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What would your ideal government system look like?
What would your ideal government system look like? Is a two party system such a good idea?
Topics:
2012 US election government systems design
Raul De Maio
However there will always be some flaws and we need tools to fix (that should be the constitution). We need new tools to work together with the political class, to solve practical problems.
Glenn Beaton
Democracies have a lot to be said for them. But the problem is that they leave decision-making to the masses. By definition the masses are, well, not exactly elite in their intellectual ability. Or their willingness to work hard, or think hard, or do much of anything that requires exceptional talent or ability.
Ben Franklin famously said “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” We are on the verge of that. People have discovered that rather than earning money, they can simply vote to take it from those who earn it.
A better system might be one where the decision-makers advance on the basis of their productivity, and not on the basis of their willingness to "spread the wealth around" as Mr. Obama put it in a candid moment.
George QT
First of all, political parties must be replaced by ONGs not linked to any particular ideology, but committed to find the best candidate for a given government position. A different ONG will organize campaigns similar to what we know, except that candidates will campaign together, that is: if one of them speaks one day at a certain town the rest of the competitors would do the same, and at the end of the event all they will debate. Unavoidably, if one candidate brings up personal issues of any other candidate he/she becomes automatically disqualified. All candidates will appear on mass media exactly the same amount of time, and always one after the other, making sure each one appears first an equal amount of times. There must also be a law to force radio and TV to synchronize political propaganda, so no matter what channel you are watching you see the same candidate speaking, forcing people to listen the message or turn it off.
On election day, you have one vote per candidate, so you can give all your votes to one candidate, divide them among the two or there you like more, take away those votes from one candidate or removing them from the two or three you dislike more. That is: you ought to have the power to vote in favor or against a candidate or a group of candidates.
The legislative power must be divided into 2 chambers, as it is now, but one integrated by citizens and capable of discussing and voting bills, the other integrated by specialized constitutional lawyers with the sole propose to reject any bills that don't fully meet constitutional criteria.
Laws must have an expiration date based upon on consent, that is: is a law is approved by 51% then it will expire in 2 years but it is approved unanimously it will expire in a 50 years.
Paul Fleming
Our government is too large and is involved in too many aspects of the citizens’ lives. With 50 states represented in the Senate and House of Representatives, much can and does get lost. So, combine the states and use regions based on time zones or other reasonable criteria with a little nudge here and there to adjust areas for simplicity. There may be other possible combinations but the overall sense is we would use a regional representation as opposed to state specific. Since the number of representatives would shrink drastically (maximum of 12), government would become much more transparent and accessible. Holding our government workers accountable could also be a little more straightforward.
Many details would need to be worked out, but success is in the details.
Don Anderson 20+
As a recovering victim of public education firstly I say a government would be limited to encouraging public education, as our founding fathers intended and not managing/controlling as is being done currently.
Secondly the government would be limited to work with the private sector to “Start” new public projects, like roads, phone and electric services, space exploration, etc. and establish for X number of years. But must turn over all management to the private sectors at the end of that time, this is to prevent stagnation. Look at what happen to the US phone services before and after the government turn it over and compare that to public education, the US roads, trains, and space program where you have stagnation. With national forest being the exception, because that is the one area you want stagnation.
I would add something about preventing the political parties from turning into the current situation where we have a ruling party and a puppet party, but if public education was taken out of the hands of the single party government the public would be able to return to a two or more party system.
Thirdly taxes can not be used modified the believer of its citizens.
Woroch Tomasz
I think first two points can be added to any of your ideal government system. At least first point.
One. There are no election days. Election are handled via network. You are free to change your support to any politic any time. Your political power is measured by how many people gives you there support at this time. This would stop the bargaining at the election days (one of the biggest democracy problems)
Two. There are no equal people, especially if it comes to election days. There should be some system witch promotes more wise and educated people over those who don't give a fuck until election days. It's a point to discuss should a Professor from University should get 2 or 100 votes. Should there be a test which checks your knowledge about what is government what is budget and a few political topics - something like do you know what this people from TV are talking about? It's a controversial topic, surly for a big discussion. But I stand to support this point.
Three. There should not be one great main government with almighty power. There is a place for a great main support council, which supports the national governments and give them there idea of unified rules. This will bring slowly all national countries together, but too much power in one institution might be very wrong move.
