I don’t disagree with most of these. Would get rid of a ton of the seemingly parasitic portions of the US government. Aggressive term limits like that would inherently force change very quickly. I’ve discussed that with a very politically involved friend (far left works in DC). His argument was always along the lines of things move slow so career politician’s are needed to actually enact change. If its forced to speed up though, maybe that’s good? I’m not really sure honestly. One charismatic populist/small group of charismatic populist could make a huge amount of change in a short span of time. Positive or negative. I do think they should be compensated for their terms at a pretty high level though, say 200k a year with the same benefits a basic federal worker gets. With the stipulation that they can’t trade or earn from a related secondary source of income while in office. We want them to be elite thinkers/doers so we should pay them that way. I really like 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9. I appreciate how organized and detailed you were. Sorry my response is kinda scatterbrained.
In general I just feel like our representatives are too far removed from the people they’re supposed to serve.
Here in Canada, we’ve had a couple of floor-crossers from the Conservatives to the Liberals, and social media is up in arms about how that shouldn’t be allowed. “We voted Conservative, not Liberal”. Whenever someone points out (and rightly so) that in the parliamentary system you’re voting for an individual, not a party, they freak out and say that’s not how it works.
They fundamentally have no idea how a representative democracy is supposed to work.
A part of that comes from an American culture bleeding up into Canada a bit, with people thinking they vote directly for the Prime Minister the same was Americans directly vote for their president. But a bigger part of it is that those representatives spend more time in Ottawa than in their own ridings. And if a representative loses their seat in an election, they can just pick a different riding where they don’t even live and run again. It’s ridiculous.
I don’t disagree with most of these. Would get rid of a ton of the seemingly parasitic portions of the US government. Aggressive term limits like that would inherently force change very quickly. I’ve discussed that with a very politically involved friend (far left works in DC). His argument was always along the lines of things move slow so career politician’s are needed to actually enact change. If its forced to speed up though, maybe that’s good? I’m not really sure honestly. One charismatic populist/small group of charismatic populist could make a huge amount of change in a short span of time. Positive or negative. I do think they should be compensated for their terms at a pretty high level though, say 200k a year with the same benefits a basic federal worker gets. With the stipulation that they can’t trade or earn from a related secondary source of income while in office. We want them to be elite thinkers/doers so we should pay them that way. I really like 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9. I appreciate how organized and detailed you were. Sorry my response is kinda scatterbrained.
True about the pay.
In general I just feel like our representatives are too far removed from the people they’re supposed to serve.
Here in Canada, we’ve had a couple of floor-crossers from the Conservatives to the Liberals, and social media is up in arms about how that shouldn’t be allowed. “We voted Conservative, not Liberal”. Whenever someone points out (and rightly so) that in the parliamentary system you’re voting for an individual, not a party, they freak out and say that’s not how it works.
They fundamentally have no idea how a representative democracy is supposed to work.
A part of that comes from an American culture bleeding up into Canada a bit, with people thinking they vote directly for the Prime Minister the same was Americans directly vote for their president. But a bigger part of it is that those representatives spend more time in Ottawa than in their own ridings. And if a representative loses their seat in an election, they can just pick a different riding where they don’t even live and run again. It’s ridiculous.
Yeah, I like everything you’re saying.