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I am glad to hear people start to admit that policy is more important then party. I believe that is a key step in us moving forward as we need to agree on shar

I am glad to hear people start to admit that policy is more important then party. I believe that is a key step in us moving forward as we need to agree on shared principles that are universal and have a means to insure our elected officials follow through on them.

cpeterso 13y ago
I sometimes imagine what the US political system would look if all elected positions were "nonpartisan". What if voters had to listen to what politicians were actually saying without the blinders of "Red Team" or "Blue Team"?
- DamnYuppie 13y ago
  I imagine it being quite wonderful. Imagine further if a bill could only contain 1 law in it and it had a built in shelf life of only 10-15 years and had to be renewed by a super majority vote in excess of 75%.
  - habitue 13y ago
    > ...had to be renewed by a super majority vote in excess of 75% While I'm sure some small government fans would say this is a good thing, the answer is that very little would get done. Symbolic gestures and the like would pass, but very little of real substance. It's commonly the case that most everyone agrees that something needs to be done, but often they disagree on what exactly needs to happen. You can see what happens in the senate when 60+ votes are needed to pass anything.
    - dnautics 13y ago
      and if the government did less, we would feel empowered and obligated to do more ourselves, especially those things that don't necessarily need the barrel of a gun to get done. And if the government did less, then there would be little incentive for profiteers to try to capture government to profit at the end of a gun. I don't see what's so bad about this?
    - DamnYuppie 13y ago
      I should have been clearer in that my underlying premise is that the government should be doing less. Yet I am surprised that it was that element of my statement that people ran with. For me having a built in shelf life of a law is not nearly as important as having clearer legislation and the cessation of co-mingling unrelated laws into one bill.
  - emidln 13y ago
    This is an element of a couple Sci-Fi books I can think. Laws expire every N years (N=10 in the example that comes to mind first, that of the planet Sapphire in a novel series called Worlds Apart). This keeps the governing bodies busy enough renewing basic laws against theft/rape/murder/not paying taxes that no time is left for other things.

cpeterso 13y ago

I sometimes imagine what the US political system would look if all elected positions were "nonpartisan". What if voters had to listen to what politicians were actually saying without the blinders of "Red Team" or "Blue Team"?

DamnYuppie 13y ago
I imagine it being quite wonderful. Imagine further if a bill could only contain 1 law in it and it had a built in shelf life of only 10-15 years and had to be renewed by a super majority vote in excess of 75%.
- habitue 13y ago
  > ...had to be renewed by a super majority vote in excess of 75% While I'm sure some small government fans would say this is a good thing, the answer is that very little would get done. Symbolic gestures and the like would pass, but very little of real substance. It's commonly the case that most everyone agrees that something needs to be done, but often they disagree on what exactly needs to happen. You can see what happens in the senate when 60+ votes are needed to pass anything.
  - dnautics 13y ago
    and if the government did less, we would feel empowered and obligated to do more ourselves, especially those things that don't necessarily need the barrel of a gun to get done. And if the government did less, then there would be little incentive for profiteers to try to capture government to profit at the end of a gun. I don't see what's so bad about this?
  - DamnYuppie 13y ago
    I should have been clearer in that my underlying premise is that the government should be doing less. Yet I am surprised that it was that element of my statement that people ran with. For me having a built in shelf life of a law is not nearly as important as having clearer legislation and the cessation of co-mingling unrelated laws into one bill.
- emidln 13y ago
  This is an element of a couple Sci-Fi books I can think. Laws expire every N years (N=10 in the example that comes to mind first, that of the planet Sapphire in a novel series called Worlds Apart). This keeps the governing bodies busy enough renewing basic laws against theft/rape/murder/not paying taxes that no time is left for other things.