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Watching the presidential debates I wondered about my future presidency. Here are things I will do:
1. I'd create multiple congresses to cover fields. A congress for technology, a congress for foreign policy, and so on. Why are a bunch of 70 year old lawyers voting on the future of the internet when they can't even use a computer. Put people qualified in each congress to make educated votes. People with PhD's and what not.
2. Remove every tax exemption / return thingy / loop hole. You shouldn't get tax money back for owning a house, or giving money to charity, or having a kid. Make the tax system simple and understandable. Stop people from abusing it. That leads me to my next point...
3. All laws must be written, rewritten, or summarized so that the average citizen (high school education) can understand the law. If the people can't reasonably understand the system, what is the point of democracy? I'm scared to know what laws are buried in those books of nonsense we call legal documents.
4. Not just anyone can vote. You have to show you are qualified on the issue. If you want to vote on a representative for the congress of technology, you gotta pass a test showing you have a clue about the field. Don't let people who only vote on a broad “conservative/liberal” agenda. Which is related to...
5. Elections cannot have television advertising. The nature of the television commercials is too shallow for real discussion, and therefore television advertising is not productive in causing meaningful discussions of the issues. Don't let candidates buy voters.
6. People who work in government cannot accept money from any entity (directly or indirectly) besides their paycheck. If such a scheme is discovered they are kicked out of office! Representatives should serve the people first and foremost, not corporations. There needs to be a Separation of Corporation and State. Why is lobbying tolerated at all?
I heard a story where someone assembled a bunch of qualified economists with a variety of views (communist, free market, etc.) to list what changes to policy the government should make. There were many changes that were near the top every economists list, despite their many differences of opinion. If there are some things that qualified peoples agree on, then why aren't we doing them!?
 
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Yeah...if you're president of the USA, you can't do any of those things. Congress and Constitution will pwn you on basically all of those items.
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On October 04 2012 14:34 PassionFruit wrote:
Yeah...if you're president of the USA, you can't do any of those things. Congress and Constitution will pwn you on basically all of those items.
With supreme court anything can be legal 
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On October 04 2012 14:57 CatNzHat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 14:34 PassionFruit wrote:
Yeah...if you're president of the USA, you can't do any of those things. Congress and Constitution will pwn you on basically all of those items. With supreme court anything can be legal
Good luck getting them to agree on saying yes to anything of that magnitude.
Politics isn't cut and dry as do this or don't. Politicians are a special kind of people that cannot get anything done that is worth while.
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"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others. " - Winston Churchill
Most of the things you say are just not practical, or are easily abused. For instance, asking voters to "pass tests" is never gonna fly because they can be biased against a certain ethnic group among other things. It also goes against the fundamentals of democracy -- people should be able to vote regardless of their intelligence. Unfortunately it means that people will in many cases vote against what's in their best interest, but that's just the nature of the beast. And your gripes on tax returns are a little simplistic, there are many valid reasons for tax exemptions in a progressive tax system (encouraging green investments, encouraging consumer spending at certain economic levels, etc.), and unless you're some libertarian idealogue (i.e. pessimist) or you think we should all be yeoman farmers (i.e. Jefferson) then there's really not much to worry about.
Sure, the alternative of a monarchy could be super efficient and as long as the guy is "enlightened" we might all be in paradise for a while but what happens when he starts to go nuts?
BTW, I think your last sentence might be referring to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy kind of interesting idea but I have no clue how if and how it would be compatible with our current system.
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Hong Kong9145 Posts
On October 04 2012 14:57 CatNzHat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 14:34 PassionFruit wrote:
Yeah...if you're president of the USA, you can't do any of those things. Congress and Constitution will pwn you on basically all of those items. With supreme court anything can be legal
No, the Supreme Court still has to base all decisions based on an interpretation of the constitution and statute law. The points raised in this thread display a fundamental lack of civics knowledge and an overestimation of what the President of the United States can do.
Simply put, the President cannot do what you would wish to do within the current constitutional framework. Unless the constitution is amended, or you come to power in a forceful upheaval of the current order, you will have to work under this framework.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
1. public executions for bad posters and other wreckers of the people (forward!)
