Politics, governments, companies, religion, education, whatever. Have your say, and put forward your proposals for fixing the world.

What's wrong with the world is that people have their priorities mixed up.

Things move to fast

Too much dependence on technology

Not enough chocolate

Bacon's getting too expensive.

We need to open more experimental schools.  No, they don't have a crappy success record.  They are always closing down because a) they cost more money and b) because black kids go there.  Such a school had achieved the literacy rate of much richer neighborhoods with kids from inner-city neighborhoods (much better than the standard public schools serving the same neighborhoods) but still got closed down.  A similar school that had mostly white middle class or rich students was left open.  Hmmm.  

For traditional schools, where some people would arguably do better, curriculum must be set locally, but funding must be available nationally to prevent teacher layoffs, degradation of buildings, and stagnation of equipment.  "Administrative costs" must be open to investigation and adjustment, for the good of students and of teachers.  All curricula that receive government money, or that don't pay taxes, should be in compliance with the first amendment.

Single term politicians.  

You could argue that you can't get much done in one term.  Extend the terms by 50%.  Honestly, it doesn't matter, as long as they're limited to a single term.  

If you're not worried about re-election, you can just worry about doing your job.

I disagree.  I think it would be better to cut all terms in half, and limit all politicians to three terms.  Now, two is the traditional number for presidential terms, and the one time tradition was broken, a constitutional amendment was passed to make it the law.  This means that you have four years where he's accountable, and then, if he gets reelected, you got four years where it hardly matters what he does (as far as keeping his job).  If you have three terms, with a maximum of six years, one: you have a quicker changeover, always good, and two, the majority of the time he will be accountable, and he's only unaccountable for the final two years.  Which could be fixed by adding mandatory threat of recall for every official on their third term.  

This way, we still preserve the notion that an official who is especially bad should have less effect on the government than someone who is especially good, but the terms are still limited meaning that for they have to run on their performance record, rather than their history of occupancy.

This post was last modified: 09-28-2012 04:41 AM by Lang.

If an official is especially bad, they're impeached.  If they're just stupid, they shouldn't have been elected in the first place.  

It seems that if you went into the task knowing that you only had four years to make the world a better place, you'd give it your all instead of worrying about the next term.  

I think it would do a lot for bipartisanship as well.  If you only have one term, your goal is cooperation in order to get something done.  Career politicians aren't free to put aside political differences - vilifying the competition is what gets them elected.

Would you rather they cooperate with each other or with us?

When democrats and republicans cooperate, you know it's something bad.  SOPA and PIPA?  The one truly bipartisan initiative throughout the last Congress.

This post was last modified: 09-28-2012 05:22 AM by Lang.

Well, they're all villains, so the person who makes the opposition's job the easiest loses.  We could correct that if we had outlets for mass consumption of genuine and accurate information on votes and etc.  But that's not likely with only a handful of media companies owning all the airwaves.

Yes.

You can't have both.  As long as society is managed from the top down, the interest of the management will be to give the people the shaft.  The more we have them at each other's throats the less time they will spend at ours.

That's why we need changes so that there are less interests for management to pursue - like more terms.  I would add lobby reform and removal of their salary.  This way, they get very little benefit from serving.  It shouldn't be about personal benefit.  It should be about representing the people and their interests.  

It'll never happen, of course.  They're not going to put themselves out of a job.

There are all kiinds of ways that the separation of powers idea was not taken far enough.  Setting your own salary?  Really?  

But I don't think that taking away the incentive to behave properly in office will work to our advantage.  Eight, even six years is a long time to have the same president.  There should be a regularly scheduled check on whether he should keep the job, before he's definitely out.  A recall election is never going to be a sure thing; vis Wisconsin, where the corporate donors outspent the unions by an order of magnitude, depite most of those corporations being out-of-state, and all of the unions being in-state.  With a six-year term (for which I'm assuming recalled politicians would be ineligible to ever reclaim) the big guns will really come out.  With three short terms, the stakes will be much lower, not least because there have already been two checks on their elligibility to continue in office.  

That was my point about bipartisanship.  High salaries and no term limits is what comes of congressmen working together; it's what happens when democrats and republicans reach across the aisle.  Obama reached across the aisle and allowed drilling to resume in the gulf of Mexico.  Fox News reached across the aisle and adopted the new age liberal idea that every idea is valid and deserves equal time, no matter how stupid it might be.  When political figures reach across the aisle, bad things happen to all of us.

This post was last modified: 09-28-2012 07:44 AM by Lang.

If they only had one chance to leave their mark, they might be willing to reach across the lines to do something positive.  

I agree with your criticism of previous bipartisan efforts, but the whole point of bipartisanship is supposed to be coming to a moderate position upon which the two parties can agree, or putting aside political positions to make a positive change.  

I think that a lack of political pressure from parties coupled with an absence of potential monetary gains could encourage that variety of bipartisanship.  If you're not seeking re-election, the party has no hold over you.  If you're unpaid, you have no financial interest, but a strictly social interest.  You aren't as invested in the us vs. them posturing that goes on now.  You may disagree on certain points, but you wouldn't go out of your way to not work with someone.  

Neither suggested reform will happen as we've previously noted.  The system is fundamentally flawed.  It needs to be overhauled and rebalanced.