You got it absolutely right. That is the only issue needs to be addressed and everything else would fall in line automatically.
Now, there are only two ways of it.
One is self-awareness of the system while the other one is to get checked from the outside.
All ancient great civilizations relied on the second option. Like Greeks had senators and Hinduism had sages to keep a check on the kings. But, as checking authorities themselves engaged in the system, the system lost its balance and got corrupted.
Furthermore, in present circumstances, we cannot have the second option because no intellectual now would be ready to accept the isolated life of the sages, thus we are left with only the first option; self awareness of the system.
But, the question is how a system can be self aware?
That again brings us down the same notion that i said earlier in the thread, the system needs a lot of wise people to be self aware; more wisdom, more awareness.
Yes, that’s what William Benny calls “undisciplined slaughter”–the tendency for organizations like the NSA or the FBI to go after the “bad guys” without any consideration for who gets sacrificed in the process or watching out for false positives. When you give an organization one goal, and one goal only, all other considerations get thrown out the window.
Now where have I heard that before (yes, I see what you mean).
I’ve been thinking lately that maybe this tendency of your leaders to disregard the constitution or congress or the demands of the people may be a natural reaction to being menaced by foreign threats abroad. You said this fear began after WWII and maybe before, and this is around the time when your nation went from an isolationist policy to a containment policy–from ignoring the rest of the world to watching it vigilantly. Perhaps most leaders know that when the nation you are charged with governing is threatened by enemies abroad, the best strategy is simply to go forward with whatever information your best intelligence can gather, and in as timely a manner as possible, whereas the best strategy in times of peace or in a more isolationist atmosphere is to listen to the demands and desires of the people and to respect the principles (the constitution) that the people hold onto.
Of course, I’d like. I’m glad you’re contributing to this thread because you seem very learned about this stuff and are bringing a lot of facts to the table. Some day, when I have time, I’m going to read the American Constitution.
I don’t know, Sanjay, can there? I guess that’s what this thread is meant for–to find out what our options are. But you’re right–wisdom is definitely a key requirement (I believe it was Socrates who criticized democracy in his statement: It is better to be ruled by a few wise men than by a thousand buffoons–I don’t know about getting rid of democracy, but I think he was right about wisdom). You and I have differing opinions about how to accomplish this–you say raise the voting age, I say pour more money into education–and both these strategies are methodological (i.e. it doesn’t require telling people to “try really hard”) which is the larger point I was trying to make. Maybe we need both–a higher voting age and more money into education–but being a Westerner myself and a neighbor to the US, I can guarantee you that the people will go for the education approach long before they go for increasing the voting age. But times can change and so can attitudes and perspectives, and there may be a time when the West agrees that only the elder generation has had enough life experience to have gained the wisdom sufficient for voting in an effective, responsible, and informed way.
Still, though, I think wise voting is only half the battle. You can have all the wisdom in the world when you vote, but if your options are pitifully disappointing to begin with, that wisdom isn’t going to help you in creating a good leader for your nation. Almost every American (and Canadian) will agree that when they vote, they feel like they’re choosing between Dweedle Dee and Dweedle Dumb (or between two evils). Often enough, it seems like both candidates are promising more or less the same thing, and that regardless of what those promises are, they’re going to break them anyway. This, I think, is where education comes in. I think that if we put more money into education, then within a generation we should see not only wiser voters going to the booths, but wiser candidates for which to vote.
The US took on the role not of ‘containment’ but of ‘police to the world’ somewhere in the interim between the end of WWII and now. Some of its military actions are even called Police Actions. I don’t know why this is so.
One of those ‘police actions’ was Korea. President Truman got us into that without asking for Congressional go-ahead. Why? Because it wasn’t a ‘war!’ The UN approved it, the US Congress wasn’t asked. Korea didn’t pose any threat to US territory. Communism and its spread did, however.
President Eisenhower said, in that famous quote of his, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
But Eisenhower coined the phrase, ‘the domino effect’ which led the US into Vietnam.
