It's time for a revolution! (Peaceful, but a revolution none the less)
When we were kids and used to play ball in the streets. We would create a makeshift field with modified rules. In other words, we made due. We had an inherent sense of what was fair. When the batter hit the wiffle ball and while running Mr. George began to back out of his driveway, the runner wasn't out, and he didn't get the next base either, we just called a DO-OVER! If the ball landed in Aunt Bunnies rose bush, it wasn't a home run, it was a DO-OVER! If the ball landed in crazy old man Bernie's yard, it was game over and we all went home.
America needs to take a lesson from our former selves. We, as a people need a do-over. As a people, in both the recent past and the distant past we have had some pretty intense conflicts. These tend to occur when the population gets clearly divided along two viewpoints. The most recent major crisis could be described as a great racial divide. We fought among ourselves, we fought in the streets, we fought within the government, the board rooms and the class rooms. At a point, the tide turned, and our culture changed. As a general rule, it is no longer acceptable to discriminate based on a persons ethnic background. It has become not only illegal, but culturally taboo to do so. Yes, there will always be bigots, and no life will never be perfectly fair, but we have come 900 miles of the 1000 mile journey. There still are a few firsts to accomplish, but I can't really name one off the top of my head. The 114 congress even set a record with 46 African American Members and 38 Hispanic members. As much progress as was made, we have subplanted that crisis with what is brewing as a new and even larger/more dangerous divide. We have divided ourselves along random/floating ideological lines. We view ourselves in terms of Left or Right. We view ourselves as Conservative or Liberal. We vote simply by looking for the L or R and just going with that because we are right and just and they are wrong and misguided/ignorant. This MUST stop.
The first step in the revolution. DESTROY the system. It's time for a DO-OVER. Remove the D and R from everything. Disband the parties. Disallow the entire thing. No more conventions !! No more party leaders, party members, party agendas. No more right or left side of the aisle, members sit in alphabetical order like in grade school. In the senate, set them in order by when their state joined the union, the first time. Re write the entire system for how a person can run for Federal office, and remove anything and everything that has to do with being a party member. Ban the entire concept of a political party ! How freeing would it be if everyone who ran for office would need to publish their personal stance on the issue, without fear of it not aligning with some current agenda. Then the people could consider each individual as just that, an individual. I believe this would be a huge sweeping change. Just think, not every environmentalist would need to have a pro abortion stance and not every person who wants to protect defense spending would be against legalizing marijuana. Each person would be free to choose a viewpoint on each topic and we the people would get a more diverse and honest picture to choose our leaders from. Elections at all levels would be more interesting and more fruitful if we the people didn't fear everything boiling down to two choices.
This would of course require major reform of the election system, the finance system etc., but that is what revolution is about. One piece of the reform/revolution would be term limits. Every elected government position should have term limits. We need to add limits to the Congress just like the President, two terms and you move one. This would be enough to kill the career encouraging system we have now. Oh, and they can't just switch gears into lobby's, as those would be illegal now as well. The Supreme court would get limits too, but theirs might look a little different. I think maybe you put an age range on them. Maybe they can serve from ages 47-68. It is still along time, but it wouldn't be life and it would make them leaving more predictable.
Once this is in place, we as a culture need to re-think who we want in what positions.We have this notion that in order to serve in Congress you should be a lawyer. This is preposterous. In the house, 40% of the folks have a law degree, in the Senate its 60%. Now, I know people default to thinking, hey, its the legislative branch, lawyers make sense. Not really, lawyers should be the staff, not the decision makers. We only have 8 engineers, 8 total in both houses !! Ridiculous. Is it any wonder we have an infrastructure in decay? Wonder how many farmers/ranchers we have in the body, ZERO! We need to put a diverse group of folks in these positions, engineers who know how to get things built, farmers/ranchers who know the best needs of the agricultural systems, teachers/principles to help upright the educational system, bankers and accountants to straighten up the budget, social workers and activists and maybe a homeless person or two to help figure out what would really help the poverty stricken. Anything but lawyers !! You want to fix the health care system? Elect and then create a board filled with about a dozen people who are doctors, nurses, pharma, and insurance people. Pick three unelected folks to chair the board, two accountants and one economist. Lock them all in a room and slide waffles under the door until they all come to an agreement that the chairmen unanimously agree to. Problem solved.
Still under the heading of DO-OVER ..... cancel all foreign obligations !! Yes this will set off a firestorm at first, but when done we need to be prepared to act quickly to put things either back in place or not. Cancel all foreign aid and make everyone who wants something from us apply for assistance. This will force a review and since a lot of those will end up being denied, it will save us a ton of cash. Cancel all sales of military equipment to foreign countries, its high time we stop funding proxy wars.
Basically, what I'm suggesting in a summarized overview is this. We used to have a large, clean, tidy respectable house, a peoples house. Somewhere along the line we got the plumbing clogged, flooded the place and never fixed it. We built an outhouse instead. Well folks, the latrine is full. Once a latrine is full, you don't empty it. You burn it, cover it up and dig a new hole. Instead of continuing down this path I'm suggesting we give the house a good makeover. We need to gut the house down to the studs and foundations. The foundation is the Constitution, and the studs are the amendments. Tear out and throw away the rest. Ban the two party system, have recall elections for the entirety of Congress and start over. Our house has a velvet picture of Elvis in the living room, Poker playing dogs hanging in the dining room, an Avocado green fridge in the kitchen with a harvest gold phone hanging on the wall. Our house has shag carpet and textured Flor-de-lis wallpaper with doilies on the coffee table and Sanka in the coffee mugs. It is time to fix this.
Our government has become a virus, a self replicating horde of greed and graft where power is controlled by donors cash and the people have been spoon fed an ideology that isn't intended to create goodness and fairness but conflict and strife. As long as we keep fighting among ourselves, the beast will continue to grow out of control. We don't need a left and right, we need a whole. We have broken ourselves apart into labels of either heart or head forgetting that we all have and need both.
In reality, I know this will never happen as an event. But, maybe, just maybe if we fight back, fight back as a human group, then we could take little bites until we eat enough of the system that it can be dissolved.
Its time for a DO-OVER.
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