American Extremist?

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I'm not big into Politics or Governemnt in any way, but I know what I believe. Being only 17, I have yet to gain any voting power. But I'm still trying to understand politics and government. I've taken Economics, and am currently taking Government. Knowing what I know now, my opinion is that the American government should start over from scratch. As impossible as that sounds, if done slowly, we could transform the way the governemnt is run. I know this is considered a form of extremism, but is their a political party for this kind of thing? After economics, I agree more with Democrats when it comes to that. But I agree with Republicans on some issues and not on some also. But just from what I've learned from 2 months of government, I don't like how the country is run. I don't know what to call myself, and I wonder if I'm alone in my beliefs.

You sound like a socialist to me (which isnt entirely a bad thing.)

What, specifically, do you dislike about the way the government is structured? Winston Churchill summed up my feelings about the U.S. nicely: "Democracy is the absolute worst form of government, except for all the others."

Jeremy

The people as a whole should have more power. And people should take a test before voting for everything showing they have true knowledge in what it is they are voting on. Like if they're voting on making something a law, their should be a test asking detailed questions about the law to make sure you know what you're voting on. If not that, then a non-biased pamplet describing it. I picked a bad example, the test thing would work better with electing court officials, etc.

And don't get me started on the education system. Hopefully it's just here, but it's laregely flawed. Bad teachers, high expectations, too much at once, more learning about testing then actual learning, blah blah blah. And society in general here is spiraling downward in morals, which schools used to teach. Discipline is dead, now it's just punnishment. And music should be an academic.

There's more but I'm tired and going to bed.

It's funny. I used to feel that way, but the older I get, the less direct power I think people should have. People, as a whole, just aren't that smart. They're fickle and easily swayed by spectacle. One of the best parts of American government is the fact that our court system (or at least the Supreme Court) aren't answerable to the people, so they are free to make unpopular choices without fearing for their jobs.

We need to make sure the people have some direct power over the government, to make sure politicans can be held accountable for their actions, but too much can lead to a tyranny of the majority.



Ah, but who writes the tests? That sort of thing has been used in the past to stop black people and immigrants from voting. We abolished poll taxes and literacy requirements for a reason.



I don't think morals are on the decline; the violent crime rate is at its lowest point in nearly 40 years. Teen pregnancy is also decreasing and has dropped 30% since 1990. Ditto abortion rates. At the same time, we have an unprecedented level of social freedom. There are fewer restrictions on speech and private activities than at pretty much any other point in history, and that seems like a good thing to me.

One reason that things appear to be going downhill is the media exaggeration. Bad news is covered more than it used to be. It used to be considered poor taste to report every murder and family tragedy, but now it gets ratings. The news channels hop on every single "missing pretty white girl" story that comes along, often devoting entire days to it. We hear about school shootings, but the number of deaths from attacks in schools has stayed more or less constant since the 1950s.

All in all, I think it's a pretty good time to be alive, at least in this country.

Jeremy

I want to add several amendments to the Constitution but keep the mess intact.

One would eliminate the electoral college, repeal the 12th amendment, and instate IRV.

One would repeal the 11th Amendment.

One would state "The right of the citizen to vote may on no account be abridged or restricted."

Several would expand the rights explicit in the Bill of Rights, restrict the commerce clause, and eliminate the takings clause.

One would declare that the rights in the Consitution are absolute and may not be overulled by "compelling state interest"/"public good", "deference"/"judicial restraint" and those sorts of nonsense.

And one would name specific Supreme Court precedents (Berman v. Parker, Reyonolds v. US), and others suchlike to be overturned. Or maybe jsut require eforcement of the tenth, thriteenth, etc.

As Plessy v. Fergusson, Kelo v. New London, and other such have demonstrated, explicitness does no good against a court bent on restraint.

This is ideal, obviously this would be impossible, but oh, if some of it would pass. . .

Maybe in America you might be an Extremist.
In Canada you will fit right in and be moderate.

Many people do support your views.
The rest are either mislead by the powerfull or benefit from the system.

I'm all for IRV (Instant-Runoff Voting, for those who may not be aware), but I'd prefer to keep the electoral college. State governments have representation in the legislative branch in the form of the Senate (although not as much as they did before the 17th Amendment), but they also deserve some representation in the executive branch. Some of the historical reasons continue to apply as well.

Keeping the electoral college also makes it easier to adopt electoral reforms. For example, it would allow us to implement IRV on a state-by-state basis without the need for a Constitutional amendment (which would be politically impossible at this time).



No argument there.



I think that's a little hasty. On no account? Convicted murderers can vote? Four-year-olds? I'd have to see some evidence that people are actually being disenfranchised by legislation (as opposed to corruption) before I'd want to tamper with the status quo.



