Could we use another branch of government?

[pgrmdave]

I couldn't agree more about needing to better educate youth on the way the government works. But if I had my druthers I would have anyone who wants to vote first pass the same test we require for becoming a natralized citizen, including the porions on US History and how the government works. I don't think that would be unreasonable. I would grandfather anyone who has already voted to be exempt, but require it of all new voters. But I don't think politically it will ever happen.

 

This would end up making poor people much less likely to vote. They already vote less than middle class and upper class. The school systems in poor areas are usually worse than those in more affluent areas, so you'd be putting them in an even worse position by tieing their vote to their education. While I understand your concerns, and I think that it is appalling how many people vote without understanding the system, I think that requiring an education would make it too easy for politicians to furthur ignore the poor.

[C1ay]

But if I had my druthers I would have anyone who wants to vote first pass the same test we require for becoming a natralized citizen, including the porions on US History and how the government works. I don't think that would be unreasonable.

I think such a requirement would violate the equal protection clause....

[TheBigDog]

I think such a requirement would violate the equal protection clause....

I don't think it violates equal protection as everyone has equal opportunity (despite their willingness to take that opportunity as a priority in their life). But it may technically go against 15, 24 or 26. It would certainly need to be an amendment to the Constituion to make such a change.

 

Bill

[C1ay]

I don't think it violates equal protection as everyone has equal opportunity (despite their willingness to take that opportunity as a priority in their life). But it may technically go against 15, 24 or 26. It would certainly need to be an amendment to the Constituion to make such a change.

 

Bill

For everyone to be equal you would have to require that everyone pass such a test, including those that have voted before. If you segregate anyone and require them to take such a test your are not giving them equal protection relative to those that are "grandfathered" in. I favor such a test for immigration and naturalization but not for the polls.

[TheBigDog]

This would end up making poor people much less likely to vote. They already vote less than middle class and upper class. The school systems in poor areas are usually worse than those in more affluent areas, so you'd be putting them in an even worse position by tieing their vote to their education. While I understand your concerns, and I think that it is appalling how many people vote without understanding the system, I think that requiring an education would make it too easy for politicians to furthur ignore the poor.

I feel that voter participation among the poor is lower because they victim to the myth that they have no impact on their own lives. In my dealing with people who don't vote, from whatever economic area, they typically say that they don't because it doesn't matter who you elect, they are all corrupt, and things of that nature. It is core to the thinking that keeps otherwise able folks poor, and is an attitude they tend to pass on to following generations. Those who have realized more success in their lives tend to see themselves as more empowered, and in control, thus they tend to vote.

 

Education can help with this, but it is a cultural phenomena among those who feel trapped in the lower class and victims of society. That does not have to be the case, especially in the US.

 

Bill

[HydrogenBond]

The original intention of the objectivity test for one to vote in the fourth branch or popular branch, which sets the agenda for congress, is to make sure a vote is not a purely marketable response. A marketting based vote would still give the lobyists and the marketeers control over the agenda. If one is required to learn the lobby side and the side of the silent majority, one would have a better chance voting what they beleive. The idea is to make the test easy enough to pass but require at least a calorie or two of brain power. Something a trained horse can not do.

[TheBigDog]

Unfortunatly all this would do is change who is being lobbied. What would be the process for getting an issue on the ballot? How would you prevent "special interests" from dominating this process?

 

I am baffled by the argument against special interests. They represent people with an opinion. Everyone is represented by some special interests, weather they realize it or not. If you are aware of the groups dedicated to lobbying for your cause then you can donate to those groups. you could make an argument against foreign lobbies, and their agendas that are ulterior to the best interests of US commerce and employment But domenstic lobbies and special interests are in fact the political interests of Americans, expressed by the most efficient methods that are typical of a service based society - we pay someone to do the work for us so we can do other things with our time. What is the harm with special interests?

 

Bill

[Racoon]

What is the harm with special interests?

 

Bill

 

Thats a great question BigDog!

 

It depends on the special interest. Its called special because it means to favor a select group.

 

Where are the Majority interests?

and like you stated, a majority of people are poor or middle class, and do not actively participate in political process. :phones:

 

To answer the question of needing another branch of government...No

 

I see red tape everywhere.

and red ink up the wazzoo in the budget

[TheBigDog]

Thats a great question BigDog!

