The Congressional Reform Act would contain 8 provisions, all of which would probably be strongly endorsed by those who drafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Congress has the lowest approval rating of any entity in government. I would surely think that the voting public could get their arms around something like this. Something that would create and sustain real change and hope.

Congressional Reform Act of 2010

1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below.

A. Two Six year Senate terms
B. Six Two year House terms
C. One Six year Senate term and three Two Year House terms

        Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

2.  No Tenure / No Pension:
    A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. 

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

 
3.  Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security: 
    All funds in the Congressional retirement fund moves to the Social Security system immediately.  All future funds flow into the Social Security system, Congress participates with the American people.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned  citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

6. Congress looses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

 7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1/1/11 . 
    The American people did not make this contract with congressmen, congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned  citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work. 

But suppose the Democrats do win enough seats to become the majority party again? Will they finally tackle some of the core problems that have led to one of the most corrupt governments in our nation’s history? Will they have the sense of duty and stewardship and character to attack and end some of the most perverse aspects of ‘business as usual’ politics? Will they muster the courage to enact real ethics reform, reestablish real oversight, and reclaim their own political independence from the executive branch of government?

I can only hope that they will. K Street, on the other hand, and its plethora of lobbyists are hoping not. Long an established money changing operation between corporations and the Republican party machine, clients of K Street Lobbyist Firms are increasingly showing up at fundraisers for Democrats and are increasing their financial contributions to those running on the Democratic ticket. And while this does strengthen the idea that Democrats are in a viable position to win in November, it also shows how quickly the sharks move from one food source to another. Big Business loves the Republican party, especially in it’s current incarnation, but they also know to hedge their bets, and are gearing up to grease the hands of the other side. The question is whether or not the Democrats really want to change the way Congress is malfunctioning or whether they just want to hold the reins of power for a while.

In spite of the fact that I despise the current Republican agenda, it’s associated hypocritical politicians and their scandals, and the ruinous effects their party ‘s administration has had on American prestige, when I vote for a Democrat this November, I expect them to buck the status quo with an enlarged sense of duty, courage, and stewardship. I expect them to change the disasterous course we’ve been set upon, to enact real ethics reform, to reestablish real accountability, and to reclaim their independence from the executive branch.

I expect a changed plan of action in Iraq through new legislation revising the AUMF orders that began the Iraqi debacle.

I expect a national clean elections act similar to those in Arizona and Maine, to permanently reduce the influence of K Street and it’s spawns.

I expect enactment of the Read The Bills Act, The One Bill At A Time Act, and The Write The Laws Act which will mandate that elected officials actually read what they vote on, write the laws up for a vote (as opposed to an aide or a corporate employee), and limit all laws to single topics, making it impossible for unrelated legislation to be inserted at the last minute.

I expect a plan to address a universal health care system, a plan to decrease the trade and federal deficits, and a plan to restore the American job market through increased educational opportunities or reformations.

I expect a mature approach to international problems instead of posturing, pouting, and pre-emptive warring.

I expect a Congress that will perform rigorous oversight on public policy and international relations while investigating the failures borne out of a decade of looking the other way. I expect them to hold responsible any and all parties who have broken laws or behaved in an unethical manner without creating a circus atmosphere.

And finally, I expect a Congress that is not steeped in partisanship or religious pandering or machismo. I expect rationality, critical thinking, and progressive problem solving.

Maybe I expect too much, but I don’t expect anything we don’t deserve from our government. And I won’t be giving a Democratically controlled Congress any slack if they fail to live up to my expectations. I’ll be voting to change the direction. I damn well expect the rudder to move.

my·o·pi·a (n.)
Lack of discernment or long-range perspective in thinking or planning.

Is it just me or have the American people fallen into a kind of stupor that allows them to accept the myopic worldview force fed to them on a daily basis by an incompetent and corrupt government and a complicit media establishment?

I mean really, what gives? When did our great experiment in Democracy, so cleverly envisioned by our founding forefathers, become little more than an exercise in futility disguised as representational government? At what point did people decide that the only thing that mattered was the here and now? When did we decide that our responsibility ended at the edge of our yard? And how did we get to this point?

These are the kinds of questions that fill my mind so often these days, especially as I attempt to enter the arena of politics. As I sit and listen to all the madness coming from the halls of power, I have a hard time reconciling the widespread lack of concern from average people with the seemingly obvious demise of our way of life, and by extension, the lives of our future descendants. It has been said that when Native American elders faced an important decision, they projected their decisions ahead seven generations. Clearly, even if this is an exaggeration, the people who first settled, then tamed this country, wanted their culture to persevere throughout time, and the decisions they made with regards to land and resource usage and inter-tribal relations were designed to mitigate future strife among themselves and their offspring. Sure, they were decimated by European colonialists. But that failure to endure in the face of superior weaponry and a completely different worldview does not diminish their contemplative ways or the success they had for thousands of years. Their way of life and of living offered them satisfaction and prosperity on their terms without destroying that opportunity for future generations. Had we not wiped them out and forced the remainder onto reservations, we could have learned a lot from their way of thinking. But perhaps I digress…

In truth, I already know the answers to some of the questions I posed earlier. I understand that for most people, simply staying ahead of the monthly bills and keeping the kids in school, fed, and on the straight and narrow takes up most of the available emotional and intellectual energy we have. I understand that in an increasingly complex world, the number of things happening make it impossible to focus too much on any specific governmental action or societal shift. I understand that before we can worry about what takes place outside our own personal borders, we must take care of ourselves. But at some point in our individual lives, we should be able to come to an understanding of sorts that the world extends beyond our own doorstep, and that what happens out in that world will eventually reach up to our own steps and change the way we live our own lives. It is the disconnect between that reality and our own actions that makes me scratch my head in wonder.

