Hello Mike:
We have two reformers in our group at Free Spirits that are offering plans
that might interest you.
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
http://www.rebuilddemocracy.org/about_us
The first focuses on dramatically increasing the number of Congressional
Representatives so that each person is representing far fewer citizens.
Jeff's rationale makes a lot of sense on a number of fronts.
The second is from my friend Stephen Erickson and is focused on electoral
reform, term limits - clean elections, and ending gerrymandering.
Kevin
I think it's irresponsible for Rasmussen to link the concept of
"consent of the governed" to consent toward any specific set of
policies or specific set of elected representatives. Voters have
every ability that they've ever had previously to elect different
candidates, begin new parties, or run for office themselves.
Of course the majority of people are going to voice displeasure with
the ruling regime during a long-running recession. What people never
talk about, though, is how high approval ratings are for voter's own
representatives. So what do we want to do? Remove other voter's
representatives from office? Where is this tyranny that I keep seeing
on protester's signs? Do Democratic New Yorkers want to come to my
state of Ohio and remove my Republican elected officials?
This voter anger is its own danger, and it isn't productive.
Also, I could support radical deconstruction of central planning if
you could objectively show that the sum total result would be greater
than what we have currently. But I think that we've trapped ourselves
in this big government vs. small government argument, which is just a
false ideological construction by two dominant forces.
Random thought experiment:
Let's say something was created nearly wholly with taxpayer funds,
like the internet. Let's say you consistently use the internet now
for various purposes, such as running a political site or blog.
Great, it's an excellent free speech medium. If some governmental
body bans the internet, it would be a violation of your right to it.
Certainly, enough American ideologues talked of universal human rights
violations when Egypt banning Twitter. Would you say that the rights
of those citizens of the 1940s were violated by not having the
internet? We keep talking about these eternal, inviolable things, but
some things require some legwork to exist. Was there some eternal
freedom of the press before writing existed? Are your rights to go to
Mars somehow being violated by your government, knowing that Americans
are going to vacation there in 200 years?
I agree with the libertarian argument that a government big enough to
"give" rights is big enough to take them away. What I won't grant,
though, is that there is a necessary opposition between freedom and a
non-toothless government. Government can enhance freedom when it
keeps in mind a final goal of helping people realize their own
potential. A government should have enough power to fund a system that
helps people reach arete, and ensures its own survival as a democratic
republic against both domestic and international threats.
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