War became an industry. So much so that the US now arms the world and is the largest consumer of oil in the world–which leads us to economic theory.
The US is a Democratic Republic, rather than a Democracy. Ancient Greece wasn’t a ‘democracy’ since so many of its people weren’t allowed to vote. The US wasn’t a ‘democracy’ since only the ‘select few’ were allowed to vote. If only a few are allowed to vote, there is no democracy.
The US espouses a ‘free market’ economic system as defined by Adam Smith. Put simply, that means that economic stability is based on supply and demand. If supply goes down and demand goes up, prices go up. If supplies go up and demand goes down, prices go down.
Laissez faire economics allows the producer to set the prices, as I understand it, and, in today’s world, the globalization of manufacturing has done little to equalize anything, because the producers–the corporations–set the prices. If the potential consumer can’t pay what the corporation has set as the price, the consumer suffers. But so does the overall economy.
The world has been taken over by a free market, laissez faire, economic policy, as exemplified in the Western World. I think so, anyway.
It has nothing to do with reforming, rewriting, or resurrecting the US Federal Constitution. Can anything or anyone grab an economic system by its belly-button. yank it up, and miraculously change it into something that would benefit everyone?
Does education teach anyone how to think? Does it turn anyone into a ‘wise’ person?
If you raise the voting age to, say, 35, can you then use younger people as pawns in the ‘game of war?’ Does raising the voting age guarantee a ‘wiser’ voter?
Telling people what to think is pretty easy; teaching people how to think, decide, and do on their own is, to me, infinitely more challenging and, sometimes, impossible. It’s called ‘critical thinking.’ Critical thinking isn’t taught in most schools in the world.
He also said, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” and “You don’t lead by hitting people over the head - that’s assault, not leadership.”
The US took on the role not of ‘containment’ but of ‘police to the world’ somewhere in the interim between the end of WWII and now. Some of its military actions are even called Police Actions. I don’t know why this is so.
One of those ‘police actions’ was Korea. President Truman got us into that without asking for Congressional go-ahead. Why? Because it wasn’t a ‘war!’ The UN approved it, the US Congress wasn’t asked. Korea didn’t pose any threat to US territory. Communism and its spread did, however.
President Eisenhower said, in that famous quote of his, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
But Eisenhower coined the phrase, ‘the domino effect’ which led the US into Vietnam.
War became an industry. So much so that the US now arms the world and is the largest consumer of oil in the world–which leads us to economic theory.
The US is a Democratic Republic, rather than a Democracy. Ancient Greece wasn’t a ‘democracy’ since so many of its people weren’t allowed to vote. The US wasn’t a ‘democracy’ since only the ‘select few’ were allowed to vote. If only a few are allowed to vote, there is no democracy.
The US espouses a ‘free market’ economic system as defined by Adam Smith. Put simply, that means that economic stability is based on supply and demand. If supply goes down and demand goes up, prices go up. If supplies go up and demand goes down, prices go down.
Laissez faire economics allows the producer to set the prices, as I understand it, and, in today’s world, the globalization of manufacturing has done little to equalize anything, because the producers–the corporations–set the prices. If the potential consumer can’t pay what the corporation has set as the price, the consumer suffers. But so does the overall economy.
The world has been taken over by a free market, laissez faire, economic policy, as exemplified in the Western World. I think so, anyway.
It has nothing to do with reforming, rewriting, or resurrecting the US Federal Constitution. Can anything or anyone grab an economic system by its belly-button. yank it up, and miraculously change it into something that would benefit everyone?
Does education teach anyone how to think? Does it turn anyone into a ‘wise’ person?
If you raise the voting age to, say, 35, can you then use younger people as pawns in the ‘game of war?’ Does raising the voting age guarantee a ‘wiser’ voter?
Telling people what to think is pretty easy; teaching people how to think, decide, and do on their own is, to me, infinitely more challenging and, sometimes, impossible. It’s called ‘critical thinking.’ Critical thinking isn’t taught in most schools in the world.
