I was at a comic book store recently in Oceanside, where the proprietor was engaged in conversation with a customer regarding government. The proprietor had two interesting ideas; one, that people can run for political office as many times as they want, but, never consecutively. This eliminates the need or ability to campaign for a next term, thus the politician will be more focused on his or her work... at least ideally.
The other idea was probably a fairly popular thought among libertarians, but I'm not well-read on libertarian positions. It was simply that politicians should not be paid for their work, and do that work only part-time, for instance when Congress was in session. In other words I gathered; only work on the politicking when it's needed.
The primary effect of our central government, and its associated organ the mainstream media's efforts to shape discourse leads to the generally held belief that those in government are better at governing and making correct decisions than the people they govern, and thus the opinions of those in government are the only ones that count. In fact, the opposite is true, but this national deception is vital to preventing our self-governance. It is a belief that quality and correctness of opinion is based on one's social status.
This belief is merely that, and thus discounts not only the vast majority of opinion in its decision-making process, but does not even necessarily include the best decision-makers; indeed, in a decrepit nepotistic government, the opposite is surely true. With a bad government, the people are better equipped to govern than the governing class.
The American experiment is based on the ability for groups to adapt their laws to suit their goals, environment and perspectives. What I mean by this can be shown through example; take San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. All are cities in the United States, in the state of California, but all have a different character of county, followed by differences at the city level based on predominant ethnicities, income gap, average income, direction of prior development, and so on. San Diego is a military county that has several liberal enclaves in its cities. Los Angeles has a wide dispersal of communities among ethnic lines, with several concentrations of very high wealth. San Francisco is a fairly progressive county with a larger gay community. The American experiment allows all these different counties within a single state to exist simultaneously. It allows different states to exist simultaneously within a larger, single country, even when those states can be as contrasting as Michigan, New York, New Mexico and Alabama. Variances in law are tailored to the local community... well, at least they're supposed to!
It is time to recognize the American experiment for what it is; the perpetual pursuit of self-governance by the people for the people. It is and always will be an ongoing process. In this experiment, the test should be viability, suitability, and successful implementation, not who has drafted the proposal. Suitability will depend on location. Viability is ramifications and ease of implementation. The last is turning idea into practice.
The comic book store owner's first idea obviously is an attempt to battle political corruption. As a fairly simple restriction, implementation is not overly difficult; no excess paperwork. What are the negative ramifications? Are there further positive benefits? Where might this not work? Where would this be especially well suited? Is this idea one that should be standard at all levels of democratic government, or are there worthwhile exceptions?
We need to begin creating a new government that learns from the mistakes of our previous government. It must be able to handle and organize all the vital tasks of public service, and have a regulatory system minimizing corruption or rendering it largely impossible from the onset. It needs to be flexible, to deal with the many differences between people. As a result, we need to begin paying attention to ideas like these, from the street, the bookstore, the bar, the classroom, because they will be crucial to this next chapter of the American Experiment. We need good ideas, and we will find them amongst ourselves, not our political class.
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