2. balanced budget without raising taxes but not decreasing critical spending for the children and reducing healthcare costs but not without reducing quality of care; also bipartisanship and unicorns. its morning again in america needs a change we can believe in your heart you know he's right
3. all Americans are forced to write one (1) girl blog per year, or pay a $500 fine that's not a tax. This is not in violation of the commerce clause, because its a tax but its not a tax unless John Roberts says it is, in which case it is, but it really isn't.
#4192040
I heard a story where someone assembled a bunch of qualified economists with a variety of views (communist, free market, etc.) to list what changes to policy the government should make.
I would do the same with science, if I could find some zombie Lysenkoists to put on my council of advisors
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Just a quick note on PhD's in politics - I think there are organizations filled with science PhD's that offer advice to politicians, and some politicians even have PhD science advisors on their staff. I share the same sentiment that someone with extensive understanding of science, engineering, and future tech should be making some decisions, but at least some aspects of decisions made are informed.
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I understand your sentiment, that there's a lot of things that are fucked up in politics. Point 1 and 6 can be summarized as "the current system of congress is screwed up" and I fully agree that leaving ignorant people to vote is a bad idea, especially when they're swayed by organizations with ulterior motives. It needs reform, definitely. But the problem is that the existing system is so entrenched that it's virtually impossible to overhaul it. Honestly, the only real way to counter this is to stop voting for retarded politicians, which can't be done unless the population stops voting like retards. Will we see Mr "legitimate rape" Republican voted back in? Sadly I think yes, because you have to look at the voter base.
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The first step in understanding politics is finding out who is pulling the strings behind the scenes.
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On October 04 2012 14:28 Masterjareth wrote:
3. All laws must be written, rewritten, or summarized so that the average citizen (high school education) can understand the law. If the people can't reasonably understand the system, what is the point of democracy? I'm scared to know what laws are buried in those books of nonsense we call legal documents.
They are written like that because the terms used are determitive and absolute. They are not vague so they can be missused.
It´s so there is absolutely no chance that the law can be interpreted in a way it wasn´t meant.
That´s why lawyers/legal counseling exist.
On October 04 2012 14:28 Masterjareth wrote:
6. People who work in government cannot accept money from any entity (directly or indirectly) besides their paycheck. If such a scheme is discovered they are kicked out of office! Representatives should serve the people first and foremost, not corporations. There needs to be a Separation of Corporation and State. Why is lobbying tolerated at all?
So small interest groups like enviroment, health and small businesses can have an impact.
The tyranny of the majority should not rule over the minority. It´s for groups that are specially affected by a certain law.
This is just avoiding the question of course and not answering, and that´s very assholish, especially as it´s obvious (except by people above) that ''president'' extends to both if you were the real president, or the big boss, that can control everything.
So:
If I was president, I would work tirelessly to root out extremist movements in congress and political associates to bring the congress into a middleground so that my social reforms could have a chance to gradually take place.
I would also bang hot chicks in the white office, every day.
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Title should read more like, "When you become friendly dictator".
I like the meritocracy idea the most. I'm sure we have a bunch of idiots who don't have a clue about technology and how the world is changing making decisions for us. Gotta change that #1 priority.
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You seem to be simplifying things that can't really be simplified for good reasons, (tax exemptions, law verbosity) and making things more complex that also really can't be made more complex effectively (voting, congress). I think I kind of understand what your trying to do, making people be informed if they want to participate, simplifying peoples interaction with the government and restructuring for specialization of departments, but it doesn't seem feasible at all. They way things are is a mix of tradition and necessity, it evolved that way through trial and error, and it kinda works. The main inconsistency between your ideas and reality is your working with ideas designed to do something because you think it would make sense, where the government developed by changes working out or not. It is better, I think to look at laws as cause and effect than in spirit. Voter registration, for example, is not a problem in spirit. Everyone who votes should be able to present ID. The effect, however, is that many students and poor people will decide not to vote, because it is too much trouble. Because this hurts some demographics more than others, I think this law is bad, though I do think it is good to prevent voter fraud.
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more macdonalds in every corner
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EPT
