problem is sometimes people descend into fantasies of revolution and bloodshed, often for rhetorical effect, but still we cannot let a call to violence linger in the minds of our gullible public*, lest we lose everything.
My solution is an Executive Order that imposes term limits of three two year terms, a maximum total of six years and declares public all financial gifts given to legislators by corporate and other private interests and posts this information on legislators' web pages. I would start there, but if anyone else has anything to add, I'd be happy to modify it.
Why should this come from the Executive? Because no legislator is stupid enough to put a stop to the good life. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the Executive would be so keen to do it either. He might lose political leverage. The Judiciary would have to do it.
The somewhat naive sentiment that the Founding Fathers supposedly had about being a legislator (that it was a boring job, people would want to return to normal life after their "turn") is costing us quite a lot. It turned out that these people could write the best rules for themselves--the best healthcare, amass a small fortune from financial gifts, and fail to follow their own regulations.
This problem isn't just going to hurt us now--it will continue to hurt us in the future, and will eventually cripple us. Yes, I want health reform, but there are too many other things this country needs to pass in order to prosper, and the partisanship on both sides is destroying our democracy.
We have one country. We could have more countries, but I'm sure too many citizens love America as it is to just split it up. Only in the last few decades have we had to contend with serious legitimacy problems when agendas on the right particularly during W. Bush tenure eroded freedoms. I'm not just talking about the PATRIOT Act, but also DOMA and the threat posed to abortion and euthanasia (remember Terri Schaivo? Hows that for an example of a Republican congressional disaster?).
The Republicans are currently claiming that Obama is a radical Socialist/Communist/Nazi/M
Do you know why, though, the Democrats don't particularly believe that the Republicans are sincere when they ask to "start over"? "Death panels and Socialism!" Simple as that. The Republican representatives spent the beginning of the process--when they could have helped to ensure that the bill was done correctly--vilifying the Democrats and the Obama administration to their constituents, so when it came time to actually pass the bill, they say "Oh no! We didnt get any input! They didnt ask for our opinions!", even though everyone knows they were fooling around instead. Here's an illustration: A student in class spends the entire 5 months doodling instead of taking notes. When the final exam comes around, the students claim that they didnt get the notes and couldnt study for the exam. Too bad.
The problem is now the question of a "bad bill." I can't believe the Republicans, but we also have "Blue Dog Democrats" and Good Ole' Joe Lieberman. What do they want? Is there actually something bad about the healthcare bill, or is the opposition just bullshitting? I really can't tell. Kurt came over last night, and he could not give us a very good example of a problem with the bill. "Backroom deals!" Well, you do have to negotiate and see what is actually possible for pharmaceutical companies and doctors to do, so I don't immediately fault them. I'd need more evidence to be convinced of any wrongdoing.
I admit that I have spent much of this essay vilifying Republicans, and there are a few things Democrats as yet are not willing to do. For example, no one really wants to touch environmental reform, and Obama has not yet put enough funding into R & D for cleaner energy.
To you small government people, the businesses upon which you would depend are not willing to take the risk to get us what we need: The government has the means and the resources to at least indicate a market for cleaner energy, and the businesses, armed with a price point ("We need to make a solar panel/wind turbine/hydroelectric plant that costs under $2000/$5,000/$5 mil") will follow. We also need to neuter the influence of coal and petroleum, and only the government can do that. The government, however, should not have to impose greater efficiency standards. It is sad that we have stagnated for so long, as businesses have once thrived by themselves on innovation. Do we need to tell AMD and Intel to make faster and more energy-efficient processors? No. So why do we need to tell GM and Ford to make more energy-efficient vehicles? I dont think Toyota was pushed to make the Prius.
I said "We also need to neuter the influence of coal and petroleum, and only the government can do that." I didn't say they will. There are things our government needs to do that it just won't, and it will hurt us in the long run. For example, we do NEED to get off of petroleum. I don't care if you believe in climate change or not: By using gasoline, we are supporting governments we do not agree with. If we want Iran to halt construction of nuclear materials, we should stop buying their oil. If we don't want the Saudi government to fund terrorism, we stop buying their oil. Same for everywhere else. In those countries, oil deposits are nationalized.
Funny thing about oil regimes, by the way. Page 135 of Tom Friedman's Hot Flat & Crowded: "The way I like to put it is: The motto of the American Revolution was 'No taxation without Representation!' The motto of the petrolist authoritarian state is 'No taxation, so no representation either.' Oil-backed regimes that do not have to tax their people for revenue--because they can just drill an oil well and sell the oil abroad--do not have to listen to their people or represent their wishes." Maybe you think that the way we are taxed is unfair, but I'd rather be taxed and have a say than to not be taxed and have no say. I think of the problem not unlike Socrates did in The Crito: Socrates has been imprisoned after The Apology and is about to be executed the next morning, and Crito tries to convince Socrates that he should escape because the courts were clearly wrong. Socrates replies that by living in Athens, he has entered into a kind of contract that he agrees with the laws of the state. I don't agree entirely with this, as there certainly are Unjust Laws, but I do see this dynamic, and I also see that this dynamic exists in relation to taxes, as demonstrated in Tom Friedman's comparison. How much or how little we should be taxed remains to be examined, however (but lets not fly planes into buildings to bring it up, or call the President a n----- over it).
Our government (particularly the legislature), so long as these influences exist, and so long as the prospect of reelection exists (the two kind of go hand-in-hand), probably will not see the problem in favor of the people they claim to represent. We need to solve this problem complying with two conditions: 1) it must be non-violent and democratic, and 2) the solution must be permanent (replacing old legislators does not fix the problem).
*Gullible public: Bill Maher made a good case that the American people are not very intelligent, and so long with the Tea Partiers, Sarah Palin's popularity, Christian revisionism/creationism, and the vitriol against Obama, I'd say he's unfortunately right.
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