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If you're in the US, pixelcort, may I invite you to consider the Downsize DC effort? (http://www.downsizedc.org/ http://www.downsizedc.org/) Here is a quick s

If you're in the US, pixelcort, may I invite you to consider the Downsize DC effort? (http://www.downsizedc.org/ http://www.downsizedc.org/) Here is a quick summary of what DownsizeDC.org is about: We believe the federal government has grown too centralized, too intrusive, and too expensive. We believe in constitutional limits, smaller government, civil liberties, federalism, and low taxes. We want to end laws and programs that don't work, cause harm, and violate the Constitution. We want to restore the full force of the 9th and 10th amendments, which reserve most social functions to the people and the states. The strategy of Downsize DC is to leverage technology to make it easier for people to make their voices heard to the State. They make it easier to contact your Senate and House representatives regularly. The primary bill DownsizeDC is advocating is the Read the Bills Act -- make it law to read aloud each bill before signing it into law. That action alone would slow down the legislating machine. The other one is the One Subject at a Time act -- make each bill deal with one subject at a time, instead of bundling subjects, which would make it very clear about politician's positions on various issues, and let each issue stand on its own merit.

carbocation 14y ago
Isn't this topic -- the question of how to close Guantanamo Bay -- a prime counterexample to the virtues of "mak[ing] it law to read aloud each bill before signing it into law" and "mak[ing] each bill deal with one subject at a time"? Wouldn't such requirements make politically unpopular things, such as touching Guantanamo Bay in any way, even more difficult to handle? This article doesn't strike me as fertile, favorable ground for this topic at all. Not that one would say this, but if the counterargument were to be, "this movement would have prevented Guantanamo in the first place," then (1) but I live in the world we have now, not a hypothetical world that we don't actually have, and (2) maybe so, maybe not.
deleted 14y ago
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peterwwillis 14y ago
make it law to read aloud each bill before signing it into law Not only is this the stupidest solution to a complex problem i've ever heard, it's depressing that some people take it seriously.
- atsaloli 14y ago
  What do you consider the problem? Let's say government growing out of bound (and government's power growing compared to an individual's power) is a problem. One way to curb that growth is to slow down the functioning of government. But if you don't consider monotonic growth of government a problem, then we are very far apart indeed. =)
  - peterwwillis 14y ago
    I'm not here to discuss "the problem". Because there's totally just one problem with our government. "Slowing down the functioning of government" is not a good thing. "The government" (by this I assume you mean legislation) already moves at a snail's pace. Making it go slower, so reforms and important issues take even longer than they already do to resolve? NOT HELPING. People talk about the 'size' of 'government' like it's some kind of tangible property. Government is just the system by which our policies, actions and affairs are executed. It might be big, it might be small, it doesn't matter. It is whatever we need it to be. What concerns me are the issues and how we deal with them, not some abstract idea like "too much" or "not enough" of the system. If we need to get a respectable budget planned, a "big" or "small" government will not fix that. Your budget may be smaller because your "government" is smaller, but that doesn't make it a good budget. Your regulations of certain businesses may be smaller, but that doesn't mean the new free reign these businesses have will result in customers being treated fairly or allowing other businesses to compete. There are reason we have what we have. It's not like there's some super exponential growth formula being fed to a giant single celled organism called "government". There's hundreds of complex issues at hand, and your one-size-fits-all generic solution doesn't begin to address any of them. Rather it buries them under a carpet of obfuscation, waiting for the rug to be so choked by lack of observation that someone finally will throw it out for a new one.
- a-priori 14y ago
  Maybe it's because I'm Canadian, but I think it's stupid not to read bills out loud at least once before they become law. In our House of Commons the procedure is to read each bill, out loud, three times before it is passed. Then it gets sent to the Senate where it's also read three times (mind you the Senate typically rubber stamps everything). So every law in Canada has been read out loud a total of six times, and (assuming they're present) every member of the legislature has heard it three times.

carbocation 14y ago

Isn't this topic -- the question of how to close Guantanamo Bay -- a prime counterexample to the virtues of "mak[ing] it law to read aloud each bill before signing it into law" and "mak[ing] each bill deal with one subject at a time"? Wouldn't such requirements make politically unpopular things, such as touching Guantanamo Bay in any way, even more difficult to handle? This article doesn't strike me as fertile, favorable ground for this topic at all. Not that one would say this, but if the counterargument were to be, "this movement would have prevented Guantanamo in the first place," then (1) but I live in the world we have now, not a hypothetical world that we don't actually have, and (2) maybe so, maybe not.

deleted 14y ago

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peterwwillis 14y ago

make it law to read aloud each bill before signing it into law Not only is this the stupidest solution to a complex problem i've ever heard, it's depressing that some people take it seriously.

atsaloli 14y ago
What do you consider the problem? Let's say government growing out of bound (and government's power growing compared to an individual's power) is a problem. One way to curb that growth is to slow down the functioning of government. But if you don't consider monotonic growth of government a problem, then we are very far apart indeed. =)
- peterwwillis 14y ago
  I'm not here to discuss "the problem". Because there's totally just one problem with our government. "Slowing down the functioning of government" is not a good thing. "The government" (by this I assume you mean legislation) already moves at a snail's pace. Making it go slower, so reforms and important issues take even longer than they already do to resolve? NOT HELPING. People talk about the 'size' of 'government' like it's some kind of tangible property. Government is just the system by which our policies, actions and affairs are executed. It might be big, it might be small, it doesn't matter. It is whatever we need it to be. What concerns me are the issues and how we deal with them, not some abstract idea like "too much" or "not enough" of the system. If we need to get a respectable budget planned, a "big" or "small" government will not fix that. Your budget may be smaller because your "government" is smaller, but that doesn't make it a good budget. Your regulations of certain businesses may be smaller, but that doesn't mean the new free reign these businesses have will result in customers being treated fairly or allowing other businesses to compete. There are reason we have what we have. It's not like there's some super exponential growth formula being fed to a giant single celled organism called "government". There's hundreds of complex issues at hand, and your one-size-fits-all generic solution doesn't begin to address any of them. Rather it buries them under a carpet of obfuscation, waiting for the rug to be so choked by lack of observation that someone finally will throw it out for a new one.
a-priori 14y ago
Maybe it's because I'm Canadian, but I think it's stupid not to read bills out loud at least once before they become law. In our House of Commons the procedure is to read each bill, out loud, three times before it is passed. Then it gets sent to the Senate where it's also read three times (mind you the Senate typically rubber stamps everything). So every law in Canada has been read out loud a total of six times, and (assuming they're present) every member of the legislature has heard it three times.