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 LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5
1 edit | 78% in US favor term limits on pols; will it ever happen? »www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09···ongress/
A Fox News poll released Friday found that 78 percent of voters favor establishing term limits for Congress. That’s nearly five times as many as oppose limiting the number of terms members can serve (16 percent). Large majorities of Republicans (84 percent), Democrats (74 percent) and independents (74 percent) favor the idea. Full poll: » www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/090···_web.pdf
P.S.>> Term limits exist in some states, but it will take a constitutional amendment to apply term limits to members of Congress. | |
 KommiePremium
join:2003-05-13
united state
kudos:2
2 edits | The States should call for a Constitutional Convention by Article V. Congress wouldn't want that and they will pass a term limits amendment before you know it. What is needed is 33 States to propose and congress will do it themselves. It worked before.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention···titution | |
 pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | reply to Linklist
Term limits for Congress would be such a blessing. The Founding Fathers never intended for the country to be governed by a permanent political class. Having senators and congressmen forced out after a fixed amount of time would allow for more people with real world experience (i.e., the victims of many of the laws passed by Congress) to get in and put a more sensible perspective on things.
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"Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service. | |
| said by pnh102:The Founding Fathers never intended for the country to be governed by a permanent political class. ... allow for more people with real world experience (i.e., the victims of many of the laws passed by Congress) to get in and put a more sensible perspective on things. The problem is, the founding generation didn't anticipate a predominantly commercial world of specialization (traded occupation instead of agrarian).
In fact, they didn't even foresee their own needs just 12 years into the future -- when they ditched the relatively "small government" of the Articles of Confederation for the relatively gargantuan Federal government of 1789.
To me, it seems like a quaint, nostalgic view that Mr. Smith can go to Washington.
We live in an entirely different world today. The quality and nature of the citizen is vastly different than what a Congressional form of representation depended upon. (A form of representation based upon universal participation by citizens who were morally equipped to serve the "common good.").
Today, most citizens toil in the service of others, in what amounts to nothing more than "sharecropper" status. A far cry from the landed, self-sufficient agrarian citizen envisioned by Civic Republicanism (and Congressional representation that philosophy promoted).
I think the question is whether we can get back to the nature of citizenship that such universal participation was based upon? Or, if specialization is reality, and should exist in governance just like it does in everyone's private lives? Will forcing greater participation create the virtue that is lacking?
Also, I don't think polls signify anything. The public could be polled "should the government do something to stop hurricanes?" and you'd get 95% supporting such a topic.
The public is generally uncritical, unreasoning, subject to emotional pandering, and all the things that are antithetical to participatory government. Asking the public (the same people who try to get out of jury duty, which was just another form of participatory government based upon civic virtue) a question seems like asking a 5-year-old for relationship advice. | | |
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garywk
join:2001-03-06
Clarkston, WA | Yeah. They were so shortsighted they never envisioned a time when the citizens of our country would think the Federal Government's job was to be their nanny, provide open borders to aliens, sue individual states and state/county law enforcement agencies for protecting their own citizens, and be the source of bailouts for businesses.
What idiots.
As to the founding fathers not anticipating trades people..... Hmmmm... Ben Franklin was a newspaperman, printer, and scientist of worldwide fame. Of those delegates who helped frame the constituion 2 were doctors, 2 were scientists, 13 were merchants, 6 were land speculators, 11 were securities speculators, 2 owned small farms, 12 owned what would today be considered commercial farms, 8 were what would be considered full-time government employees, and 1 was a college president.
What a bunch of ignorant guys without an understanding of how business works. They just didn't believe that those who came after them would be so stupid as to make the Federal Government all-powerful despite the limitations they put on it the Constitution. That was what they didn't truly comprehend, and how could they, for that to them was the unthinkable idiocy. They also didn't see the American public becoming as corrupt as it has either. Who could have foreseen such a change in ethics and morals in a time when the vast majority of people believed in God and understood that personal virtue can only come from knowing God and is fundamental to a successful society. They certainly knew that no law could force virtue onto an unwilling citizenry. They understood what Glenn Beck's rally was all about and that those principles are the only ones that can create a successful society. | |
| said by garywk:Of those delegates who helped frame the constituion 2 were doctors, 2 were scientists, 13 were merchants, 6 were land speculators, 11 were securities speculators, 2 owned small farms, 12 owned what would today be considered commercial farms, 8 were what would be considered full-time government employees, and 1 was a college president. No doubt commercial trades people existed. But, the majority of the founding *generation* (not its delegated leaders) were agrarian and tended to be self sufficient (making their own furniture, wagons, etc.). The constitution was created and sold to them -- not the delegated drafters whom you referred to.