The dangers of narrow-mindedness are not as apparent as the symptoms of it: massive fiscal debt and the looming day of reckoning; population growth and resource exploitation; diminished standing among the nations of the world; diminished ability of the people to advance the social ladder; a turn away from knowledge towards mythology. These are the symptoms of a society looking down the tunnel and seeing only a sliver of light. We assume that the answer lies in a straight, predetermined path, when the fact is we are determining the path based on the symptoms. We are trying to solve new problems with old and tired solutions that solve little while elongating the problems. We are pushing off the effects of our troubles on to future generations to contend with. It is not something to be proud of.

This is especially true of our leadership, who seem almost completely to focus on the here and now, the me and mine of situations, with a specific goal of benefiting themselves or pursuing an agenda out of line with the average citizen. And we, the people, allow this to continue by perpetuating the myopia they project onto us with their sound bites and their hot button issues. We magnify their ineffectiveness by returning them to power time and time again. We buy into the stereotypes and labeling offered to us as discourse, and all the while, the liberties that have been given to us in the blood of our predecessors are slowly stripped away. And still, aside from a little bit of complaining or small-scale activism, we let it continue unabated and unchallenged, and we continue to enable them with our own lack of action.

Humanity rolls on through it all. The question of how much longer or in what state of being is unknown, but the projections of our current paths and mindsets are not. Any amount of reason and critical thinking will ascertain that our system is broken, is breaking more each day, and will soon be a mere shadow of its original self if we continue to stand down. Indeed, it is not just our social and governmental constructs that face serious upheaval, but our very planet itself is changing, and with it, so too will the plight of humanity change.

American ideals of freedom, equality, respect and the rule of law have proved themselves to be a sound and sustainable form of government, so long as the governed remain involved and so long as those charged with governing remember whom they stand for. But if our tendency to close our eyes to the wrongs around us continues we will soon find ourselves under another form of government, one not sought by our founders, but instead more like the one they fled from.

We have the power to end our myopia. We have the ability to change our course. We have the duty to our children to leave them with a world of hope and opportunity. But we can only do so if we step out of our cocoons once in a while and fight for what is ours. The Declaration of Independence says that what is ours is nothing more than life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But to attain these things, we must work together, and we must work for the betterment of our shared future.

The lines are being drawn in the sand. On one side stands greed and self-interest. On the other stands cooperation and opportunity for all. Where will you choose to stand?

(cross posted at Bring It On!)

As our world becomes more connected, the expansion of freedom and self-rule becomes more and more dependent on the concept of tolerance. Increased contact between varying cultures requires an increase in the ability to respect, if not accept, or even embrace, the differences between each other. Indeed, for freedom to flourish, tolerance is a vital necessity. Tolerance is what allows us to engage with each other despite our differences. Tolerance is what allows our societies to progress. Tolerance opens doors to new concepts in art and science and literature. But when we talk about an ideal is ephemeral as tolerance, what exactly are we talking about?

In today’s social and political atmosphere, the word tolerance has achieved fad status, becoming an element of Political Correctness, losing all real meaning as it has morphed into an acceptance of all things good or bad, it is used to excuse behavior that previously may have been considered unacceptable, or, at the other extreme, to condemn without pause any idea or action with the potential to offend but not necessarily harm. Our social shift away from personal accountability, social responsibility, and our trend towards ever-restrictive social and legal policies stem, in part, from our misapplication of the concept of tolerance. Simply speaking, tolerance is the respect we hold for the freedom of others to be as they see fit, regardless of our own personal choices or feelings, so long as that freedom does not impinge on those of others. Tolerance has nothing to do with liking other people, nor is it about agreeing with another’s point of view. Tolerance doesn’t require you to be friends and join hands and sing songs together. The key to tolerance is respect.

What many people fail to grasp is that tolerance is a circular concept, one that must exist as a whole or not at all. What I mean by this is that in order for a diverse society, or various societies, to interact peacefully, it is necessary for the different parts to each accept one another. Whether defined along racial lines, religious doctrines, sexual preferences, or other less obvious classifications, once one group loses their tolerance towards another, the stage is set for distrustfulness, rivalry, and sometimes violence. And when the circle is broken and respect becomes scarce, freedom and self-rule are in jeopardy.

Individual tolerance capabilities are often a mimicked behavior. From our ability to withstand annoying personality characteristics of friends and family to larger forms of tolerance like racial coexistence and religious harmony, our ability to tolerate different ideas and actions frequently mirror those of our parents and communities. That is not to say that we don’t come to develop our own tolerances as we age, but the patterns are imprinted on us early. It is in our childhood years that most of our prejudices are born and nurtured, and as we age, we shape our experiences with different people around our intolerances instead of letting our experiences shape our views. It may be an unconscious conditioning reflex, but it is one we can learn to overcome. Still most people, on an individual level, tend to develop fairly tolerant demeanors towards differences in people, as is necessary unless one enjoys a strife-filled existence. For despite our internal dislikes, we are also taught that tolerance and peaceful coexistence sometimes requires us to suppress our own desires for the sake of getting along. And if we find ourselves in an intolerable situation, we are taught that it is better to leave than to provoke a conflict. It could be said that one’s level of tolerance is an indicator of one’s maturity.