Jarred Figlar-Barnes
Am I dreaming, probably, but a system like this could work, if we all put aside our differences. Think, all the things the smaller governments could put money to instead of their militaries. Think of the money that could go to scientific advances and medical breakthroughs. The international transportation systems that could be established. A world wide space program. It would indeed be interesting.
Maaher Sayeed 10+
Each government office shall be held accountable for it transparancy with regards to handling public funds, and executing thier policy and works. Ineffecient offices will have a 3-6 month process of continuous evaluation. If objectives are not met, the second best electoral candidate shall assume the office.
The constitution shoudl be rewritten every 20 years to adapt to current needs and developments upholding the founding principles and core values. Needless to say the constituion should be based on secular, unbiased, fair and free thinking yet confining to core values and moral conduct.
A clear and firm time bound process of pettition should be established to hear peoples concern and address them in a timely manner.
Wade Crum
Devin Ludwig
Separation of private finance and state would be a constitutional amendment as sacred as separation of church and state or free speech. The media presence of campaigns would be limited to live debate. The right to petition would be preserved but the practice of paying lobbyists would be banned.
A mandate for schools to teach civics would ensure that citizens are informed about the way the government works.
Citizens who wish to vote would first have to pass a test of their knowledge of current events and the platforms of the candidates. Study guides would be provided.
These structural changes to the way the democracy functions are nonpartisan and would lead to better representation of society's values. I believe that my liberal agenda of higher taxes, more social support, education, health care, guaranteed food and housing, less incarceration etc. would follow because they are actually in line with majority values.
Maxime Touzel
Drew Kulyeshie
What should be done is have the governing taken out of the hands of the overseers (the ones with the big picture in mind so to speak). And hand it over to local governments within certain guidelines. Take the funding for our current government and reverse the funding. The amount of money we pay to the federal government should go to our local, and the amount of money to the local goes to the federal government.
This has many upsides, our local government can keep the local area in much better repair, safety would not be a concern as police and fire could be properly funded. Local governments are more easily reached by the people that they serve. Local ordinances can be upheld and voted on and enacted by the citizens that actually wanted them, and not an all powerful federal government that needs to do everything for everyone.
If things are not going well in the local area, it would be much easier to get rid of those persons if things get bad enough. Each individual would have much more say in what can and can't be done in their local area.
States and Federal Governments will go back to being what they were initially intended to be, part time jobs that representatives went to after hearing from their own constituents 60% of the year on what they actually need. There wouldn't be as many laws, lawyers, criminals, crimes, monopolies, Wars, debt, politics. Do we need a federal government, yes we do. But in such a limited capacity that they can't and won't be able to affect every living person in the country because some PAC bought them an election. They should have funding to provide for a strong defensive military and some other international needs but nothing more than that. Local and State Bodies should be the ones that handle the needs of people.
flexman feng
Christopher Fisher
Tom Preusser
To my mind the other factor that weighs in on the side of a Board of Directors approach is that the job of president is too big and difficult - Democrat or Republican, even super man/woman would have a tough time. As in any organization, the Board represents the people (shareholders) and augments the executive function.
gerard3161 jones
Woroch Tomasz
I see some similarities between those two ideas. Like, Anarchy requires that people living in community are all just perfect: caring, wise, compassionate .... so, our idea just requires the same perfect people, but instead of all community being perfect you just need those perfect people in government.
Yeah, just your utopian system have the same problem like Anarchy. From where the hell will you get those perfect people? Surly you need much less of them but still... from where will you get them?
Tao P 50+
gerard3161 jones
But WE see that we dont get to solutions when governments of all the countries just think about how their connections with other countries can benefit just their own people and maybe worse : just their own high society. Im not talking about anarchy but about changing our mindset in the first place.Like in whole of nature we can only survive if we garantee the wellbeing of the whole system.Whole of nature is altruistic although to us people it not seems like that.How we ever be happy if we just exploid others while they are suffering?
Manuel Morales
carolyn mcauley 20+
David Grammer
charlize burstein
David Grammer
Elizabeth Gu 30+
Don't governments matter? I think governments do matter. People also do matter.
Despite all its shortcomings, a government can be relatively better than other governments or worse--there's no perfectly good one obviously.