He also said, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” and “You don’t lead by hitting people over the head - that’s assault, not leadership.”
Or merely smaller systems wherein it takes less wisdom and less awareness, thus less strain on the “sage”. Anentropic Molecularisation is such a system - very, very small groups, sharing their wisdom between the groups, but being aware of merely their own in extreme detail and those of contact in superficial detail, very similar to cells in a body, “The Body of Man”.
I agree with Socrates completely here. And, that is precisely my argument for supporting autocracy.
I would like to go one step further and say that - it would be better to have a little selfish but intelligent ruler than a completely honest but fool.
Gib, i am not against pushing education either but there are two points here that should be kept in mind regarding education.
Firstly, there is some diference between education and wisdom. For wisdom, one needs experience and virtuous intent also to use his knowledge. And, that does not come with education by default. One has to earn it with time and intent. It is not the matter or learning some texts by heart and write down again in exams.
Secondly, sometimes overeducation becomes a problem itself, especially in young age.
That is true because they are taught from the day one to consider anything bad by default that curbs their liberty even slightly, even if it would be for their betterment.
Not sure about that as that requires some extraordinary happening, though possible.
I would like to differ on this point.
If we can somehow manage wise voting, the wise options would come by default from within that wise system.
We have unwise candidates only because there are unwise voters in the system to vote for them.
You have to remove the cause to get rid of unwarrented results. One cannot change results directly, overlooking the manifesting causes.
Gib, that is precisely the mistake that all democracies are doing. They all want wise leaders but tend to hesitate and take a step back when asked for wise voters.
Like, if you disallow all conservative voters of US from voting, US will have a democratic president everytime. In democracy, you should expect leaders just as the voters are. Leaders are not going to fall from the sky but emerge from within the voters. As the democracy is the number game and depends on the majority, thus the leader would be the same as would be the majority.
So, if you want a wise leader, it entails that wise voters should be in the majority.
The focus should be on voters, not leaders.
That is not a bad idea but i do not think that majority of the people will feel comfortable in the groups.
Living in groups requires adjustments and nobody is ready for that nowdays as one has to sacrifice some of his liberties in that case.
One more point i want to mention here regarding raising the wisdom in the system.
As far as i see it, contrary to the general perception, democracy cannot work properly without having a strong family system.
As i said before, wisdom is not merely an issue of education/information but more or intent and experience. And, that entails that one becomes more and more wise with age.
Approaching 50, from my experience of about myself and those i interacted closely in the life, i can say that the wisdom peaks somewhere in the age band of 50 - 60 and carries on till the mental condition does not deterioate. So, that is the time when the society should use it for the purpose of increasing its general standerd of the wisdom.
And, the only way to use the wisdom of the elders to pass on to the next generation is to keep them in the family, live with them and let the children learm from their valuable experience. But, most of them use to live either alone or in old age homes for various reasons.
Around 60, most become grandparents and that opens a great oppurtunity to transfer their earned wisdom to their grandchildren, whithout much noise, in a very smooth way, just by living, playing an talking with them. That can change the life of the youngs forever as they can learn those things which no one else can teach them, not even their own parents.
And, i do not have any doubt that it is only the breaking of family system that causing so much disturbance in the society.
Most of the people do not realize how much we lose when our elders leave us. We move back to square one in the terms of wisdom when we lose our elders before passing on their wisdom to their grandchildren.
It means that their all 60-70 years go in vain. That is a huge loss not only for a particular family but to the society, as a whole, if anyone considers it objectively.
If that can be managed anyhow, that would improve the general standerd of the wisdom of the society by a large extent.
Right, and the solution to that is to have two competing organizations–one for catching the bad guys, another for protecting the good guys.