Social tolerance, while also indicative of a society’s maturity, is a somewhat different animal. Unlike individual tolerance abilities, social tolerance is sometimes referred to as mob mentality because of its tendency to amplify the suppressed dislikes of individuals and transform them into legislation. Social tolerance is a reflection not so much of the combined tolerances of its individual parts, but of the focused intolerances of many different groups. The fewer of these group prejudices there are, the more cohesive a society becomes. Social tolerance also plays a large role in creating personal responsibility by developing behavioral expectations that are reinforced by the community through their laws and interactions with each other.

But having a great capacity for tolerance does not mean that all behaviors are acceptable, or that all ideas should be tolerated. Indeed, much like morality and the law, the parameters for tolerable behavior are necessarily wide, since individual beliefs vary so greatly, but they must still contain defined boundaries of propriety. The question then becomes, “Who gets to decide what is or is not tolerable?”

In reality, the choices are not that difficult to make if we focus on what is intolerable. An intolerable act would necessarily be one that causes harm and/or destruction to a person or their property; acts like murder or rape or theft or vandalism. Indeed, we have already expressed our intolerance to these kinds of acts through legislation. Intolerant ideas already include racism or bigotry, despotism, and megalomania, to name a few. And character traits like laziness and deceitfulness, and hypocrisy are often among those viewed with little tolerance, since they foretell a kind of intolerance of their own. We have no duty to respect or tolerate irrational hatred, true criminality (the kind that harms others), slavery or subjugation, people who take but never contribute, or any other idea or action that interferes with another’s right to freedom or social peace. At the same time, we must recognize that race, religion, sexual preference, and other more petty prejudices are not valid expressions of intolerance in and of themselves.

A peaceful society must find a balance between that which it will tolerate and that which it will not. For the success of any free community, whether it is a village or a nation, depends on its tolerances. Too little tolerance of different ideas and actions will result in an autonomous culture, neither progressing our maturing, nor learning about the rest of humanity, while too much will result in a fractured and immobile legislative process. Too much tolerance of abhorrent behavior leads to chaos, fear, and restrictions, while increased intolerance of terrible acts could provide a helpful attitude shift that may eventually lead to fewer occurrences.

American culture is in a strange place in the evolution of its tolerance capabilities. We promote an ideal of freedom, which demands a high level of social tolerance for diverse races, religions, and so on. Yet we enact legislation that aims to discriminate against certain elements of society. We promote the rule of law as acceptable social behavior. Yet we turn a blind eye to those who openly flaunt our laws in our own land and give a wink and a nod to the governments around the world who use corruption to control their citizens. We export the ideals of democracy, freedom, and self-determination around the world. Yet we openly assist regimes that resist all of these ideals. We pretend to respect all religions. Yet we entertain delusions of superiority over anyone whose god concepts differ from our own, until we convince ourselves that our friends and neighbors may actually be our spiritual (and to some people, mortal) enemies. We rally around the streets decrying the violence in the world. Yet we consistently make excuses for the criminal behavior among us. I could go on bu
t you begin to see the pattern.

True tolerance is essential for the progression of society. Tolerance for that which shows the most creative, most ingenious, most inspirational, and most reasonable aspects of humanity should be nurtured and shared, to further to abilities of humanity, to allow us to succeed together as a species. Intolerance for the most vile, most selfish, least productive, and least defensible actions and ideas should also be espoused, to help end these barriers to cooperation and prosperity. One requires the will, education, and dedication of the individual. The other requires the will, strength, and consistency of society. In both cases, the ultimate choice belongs to each and every one of us. Through our actions and our words, through our tolerance, we can make the world a better place by standing together for freedom and against irrational intolerance.

The issue of free speech has been all over the media in recent weeks, arising from the outrage of the Muslim world in protest to some caricatures of their religious prophet. It has also been talked about in the wake of the NSA wiretapping scandals and the possible effects that those actions may have on the U.S. government’s critics to express their views free of government eavesdropping and without fear of possible sanctions against them. In both of these cases, the ability to exercise the freedom of speech has been called into question, but in different ways. In one case, the ability to exercise free speech is being questioned by religious fundamentalists who don’t offer such freedoms to their own people. In the other, the use of free speech is being chilled by abusive governmental policies that increasingly seem to be targeted at political opponents. However, despite the serious implications of both of these matters, the topic of this essay is not to address those matters. Instead, I would like to discuss the efforts of American corporations to abridge the newest form of free speech in the world…namely, the use of the internet to get and share information and opinions in a way never before possible.

The internet has historically been an open medium, allowing innovation to improve the availability of information and the communication of people everywhere. This factor has led to the rise of many new businesses, including online shopping, online advertising, and of course, the sharing of news, information, and opinion. The internet has created a huge financial opportunity for businesses and individuals alike, but now it seems that some of the biggest providers of internet access want to change the rules and corner all those profits for themselves. The effects of this effort will not only consolidate the money making possibilities of the internet into the hands of a few giant and wealthy corporations, it will also have a chilling effect on the newest form of free speech, blogging.

With the internet today, all someone has to do is open an online account with a service provider and the entire world wide web is available with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks. You simply pay your $10 or $20 or $40 each month, depending on the speed of your service, and you can get literally all the information on any subject that you want. The explosive growth of the new electronic medium has enabled people to find out the time of the latest movie, download coupons, pay their bills, file their taxes, and organize political positions, to name just a few. You pay your provider fee and the content is free. And it has worked wonderfully. The biggest service providers get a lot of money in monthly user fees. The biggest content providers get a lot of money from online advertisers. And all the users get whatever it is they need or want from the experience. But what has been great for consumers, writers, and the curious citizen hasn’t been great enough for the biggest service providers in the game. Now they want you to pay not just for the ability to access the net, but also for the content you receive.