What so many people are trying to achieve is to weaken their government's power and strengthen their power with active participations. If a government doesn't matter, people wouldn't even bother standing up to the corrupt government and fight for their rights.
David Grammer
Mybrid Spalding
Which is more important:
1. Ideal government
2. Government people are invested in
I call this notion PINER: Political innovation not evolution, revolution. That being said then, in the spirit of Douglas Adams, it is not the ideal government one is looking for but the question of ideal government.
To put this into brass tacks, we need to start writing books and making movies and telling stories about the kind of world we want to live in.
Should you be a virgin until you get married? Have only sex with your spouse? Stay married till death to you part? This notions are what our government was built around. Do we still live in that world? Want too?
Our politicians cannot give us that which we cannot describe. We need to decide what kind of society we want to live before we can provide a political system to manifest it.
The question to the answer "What would your ideal government system look like?" is "What would your preferred society look like?"
Ian Sheane
Mybrid Spalding
The General Welfare clause can be looked at as the fundamental flaw. Conservatives do not believe it should ever apply and that the government's role should be ideally limited to military protection and interstate adjudication: no safety net and no disaster relief to name a few. Liberals believe the Welfare clause means basic living standards. How can you have an ideal government when folks do not agree on the preferred society? This is similar to the notion that dental plans only cover "necessary" procedures and not "elective" ones. Does the Welfare clause cover such "necessary" basics such as education that is required for Democracy? Or should the Welfare clause also include enriching life as with NASA and funding the Arts? Looking at the tensions today in politics then the shots across the political bows are about the proper role of government: which is just another way of saying the preferred society to live in. Safety net or no safety net?
Elizabeth Gu 30+
Sometimes too many theories or idealism are not helpful at all (as we can't help but face the reality).
And ironically, as for 'ideal government system', being realistic about my government and my country should also be the part of reasons why this or that would look like an ideal government, I suspect.
Btw, few questions here.
Do you think a government should be morally neutral? If so, to what extent should it be neutral?
And should it--the fact that a government is morally neutral--be one of the aspects of an ideal government system?
Ian Sheane
Elizabeth Gu 30+
By morally neutral I mean not embracing any particular moral duties or obligations such as religious convictions--as to abortions, human cloning etc. So, a government respects its citizens' free-choices by not intervening except for specific cases in which some infringe on others' rights.
P.S. btw, IMO, as to other countries, it's a bit difficult for a government to be impartially neutral all the time as its prioity would be promoting national interest.
Ian Sheane
Woroch Tomasz
Example:
Remember the legend of Spartans killing the newborns which were 'not looking too good'? And now think about the abortion, in US it's legal. Untill what point you can kill a new created man is a question of when it's morally OK to kill.
III Reich was morally neutral in some aspects. There came out with a law that alowes you to make an abortion on mentally ill patients of asylums. And there did make those abortions.
In Soviet Russia - in times of the greatest purges and times of sending enormous numbers of people into gulags - the government schools taught children it's ok to inform the authorities about wrong actions and thoughts of there parents and close family.
Beside II WW and Ancient history.
France around the time of the revolution. It was ok to give your newborn children to government orphanage run in the country in terrible conditions. You should get the picture from story of Oliver Twist and Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer)
Fresh thing. It's not OK to kill you Muslim daughter in Europe just because of .. well it does not matter that the cause. It's forbidden and you will be punished for it.
I could give a few more, but I think you get my point of view.
It's a government obligation to enforce some minimum morally princeliness, just like when it's ok to kill?
Try asking the other question.
Mark Hurych
Start with a slight revision of first principles. A declaration of interdependence as a declaration of trust, and collective purpose. Global constitution. (No corporate or privileged rights above individual human rights to life and liberty.)
And no right to pursuit of happiness. Mistake, Rewrite as artistic freedom and rights to promote the greater good. (For that people can be given immense resources, to be spent on community benefit.) Caps on income and accumulated monetary wealth. Nobody is elected to any representative office for longer than two years.
Everyone votes. Everyone. Every person is responsible for growing some food, providing some voluntary contribution, developing social and technical designs that contribute to the greater good. A community economy of shared values blends with the common currency. I could literally owe you a back scratch and you owe me baby-sitting time to barter and trade for agreed values. Possibly equal time as a shared value. Institutions or giants of business or complexes of corporate structure will be dismantled so that no non-human entity has more power or more rights that any person.