 

It depends on the special interest. Its called special because it means to favor a select group.

 

Where are the Majority interests?

and like you stated, a majority of people are poor or middle class, and do not actively participate in political process. :phones:

 

To answer the question of needing another branch of government...No

 

I see red tape everywhere.

and red ink up the wazzoo in the budget

The political parties are the majority interests. They represent the broadest spectrum of constituents. But no matter how many things people agree upon, when you get into the individual issues you cannot make generalizations about where people stand on issues. Thus the special interest serves the purose of not letting the little guy get lost. One of the problems with the idea of pure majority voting is that many poor people are poor because they fundamentally don't understand economics. Letting them drive economic policy will make everyone poorer. You cannot have a free market without having both rich people and poor people. Some poor people are always going to be poor because even if you gave them money they don't know how to make it work. Most rich people know how to make money work. And when money is working it benefits all of society. Does eveyone get rich? No. Never. But the level of success rises for everyone.

 

Life is unfair and life is a competition. Live with a pupose and good things happen for you. Put your money to work and put your vote to work.

 

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

TBG,

 

Good points. As for your question:

 

- we pay someone to do the work for us so we can do other things with our time. What is the harm with special interests?

 

My take is that the folks who are the voice underneath the outcry are those with little money, but lots of interest. They feel they are being pushed out, ostracized, alienated, and controlled by those with power, money, and contacts (and all too often, those are the ones with very few altruistic motivations ta boot).

[Racoon]

The political parties are the majority interests.

But the level of success rises for everyone.

 

Life is unfair and life is a competition. Live with a pupose and good things happen for you. Put your money to work and put your vote to work.

 

Bill

 

Well said! well said indeed. :eek:

 

It also doesn't hurt to write your Congressman or Congresswoman!

 

I did, to Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, Senators from the Evergreen State.

My special interest was preserving endangered species. :phones:

I wrote them hand-typed snail mail.

 

Patty Murry responded with a hand written letter back. Cantwell's response was from an intern.

Patty does care. and she will get my vote next election year!! :cup: ;)

[HydrogenBond]

The way the system is set up now is that two major political parties run the show, sort of. Both parties appear to see primarily one side of the coin. Because of the election process and the need to raise funds, most political leaders are boholden to the one-sided views of their party and not always the best interest of the entire country. The payback with respect to party loyalty is the colective bargaining power for the pork barrel needed to get more votes from their constitutency. They are also beholden to the lobbyist who can offer financial assistance. This is paid back with special considerations, such as government funding, and directed modifications to the tax laws.

 

The majority of Americans who elect these officials, get stuck with the bill and with diminising benefits. It would appear to me that the majority would feel better if they had a say in how their money is spend.

 

One way to do this, is to give every tax payer, at tax time, a one page summary of the national budget from the previous year. Based on how much taxes they paid, they divide this tax amount among all the things they consider important side-by side with the existing national buget. We then add up all the totals from all the tax payers and this becomes the new budget guidelines. We then submit this to the intellectuals in the universities to work out the pro's and con's. They then present the totals and the pros and cons back to everyone to vote on. The final results sets the priorities for congress.

 

I know if I asked someone to give me their paycheck and let me decide how to spend it, everyone would tell me to kiss off. Yet our elected officials do this with our tax money yet nobody seems to mind.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Great discussion guys.

 

First, perhaps another branch would make sense if it was a kind of "internal affairs division" whose sole purpose was to identify graft, expose lies, and enable us to hold the crooked sobs responsible for their actions. I'd go for that, but I don't think that's what anyone had in mind.

 

Better would be to remove the ability of congress to be corrupt.

 

Bill, you said "what's wrong with special interests?". Well, you HAD to have your tongue in your cheek when you said it.

 

In my mind, the most important and only valid special interest is the Rights of Man. I think that is the backbone of the constitution and to the extent that it was understood and protected is the single contributing factor to the greatest country in history. I feel it is the least understood and subjected to the most abuse. It is also the only hope we have. All other paths simply lead to more confusion.

 

Today special interests violate the rights of man and that happens to be me and you.

 

The founders were incredible. I am fairly certain that not one congressperson today has even an inkling of what they accomplished.

