I see that TIME magazine has announced their "Person of the Year", the recipient(s) judged to be those "who have done the most to influence the events of the world....for better or worse." And the winner is....protesters. *applause*
I'd like to thank my parents, who taught me right from wrong and how to tie my shoes, and my high school government teacher who.....and.....
Like most everyone else I never read TIME magazine (their readership has been tanking for years), but for once I agree with their choice. Protesters have overthrown corrupt despots in half a dozen slum-dog countries in the Muslim world and now are focusing their attention on western Europe, Russia, and in a weird and ineffective way, the USA, too. I support them all.
Now comes the "for better or worse" part. If you throw off one regime who's standing on its citizen's throats and replace it with another who does the same thing, is that progress? The emphasis in the US is to throw the bums in Washington out at the next election, but then what? Do we just get a new bunch of faces who do the same things the old faces did? Is that progress?
IMHO we need a new Constitutional Convention to update the principles our Founding Fathers set us up with. A constitution that removes the possibility of career politicians through term limits, removes lobbying and the corrupting "fundraising" that goes with it, prohibits special interest groups that seek to tilt the playing field in their favor to the detriment of "the little guy", taxes everyone fairly and abolishes/prohibits loopholes that favor a select few, puts bankers in leg irons because of that karma thing, etc.
I'll see if we can meet at our community club house next Tuesday and get started. Who's with me? :)
S
Most of our problems come from the fact that Washington is set up exactly as our founding fathers wanted it to be. They didn't really think much of the common man. Alexander Hamilton was fond of the phrase,:The masses are asses! Benjamin Franklin had the states hold their ratification conventions at midnight when farmers were asleep. But anyone can complain so I'll offer one possible solution to our woes. Get money out of politics! The recent Supreme Court decision allowing corporations and foreign countries to buy influence will ultimately go down as the worst decision the Court has ever made. An amendment must overturn this dreadful decision or our democracy is over.
ReplyDeleteChange is good but I have no earthly as to what I desire...
ReplyDeleteChanging the constitution (which would require ratification by every state) would take forever. I, for one, don't have that much time. Now . . a revolution. That's something else again!
ReplyDeleteStephen....totally agree with you about the money thing. TERRIBLE decision.
ReplyDeleteBobby....acknowledging the problem is easy, but you're right, knowing what/how to fix it is the hard part.
Bruce....lead on El Commandante. I'll ride with you. Oh, wait. K said she would, too. Now we have an army of 3.