Cultural context is key. A culture of open acceptance of change, open acceptance of diversity, open acceptance of our need to constantly become more human, more of what we are capable of as caring joyous thriving entities. The culture is key for attitudes within a fully democratic, participatory, transparent, accessible governance.
That good for starters?
Wade Crum
Travis Irwin
Dan F 50+
To the extent possible and reasonable and at all levels and jurisdictions replace government personnel with non-government personnel as job openings become available.
College graduates would be given preference for temporary work up to the point their loan is paid off. Employment conditions would require 1/4th of their salary goes to repayment of their college loan. When their loan is repaid their salary would drop by that amount and they would lose they're preference status and could be bumped, by someone with an outstanding college loan.
Wade Crum
Abhishek Tongia
Imagine 10 parties are trying to rule in a single state. These people have different motto, different agendas, and then in the race to derive the majority, these people generally use unfair practices like crime and corruption. So legally as well as socially they end up in traumatizing the society and majorly to the weaker sections of the society. I have myself seen party workers forcing people of their houses to go and vote in Assam, India between heavy rains. The party workers even took 90+ age people in their vehicles to use their vote. In a democracy, ideally, everyone should vote for sure but what happens after this is unfortunate. None of the party worker would turn back to know how is that old person of 90+ years of age is doing ? This can happen in two party system too but there would be centralized power handling party workers unlike in multi-party system. Two party system should be transparent enough to handle the issues at the ground level and should hear their party workers
Ian Sheane
Gillian Rutkowski
Orlando Hawkins 20+
John Frum 30+
Chomksy: "Here, libertarian means extreme advocate of total tyranny. It means power ought to be given to private unaccountable tyrannies, even worse than state tyrannies." And then he goes on about a few more very inaccurate portrayals, without giving any concrete examples of his so-called "corporate tyranny". Tyranny can exist only when some entity can justify their use force, like the police, courts, etc. Corporations, left to their own devices, never could justify force.
I'm afraid Chomsky is the one who is confusing issues and could be said to be lying. For example, he claims that in Europe, libertarian means something other than what it means in the US. Never does he mention where the word "libertarian" was first used. He claims it, automatically, for his ideology. He mentions Adam Smith. Adam Smith was a "classical economist". However, consider John Locke, Frédéric Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, William Godwin, Carl Menger, and more, who were also called "classical liberals" earlier, and were later associated with the libertarian school of thought. Some of these guys were influenced by Adam Smith too.
Chomsky: "Unsubsidized capitalism... exists only in the third world, that's why the third world looks the way it does. It has never existed in any developed society."
I don't know where Chomsky gets his "facts" from, but that is plain wrong. Just one example, the entire silicon industry... Intel, Fairchild, etc. to HP, Dell, etc. to Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, etc. came to be without any state subsidies.
I'd be happy to listen to proper academics of the field talk about left-libertarianism, in the hope that they will be less prone to distorting what is plain to see around us. Chomsky's field is linguistics, and he has become largely irrelevant in that too.
Orlando Hawkins 20+
haha nice one, you put a lot on the table:
The purpose of the video was to show how Chomsky, who at this time was an anarchist, did not think that anarcho-capitalist qualified as being true anarchist as someone else on this forum mentioned. That was the intent of the video
Chomsky's statements are indeed true. especially if you look at G.W. Bush's presidential track record: tax cuts, elimination of social programs, privatization of government operations, deregulation, environmental destruction for the sake of private profit...Also read the Oct 17 2004 New York Times Magazine by Ron Suskind in relation to George W. Bush's administration and how they viewed politics and the U.S. place in history.
If you looking for sources you should research other Chomsky material.The man is full of facts and I can give your links and information if your willing to know more. These criticisms are also some of the basis on his analysis of anarcho-syndicalism or what he calls "Libertarian-Socialism".
It is also true that ideologies in Europe (especially in N. Europe) differ from that in the U.S. although some terms may be similar. An example of this is also found in his distinguishment of American anarchist from those from Europe. For the sake of not making this sound like an anarchist argument I'll say this: Europe has a radical tradition. There have been many revolutions, civil wars, conflicts, injustice, etc in Europe, so their response to critical issues is much more lively and radical than that in the U.S...