In recent statements to both the press and the U.S. Congress, the biggest telecom companies in the country think they deserve even more money, and they are actively seeking to restrict internet usage by trying to impose usage fees to content providers for using the infrastructure of the internet to disseminate information. By arguing that they own the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the network, they say that they should be able charge anyone who uses the network a user fee.

Bellsouth’s William L. Smith told reporters that he would like the Internet to be turned into a “pay-for-performance marketplace” where his company would be allowed, for example, to charge Yahoo for the right to have its site load faster than Google. (Washington Post, December 1, 2005)

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg says that web applications (like search engines, online video, VoIP telephone) need to “share the cost” of broadband – broadband that’s already been paid for by the consumer. “We have to make sure that they [application providers] don’t sit on our network and chew up bandwidth. We need to pay for the pipe.” (TechWeb News, January 5, 2006)

AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre said: “What they [Google, Vonage, and others] would like to do is to use my pipes free. But I ain’t going to let them do that….Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?” (Business Week, November 7, 2005)

and

“I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network…. Now they might pass it on to their customers who are looking at a movie, for example. But that ought to be a cost of doing business for them. They shouldn’t get on [the network] and expect a free ride.” (Financial Times, January 30, 2006)

What these men are really saying is that the more money you have to give to them and their companies, the more your right will remain to use and access the internet as you do today. Want to access 100 hundred sites a day with a high-speed connection? No problem, so long as you have the cash to pay for each site you visit, each page you view, and the faster you want to look the more expensive it will be. Effectively, they are trying to shut the door on the average person to utilize the great tool of information and commerce that is the internet. And for those who are willing to shell out a few more bucks, they are even trying to kick your personal websites into the slow lane by restricting high-speed infrastructure to their own content companies or affiliates.

But it’s not just the service providers that are trying to change the way we use the net.

America Online and Yahoo, two of the nations largest e-mail providers are taking a shot at getting an “e-mail tax” enacted in an effort to squeeze more money out of people who seek to communicate and share information via e-mail.

From the New York Times:

America Online and Yahoo, two of the world’s largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely. The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that plague users of their services. They also stand to earn millions of dollars a year from the system if it is widely adopted.

One wonders how soon it will be before they start d
emanding non-commercial e-mails be charged fees as well.

The successful effects of these efforts will ultimately spell the end of internet usage as we know it, and will shut the door on the freedom of speech that an affordable, open, and largely free internet offers us all today. These are issues that don’t just affect political bloggers either, though those of us who fall into that category will probably be the first to feel the loss. Ultimately, everyone who uses the internet for anything will feel the squeeze from these greedy, and already incredibly wealthy corporations. And while they don’t yet realize it, these measures will also kill off the revenue streams that these businesses already enjoy. When average citizens can’t afford both access and content fees, they will use the internet less and less. Advertisers will move away because their audience will have dried up. When the advertisers go, so too do all the profits. In what is often the case with unbridled greed, these guys are loading the gun they will be shooting their foot with.

Fortunately, it hasn’t happened yet. And it is possible for you to make it known that you want this nonsense to end. This is not a partisan or political problem. It will affect everyone of us who uses the internet.

To let the Telecom service providers know how much you oppose their actions, sign this petition.

To tell AOL that they need to keep their sticky fingers off of our e-mail, sign this one.

Now, in the wake of the Abramoff scandal, we are seeing both parties scramble to out-do each other and reform ethics rules in the House and Senate. The biggest problem is the access of lobbyists to lawmakers, and the perks they toss around for getting favorable legislation passed. Early indications show that this will have little or no effect as the proposals don’t really cut off access, they merely attach new rules, like the Republicans demanding campaign contributions in addition to the other perks they already receive and the Democrats saying that they have the ability to “just say no.” Make no mistake, both parties are skirting the real issues and simply trying to look good in the eyes of voters in an election year. Reform measures are pointless so long as those entrusted to follow them are only concerned about getting and keeping their seats of power.

Still, reforms are vital to the future health of our nation and efforts to make needed reforms should not be taken so lightly. Instead of vilifying each other in the press while quietly seeking ways to make the fewest changes necessary, politicians need to step up and show some real integrity. Among the most vital areas ripe for reform are the rules that govern how business is done in the halls of government.

Specifically at issue are the matters of adding amendments to bills and the fact that most lawmakers don’t even know what it is they are actually voting on.

First things first. If you’ve ever read an actual bill that is headed to the floor for a vote, the first thing to stand out is the extraordinary length and legalese that makes legislation nearly impossible to digest. A primary reason for this is the policy that allows legislators to delegate the actual writing of bill language to their staff, which in turn team up with whomever is advocating for the bill in the first place. Believe it or not, the act of crafting actual legislation is the prime reason we have representatives. This task, above all else, is their primary job. But in our world of influence buying and constant campaigning, our elected officials turn over the task of writing legislation to their unelected aids, many of whom are more than happy to add a little here and add a little there depending on what their own goals and interests may be. Sometimes this is a conscious effort to subvert the original intentions of a bills sponsor (supposedly the legislator themselves, but often a corporate or special interest hack). Other times it is not. In either case, what comes out is something far more complex than is needed and often too long and confusing for the legislator to understand, even though they may think the bill is what they originally asked for. What could easily be a couple of paragraphs turns into a 40-page document, leaving elected lawmakers to shake their heads and hope for the best. This problem is especially rampant in appropriations bills and a major reason why so much pork is thrown into our budgets.

