User talk:Fellowman

Ideas for political change

I should possibly start this with some background on why I'm doing this. So, with Don Trump in the presidency AGAIN it seems like maybe if he can get elected AGAIN apparently there could be some flaws in the design of our government. I've come up with a few things I think could make government better. The guys who came up with the current design did a pretty good job, But even they hoped it would be a "More perfect union" and not "The most perfect union". I had heard that it was supposed to be a "Living document" and might be subject to change on occasion. Normally this is done with Amendments. I am doing a collection of ideas and would like for others to send me fairly reasoned concepts for other things that might make the world a better place to live in. I try to work under a premise that making the world better for others makes it better for you as well. I'm not expecting that any of these ideas will be adopted immediately or without some debate and modification, but I am hoping that others will also like them and try them out. Here are the ideas I've come up with so far:

Ranked choice voting. Everywhere. This prevents election 'spoilers". Voters list the candidates running for any office in order of who they feel would do the best job. If the #1 preferred candidate does not gain enough votes to reach a threshold to be determined for their area, Their ballot would then go to the #2 in the list, and so on, until some candidate achieves the amount of votes decided on for a winning condition.

Psychological testing for anyone running for office to assure a resonable level of sanity. Also, background checks.

Term limits. No politicians in any office more than twice. Term limits for the supreme court.

Expand the supreme court to 13 individuals, but for any case before them a random 7 judges would be picked from the available 13. Term limits for justices.(Gene)

Publicly funded elections. No private money should be used. Six weeks before elections the government should mail every citizen or household a listing of every candidate on their ballot, with full background disclosure and voting record where applicable. This information should also be available online. Equal publicity for candidates, equal media. Broadcast media would have equal time for candidates as part of their license. Candidates should be disqualified for using other money to gain extra exposure. Allow a public forum for rallies available for all candidates for personal interaction with the constituency.

Publicly funded education, for all education aside from from corporate training programs. Stipend for living expenses for higher education. Expand courses in political studies so we can have people who are knowledgeable about politics to run for offices.

I'd like to see PBS do a series on Governments. What the world has used as forms of government. What we use here as government. A real history of how we got here and why in reasonable detail. Another similar show/series on economics. Presented by people with doctorates in governmental and economic education. This should all be of the quality of level 100 college coursework and available 24/7 online. If any person can prove they watched it all and can pass an optional test, they should get 2 university credit hours universally transferable for each. And the right to run for public office.

End the electoral college. One person one vote. Several independent voting watchdog organizations. The electoral college is no longer needed, and only allows electoral cheating. The electoral college was needed when the fastest way to send information was by horse. We have much faster communication now. Electronic voting from home could be extended to what is now the job of our representatives, and the entire populous could present and vote on bills.

The Executive office should not be a single person presidency, it should be an executive council of at least 3. No party can have more than one seat. One elected every 2 years to serve a term of 6 years. Or all 3 elected at once for the current 4 years, with the top 3 partys or independent person candidates getting the positions, which ever 3 get the most votes. I feel we should force there to be a viable third party to keep the 2 evenly matched party thing from strangling action on popular issues for the sake of circus or economic gain. I understand that the founding fathers had considered having an executive council instead of a single person presidency since they had all seen what kings will do. This way no single person can just make up an executive order or sign a bill into law, all three would have to agree.

No elected officials should have a salary greater than the average income of their constituency. To get a raise they would have to increase the income of their constituency. If figures on what the average incomes actually are is manipulated to show a higher amount than is present by the representatives so that they could artificially increase their income from the taxes, they should all be replaced immediately as a body.

No lawyers as representatives or law makers. Conflict of interest. Tendency to make laws that only lawyers can understand. Tendency to create laws that require more lawyers.

Reduction of military forces to what we actually may need. No more than twice what the rest of the world has. Consider unarmed single combat by national leaders instead of combat by armies. (Robert Heinlein) Reduce the manufacture of weaponry worldwide. International agreement that warfare will be limited to items anyone can make in the average home. No motors, explosives, firearms, electronics allowed. This would be problematic, as the nation that cheats and uses better weapons would likely win.

Drug legalization. All of them. Make treatment available for individuals who have problems with the drugs. Have classes in high school that present real facts on what drugs actually do to you. No drug prisons. The illegality causes the most problems. The drug war is insulting an injury. People with addiction problems already have problems, so obviously locking them up with a lot of other maladjusted bastards will probably not actually help them. Also, it costs from $40,000 to $60,000 to imprison one guy for a year. We should only imprison guys who are worth $60,000 a year to keep out of society.

Reduction of incarcerations due to non-violent offences. Provide social therapy instead of incarceration wherever possible. If inmates perform work they should be paid at least minimum wage, and for many jobs, the rate the job would earn in the commercial marketplace. Make a wide range of education programs available to provide law abiding jobs for after incarceration.

