-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1



On 11-03-08 12:23 PM, Kevin Alfred Strom wrote:

This is a problem that civilized societies have been dealing with since
long before the time of Plato.

"Do dumb or smart people make the best citizens?" It's a tough call.


If you outlaw any but tiny contributions, and take away the ability of,
say, a modest factory owner or Internet entrepreneur to have an
influence on the process, you disenfranchise one class of "player" in
today's system (and one of the smallest, most independent classes at
that). Then the influence of the billionaire media elite's coverage of
the candidates will become proportionally more important in deciding the
outcome of the nomination and election process -- and the billionaire
media elite are the very fount of the oppressions we suffer today.

How about apportioning votes according to taxes paid? That way the
deadbeats, corporate or otherwise, have NO say.


My solutions are similar to some proposed by Plato, and actually
implemented by the founders of the United States and their early
successors:

1) The powers of government must be strictly limited to a very small,
almost vanishingly small, sphere of our lives. This limitation must be
absolute, and no talk of "emergencies," economic or even existential
should be allowed to erase them. Then, at least, freedom will be
preserved and the inherent corruption of politics will be limited in
extent.

The leeches that tend make up the political class have gotten rather
good at making themselves look absolutely necessary. I see a problem in
convincing the unwashed in Holland MI that we can survive rather well
without the politburo parasites.


2) The concept of "one biped, one vote" is inimical to freedom and must
never be allowed to prevail again. There must be tests by which a
potential voter proves his or her knowledge of civil society (including
the sanctity of the limits on the state described above) and history and
basic literacy before she or he is allowed to register. This will
prevent the oligarchs and their media from using the emotions and the
gullibility of the unwashed to push their agenda, as they invariably do
today.

Well, OK. I can see your point about the dilution of the quality of the
vote. The powers that be probably like things just the way they are. The
monster truck and pro wrestling crowd are easy to sway. The Roman
equivalent was 'Give them Circus'.

Getting a minimum voting prerequisite of, say, a grade 12 education in
place would probably take a hundred years. The slime masquerading as
lawyers would make sure of it.



3) The current empire's policy of forcing disparate peoples with widely
different values and cultures to live under the same government must
come to an end. Self-determination and freedom are impossible under such
circumstances. This means an end to making war to force so-called
"democracy" on unwilling populations who want no part of the money-men's
_de facto_ "American" empire. It also means a reversal of the oligarch's
policy of importing non-Western populations into Western nations.

The greater the population, the less they get paid per unit of labour.
The money value of time goes down as more and more compete in a limited
job market. If you can't move the factory THERE, you cheapen labour
costs here. It seems the money men have forgotten Henry Ford's belief
that the workers should be able to afford what they are making.


After all that is done, there is a _chance_ that the political process
here could be intelligent, honest, and free.

It would also be helpful if we had a constitutional amendment requiring
that any candidate who could collect a reasonable number of signatures
would be given exactly equal amounts of media time as the other
candidates, including the ability of each to produce programs making his
or her case to the voters. The same production facilities would be
provided to the Green party and the American Third Position party as to
the Republicans and Democrats. This would spell the end, I hope, of the
inherently tyrannical "two-party system."

Yes. I agree completely. A fair and equal amount of time given to all
the candidates. Done properly, it would increase viewer numbers and
benefit the broadcasters as well as the voting public. This would have
to be done without the advertising being sandwiched into the middle of
each candidate's presentation.

Another thing to possibly consider would be to simply not permit
election advertising of any kind. That's where the corrupt money goes
and that's what fools the rubes, right? What could the corrupt money-men
buy with their "campaign contributions" anyway, if not advertising?
Advertising is unnecessary if the candidates get the free airtime
described above.

Televising round table debates with the candidates would serve democracy
far better than attack ads from previously unheard of 'Patriot' groups
or the 'Motherhood, God and Apple Pie' contingent.


Of course, that wouldn't prevent slick operators from just passing money
under the table _after_ the elections are over to buy the legislation
they want. But if the limits on the scope of government I mentioned
above were in place, there wouldn't be much for the oligarchs to buy.
And for those who might be tempted to get around these restrictions, the
approach taken by Vladimir Putin toward Russia's oligarchs is most
instructive.

I see the entire Russian situation as Putin and the gang putting enough
pressure on the money class to assure themselves a money flow. They're
running a protection racket. The money men get the resources and
import/export business with ten to twenty percent of the take going to
the 'insurance agents' running the government.

In the matter of the limits to government, The most minimalist proposal
I've seen is, basically:

"The government's only job is to keep foreign powers from overrunning us
and to make sure we don't kill each other."

How they proposed to keep the government from overrunning and killing us
wasn't mentioned.

Another suggestion has been to raise funds for infrastructure by a
system of lotteries. It's taxation on a voluntary basis, with a very
slight chance of a 'win' thrown in for incentive.

mike










-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJNdyuAAAoJEJXfKw5kUPt7WVsIALFn+7Ti0R 5IZXPcouu6Ti0q
ND/VlN+zEZZjbDAvP0XP7Zrx4z9eieZ5Ni8vbzqsReCYKgW5Sdax8 xOlw1sUOyz9
Q8cf1LYsfq2GESfyMh3iGbzjgYVyKgWwlxJsU38QeuQ9oitN3w vXe1y6+SH7WCGm
Fhv2vE/3TV3g6OsSdgH1seCPVov3BcsQudSP/WjDbMnkJ2GDzKDNfcdurKu/GgVF
U+mtWWOP08WL+4bGj+k+u4VXeLoVLynDJt62MXI2xlaGB35pwJ ggVWNI3ukJP34a
pozOVuTFIEqN56T5WcNaUoLwzfsHlqB7apvKZJtpcbNfzcBasO CJxWxjyQG+0h0=
=C2ZM
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----