To rectify this problem, and to ensure that bills that make it to the committee’s or to the floor are what they were intended to be, we must pressure the Congress to adopt rules banning this practice. Any legislation to come up for consideration should be written by an elected official, and be limited in scope to address a specific, concise issue. It’s fine to use staff members to conduct research and flesh out grammatical errors, but actual legislation should come from the hands of the elected people and not their staffs.

Secondly, due to the nature of bills being so incredibly complex, most lawmakers do not actually take the time to read the bills they are offering before they submit them for consideration. This has the unfortunate consequence of lawmakers voting for something without really knowing what they are voting for. For this reason, we need to insist that Congress adopt rules that make it mandatory for all legislators to read and understand the contents of any bill they present or intend to vote on. An immediate effect of such a rule would be that bills would be much less complicated and even ordinary people would be able to understand what laws are being made. It would mean an end to the nuanced interpretations of specious segments of legislation, especially if lawmakers were held accountable for their votes by a public who could understand what the verbiage of the bill was. It would make eliminate the whole “flip-flopping” issue as an excuse for voting for bad legislation.

Another much needed reform is the process that allows for unrelated amendments to be added to bills in the effort to gain passage. Too often, laws are made not because they can stand the test of necessity or common sense, but because legislators engage in a kind of back scratching affair. Politicians who are trying to get less than necessary legislation on the books are able to trade votes by tacking on things they want to another piece of legislation. Such actions do not serve the best interest of the tax paying public in any way. If indeed a bill is valuable enough and necessary enough to be passed into federal law, it should have the ability to stand on its own merit. If it can’t do that, the chances are that it is not a good bill for the country, even thought it may be good for a particular district, or more likely, for a particular political benefactor. Congress must be pressured to end the act of allowing unrelated amendments to bills in exchange for support during the vote.

Of course, opponents of these ideas will say that I am naive. They will say that the only way to get things done in Washington is through the very kind of horse-trading schemes that have been going on for decades. I reject that line of argument though as little more than an admission that most of what they do is not really necessary for the average American citizen or is so convoluted that any one with common sense would reject it outright. We do not elect politicians to play games with our money and our lives, yet the current way of doing things does just that. Real leadership is about identifying real problems and solving those problems in the most efficient, most fair, and most reasonable way possible without complicating the matter so much that the solution can never be realized in the real world.

Reforming congressional ethics is important, but we already have a lot of good rules for that on the books. Rather, it is the class of politicians we need to change to restore ethical behavior to the halls of government. Reforming campaign financing is valuable too, and the people of this great country can manage a large bulk of that themselves by giving their political donations not to the party coffers or special interest groups, but directly to the candidates committees themselves. The laws forbidding corporate donations are there, they just need to be policed and enforced. (See also some suggestions for campaign reform in Fixing the Vote I & II) But the way that Congress does its business is where real reform is needed if we are ever to break out of the corrupt system we are locked into today. The imbalance of the two party
system can be reduced by reforming the very way that laws are written, read, and passed and that is where real leaders should be forcing changes. Until we get Congress to change the rules of engagement, all other reforms will have little effect on the actual business taking place in the name of American citizens and we will continue to languish under bad law, wasteful spending, and legislative abuse of power.

This is the America they have brought to reality today:

Education is falling farther behind the rest of the world, including some third world countries. Science and math scores are at all time lows. Education costs are at all time highs. Cuts to student grant and loan programs for higher education leave many out of luck. The average reading comprehension ability among adults is judged to be at a sixth grade level.

Health care has become so expensive that many citizens go without, causing preventive care to be ignored at the peril of national health. Hospitals are overwhelmed with uninsured and illegal immigrants and are closing their doors. Seniors are having to go without vital medicine in the wake of a “new and improved” Medicare prescription benefit. The average bankruptcy is due not to reckless, wanton spending, but to unexpected, catastrophic medical costs.

Energy costs have skyrocketed, but energy providers and others in the energy industry have seen their profits explode. The average person has to choose between filling up the gas tank or buying new clothes for the kids. Home heating bills are even worse. Yet the answer from Congress is not to aggressively explore new energy resources, but to offer tax cuts to the industry as they attempt to gut wilderness areas in the quest for more non-renewable energy sources.

Employment is being sent overseas as companies seek to improve their bottom line at the expense of the people they want to buy their goods. For every middle wage job that leaves, a new Starbucks opens so net job loss is negligible. Net income is going way down though. And as inflation rises along with the federal interest rates, average Americans are being squeezed by the financiers and credit companies. Bankruptcy is also tougher to access for those in real need, but companies can shift their obligations like pensions and health care off on the government while receiving subsidies and bail-outs and tax cuts.

Prisons are expanding in both population and power as more citizens are targeted in the worthless war against pot users. Meanwhile, child rapists and convicted murders are paroled and let loose on an unsuspecting society to make way for the dangerous dopers. We have nicer prison complexes than schoolhouses, which is okay since so many will end up there now that they can’t get a good education or a good job anyhow.

Domestic security is a farce with our unsecured borders, unprotected ports and transportation systems, and concern with taking nail clippers away from the elderly and infants. Regular Americans are kept off of airplanes by a “no-fly” list while we look the other way as violent gang members sneak across the border. But at least the president is spying on average citizens to make sure they aren’t calling terrorists abroad. After all, better to monitor the phones than stop them at the border.

