I mean, you have to think big.
Let us posit at the outset that the United States, as presently constituted, simply does not work anymore. The compromises necessary to keep this place together in its present format, and under the present system, have reached the point where no one really gets what he or she wants out of the government, except for those very people in the government in Washington, D.C. Most of them probably like it just fine; they have fame, power, job security, enormous benefits and virtually no talent other than the artful skill of telling routine lies to their constituents so as to assure reelection. Too harsh? You know it isn't.
The country is comprehensively bankrupt. The finances of the federal government are a sick joke at this point. The Feds are simply running a Ponzi scheme to keep the game going by borrowing enormous sums at an accelerating pace, and using those funds and the diminishing tax base to run a military-industrial complex to benefit insiders and to pay the mounting interest on past borrowings. The Feds will never touch the principal of the national debt again. It's too big and they lack all discipline and sense of priorities, such as cutting the defense budget, necessary to achieve it.
The central government, meanwhile, vacuums up money from the states that they could use to run their own governments with balanced budgets and with a regionalized sense of priorities. For example, if Georgia and Oklahoma choose to ban the teaching of evolution in their schools, make the science curriculum wholly a matter of religious indoctrination, and outlaw all abortion under any circumstance, it's okay with me. I say that because I don't live there, and I'm very tired of the dreary compromises that must be made, for example, in choosing Supreme Court justices on the basis of one criterion, and one criterion only, the issue of "choice." In turn, I imagine the Christians in the Southern states and elsewhere in Red America, where they constitute the majority, are very weary of having secularists tell them what must be taught and what must be allowed. As well they should be.
Thus, let us put more emphasis on the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; to wit,
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Naturally your first instinct might be to imagine that I've gone all Strom Thurmond or George Wallace on you, but I haven't. I'm simply very tired of the dysfunctional Congress which is incapable of accomplishing anything, and of the Executive Branch which spends all of its time devising (a) ways to make sure its campaign donors in New York City are taken care of, and (b) wars. What has happened is that the several states have allowed the Federal government to run afoul of Thomas Jefferson's basic axiom, "that government is best which governs least." We have allowed the central government, and its illegitimate financial arm, the Federal Reserve Bank, to run roughshod over the Tenth Amendment.
Power must be reasserted at the local level. The Tenth Amendment needs to be the rallying cry. The Federal Government is tremendously expensive and yet it accomplishes nothing. The Social Security fund, for example, is a self-sustaining system paid for by the citizens of the country and would be solvent except that Congress stole all of the surplus for its own uses. The same can be said of Medicare. The arrogation of power by the Federal government has been accomplished by expansive readings of Constitutional provisions by the Supreme Court, in particular the Commerce Clause, by which the feds assumed jurisdiction over practically anything (literally) that moved.
Along with many other legal thinkers, such as those at Balkinization, I think a new Constitutional Convention is needed to address the multiform dysfunctional aspects of American government. Such as:
1. Dropping the direct election of a President. The tremendous disappointment almost all of his supporters feel in Barack Obama ought to mark the termination point of this quadrennial farce. He's simply another operator, a machine politician pretending to care about American citizens. Enough of that. The United States (or whatever it winds up being called - maybe just "America") should adopt a parliamentary system whereby the electoral districts of the country vote in Representatives or Members of Parliament, to serve four-year terms. The electioneering period for such elections will be limited to six weeks and a serious cap placed on campaign financing. The various caucuses elected nationwide (meaning parties, and I really hope there are five or six) will appoint a Prime Minister or President from among the membership (by majority vote) to serve one six-year term. Votes of No Confidence will be allowed whenever a majority of Parliament concludes that legislative business cannot be successfully pursued, giving rise to special elections for new Parliamentary members.
2. The House of Lords (Senate) will be abolished. Since the average age of the Old White Man's Club is about 137, they may not notice for several years. A replica of the Senate chamber can be built on the outskirts of Las Vegas as a tourist attraction, and the "Senate" can hold hearings there and talk about the "60-vote" rule, just as they do now, until each "Senator" drops dead (if this can be detected).
3. The electoral districts will be apportioned on a strictly one person, one vote basis, so that each district has the same per capita right as all other districts in the country. There will be no more 435 member artificial limitation, which results in disproportionate under-representation in populous states. Choose any number which seems practical, for example, 1,000 members of Parliament, meaning that about every 300,000 citizens have one Member. Every electoral district would have the right to recall or impeach its own Member. Reapportionment would be done every eight years, to coincide with alternating election cycles.
After the first meeting of Parliament, the rest will fall into place. The Members will know that they have to do the business of the people back home or they're through. The Federal central budget will be cut to the bone in favor of local taxation, where a much more efficient use of revenue can be made. The Federal Reserve system will be abolished in favor of state banks, as North Dakota has now. The common defense can be worked out. As many of the expensive and inefficient accretions of the present system as are possible to be rid of, will be gotten rid of. The new federal capital will be located in the center of the country; Washington, D.C. can be turned into a theme park, like the ruins of ancient Rome.
Think about it. Never again will you have to hear about any presidential candidate's "national campaign" (especially four years before the election), watch an ad, or listen to Chris Matthews or Bill O'Reilly tell you how it will turn out. A person living in a theocratic state can move, but the whole country will not be turned on its head in the impossible pursuit of a "workable compromise," because no such thing exists, and hasn't for a very long time. Progressive states which want to live in the modern world will have the money and the political freedom to do so, without federal interference.
It's just crazy enough to work. If nothing is done voluntarily, I'm reasonably sure the United States will undergo chaotic and uncontrolled mutations in the not so distant future, either in the form of (a) insolvency, (b) imposition of martial law or (c) both.
No comments:
Post a Comment