Talk Radio
I was born long after Radio was invented and about the time Television was still a rare-novelty in the home. I recall that a radio was often ON in the house in the evenings. I received an early Six-Transistor-AM-Radio in about 1960, tuning into the available Pop-40-Count-Down-Hits stations. I found that Paul-Harvey was reporting on events in a way that I understood what was happening. I STILL LISTEN to Paul Harvey regularly. I am amazed that he is still on the air and I am pleased to hear his message, I hope he is able to continue for some time... but I fear that I will be missing him all too soon. Thank-you, Paul Harvey. I want to say it now, to you, not after it's too late. I have a short-list of Talk-Radio hosts that I tune-in regularly, for various reasons.- Matt Drudge has a Sunday-evening Radio-show of his Drudge Report.com, with current news items.
- Dennis Prager has a daily opinion/interview program that doesn't Hammer the issue-de-jour
- Dr Dean Edell has a Call-In medical program, he is an amazing encyclopedic-knowledge base
- The Wall-Street-Journal has an early morning WSJ Radio Show that provides current market issues
- Dr.William Bennett has a BennettMornings opinion show with some insight and perspective on current issues
- Roy Masters provides a personal perspective on self, family, relationships on his Advice Line program.
More Blogs... More Blogs!!
What this Information-Age needs is: More Blogs... More Blogs!!
Every elected office in the land needs a Blog and Forum associated with it. Instead of Writing-Your-Rep, you would simply post your request, opinion or comment to the respective Forum. Don't have a net-active computer?... give your note to a neighborhood school-kid to post on your behalf, they need to know how this political-stuff works anyway. Private communications could still be sent in all the traditional methods, but if you have an issue that needs constituent-support or notification, this is much more efficient/effective than expecting the Rep (or the Letter-to-the-Editor) to be, in turn, posted for constituency review/response.
This is nothing more than an e-TownHall Meeting. We have periodic Public Meetings with the Rep anyway, this just makes it a 24x7 meeting. The public meetings are tightly scheduled and we each get a little stage-fright to stand up and state a question or opinion in 50-words-or-less. This lets the rest of us know and discuss the concerns and opinions of the community.
The Rep would post issues, information, opinions and status to the Blog and the citizens would post to the Forum. All meetings, conferences and trips should have a summary-report posted by the Rep. The Rep would get feedback from the Forum. Registered Voters could have an ID/pw while others, including Business/Special-Interests could post as guest.
The Rep would post an intended-vote, prior to the Roll-Call, allowing the citizens to respond. After all, how else should they have the title of 'Rep-resentative'? They weren't elected to have the power of the position, they were selected to be the discussion/focus-point to represent their district needs and preference.
What next? ... how about a Web-Cam/Mic in the Rep's office and conference room... for the entertainment (disgust?) of the Represented.
Texas Politics
I recently found this news source for Texas Politics It is by the Houston Chronicle, in Blog-style.
Several sources are reporting and reminding the Texas citizens that our legislature is only one of ten-state-legislatures that is NOT required to Record-Votes by legislators and made available as public record.
the FtW Star-Telegram full-story: "Most legislation passes both chambers of the Legislature without a recorded, or roll call, vote showing how individual lawmakers stood on the bill..."
Do I really have to say this...
'Please contact your Rep and Senator to request passage of Recorded/Roll-Call votes'
Term Limits
If my understanding of our US-History is not too far off the mark, the office of President began without any Term-Limits. Geo. Washington set a voluntary-precident by serving only two-terms. When FDR was in office during the Great-Depression, followed by WW2, he was re-elected a fourth term (passing away early in his 4th term) as he was popular and a hesitation to change horses in the middle of the stream. This was followed by a successful effort of an amendment to our Constitution to limit the Office of President to two-terms.
We have no such Term-Limit on the House or Senate. States, few I presume, have term-limits on their elected Gov., Legislature, Bureaucratic-Offices, Judicial or Law Enforcement. The same no-limit perspective exists at the County and Municipal levels, too. I'm sure examples exist and I'd appreciate hearing of them, but I presume they are in the minority.
