RE: New Laws in Oregon - "Land of the Legal betatest"

Why do you want Congress to function?  "The best government is one that
governs least" (Who am I (mis)quoting?).  If Congress doesn't do much,
we're better off - especially if we had sunset clauses in every law...  

Assuming a government like ours, the problem I see with "eliminating 90%
of the sitting legislature" is the question of who really rules?  I
favor term limits - only one term per position.  I don't like the idea
of professional politicians.  But, where would the power reside?  The
bureaucracy and the political parties?  -Sounds dangerous to me.

Lee
<standard disclaimers>

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Ryan Anderson [SMTP:randerso@ece.eng.wayne.edu]
> Sent:	Saturday, June 21, 1997 10:07 AM
> To:	roy@scytale.com
> Cc:	cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
> Subject:	Re: New Laws in Oregon - "Land of the Legal betatest"
> 
> 
> On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, Roy M. Silvernail wrote:
> 
> > > How do you propose to deal with such things as the
> Telecommunications Act
> > > of 1996 (which incidently included the CDA)?   I can see a problem
> where
> > > one sentence or clause gets thrown out of a major bill (say a
> compromise
> > > budget, that someone screwed up one minor ammendment), and if you
> have
> > > that happen 3 times in 6 years, you've lost 90% of your senators!
> I'm not
> > > saying that your idea isn't without merit, just that it's got a
> few
> > > problems that strike me as somewhat major..
> > 
> > Please elaborate, as I can't see _any_ problem with eliminating 90%
> of
> > the sitting legislature.
> 
> You've completely missed my point.  This would be an on-going problem.
> Congress can only function with some idea of compromise in it.  When
> you're passing budgets, especially the kind of budgets we have right
> now,
> they get big and complicated, I can't see that changing significantly,
> even with a massive turnover of members.  But having no consistency in
> Congress at all, even for some "good" reps would be horrible.
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> Ryan Anderson - <Pug Majere>     "Who knows, even the horse might
> sing" 
> Wayne State University - CULMA   "May you live in interesting times.."
> randerso@ece.eng.wayne.edu                        Ohio = VYI of the
> USA 
> PGP Fingerprint - 7E 8E C6 54 96 AC D9 57  E4 F8 AE 9C 10 7E 78 C9
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Lee Gibbon wrote:

> Assuming a government like ours, the problem I see with "eliminating 90%
> of the sitting legislature" is the question of who really rules?  I
> favor term limits - only one term per position.  I don't like the idea
> of professional politicians.  But, where would the power reside?  The
> bureaucracy and the political parties?  -Sounds dangerous to me. 

Well, with one term per position, you have a problem with turnover being a
bit too high to give any consistency in government policy, and you (I
believe) would end up with the bureaucracy of assistants running the show
overall, with only minor adjustments for the current Reps.  Term limits of
some sort aren't a bad idea, though I do like the thought of punishment
for passing too many unconstitutional laws.  The proposed method has a few
problems in it that no one has suggested how to reconcile.  I'm at a loss
for a solution right now, I'm kinda hoping someone else will find one.

We've got a relatively decent style of government here.  I can see some
advantages in some aspects of parliamentary rule (actually, the tendency
of such systems to have more political parties is better, but adapting
that to us is more complicated.. Basically, Congressional districts would
have to die, and be replaced with everyone in the state voting for X/2
reps, where X is the number the state gets as a hole (This might not work 
well, but some method of voting for all the reps as a state, and taking
the best.. probably different math, but..). With this you'd have some more
smaller party candidates winning, and parties would stay a little more
focused.  (You'd actually have a libertarian influence obvious in
Congress, with the other traditionals, etc..)

This is the only alteration to our current form that I can see making
sense.  A President who claims to come from one of a few large world-views
is not a horrible thing, he/she tends to set a general policy, and it goes
from there.  The Congress gets to do all the real fighting, and there you
have lots of compromises among different groups.  Then again, this is
where the Consitutionality/penalty problems arise, but it's almost a
different issue..

Any thoughts anyone?

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Ryan Anderson - <Pug Majere>     "Who knows, even the horse might sing" 
Wayne State University - CULMA   "May you live in interesting times.."
randerso@ece.eng.wayne.edu                        Ohio = VYI of the USA 
PGP Fingerprint - 7E 8E C6 54 96 AC D9 57  E4 F8 AE 9C 10 7E 78 C9
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