Iraq you mean. 9/11 has been used as an excuse for so many questionable acts and operations. Declaring a war of terror in response to 9/11 justified the Patriot Act (which ligitimized spying on Americans) and it also was used to bolstered the arguments in favor of going to war with Iraq. Maybe these maneuvers are actually needed, maybe not. But all this happened after 2001–well into the era of internationalism during which the attitude of the government was to act first and ask questions later. This would have been thought crazy during the times of isolationism.
This is important, Liz, don’t apologize.
My sources (which I’ve forgot now) tell me that the US has been through three phases marked by two transitions in foreign policy: the isolationist phase transitioning into the containment phase and the containment phase transitioning into what you’re calling “internationalism”. It would not be a stretch to consider “containment” to fall under the purview of “internationalism” (as I’m not sure how you could practice containing the spread of communism without going international), so some interpreters of history might consider there to have been only two phases and one transition, but that’s just not the way I was taught. But if I were to guess at a difference between containment and internationalism, I’d say containment is a response to a threat whereas internationalism is simply intervening in the affairs of foreign nations without such affairs being necessarily a threat to you (of course, you couldn’t just intervene for no reason at all–thus, the story of WMD as an excuse to continue the war with Iraq–which itself, as I have been taught, was a response to a plea for help from Kuwait ← and this too teaches us something–what internationalism stems from historically: I think it was the change in attitude that was seen throughout the Western world, not just America, after World War II, namely that one can’t just sit back idly while a certain people are being butchered and desperately need outside help to rescue them).
But do you believe the US is a democracy now? Who cannot vote except for children? I don’t really understand this “America is not a democracy” angle–if you have universal suffrage in a country and that suffrage is used to elect a president (or prime minister or whatever), that in my mind is the bare minimum requirement for calling a country a democracy.
I’m not sure I follow. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’re saying that the problems with the current state of the American democratic system (which will most likely be the latent, if not manifest, problems with any democracy around the world) should be traced not to the structure of democracy as it stands today but to the way that the global economy is performing. Is that right?
I think it can, though it doesn’t necessarily set out to do so expressly. I’m thinking of how it would work on a mass scale–though not every student will end up wise in the end, more will than if we don’t focus on education. On top of that, there are some subjects that one learns in school which I think do contribute to wisdom: history, world politics, science, social studies, religious studies–anything which teaches the student how the real world works and has worked throughout history. Much of wisdom is simply amassing the lessons learned from these studies.
I don’t think so necessarily, but that’s Sanjay’s argument. I’ll let him respond.
Please see my response to Liz above.
I don’t understand how that would work. It sounds like you’re saying that by limiting the voting age to a higher age, somehow wiser candidates will emerge from that voting group. Supposing that limiting the voting age to a higher age did result in the pool of voters being wiser on average, are you saying that would result in only members from that group running in elections? As in, if you’re under the specific age limit, and therefore cannot vote, neither would you run of election? And that if we kept the voting age as low as it is now, we’ll get a larger influx of younger candidates for elections, and therefore less wise candidates? I’m not sure how this would work unless we restricted the age at which people can run for office as well. I don’t see how raising the voting age by itself would do that.
I agree with that with the exception of exactly how one defines “a family”.
I don’t disagree, with or without the issue of age.
But that idol can and does change. It depends on present conditions, different in different locations, situations, and people.
That is the result of a lack of wisdom running society.
Wisdom needs updating. There is a specific means for doing that independent of age or prejudice. I involves a type of democracy and reasoning that is inclusive of all aged wisdom as well as new thoughts.
Redefining “Democracy” is more needed than resurrecting it.
Gib–Let’s start with “Reforming Democracy,” shall we? How can anyone reform something that really doesn’t exist? I’ve tried to explain this. Democracy means that the people rule. One person; one vote. That doesn’t work. Even if everyone were allowed to vote, Democracy would end up being the rule of the majority. This was anathema to the Founders of the US government, since they’d seen it in Great Britain, where British Common Law developed out of rule by a Monarch and the Peers of the Realm.