Chomsky in fact admires Adam Smith and has openly admitted that if capitalism was practiced in the way that Smith stated in the "Wealth of Nations" then he'd have no problem living in a capitalistic system.
I would rather hear someone like Chomsky than the "proper academics" being most of those deemed "proper" serve the intelligentsia. Chomksy's theories on language are theoretical and philosophical. His wife would be more scientific if that's what you want.
John Frum 30+
But look at corporate tyranny in the light of what I said earlier "tyranny can exist only when some entity can justify their use force, like the police, courts, etc."
I am not primarily interested in Chomsky. I am more curious about left-anarchy and left-libertarianism. I'd be happier if you could give me pointers to some large companies (more than 500 employees) that are run on those principles -- where there is no concept of private property, internally. It is easy to find examples of tiny companies (less than 50 employees) that are running well on any principle at all. Larger companies, the kind that can buy an MRI machine, or a CAT scanner, need to be run in a manner that respects private property. But I am willing to reevaluate my attitudes towards left-libertarianism when I see things working in a left-libertarian manner.
Every continent has had its share of "radicalness". :-) South and Central America tried various kinds of statism, some even experimented with greater liberalism (Pinochet). Some Asian countries, esp. the South Asian ones, seem to be experimenting with democracy like there is no tomorrow. :-) The US (historically) is unique in its, what some would consider radical, strict adherence to the Bill of Rights. Sadly for the US, democracy had trashed the Bill of Rights. And, as you pointed out, Europe too has had its share of radical ideas.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
John Frum 30+
Orlando Hawkins 20+
Not once did I mention Obama in my original post. The reason for bring up G.W.B. was to show how the government supported corporate and justified corporate tyranny. You honestly cannot separate the two (at least during G.W. Bush's term).
I agree, as would Chomsky, that the U.S. does not have true capitalism but the U.S. does value the profit motive, wage labor, private ownership, division of labor etc...you may not call that capitalism but you can't deny that this is not something that is practiced in the U.S... I'm not going to debate the specifics of the term libertarianism.. You have your opinion of it, its clear your not changing your mind and I can't force you to. If you think its a straw man argument then that's your criticism of Chomsky.
Instead of focusing on companies (which I would find perplexing as to why any anarchist would value that in the first place) you need to focus on communities, which is most important to anarchist. There are many bread factories that run democratically but I'm not sure if they fit your standard of 500...If your concerned about people working together in a collective community there are many examples (one that I laid out in my original post)..I'm happy to provide more examples for you if you would like..as for your last paragraph as I'm going to talk about that in another post along with finishing my point with this one but I'm running out of characters
John Frum 30+
I agree, you did not bring up Obama -- I did, because they are all (not just these two) the same to me. Reference http://www.theblaze.com/stories/obama-fact-check-bush-responsible-for-bailouts-and-gm-is-number-one/. I did not even deny that corporate tyranny is practiced in the U.S. What I did deny was that all big companies are tyrannical, and I gave examples for that. I brought up Chomsky's use of the term because I have not heard anyone else use it in that manner. I could even claim that the Nazis are now commonly believed to have been "libertarian" -- but that would not agree with anyone else's usage of that word, and all conversations would be meaningless because I have chosen to redefine words arbitrarily. It is even worse to claim that some unspecified people misuse the term.
As far as I know, left-libertarians do not believe in private property or property rights. (http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionB3)
One aspect of bread factories is that each of these equipment would be fairly easily affordable to each person who works there. There never needs to be any "over-seer" to keep track of the usage of equipment. That is why I brought up the MRI machine -- almost no doctor can afford to buy one, and yet, most doctors use it. In a system without private property, but only personal property, one doctor can keep using it for his patients, and deny its use to other doctors who need it, by claiming "well, look at these cases that I have. I really do need it, and as long as I am using it, this machine is my personal property". Can that doctor then be fired from the hospital for not playing nice? Not according to what I know of left-libertarianism.
Continued...
John Frum 30+
pat gilbert 50+
edward long 100+
pat gilbert 50+
Now just watch some dirty statist mess it up.
edward long 100+