emilynghiem
Constitutionalist / Universalist
Dear Samson:
Representation by District doesn't solve the problem of redistricting to either consolidate or split minorities. If representation is organized by Party, then people don't have to play games with demographics and geographics, but have more direct control over which policies they support and fund. This would also take care of the issue of "who is going to pay" for govt and programs - you pay for your own. If you don't like the two major choices, then go with the Greens or Libertarians. And have all parties agree what issues or areas to delegate to each party, so they don't conflict. If your policy is so bad or unsustainable, only the people who agree to experiment with their own tax dollars will fund it!
Representation by District doesn't solve the problem of redistricting to either consolidate or split minorities. If representation is organized by Party, then people don't have to play games with demographics and geographics, but have more direct control over which policies they support and fund. This would also take care of the issue of "who is going to pay" for govt and programs - you pay for your own. If you don't like the two major choices, then go with the Greens or Libertarians. And have all parties agree what issues or areas to delegate to each party, so they don't conflict. If your policy is so bad or unsustainable, only the people who agree to experiment with their own tax dollars will fund it!
Dear Samson:
I was thinking the best way to organize mass representation is by Party.
Could we cap how much is paid to the federal govt in income tax? Such as keeping it at 10% where anything above that is considered a loan, and then giving states or parties an option of working out how to delegate that money "per issue" or "per Party" etc. So if Republicans want to take on the responsibility for the debts from under the Bush administration and Iraq War contracts, and how to redirect funds from supporters to Vets and military and national security; while the Democrats want to focus on "health care" and domestic policies that other groups/taxpayers DON'T necessarily want to fund, could we organize this by Party?
Also, I was thinking the big business contributors could get involved; what if the big business interests could formulate a plan to get China paid back, such as calculating how much debt is owed, issuing credits to China that they can redeem for labor or resources to re-organize their country into educational districts, and rework their economy and labor to gradually offer sustainable living conditions for their workers instead of slave labor where the money goes into the Chinese govt and military.
We wouldn't necessarily depend so much on assigning people to a rep by geographical district, if we could organize by Party or issue (such as addressing the death penalty, and redirecting funds into more cost-effective alternatives and deterrents, or gay marriage, or abortion, or immigration, etc.).
And given how people are ABUSING party politics to represent their own party agenda instead of the constituents in their districts, or states or whole nation; it's almost better to organize the representation and funding from taxpayers by the parties/issues of their choice.
I doubt this thread will get much play because it challenges the USMB membership to think beyond their usual lemming limits of following whatever partisan hack's blog they read every single fucking hour, but here goes;
The HoR has had the same number of members since 1910.
I know some of you may want me to post a link to evidence supporting my contention that the US population has grown since 1910, but let's just use our imaginations for a moment.
This population change means each US representative, Dem OR Repub, has an average 770,000 constituants.
Realistically, there is no fucking way these guys are representing this many people: No other representative body on the face of the planet has such an absurd ratio.
If you really cared about the validity or representative government, then you'd stop the political hackary, and demand that congress vote to triple the size (at minimum) the number of representatives in the HoR.
Of course, this would open wide the door for MORE that BiPartisan government....hell, we might even be able to form an effective third party: GOD FORBID!!!