Our environment is being assaulted by corporations who continue to ignore regulations and get away with it. Reducing greenhouse gases is just too darn expensive. Ensuring that water is clean takes too much time, and besides, we soon won’t have any scientists to monitor this stuff anyhow.

On the foreign front, we’ve managed to piss off most of our former allies and made some new, duplicitous ones in the process. The “War on Terror” has been turned into a war on innocent foreign citizens while the real dangerous people are left to plan another battle for another day. And let’s not forget about the fact that we’ve hocked the future of the next two or three generations to foreign countries to pay for all of our misdeeds. The mortgage on America is held by everyone but us, and when the bill comes due, it will be our future generations who are left holding an empty purse.

Throw in an assault on the Constitution by a power hungry president and administration, fueled by a religious ideology and sense of American superiority that does not exist and the very tenets of freedom are on the block.

And what has your congressperson or senator done to prevent any of this? The Republican party in congress has created many of these program policies and championed them through couched as family values or moral certitudes. The Democrats have sat idly by and let it happen. Both want only to remain in power and get richer while the average citizen withers away. They are paper tigers and corrupt pawns of corporate hegemony and religious zealotry and neither will help us regain what used to be a given- namely, American freedom, prosperity, integrity, and pride.

Sure, some politicians are trying to do what is right for America and Americans, and by extension, the other people in this world. But the majority are careerist hacks, bent only on their ability to get power and keep power. They’ve made politics a game of partisan bickering without benefiting the taxpayers who keep them in office. They’ve turned us off on politics by their own ineptitude. They’ve made the job of governing so meaningless that we’ve stopped participating. And now they can do as they will, not to make life in this country better, but to keep the people out of the way.

So I ask you again, Why do you support a system and a politician who would sacrifice you and your children’s future freedom and peace? Is it because you believe the rhetoric you read in the paper or the sound bites you see on TV more than you believe what your own experience tells you? If I kick you in the head and tell you it doesn’t really hurt do you believe that too?

There is another way. In America we are allowed, no, we are required, to choose who will govern us. And when those who are in the chair of power do not do their duty, we are supposed to get rid of them. If the Democrats and the Republicans won’t take this country to a place it should be, a place where our tax dollars fund the people who pay them instead of the bureaucracy that has no common sense, then we must find people who will. We must choose to elect people who are like us. People who suffer the inanity that we all endure and want to change it. People who grow weary of the rhetoric and seek to speak the truth. People who will work towards a common goal of returning America to the land of freedom and fiscal sanity and lawful rationality that it was meant to be.

If the two party system has become so corrupt that it cannot right itself, and I fear that it has become just that corrupt, it is time to move away from it to an era of citizen legislators. Don’t be fooled into thinking that we need two parties to move America forward. They obviously have done nothing but move us backwards. We could do better without them, and our very way of life may require that we do just that.

There is something wrong with our government and the way it is run. I’m not just talking about the federal government, but our state and local governments too. Lacking common sense leadership, beholden to corporate interests and finances, cornered by special interests and threatened lawsuits, and muzzled by political party philosophies, our governments are about as responsive as a sea sponge and accountable to nothing. Overlapping regulations, agencies, and missions create an atmosphere of duplicity and waste while creating barriers between themselves and the people they purport to serve.

To make matters worse, the American public has become so distrustful of government that they distance themselves from it at every opportunity. With smaller percentages going to the polls, and an even smaller number actually knowing much about the candidates or propositions before them, government leaders are often picked according to who has the better sound bites, bigger budgets, and nicer hair. Such actions only serve to ensure that government will become less responsive to a public who largely ignores them, thus causing further estrangement by both parties, and on and on. The cycle perpetuates itself until it spins out of control. Propelled by its own inertia, an unchecked government moves backwards in history, becoming less responsive to the needs of its citizens and less representative of the people as a whole.

So what can we do about it? How can we retake government and make it accountable, efficient, and responsible? The biggest problem in government today stems directly from the political parties themselves. Although nothing in the Constitution requires or advocates it, our government is largely controlled by two main parties- the Republicans and the Democrats. There are numerous other small parties as well, but we’ll deal with “The Big Two.” The Democrat and Republican parties have created a divisive representational system, forcing constituents to choose a side. In an effort to gain members, each party portrays the other side as bad for America, bad for families, bad for you and me. Their messages have become so successful in fact, that the American people believe themselves to be split 50-50, creating gridlock and animosity of epic proportions. The parties’ successful attempt to make government look like a boxing match has the added benefit of distracting Americans from paying attention to what is really happening. While we’re all busy socking away at each other, our political parties have quietly carved up the country into “political safe havens,” where they can be sure of re-election, and thus less responsive. While we’ve been watching our tax dollars disappear, they have been securing fat cat deals for benevolent corporate donors and lining up lucrative post-public careers. And all the time, we’ve forgotten that government isn’t supposed to be a sport. Government is a public service, a public duty, and a public privilege.

Republicans and Democrats alike proclaim to have differences big enough to drive a truck through. Big Business vs. Pro-Labor. Tax and Spend vs. Fiscal Prudence. Law and Order vs. Nanny State. In truth though, the two parties have much more in common than they would have you believe. Their real goal is to consolidate power, not for the benefit of providing the public with better service, but for personal gain for their benefactors and themselves. They are both beholden to large corporate donors and labor unions, which, due to the bizarre nature of our campaign regulations, bankroll their ambitions to public office. These kinds of politicians may start out altruistically enough, but the minute they take their oath of office, there are but indentured servants, paying off a debt through favorable legislation, selective enforcement of regulations, and preferential treatment. They are at the mercy of party leaders, who in turn are being controlled by corporate and industry demands. Neither party has an interest in simplifying our government so that it can better serve the people. Neither party has an interest in fiscal responsibility. Neither party has a respect for the laws of this country, finding every loophole and exploiting every nuance. And neither party has respect for you, the taxpayer, the citizen, the American.