They felt there needed to be a way to ‘limit’ (I don’t like that word, but it’s the best one I can think of) the rule of the people in presidential elections; so the Electoral College was formed. (See Article II, Section 1, of the US Constitution and go to uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/ … istory.php for an explanation of the Electoral College.)
Already, then, the US was not a pure Democracy. It’s a Democracy only in that people are allowed to vote–first, within their States and then within the Confederation of States. The US is a Democratic (you can vote) Republic (each State is considered equal to every other State. All States are united under a Federal Constitution, as adapted by the individual states to meet the desires of its people.)
I guess I don’t understand what you mean by a ‘containment phase’ in US foreign policy. Was that when Teddy Roosevelt interfered in the Mexican Revolution?
The US is supposed to adhere to the Non-Interference policy, which is a UN policy. The US isn’t supposed to muck around with another Nation’s sovereigncy–either in that country’s internal or external affairs. Korea and Vietnam were so-called UN Police Operations. How many NATO troops took part? The US still had mandatory conscription, at the time, (without, remember, a ‘standing army.’) The US ‘called up’ its troops/pawns to fight against the Domino theory of how Communism would take over the world, one Asian Nation after another.
Is this what you mean by ‘containment?’
Getting back to “reforming Democracy,” what exactly is it you want to reform that the US Founders hadn’t already tried to prevent through the Constitution?
I’ve said the the US is held on the ‘horns of a dilemma,’ when it comes down to free speech. Our Ist Amendment guarantees US citizens, however, the 'right to the freedom of speech. We can, and have, spoken out against our government, which led to the exposure of the CIA in the Iran-Contra dealings and the recent exposure of the probable misuse of the Patriot Act by Home Land Security.
Everyone in our elected Congress has been elected to speak for the people. If the people don’t like what’s being said they shouldn’t re-elect anyone who says what they don’t like. But the US is ‘ruled’ by a 2-party system. The two political parties have now emerged as the two enemies political parties,both saying, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.”
If mass education would help develop thinking people, then, sure, go for it. Personally, I don’t think it will until other–possibly social–problematic situations are solved. And a part of those problems stem from the economic system under which we live.
But you do have one person, one vote–you vote for your president, do you not?
And yes, you have a bill of rights which protects the basic rights of the minority from abuses by the majority, and yes, children aren’t allowed to vote, but I don’t think anyone takes these seriously when considering whether your country is a democracy or not. Most people around the world consider the type of system you have a democracy.
Unless what you’re talking about is how each person votes for the party they wish to rule their state, not their country, and the majority of state turn-outs determines who wins the federal election. Is that it?
Yes, this sounds like what I just asked.
See, most people would consider that a democracy anyway–it’s a certain form of democracy.
Yes, the containment of the spread of communism.
Tried to prevent, but failed. What caused it to fail? What needs to be changed in the system (whether a democracy or not) such that 1) the corruptions and unprecedented power sited in the OP is undone, and 2) that it is prevented from happening again? The principles outlined in the Constitution aren’t much of a solution if they can so easily be overruled.
Fair enough, but it’s a chicken and egg scenario: you need smart, educated people to solve problems in any arena.
I’ll try to answer you. Yes, we can all vote; yes, this is seen as a democratic way of government by the people of the world. “Hey! I can vote for my leader!”
But what about the countries that have only one candidate running for high office? Everyone can vote, but no one has a choice. Is that a Democracy, or a democracy?
We have more than 2 recognized political parties in the US; however, there are limitations as to how many parties can be put on the ballot. Each party is placed on the ballot depending on the number of popular votes it received in the previous election. This starts at the state level.
Some states (my one included) require a voter to choose a party before voting; only 2 parties are recognized, however. You cannot declare yourself an independent–you have to choose a political party. Doing so allows the parties to ‘work’ the demographics within the district.
REFORM #1–Get rid of any and all voting restriction(s).