It has been my wise-crack for several years that Anyone interested in running for office must be corrupt and therefore should not be elected. In recent months I have come to believe there is an erie prophecy in my wise-crack. It is beginning to appear that the cronie-ism of our elected officials is taking on a self-rightous perspective of being selected as member of a ruling class and therefore Above The Law. I should hope that there are still a few individuals that seek an elected position with the best of intentions, but I suspect they get disgusted with the crowd they associate with and soon tire of the effort required to mentally, emotionally and legally engage in rhetorical-combat.
A more recent observation leads me to conclude that we need strict term-limits on ALL ELECTED OFFICES at ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT. Political Seniority gains a power that can be used to 'Git-R-Done', and can be a valuable political tool in the hands of a public-minded official. However, in the hands of a power-manipulator, Seniority is used to determine spending and government-direction based on personal-value-system (often with monied-benefactors). I believe the damage done to our political-economic system by Re-Elected-corrupted Officials FAR OVERRIDES any good that is done by the Re-Elected-public-minded Officials.
We often hear political arguments that refer to what the Founding-Fathers intended. Supporters of the arguments indicate we should not change that original intent. Distractors will make arguments that our government is an evolving and growing entity and should be adaptable to current majority opinion. This slaps-the-face of the Individual Rights that are protected to individuals, from the Majority-Opinion-de-Jeur. My take on our Founding-Father intent was that elected positions would be filled by citizens taking a turn to serve their Government-of/by/for-the-People, and then having served, would return to their citizen role of supporting their government. The concept of a Professional-Politician was not known in colonial days. (see my MastHead quote by Alex Pope).
Pre-1800 governments consisted of Kings, Dictators, War-Lords with a balance of Iron-Fists and some benevolent-looking traits to avoid out-right rebellion and mutiny by their comrads and subjects. Thanks to shenanigans by some medieval Anglo-Royalty, they pushed the limits of their subjects to the breaking point. Rather than simply rebel and over-throw a king just to be replaced by another... They gave an ultimatum of limiting the power of the King (Magna Carta, 1215ad) from that day forward. After some 5 centuries of evolution (the sum of random Progression and Digression) of English-Law, our Founding Fathers saw an opportunity to form a governmental experiment that places ALL the Governmental Powers in the hands of the citizens. The citizens would periodically select from among themselves the individuals to serve in a Government-Job for a while, then return to their citizen-role while another filled that position. Like any new product on the market, there were some bugs to be worked out and our early government struggled to improve the design of a Government-of/by/for-the-People.
Lord Acton penned Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. This serves to remind us that some are regarded as Corrupt and need to be closely watched to minimize the detrimental impact on families, friends, neighbors, co-workers... anyone within their sphere of influence. Since each individual is a complex mix of various feelings, wants, needs, fears, values... we can assume there is some Corrupt-ness in each of us, hopefully minimal and easily kept-in-check by our moral-values... however, given the fertile-soil of being selected to serve in some Governmental Office, the little Corruption-Daemon inside us can gain strength. This daemon will grow stronger and faster when inside a person with a weak-will to suppress or contain it. The daemon will produce stress in the individual trying to serve our government with honor and dignity. If this indicates that power will corrupt (more or less over time), then we citizens need a systematic method to limit the political corruption. Until Dr.Phil uses his Jury-Selection skills to devise a Candidate-Corruption-Index, we can use the power of the ballot to limit the time an official is exposed to their growing-daemon. Sure, there are many candidates that are worthy of additional time to serve their constituents and those should receive recognition at the ballot-box. But, similarly, we need to systematically and often -- simply try some fresh-blood in the office.
I would be foolish to suggest a constitutional limitation of terms-served. We need the ballot to select our Government-of/by/for-the-People. I have thought it might be best expressed as No-Re-Election to an office: require any candidate to sit-out a term, then seek election-again, after another has provided their services. This would allow new ideas and techniques to be presented to the citizens on a regular basis and provide a limit on those ideas that are not going as planned or promised. It also serves to let the citizens Compare/Contrast the various ideas and candidates, a very fundamental learning technique (much better than reading, lectures or trial-and-error).
I am beginning to review the candidates that will be on my ballot in a few weeks. I see many opportunities to Vote-Against-An-Incumbant. Some because they have not performed their service in an honorable manner and the others because I want to help save them from their growing daemon.