Government was created to provide certain basic needs of society. It provides public security. It regulates and enforces laws. It creates and regulates an economic base for business and labor. It provides some level of infrastructure. It defends the inherent rights of humanity, namely freedom of religion and thought and the chance for a happy life. Everything that our government does should fall into one of those main categories.

I think we all agree that we expect government to protect the integrity of our borders from attack and to defend our interior to its best ability. We expect government to fight for our interests abroad to further our safety as a country. We expect government to enact laws that apply to everyone and to enforce those laws equally. We agree that acts like murder, rape, theft, and assault, in all their many forms, should be illegal and punishable. We value the freedom to worship any religion we choose, to learn what we want to learn, to go where we want to go. And we expect our government to respect those freedoms and nourish them. We all want our children to grow up happy, in safe neighborhoods, and going to good schools. We all want to be able to provide for our families and give them something special now and then. We all want to enjoy good health and access to good health care. We have a lot more in common than the political parties would have you believe.

It is true that in finding our way to a common goal, we often come across many rivers that lead to the lake. The trick is in navigating the best stream at the right time. Unfortunately, our politicians aren’t even in the same boat. By focusing on their task of division, they try to get us to ignore that we have much in common. They want to keep us at odds so they muddy the waters by obscuring the true tasks of government. Instead, they highlight manufactured or sensationalized differences between “them and us.”

The only way to shake the grasp of a stagnant government is to abandon the parties en masse. A successful American government need not be dependant on artificial labels. Americans from both “sides” should re-register as independents, cast aside their party platforms and recognize candidates who use Common Sense. Choose leaders who shun labels and stand for principals we can agree on. We must understand that public service is a duty and an honor and choose leaders who believe that too. Only by denouncing the politics of partisanship can the business of government truly take place.

This would be a start in putting government back into the hands of the people. The very nature of democracy demands compromise before advance, and in this current political split, we need to not only abandon the parties individually, but abandon the politicians too. Doing anything less would prevent any meaningful reform. Look at the candidates, not their political affiliation. Don’t believe that party affiliation truly reflects who they are, or who you are either. Critically evaluate all candidates, especially independents, and find out where they stand on the issues. If no independents are on the ballot, find one and support them. Make politicians stand on their own feet and explain why they deserve the honor of repr
esenting our interests. Don’t let them hide behind boorish party talking points. To ensure that there will be plenty of non-affiliated candidates, encourage and support potential candidacies.

We must always remember that we do not owe it to politicians to keep them in office or to agree with their policies. Rather they owe it to us to defend our interests and to ensure that their policies are in line with our needs. We owe it to ourselves to make sure they deliver.

Update for 2006: As the administration continues it’s assault on the rule of law and erases the freedoms of American citizens, Democrats are finally attacking Bush, Cheney, and their administration. I wish them well in this endeavor. But I believe that even if they succeed in their efforts to spurn the administration, America is only safe from the worst abuses of political power. Even if Democrats regain control, American government is awash in corruption, unbridled pork spending, and tailor-made policies that ultimately do not benefit average citizens. Independent politicians could do the job of fighting irrational spending, inane programs, and failure bound policies if given the chance. At the very least, a healthy measure of independents could force the parties back to honest governance.

The Shah of Iran was one. Idi Amin was one. Manuel Noriega was one. Ferdinand Marcos was another. So was Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden was one too. These and many others were at one time or another allied with the government of the United States in our battle against Soviet communism. Yet their tyrannical rule of their own people, with the acquiescence of U.S. governments and in total contradiction to our own stated beliefs of the state of man’s rights to freedom, led to tumultuous political upheavals in those countries and fostered an aura of distrust and outright hostility to the United States. We may have saved the world from the monstrosity of Nazism and Japanese totalitarianism, but we weren’t raising the lives of anyone but ourselves. In fact, we were nothing but hypocrites of the worst sort. We espoused ideas for the whole of humanity while embracing them for ourselves only.

Americans in general understood the concept at play, and recognizing Soviet communism to be a direct threat to freedom and democracy, accepted the rules of the game as the government wrote them. After all, American prosperity exploded. So what if the Arabs and Asians and Africans were being beaten and killed and starved around the world. We were too busy enjoying our access to cheap oil and trinkets to care about anyone else. The policy of the lesser of two evils had done us well, so why rock the boat?

Why indeed?

The simple truth is that the lesser of two evils policy is a fallacy. By choosing this method of foreign relations, the U.S. has not endeared itself to the people of the world. Despite the charity of our individual citizens to poor or ravaged countries around the world, the reputation of America is based on the actions of our government. We tout our freedoms and democratic principals everywhere we go, so the people of the world can only assume that we not only approve of what our government does abroad, we dictate that policy ourselves. They may want to come here and share in that power, but that doesn’t mean they like us. By choosing the lesser of two evils, we’ve shown the world that our means justify any ends, especially if the ends means more money and leisure for us. This approach to foreign policy has made us many false allies and real enemies, and the fruition of this approach is coming home to roost in the form of terror attacks and nuclear proliferation. And while the worst tyrants operate abroad, it is we who let them. Who is worse: the man who kicks the puppy or the one who pays to watch?

