A Modest proposal for a New Century . . .

Once the auto stimulation of the Republican and Democratic
conventions is finally over and the echoes of bombastic speeches full of sound
and fury signifying little are swept off the stage along with the confetti, it might be wise for all Americans to do some out-of-the-box thinking about what could be done to save us from a government that too often gives anarchy a good name.So, with advance apologies to Jonathan Swift, I would like to offer my own
six-point modest proposal to save our democracy via some creative
Constitutional Amendments for a new century. Since the Constitution is a
living document under the prevailing jurisprudential view, let us inject
some vibrancy and new vitality into the old, dated, dry, parchment.

1. Send every single politician in Washington D.C. on a one-way junket to any lesser-developed country on earth that still practices cannibalism as both foreign aid and a
good-will gesture that shows our respect for all cultural predilections;

2. Replace the anachronistic electoral college system and representative
democracy with direct democracy–one (live) person one vote (even in Chicago);

3. Disband the executive and legislative branches of government and their attendant bloated bureaucracies and replace
both with a supercomputer (HAL 2012?) to implement the direct wishes of the
people through appropriate legislation literally interpreted and enforced;

4. Use the savings from the dismantling of the federal bureaucracy for direct
programs at home to provide a true safety net for needy individuals, enhance
everyone’s health care, and provide practical work-related training and support
that every American may once again take pride in being a useful contributor to
and stakeholder in a great society that actually lives up to the name;

5.Send displaced federal bureaucrats for retraining that they may utilize their innate
skills for other more useful purposes–guano farming and cesspool cleaning services
come to mind (no disrespect intended to guano farmers or cesspool cleaning
professionals). Those who resist can be offered a free trip under Paragraph 1;

6. Provide the same benefit under Paragraph 1 to federal judges who
subvert the people’s will and the Constitution by interpreting square
legislative pegs as anything but square legislative pegs.

Any thoughts?

Note: I posted this message originally at Publishedauthors.org on September 5. You can see the resulting discussion it has generated at http://www.publishedauthors.org/t8768-a-modest-proposal-for-a-new-century