[HydrogenBond]

The advantage of special interests and lobbyists are that they provide creative input into the govenment even of it is self serving. I am not certain of the ability of polititians to come up with the same level of creativity without lobbyists writing the script for them.

 

In most states they have referendums. These are usually non binding, which means the majority view is not considered important. Even if 60% voted for or against, it can be overridden to satisfy political agendas. There is some validity in this because the voting results presented is not based on objectivity but often marketing manipulation without careful thought to both sides of the issue.

 

In our culture money is power. That is why I like the idea of voting on how one's income tax is budgetted. If the liberals want give-aways programs all the money they collectively allot will be used for that purpose. If one likes the miltary that sets their bugdet. If business like special considerations they can vote their taxes that way. It should end up similarly with each person feeling they had some input as where their money is going. Congress will work out the details.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

The fallacy in believing that special interests are good is in the belief that the government should control the economy and plan how we move forward. That should not be the job of the government.

 

You guys are all confused because you accept as proper all of the taxes that are levied because you believe it is the governments responsibility to build... It isn't. To guide us... it isn't. To take care of us... it isn't. To teach us... it isn't. Survival is my responsibility. But when special interests get involved the whole idea of a level playing field goes out the window.

 

All I need from the government is to protect me from the initiation of force and from fraud (lies). To identify and protect my Rights as a Human being is also a responsibility of the Government. And it's something that the founders understood a hell of a lot better than we understand it today. We do not differentiate Right from Privilege. Hell, we don't even believe in the concept of truth any more.

 

Government should be limited and individual responsibility expanded. The only way to restore faith in and respect of the government is to remove the filth that has been added over time. And that means get it out of the economy. To the extent you can't fathom that is the extent of the distance we've come from 1776 and guys, it's a measure of how much we've failed.

 

Ask yourselves how many fallacies make up your world view. Anyone that has gone through public education has them. I do. You do. And most of them are centered around the subject of government responsibility and personal responsibility. That's the Gordian Knot. And it happens to be how the noose around our necks is tied.

[TheFaithfulStone]

What's "wrong" with special interests is that they go against the very idea of what a liberal democracy is supposed to be about. There's nothing wrong with lobbying congress to do things you think will benefit everybody, but it's against the idea of limited government to lobby congress to get them to pass a tax break for tomato farmers born on Tuesday.

 

In other words - special interests which work primarily to get legislation passed or policy set that is narrowly beneficial to them in a positive sense.

 

Let us think for instance, on the example of DMCA - which is designed almost solely for the benefit of large copyright holders, BMG, Sony, Corbis.

 

Or Net Neutrality. The principle of net neutrality benefits, by and large, the majority of internet users and companies. But telecom companies who run the lines have either oversold their bandwidth, or are greedy for a piece of the gooogle-pie, and want to charge companies extra to make sure you know... nuttin' bad happen' to deer data, youse knowse. (But keep our common carrier status, please!)

 

That's an example of why people dislike "special interest" groups - when they get policy set that clearly benefits the interests of the minority at the expense of the majority.

 

And how does one become a privileged minority in the US?

 

The answer is green, folds, and is generally in small, unmarked denominations.

 

TFS

[Qfwfq]

The constitution provides for a separation of powers by dividing the govenment into three separate branches; Branch. When the consititution was written the Founding Fathers tried to separate the power of the government so no one person had too much power.

The division of power into legislative, executive and judicial wasn't just an arbitrary choice of the Founding Fathers. It had by then come to be a long standing notion of what the power of a state is. In most countries infact they aren't called "branches of government" they are called "the three powers" (gov't is usually what the executive is called). Analyse away, but, at the most fundamental level, those are the three and three they are. The initial point of this thread is somewhat moot.

 

Even by the time of the Enlightenment, here in the western world the formation of large nations had lead to necessity of an articulate structure and monarchs typically had ministers for carrying out (executive), assemblies for at least proposing law and delegated judicial power to an apparatus of judges. The French revolution changed, at first, mainly the structure of the legislative, doing away with the division into three estates (aristocracy, clergy and others).

 

There have been cases where a fundamental body is added, a "Grand Council" say, with the role of making sure the three bodies work according to some fundamental nature such as an ideology, but this is regime-ish.