The Bill of Rights aren’t a part of the Constitution in order to protect the minority; they are there because some of the 13 existing states, at the time, didn’t think the basic Constitution did enough to prevent various things the colonists had suffered under English rule. They were correct, since the basic Constitution is about the structure of the Federal Government, and they are important to the function of a Republic, or ‘confederation’ of States. Most of the cases the SCOTUS hears concern the legality (under the Federal constitution) if what has been legal/illegal under State Constitutions. Article 6, Clause 2, states “This Constitution…shall be the supreme Law of the Land…”
The Bill of Rights, as far as the 2nd Amendment goes, has been used repeatedly by the NRA to secure gun rights for everyone to the extent that it may be infringing on the right of the minority to “…promote the General Welfare…” of people’s lives in the US. While the Preamble isn’t a part of the Constitution, it’s still used to indicate the intent of the document.
The ‘problem’ with the 2nd Amendment is how it was written and how the term ‘militia’ is defined. Can the prevalent interpretation, as espoused by a powerful lobby organization, be changed? Maybe, when the gun can be taken out of Charlton Heston’s “cold, dead hand.” As long as the NRA holds sway, the US Federal government is kept from ruling on any infringement of the “people’s right to bear arms.”
I believe, however, that one Amendment needs to be addressed–the XIV. (I agree with Ron Paul on this, btw) Read it, and consider how it’s been interpreted.
The Founders and the Constitution haven’t failed–at least, not just yet. The SCOTUS interpretations may have failed at various times; I think that’s most possible.
So, I have only one reform to the way things are today to offer–get rid of voting restrictions.
I’ll try to answer you. Yes, we can all vote; yes, this is seen as a democratic way of government by the people of the world. “Hey! I can vote for my leader!”
But what about the countries that have only one candidate running for high office? Everyone can vote, but no one has a choice. Is that a Democracy, or a democracy?
We have more than 2 recognized political parties in the US; however, there are limitations as to how many parties can be put on the ballot. Each party is placed on the ballot depending on the number of popular votes it received in the previous election. This starts at the state level.
Some states (my one included) require a voter to choose a party before voting; only 2 parties are recognized, however. You cannot declare yourself an independent–you have to choose a political party. Doing so allows the parties to ‘work’ the demographics within the district.
REFORM #1–Get rid of any and all voting restriction(s).
The Bill of Rights aren’t a part of the Constitution in order to protect the minority; they are there because some of the 13 existing states, at the time, didn’t think the basic Constitution did enough to prevent various things the colonists had suffered under English rule. They were correct, since the basic Constitution is about the structure of the Federal Government, and they are important to the function of a Republic, or ‘confederation’ of States. Most of the cases the SCOTUS hears concern the legality (under the Federal constitution) if what has been legal/illegal under State Constitutions. Article 6, Clause 2, states “This Constitution…shall be the supreme Law of the Land…”
The Bill of Rights, as far as the 2nd Amendment goes, has been used repeatedly by the NRA to secure gun rights for everyone to the extent that it may be infringing on the right of the minority to “…promote the General Welfare…” of people’s lives in the US. While the Preamble isn’t a part of the Constitution, it’s still used to indicate the intent of the document.
The ‘problem’ with the 2nd Amendment is how it was written and how the term ‘militia’ is defined. Can the prevalent interpretation, as espoused by a powerful lobby organization, be changed? Maybe, when the gun can be taken out of Charlton Heston’s “cold, dead hand.” As long as the NRA holds sway, the US Federal government is kept from ruling on any infringement of the “people’s right to bear arms.”
I believe, however, that one Amendment needs to be addressed–the XIV. (I agree with Ron Paul on this, btw) Read it, and consider how it’s been interpreted.
The Founders and the Constitution haven’t failed–at least, not just yet. The SCOTUS interpretations may have failed at various times; I think that’s most possible.
So, I have only one reform to the way things are today to offer–get rid of voting restrictions.
I don’t know. I guess it wouldn’t be. But that’s a flaw in democracy. It doesn’t mean the US isn’t a democracy.