*applause* I'd like to see an amendment specifically recognize the right to privacy which has been created (or discovered, depending on how you look at it) by the courts. That might get the busybodies in the religious right to shut up about it, already.

Oh, and disambiguate the Second Amendment, please.



To do that, you'd have to specify the precedence of the rights, i.e. declare that the right to security in your person and property is paramount, followed by the right to free expression, the right to due process, etc. I don't have a problem with that, though -- it would just be formalizing what the courts have spent hundreds of years working out already.



Interesting. What part of Reynolds v. United States would you want to see overturned?

Jeremy

Keeping the electoral college with IRV will keep strategic voting.

Otherwise you could have say, Independent victory in Maine, Libertarian in New Hampshire, Alaska and the Mountain states Green in Vermont, Democrat in much of the Northeast, Republican in the West, Constitution Party in the deep south, complete mess.

IRV by state is only a short-term solution for Senators.

It seems to me the only fair way.
I understood the issues at 12 better than the average voter will do in their life.
Ad if we bar convicted murderers, well, why not convicted felons? Convicted drug users? Those convicted of sedition? It's a slippery slope.



I don't see how that would work. I don't think that we could get a 3/4 majority either way.
Personally I think that the best thing to do is read it literally.

"Keep and bear arms," nothing about selling them.
Of course this would still overturn US v. Rybar, which while I think was wrongly decided, most people would disagree. Then again, when has being in a minority ever shut me up?


Good idea.


Yeah, sorry misspelled it, not sure why since I do know how it's spelled.
Anywhen my issue is that "religion can not be used as a justification for a crime" applies to polygamy.

It's a good idea, but a bad crime to use.
Since polygamy is a victimless crime, it sets the basis for another slippery slope.

Basically, it would just overturn some basic precedents, thereby killing all the body of precedent based on them. For example, killing Reynolds would kill US Employment Division v. Smith, killing Berman or perhaps even the earlier railroad cases would overturn Kelo, etc. The only problem that might lie in this strategy is that it would need a lot of southern and western states for support. They'd much rather eliminate Griswold than Reynolds and I could end up with an amendment eliminating precedents I want to keep. That's where enumerating further rights would come in handy I suppose. Also, a lot of precedents I dislike such as Schmerber v. California are only one precedent, so such an amendment would be quite long. Really a private fantasy of mine, this amendment, though I suppose they all are.

Also, I would like to see a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. The dollar now has so much debt strapped to it now it's not even funny.

Yeah, good point.
That too. Good idea, but one that hadn't even occured to me.
I recall under Clinton, ABC did a special on paying off the national debt.

They had pundits saying"if we pay it off, our ingrateful children will have nothing to work for." Uh hello? Your speding on your projects? It's not like we won't have the same maintenence costs when we're adults.

I disagree, for two reasons. First, the two major parties have such a foothold (even by law in some areas) that I doubt other parties would be able to get a foot in the door even on a state level. Second, even if something like that did happen, I'm not sure it would be a bad thing. Having only two significant candidates very often leads to a "lesser of two evils" mindset, which I think has a horrible effect on U.S. politics. Certainly the situation you describe would be closer to what the framers intended. They didn't foresee the formation of monolithic political parties, and intended for the House to choose the president unless there was a strong majority in the electoral vote.



Maybe, but I think that's a statistical anomaly. Most children aren't experienced enough or well enough informed to make a rational decision. More importantly, children are also extremely impressionable. Young children would probably vote for whoever or whatever their parents told them to. They'd essentially become an extra vote for their parents, thus disenfranchising those with no kids.



I disagree. I have no problem depriving convicted felons of voting rights; they have demonstrated a profound lack of respect for the rule of law. The law recognizes a qualitative difference between felonies and misdemeanors, so I think that would provide a clear stopping point for the slippery slope.



Ah, I see. I disagree that polygamy is a victimless crime. It's essentially fraud, lying to the government in order to obtain a legal status that would not otherwise be available. The victims are the taxpayers, who could be adversely affected by, say, the stacking of tax benefits granted to the polygamist.

Whether or not polygamy should be legal is an interesting topic (I vote no, for practical reasons), but, given that it was outlawed, I think the court decided rightly.

Jeremy

People would try to prevent what I described, by voting strategically for the "lesser evil."
Exactly my point. I also hate that mindset.
Electoral college perpetuates it.


More likely that most young children wouldn't vote at all. And most people I know belong to and support the party of their parents. I don't see how this would be any different.


Ahh, but what are felonies? Often they are things such as repeat drug use, which are victimless crimes. Similarly there have been times when sedition was considered tantamount to treason.