That's the kind of society Civic Republicanism and its Congressional political system had in mind. Individuals who could serve in government, and withdraw to their lands where they would not be dependent upon government.
That was the fatal flaw of Civic Republicanism. It emphasized property ownership and self-sufficiency. That only came with never-ending frontiers (land taken from someone else, such as the Native Americans).
The quality of citizen wrought by such self-sufficiency, and compelled participation in government, would be virtuous. The opposite of what a sharecropper or "tenant" would be.
It's just a simple fact that the founding generation didn't foresee industrialization 100 years ago, when the majority of citizens would spend 1/2 their waking life employed by another -- with little ownership of that 1/2 of their life. Being nothing more than a cog in a wheel, compared to multi-roled in the capacity of self-sufficient farmer.
It's also a simple fact that the founding generation didn't expect their requirements of government would apply for much longer than a generation. They themselves changed their government after just 12 years. Thomas Jefferson suggested that revolutions should occur every 20 years.
There is even evidence that the founding generation doubted the sustainability of Civic Republicanism. Franklin said the nation had been given a Republic, "if you can keep it." (Indicating doubts even at that time.).
In 1797, Thomas Paine actually saw the problems of a "never-ending frontier." In his Agrarian Justice he laid out how the nation's land-wealth would be concentrated in the hands of a few, primarily due to the economy of scale which results from specialization. (I.e., one person working 400 acres can produce more, for more people, than 400 people working their own individual acres).
Thus concluding, Paine proposed the nation's first Social Security system to redistribute the wealth which would result from that unavoidable specialization agrarianism upon lands which were (under Civic Republicanism) intended to provide the livelihood of all:
quote:
In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity . . . [Government must] create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property. And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.
-- »www.thomaspaine.org/Archives/agjst.html
The entire treatise is interesting. You can see him glimpsing the end of Civic Republicanism, and how the resources of the country (intended to promote individual self-sufficiency) would be used by only a few. His answer was to tax the recipients of that national wealth, and to provide self-sufficiency through a national pension system.
That was long before industrialization and the massive shift away from an agrarian society.
said by garywk:Who could have foreseen such a change in ethics and morals in a time when the vast majority of people believed in God and understood that personal virtue can only come from knowing God and is fundamental to a successful society. I think there are plenty of historic examples of religion leading to the opposite of virtuous conduct.
said by garywk:They certainly knew that no law could force virtue onto an unwilling citizenry. Under Civic Republicanism, no law by itself could force the citizenry to be virtuous. That's why the philosophy emphasized independence and self-sufficiency through a landed, property-owning, agrarian society. It was a multi-faceted approach.
But, compulsory civic participation was definitely a key component. The militia was intended to be *universal*, implying compulsory muster and activation. The jury was (and still is) compulsory. For decades before and after the Revolution, individuals were required to work on road crews once per year.
By themselves, such activities wouldn't produce virtuous citizens. But, as part of a larger philosophy (of self-sufficiency, non-specialization, etc.) they promoted civic virtue through deliberation of citizens, and placing the "common good" ahead of purely libertarian self-interest.
To be honest, I'm not sure religion played much part in this. Civic Republianism was entirely secular and objective. Throughout history, religious subjectivity tended to destroy republics.
For example, the Roman emperors who consider themselves gods.
Or, the early 1800s which saw "manifest destiny" used to excuse the relocation of Native Americans. Which, ironically, resulted in an abnormal concentration of the wealthiest men in all recorded history within the cohort born between 1831 and 1841. Essentially a wealth redistribution through the effects of "never-ending frontiers" justified through religious (subjective) reasoning. Which was a precursor to the Industrial Revolution, which ended Civic Republicanism for all intents and purposes, transferring individual power (autonomy) to corporations and the elite who run them.
It may be possible to get back to the goals of Civic Republicanism. Things like workplace democracy to reinstitute the principles and benefits of autonomy (and ownership) which existed in an agrarian society.
Or, it may not be worth it. The public may not want that kind of responsibility. They may be happy with specialization and letting others do the thinking.
In which case, I believe a parliamentary form of government would be better. A political system which institutes specialization. Brings it out into the open instead of trying to maintain a charade through the participatory Congressional system which is largely disused by an apathetic citizenry. | |
 redxiiPremium,Mod
join:2001-02-26
Sherwood, MI | reply to pnh102
You need lots of cash to even get on the ballot. Then you need millions and millions more dollars. You literally have to buy the election. | |
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