Any person convicted of a felony offense should be unable to run for any political office. It recently came to my attention that sometimes people are convicted of things that should not be illegal or there might be Trumped up charges by an enemy, so this may not be appropriate in all cases. I would expect that if the charge they were convicted of were to be overturned The conviction would be nullified, and the right to hold office would be available again. Similarly if the person can make proper restitution or otherwise show they have reformed, perhaps by a period of no further crime to be determined for each case, they could again qualify for public service.

Truthful news reporting. National fact checking. International fact checking. Independent fact checking organizations.

An international organization to determine what sort of governmental design works best for everyone. Use AI. Be willing to change. Find a region or country that will volunteer to try the optimized governmental design. If it works well, get more areas to use it. If not, see what didn't work and modify the system.

Allow and promote several new or different political parties. Stated values promoted by each party. Level playing field, equal standards for all parties and candidates.

No lobbying where money is involved. It's corporate bribery. Also, if we could have publicly funded elections, lobbying would serve no purpose if the main use of those funds was to advertise a person running for office.

No Gerrymandering. Districts should be rectangular if possible, or have borders following natural geographic features, with equal numbers of people, no party benefits planned into the area design. Should be a non-political district making organization. Use the 10 year re-evaluation method, same time as census, using census information.

Remove the cap on earnings for social security taxes.

Anyone deciding policy for economic entities, corporations and industries, should not be able to make investments in those industries or corporations.

Tear down the border wall and plant a perennial food forest. This would indicate to immigrants that they have reached a land of plenty. Provide a source of potable water every couple of miles.

Both a minimum wage and a maximum wage. Could do wage from birth, in a savings account until 18 or 21. Give a person a nice chunk of cash as they become an adult to get started. The top cap might be a billion. Could be a sliding scale, the richer you get the higher the tax rate.

If the government shuts down, politicians do not get paid. If shut down lasts more than two weeks, no politicians will be eligible to keep that office, they should immediately lose that office and they cannot run again for the same position.

Pass a law that says that any time there’s a deficit of more than three percent of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. (Warren Buffet) This should include spending by the president by executive order as well, with removal from office.

Politicians should get 2 weeks off for vacations and the usual major governmental holidays. Any other time off would be unpaid. They should have to use the same healthcare system as the rest of the country. For transportation, they should get a universal bus and rail pass, and be able to use an available jump seat on any currently scheduled armed forces flights. Politicians salaries should reflect the average wage of the constituency for their region, Presidents should recieve the average of the nation entire.

Each town should supply a city wide public basic internet Wi-Fi system as a public service, along with water, sewers, and garbage pickup.

Any political party should be able to state specific values they strive to support. Any candidates selected to run for office should swear to uphold those values.

Persons of good character and knowledge might become drafted by a group of their peers to hold public office, even if they have no interest or have reasons against it. Persons who actively seek office should be considered suspect as there is a likelihood that they may have a personal agenda that is not aligned with the public interest.

Allow taxpayers to decide where their tax money should be used. This would probably be aside from major needed areas of funding. Citizens who are for or against various programs could choose to support or reduce the amount of their taxes that would go to those programs. This could be part of the annual tax filing. Citizens should be able to suggest new programs they feel need to be funded, and what percentage of their taxes should go to that program. This idea was the premis of a scifi short story I read once. In the story, after appropriations for infrastructure, healthcare, education and other issues, a man had some tax dollars left over. He decided the most important need was World Peace, and started that as a new program. The computer system immediately enabled this as a new program available to all other taxpayers, and it was then shortly achieved.

Remove loopholes from estate taxes.

Decommission private warehouse prisons and remove all the bars and gates, convert them to homeless housing communities. Incarceration should not be a for profit industry.

A social media platform for legislators, anyone in office is immediately signed up. Anyone in the public can check out what any representative is doing and what they feel about important issues. Their voting record would be available on their page. Donors of more than $5000 would be listed on the page. Issues they will be influencing soon would be listed on the page. As part of the job, every legislator would be required to make a certain minimum of postings. Any constituents could send messages to the legislators on the platform about their feelings on any topics. The legislator could use a human or software to screen messages. The site should have sections for each state, federal, courts, and administration.

If any political leader in any area of government has an approval level of under 35%, the applicable constituency may institute a special election to replace that leader.

Bills should have titles describing what the bill is about. Bills should not be able to include extraneous legal points not related to the main topic of the bill.

All ballots should be on a paper form, or another physical medium that is permanently unchangeable. Something that will allow recounts by hand if needed. Electronic media can be tampered with and falsified.

The right to repair. All manufactured items should be repairable by the owner. Nothing sealed or electronically locked out unless repaired by the manufacturer or a dealer. No throwaway complex or expensive devices. Awards for manufacturers who produce the most durable and robust well engineered devices.