American Ideals in Order to Have an Honest and Transparent Government
Our Founding Fathers established a near perfect system of government, A Constitutional Republic. The reason it is near perfect and not perfect is the human element. Even the Founding Fathers warned us against what might happen if we did not stay vigilant in our quest of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The human element would corrupt our very foundations of government and civil liberties, this has come to pass. We have evolved into a two party system that promotes only the two parties. Neither the Democrat nor Republican Party serve the people, now they serve each other to maintain control over the political process which control the masses.
We all listen to various pundits who promote numerous issues of the day. We the people discuss civil rights, and all the other rights, including the right to life. I am not saying that these issues are not important for our society; I am saying that the two major political parties have divided and conquered the political process. We the people, have become so entangled and confused by the powers to be, we have forgotten or just don’t give a damn about what really matters. There is a saying “When you are up to your ass in alligators, it is really difficult to remember, your first responsibility was to drain the swamp.”
Now what I am going to propose might upset some and even inflame others, but please read on through. Our first problem is a common language. I am not picking one language over another that has been done by popular consent. English is the first language of America and it has become the language of the world. Even Airline Pilots use English on international flights as the common language of communication. Most industrialized countries mandate English to be taught in all schools to all children. I am not discounting any other languages; they have been incorporated into the English Language. America is a land composed of a vast majority of English speaking people, and those who came before who did not speak English learned the language in order to become a functioning part of this great country. Personally I had many of my ancestors who came to this country speaking a language other than English, who learned the language of this country. I like many other Americans can speak and understand some words in other languages, but I read, write, and comprehend in English. This is really a good thing when a society communicates in one common language, there is less confusion and misunderstanding. Now I do encourage that all school children must take one year of any foreign language they choose. We as a society should be versatile with other languages. It even helps understanding how many languages English has incorporated into its own. So my proposal is that all government documents only be printed in English. This would insure that we all understand what everybody else understands and it would trim probably billions from our government budgets. And last but not least, those of us who only read and write in English would be assured that we all are voting on and for the same issues. I do believe that to become an American Citizen you must be able to read and write in English. So why do we have ballots printed in any other language other than English Only?
Now that brings me to voting in general. We are now all voting in English, (or we should be) so we all understand, and there are no hidden agendas or mistranslations to any other language. That would insure that we all understand what we and others are voting for or against. Next we need to streamline our voting process. I do believe that we suffer from voter fatigue. This is caused by two major reasons. The first reason is that we are bombarded with one election after another, and voters are very upset every time they vote some judge over turns the will of the people. Elections should be held every other year. We elect Congressmen every two years, so all other officials and ballot measures should be included in our Congressional elections. We the people do not have the time nor is there anything so pressing that we can not delay it until the next Congressional election. Look at all the Special Elections we have throughout the country. The only exception to this should be for a recall of officials who are acting outside the scope of their Constitutional Authority. Having elections every other year would greatly decrease voter fatigue, fraud, and down right apathy to the electoral process. (It would also decrease the government expenditures on elections.)
We should also implement some general rules of civility when it comes to our elections. All candidates and ballot measures should be held to the highest standards. Instead of making rules for donations and all the other superfluous bullshit the politicians say will make our elections more fair and open; Let us hold them to only making honest campaign commercials. Any false allegations by either side, either by candidates or people promoting ballot measures, shall be punishable by either disqualification or retraction (100 fold) by the side in violation. I know this is difficult to enforce but we must try. The politicians get away with liable and slander. This is not acceptable in Constitutional Republic; in fact it is down right destructive. When holding elections, all campaigns, news media, and election officials must cease and desist from running any ads or reporting on any and all campaigns and results from 12:00 AM Eastern Standard Time prior to the polls opening on the East Coast; until 12:00 AM Hawaiian Standard Time after the polls are closed in Hawaii. This would allow people from coast to coast to participate in open and fair elections with no organized intervention. This favors no one, and allows all to go to the polls believing their vote still counts. We need to do away with electronic voting until we can guarantee absolute accuracy and integrity with electronic balloting; until then we vote by paper ballot and have hand counting. Yes this would take maybe a week to gather totals, but what is the hurry. I believe we would rather have fair and impartial elections, rather than fast and corrupt.
