John Adams, on the Suicide of the United States | Hacker News Reader

John Adams, on the Suicide of the United States

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Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.

— John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

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Maybe this post should have a question to spark discussion so I'll pose it:

If American Democracy were software, how would you refactor it?

Term limits

Ban professional politicians - who side step term limits by changing jobs.

All laws congress applies to the people apply to them too.

Have congress argue the issues, but have their respective states vote on it - thereby diluting power and making it harder to have money influence.

Ban money in politics, no check sizes larger than X, must come from an individual person.

There are no special exemptions in the law for those who hold office

Harsher penalites for anyone who holds office.

IDEA: Becoming a member of congress is like jury duty for 2 years. Perhaps divided down racial, geographical and professional lines.

IDEA: All voting becomes direct democracy, with a twist, I can nominate anyone to make my vote for me and they can also nominate someone to make their vote for me. I can change my delegation on any bill at any time.

IDEA: Elections are removed. We can withdraw and change our vote at anytime to change a member of congress.

Continue abstracting money out. There is no correct solution as the problem keeps evolving. We’ll have to keep addressing this issue over time.

1. Political financing has to be looked into. A solid wtf at Citizen’s United, this must be overturned.

2. I think we can just wholesale ban PACs and Super PACs.

3. Ban donations period. How will the campaign finance it’s staff? You can’t, you’ll need volunteers. Don’t like it? Then don’t run.

4. Ban all ads.

5. Ban lobbying groups.

6. Major legislation must go through a public ballot referendum. Federal legislation must have 2/3s of states approving said referendum. Congress doesn’t work well, so go ahead and draft your bills but we’re going to need to send it back to the public since Congress is always in gridlock.

7. Jail the people that gerrymandered voting districts for 1 year to send a message. Then put a death penalty for all future Gerrymandering violations. A consortium of independent global organizations must assess all redistricting and dole out the penalty for funny business.

8. Somewhat facetious, but we sort of need a death penalty for violations of government duty since the fear of god is absolutely missing amongst politicians.

9. Introduce major major transparency into the Pentagon budget. It’s our biggest expense and we pretty much give them a blank check every year.

10. Federally mandate media organizations to put a parental advisory message on every program that is opinion based or does not do fact checking (and force that label to stay on the screen in a fixed spot on the video or website). Create a new law where rampant negligence of this leads to FCC fines that represent a percentage of all company profit (no fixed fine as we’ve seen large banks able to absorb it as a cost of business).

That’s a good start. We need a Roosevelt-like big stick against some of these things.

what's your point?

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