not quite if this fits in the guide line of not dismantling the current government (it deals with re-writing the constitution), but here i go:
-do away with the electorial collage. It’s out dated, and no longer needed in this age of information exchange. (it might be a good idea to keep it on the books in case of a major communication disruption)
-all legislative reps. should be mere middle men, as in, a law is coming to vote that will effect their region, they hold a local vote (local to what ever region they represent) and the result of that vote is how they vote on the law. no personal preference involved (they still get their one vote in the local vote), no political corruption. once again, in case of a major communication breakdown, they would go back to voting how they think is best for their area.
-NO government office should be simply appointed (cabinet aside–you have to be able to choose advisors you can trust), they should all be voted on by the people they are ruling over, and no one should serve until they decide to quit (yes, I’m picking on judges here). there should be regular elections for EVERY office held in the government. the people should always chose who rules over them.
-elected officials should not be held to different legal standards than everyday citizens. EXAMPLE: Ol’ Billy-Boy lies in court. he should be punished the same way I would if found guilty of purgery, not impeached, but imprisoned for a period of time (durring that time, the VP steps into the role of prez.).
-the vice president shouldn’t be chosen by the president, (s)he should be the runner-up in the race for president (you know, the way it used to be done–before party-politics corrupted it)
I’m sure there are more, I just can’t think of them right now. I’ll add them later.
small ammendum to the second point on my second post:
The persident can still be impeached (I know I’m not using the word ‘impeach’ correctly, but in this series of posts, consider it to mean ‘kicked out of office’), but only if a national vote says to do so. the people should impeach him, not the other government officials (of course, they all still get their singal votes)
You think the average populace is qualified to vote for who runs the CIA? NIH? Or even Supreme Court Justice?
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They’re not held to a different standard. The Constitution explicitly states that the offending officeholder can still be criminally prosecuted for his crime.
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Yes, that’s the way it was done originally. However, I think that that’s a bad idea. Do you really want your right hand man for the next four years to be the guy who just spent the entire election campaign trying to bash you??
A charismatic president could probably beat the bum rap on anything short of murder, if appealed directly to the public. Deciding guilt or innocence based on mob rule is always bad policy.
What if a president (let’s call him Cill Blinton)[sup][/sup] was involved in a complicated shady land deal (lets call it Ivorywater[sup][/sup]). Furthermore, let’s say he broke a law or two along the way. Considering how complicated this deal might be, most of the public may not truly understand what the President did. He could probably easily slide that by the public, but probably not the Senate.
[sup]* All names used in my example are ficticious. Any resemblence to the names of real politicians or presidential scandals is coincedental.[/sup]
oh yeah, I forgot to mention, my improvements almost all hinge on the general populace being quite a bit smarter then they are now…[sigh] I guess they will never come to pass–or at least not until cecil is all done with his job. stupid people piss me off.
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yes, I think it is no more difficult to choose than any other office (although, I hadn’t thought of the CIA, etc–you may have a point there)
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oh, sure, that’s what they SAY, but how many times have you seen it actualy done?
that shouldn’t be an issue. It should (IMO) be all about equal representation of everyone posible.
although I can see some problems might arise with assassinations, to prevent this, there could be a stand-by that would only go step into the job in the case of an assassination. that way people wouldn’t (one would hope) decide that because their pick for president came in second, all they have to do is bump off the president. in this case the stand-by (who could be chosen like the current vice-president is)would step in and defeat the assassin’s plan to have their guy as head-of-state.