This brings us to Congressional and other representatives elected by the people according to population (Assemblymen, Council Members, etc.). If you look across the country how the various districts have been gerrymandered for the advantage of the two major political parties. This discourages 3rd party candidates from ascending to any prominence. They have divided up our country to stack the deck against we the people of having any control over the People’s House. Yes that is what our Founding Fathers referred to the House of Representatives. You can go to the internet and look up the Congressional Districts in each state. Some of the districts are so drawn that they have districts that includes parts of various cities and sometimes are not contiguous. Then there are some that look more like body parts than Congressional Districts. This would be so easy to reconcile. Require all Congressional Districts to have their boundaries drawn using County Lines, City Lines, and Zip Codes and all districts must be contiguous. First you would use county lines, then city lines as the borders for Congressional Districts. Then if you must divide cities that are large like New York and others, you would use the zip codes to make the Congressional Districts. I will give you two examples of gerrymandering of districts. California’s 10th Congressional District. This district includes parts of 4 counties and divides cities and zip codes between other Congressional Districts. The other one is the 2nd Congressional District in Illinois. This one is divided by another district and it is not contiguous, sitting in the middle of Chicago. You have constituents who do not even live in the same neighborhoods or the neighborhoods are divided among two or three districts. The politicians did this on purpose for their own political gains; not because it would make the constituents better represented. There are many more districts that are so gerrymandered, and they too must be corrected. To make these changes would be difficult, because many of us have lived in these gerrymandered districts so long, to change them would be going against what some believe is their representation. In order to make the representatives accountable to the people, their districts must represent established communities, not some virtual political community.
We need to take back our educational system. We have changed from public education to government indoctrination. That is right, our schools do not educate anymore, they indoctrinate our children into belief systems. Our educational system has one function, to educate the masses so they will be able to be an intelligent electorate. This means the schools need to assure all students be educated to be competent in the English language. This leads back to my first premise so we can all communicate intelligently together. Next they need teach our children math, no they don’t need to understand quantum physics, but they must be able to do all the fundamentals (add, subtract, multiply, and divide including fractions and decimals) and yes they must balance a check book. (Not even Barbara Boxer could balance her checking account) Then they need to instruct our students in our Constitutional Republic. Yes teach them how our country came to be and the legitimate function of our government and its Constitutional Limitations. That is right; our government does not have the right to do whatever it wants. Our public schools need to teach our children reading, writing, arithmetic, civics, and history. And in order to have a well rounded education, we need art, music, drama classes, shop classes, ROTC, and P.E. This will make us educated citizens and not indoctrinated subjects.
Instead of us arguing about what the politicians put in front of us and pitting one group against another. Those of us who are citizens of the United States of America need to unite as one. We need to take back our country from the politicians and special interest. In order to do this we need to educate ourselves and our children. Stop letting the politicians dictate what we can and can’t do. It is our country and the politicians and bureaucrats work for us. Remember we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights these were to protect “We The People” from an overbearing corrupt government. But we must be educated and informed so we make rationale decisions about our lives and future.
Yes all the other issues we are confronted with today, from abortion, immigration, taxes, health care, the military, and all the others are important and they must be properly reconciled so we can function as a society. But if we don’t deal with the fundamentals and correct them, we will be constantly chasing whatever the politicians and bureaucrats say we need to be concerned about. Our government is too big and the politicians have become overbearing. We the citizens are the government and we don’t need politicians and bureaucrats in our daily lives. Thomas Jefferson said it best “A Government that governs least governs best.” Please take back your life and your children’s future, don’t allow the politicians to put us any further in debt with more superfluous rules and regulations.
We are Americans, we stay informed and involved, and we make our voices heard. Our President and Congress report to us. We are members of the 9-12 Project, please join us. Together we stand, united we soar.
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The opinions expressed above are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of all members of the Peninsula 9.12 Project
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