We need to have people convicted of crimes be able to vote to eliminate those crimes. The only genuine crime I know off that most people would be likely to oppose being criminal is DWI. And politicians keep trying to legalize that anywhen.


If polygamy were legal, we could keep track of and limit those tax benefits.

And as I said, well, take this as an example.

I'm a Jain and I want to put a little temple on my lawn. The town has a law prohibiting swastikas. I would therefore be criminal and disallowed from my practices. Free speech laws would fix this, but no thanks to Reyonolds.

And in case it's not clear, I strongly oppose the drug war and despise people who support it as idiots(I have a low opinion of mental abilities of the average American, and ofr that matter average human). Whi; I won't touch drugs myself,the pathological, illogical, reefer madness which gets to me. Plus it violates most of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has come up with even more convoluted logic to justify this. Thusly, Ienjoy the cases based off of Reyonolds regarding ritual indigenous religious practices with Peyote even less.

No we don't. You must have a strange definition of social freedom.


Time to start a topic about the repression of the modern man......

What perpetuates it more than anything is the winner-take-all system we have now. A lot of people associate that with the electoral college, but it's actually completely independent. In fact, two states (Maine and Nebraska, I think) cast their electoral votes by congressional district instead -- a much better system, in my opinion.

You could keep the electoral college while minimizing strategic voting.



I think young children would vote, for the same reason young children "attend" political rallies: their parents are using them as political leverage. People feel strongly about politics, and getting their toddlers to vote would be an unbearable temptation for some.



If there are bad laws on the books, we should work on repealing those laws, but that doesn't legitimize the actions of people who knowingly break them. I understand that many people do not agree with the law, but that's no excuse: the social contract of this country requires that we protest by legal means such as political action and activism. People who are willing to break the law in order to protest it should be prepared to accept the consequences.



Sure, but until that day, people who break the law are profiting at the expense of those who obey it. Legally, that's an intolerable situation.



I have a fairly dim view of religion, so I may not be objective about things like this. Nonetheless, I still think the issue is one of whether the law is just, and religion has nothing to do with it. If there is a good reason for that law to exist, then we should not ignore that reason just because there's religion involved. Conversely, if the law is groundless, we should solve that problem by repealing it altogether, not by giving religion a free pass.

In your example, I think the free speech angle is the important one: laws prohibiting swastikas are unjust because they unduly restrict free speech. The fact that certain religions may wish to use the swastika in a completely Nazi-free context is evidence of that, but I don't think it, by itself, constitutes grounds for a special exception to the rules.



No argument there.



I can see your point, but again, I think the issue needs to be whether the law banning the use of peyote is just, not whether religious use should be granted a special exception. I think it's horrible that peyote (and marijuana and ecstasy and acid) are illegal, but, given the fact that they are, I don't see why religion alone should be sufficient justification to break the law. To say otherwise is to declare that religious activity is inherently worthier than non-religious activity, which is a violation of the establishment clause as interpreted in cases like Board of Education v. Grumet.

Jeremy

Again, most people vote strategically to keep from detracting from the "least evil" they deem most pluasible of winning.

People won't want to take away from there candidate.

If Candidate X has 45% of the vote, Candidate Y has 42 % of the vote, and Candidate Z has 12% of the vote, and 75% of the people who prefer Candidate Z think that Candidate Y is a least evil, compared to 15% who think that Candidate X is the least evil, then supporters of Candidate Y will try to demonize Candidate Z to get his vote.

Observe what happened with Bush supporters against Perot and Gore supporters against Nader.

No, most people think strategically, only IRV has any chance of eliminating that.


And do you expect that toddlers would be able to mark the ballot in a way that it would count? usually, I'd say no, espeicially as they can't read.

And even older kids can't memorize a whole slate of candidates.

In my mind the ideal method of dealing with children voting would be to dedicate the election week to civic education, election day to the candidates, and take a class trip to the polls.


But surely civil disobedience is a good thing?

"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing" -- Thomas Jefferson

I do not see why a society should have the power to deprive its citizens of both the right to self determination because it views such an action as amoral and then the additional power to deprive that citizen of an equal say for excercising that right. It strikes me as akin to the ancient Greek practice of ostracism.

As for a social contract, that's a theory that's pretty much in disrepute.
And if you think about it, no new land = no room to found new societies.


So the solution is not to further justify the tyranny but to repeal it.


Just to make it clear, that's an example, I'm not actually a Jain.


While I basically agree on that, when you can't get a bad law repealed, the next best thing is to undermine it.


And yet only free speech and animal cruelty have been upheld as valid religious practices by the Supreme Court. All others, bah.


Again, when I can't destroy a bad law, I'd rather undermine it in any way possible. Cutting back on the insanity of the drug war might slowly cause politicians to see reason.