That’s an excellent idea. We have computers now. We can write a simple web app that has a single textbox. The voter just types in the party he/she wants to vote for in the textbox. Each party can even announce a specific code: X45R2 for Democrats, for example. And if you’re not computer savvy, you can fall back on good ol’ pencil and paper. It’s not hard to implement.
Fair enough, but I think the Bill of Rights does protect the basic rights of minority (or anyone), even if that wasn’t what it was intended for. I mean, what kind of democracy would you have if the majority happened to vote in favor of shipping all mental handicapped people to the South Pole? There has to be some upper limit to even what the majority has a right to do or not to do, some set of rights that apply univercally to all people, not just the majority.
I think I’m on your side when it comes to gun laws, but I see this as just another one of the typical tensions that exist in democracies–like pro-choice vs. pro-life, or whether marijuana should be made legal or kept illegal–tensions that are supposed to exist in democracies. It’s not a failure of democracy that you have these tensions, rather it is one of the functions of democracies that it allows these tensions to rage back and forth but without escalating to the point of violence or coercion on the part of one faction over the other.
Now, if you’re saying it’s a problem that organizations like the NRA have powerful lobbying groups that hold sway over the government’s ruling on the 2nd amendment, and this (I suppose) makes for an unfair advantage on the pro-guns side of the debate, this may be one of those situations where democracy is not the problem. Why can’t anti-gun groups be formed and lobby just as loudly as the pro-gun groups? What’s stopping them? Do they feel as passionately against guns as the pro-gun groups do for guns? Maybe the solution to this and other problems like it can be found by answer questions like this.
Ok, I’ve read it. It seems very subject to interpretation. What did you want to address about it?
I see a lot of the typical stuff here- the way to bring America back to how it should be is to change the Constitution in ways that personally appeal to me. This attitude, this “Well, clearly the 2nd Amendment isn’t germane to my interests, so we need to find a way to neuter it while still appearing sufficiently American” is precisely the attitude that got us to this place you say you are trying to fix. Am I the only one that sees it as bordering on satire that in a conversation about how to liberate the nation from an increasingly tyrannical Government, the idea of restricting private gun ownership and making voting completely anonymous and computer-dependent are touted as steps in the right direction?
People need to decide what they really mean by ‘lobbying group’. Ostensibly, a lobbying group is just a bunch of private citizens with mutual goals working together to influence public policy in a stronger way than they could do individually. I bet every single one of you belong to one, or are at least outspoken fans of one, and I can’t imagine anybody thinking the practice is bad in itself, but everybody uses ‘powerful lobbying group’ as if it’s an evil when talking about some organization they don’t like, as if the world would be a better place without them, and only the bad guys have them. Well, guess what? There’s powerful pro-gun-control lobbies too- there’s powerful lobbies on either side of every major issue. There’s a powerful lobbying group pushing for whatever controversial issue you hold most dear.
It seems to me that you did not get exactly what i meant or maybe my explanation was lacking something.
Raising voting age entails increasing the age limit of the candidates too, for the simple reason that every candidate must be a voter, in the first place. Secondly, age limit for the candidates should be even higher.
Liz, in that case, you still do not understand what i mean by wise.
A wise leader will never see younger people as pawns meant to be sacrificed in the game of the war.
Wisdom, in the case of leaders, is not mere intelligent, knowldge or shrewdness but ability to discern virtue from vice and enough willingness to implement it, without considering its political results.
In my response to Liz, I echoed you almost to a tee:
As for the bit about voting: the suggestion was to make all candidates running for office options on the ballet–it had nothing to do with computers, and no one said anything about anonymity (even though it’s always been anonymous AFAIK). I only brought up computers out of consideration for legibility. If you’re going to keep a multiple choice style ballot, that means by definition, your options are going to be limited. So I thought: why not have voters write their choice. But then I thought: well, there’s going to be a lot of illegible ballots–so why not make it computerized?
Ah, that makes more sense.
But I thought politicians were mostly made up of denture wearing old geezers anyway
(yes, I see what you mean).