The lesser of two evils policy has come to haunt us in others ways too, ways equally as threatening to our way of life as the foreign enemies who are rising against us. So indoctrinated are we in this way of thinking, so convinced that there is always a time and a place to sacrifice our ideals to further our own comfort or success, we have adopted the theory to our own daily lives and politics. We accept throw away consumerism in exchange for cheap prices. We ignore illegal immigration for cheap produce. We vote for political hacks instead of people who really want to help their neighbors.

Well, we reap what we sow, both as a government and as a people. Not only do we have vicious enemies who really want to kill us and our way of life, we have a government who is becoming increasingly more like those dictatorships we propped up in the past. We have a government who espouses the use of torture, secret eavesdropping, indefinite detention, and defamation as a means of securing our freedom. We have a government who meets dissent with a sneer and a slur while telling us that our enemy is evil because they don’t let their people speak freely. We have an administration that will stop at nothing to protect us from our enemies, even if that means destroying the freedoms we hold so dear. We see the evidence mounting, and yet we allow it to continue.

Why?

It is because of the lesser of two evils theory, that foul, false policy that does nothing but decrease the total amount of liberty in this world by promoting fear over freedom; profit over people? Our government is telling us that unless we give them the power to do anything, anywhere, and anytime that they see fit, to stop the enemy from attacking us again, then we will surely lose the war on terror and fall victim to a dictatorial theocracy. They want us to believe that by suspending our own liberties to them at home, we will be averting an even greater decimation of our liberty in the long run. They are presenting themselves as the lesser of two evils.

By accepting the doctrine of the lesser of two evils, we may have driven Soviet aggression into the ground. But the price we are paying for our chosen method is an even more unstable world and a more unpredictable array of enemies. Perhaps had we chosen another path of confrontation, we would have won that battle with some real friends in the world. We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it. And we should start our first lesson here.

Our government still pursues the lesser of two evils doctrine abroad, and now they want to use it at home. We are at a crossroads. By choosing the lesser of two evils, we are giving up on the chance of choosing good. We are giving up on the promise of freedom, equality, and peace. We must oppose those who support the tyranny of others for our own prosperity. We must cast out those who would destroy freedom for the sake of false security. We must choose to follow those who will defend freedom for freedoms sake.

Most readers of Common Sense already understand that I am no fan of the current administration. My disgust with the Bush presidency stems partly from the basic ideology they operate from and partly from the total incompetence they have shown in their policies and the implementation of them. This administration has eroded our national reputation in the world at large, has sacrificed the future opportunities of the poor and middle classes while helping the rich get richer for the sake of being richer, and distorted the rule of law as suits their whim. The bulk of the Republican members of Congress have marched along with the Bush agenda, abetting this shameless administration while walking hand in hand with their big money donors all the way to the bank. Corruption investigations of prominent Republican lawmakers, aides, and businessmen have exposed this party for what it has become, and rank and file Republicans across the country should be outraged. In 2006, maybe the Republicans can reclaim their party from the greedy and the warmongers and reach back to their roots supporting fiscal sanity, less intrusive federal government policies, and rational foreign policy objectives. And maybe they can restrain the vocal religious minority in their ranks who wish to legislate their theological doctrines, recognizing that religion belongs with the individual, not with the loudest proselytizer.

The Democrats seem energized at times and lackluster at others. So far, they have not been much of an opposition party during the Bush years, and they certainly have not been a party of ideas. Typically, the Democrats have served only as a bulwark against the most extreme positions of the Bush administration, while helping to pass or idly standing by as the face of this country becomes less and less familiar. Belatedly, Democrat lawmakers have begun to pressure the administration as more questionable practices are brought to light, but they are at the very least complicit in the growing degradation of this nation. In 2006, Democrats need to develop a vision that speaks to today’s citizens and problems, relying less on the status quo and more on leadership with the vision and courage to chart a new path for these tricky times. They need to envelop their disparate supporters and unify their agenda for change, while continuing to challenge the current leadership’s king-like tendencies. And they need to shed the perception that they are elitists and embrace core American voters.

Despite the corruption that runs wild in the halls of government, the real work lies with the American people. In all of Congress (435 Representatives, 100 Senators) there are only 2 Independent legislators. They are both from Vermont. With millions of Americans discarding the label of Republican or Democrat, where is their voice in Congress? 2006 should be the beginning of a groundswell of independent candidates and voices in the political process. Independents can espouse the best ideas of both parties without worrying about a “base ideology.” They can use real common sense and work for legislation that benefits all citizens, not just their party faithful. America should not be a country of us versus them. It should be a country of us, with laws created that balance the personal freedom of the individual with the necessary sacrifices of the whole. If we are ever to move forward and make the changes necessary to keep America safe, competitive, and prosperous in the future, we need to hear from more Americans who are not captive to an exclusionary ideology.

The issues that loom on the horizon include real health care reform for all Americans; real education reform that puts students first and adults second; a real energy policy that advances American energy independence; a real immigration policy that is enforced and viable; a focused and well thought out plan to end the war in Iraq and combat real world terrorism; and ending the assault on American citizens by our government, including the decay of civil rights, the inane drug war, and the plight of the poor.

2006 will be more than just a political year. We will surely face new natural disasters that expose our weakness when facing nature’s wrath. We will likely learn about more political and business corruption. We will surely face more terrorism around the world. 2006 will not see an end to these problems. But the current path we are on isn’t making our world a better place for anyone outside the political and business class that always benefits from a small minded, closed government. Let’s see 2006 be the year the people took back their government, their lives, and their future.