ACTUALLY utilizing the power to vote

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I think its funny in America, we live in a so called democracy, yet when it comes down to it, we can only choose 2 people to represent us, and they are just different sides of the same coin.... I feel as if were not allowed to have more options. It just drives me crazy that there are so many unique people in this world, and your telling me the only 2 forces running this country is "the democrats" and "the republicans"...

I think we should take major constitutional laws within our own hands as a democracy instead of letting someone else represent us to such a high degree we feel powerless. For example, what if the majority of americans want health care? why cant we cast votes for laws like we cast votes for presidents. I think that would give people more inutive to get out there and be heard and actually feel they are part of this country. Class 1 drug laws? same thing. and i say these laws should be looked into every year and revoted upon. it will keep the laws more "alive" because, well, theyll be updated. that to me sounds like CHANGE. hell, with the power of google, if everyone with a computer sent sent law suggestions to one site, im pretty sure we could figure out the priorities of the american people and what they want to do with this country.

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@imfreakinman,

If you want more options, get rid of the parties... They are not constitution, but extra constitutional, or perhaps more accurately, anticonstitutional, since their object is to make certain the aims outlined in the constitution are not me... We do not need more choices, but more representatives if government as we have it will work... We are supposed to have one representative in the house of reps for every 30 k, and now we have one representative for every 600 k... In other words, the democracy was supposed to grow with the nation, and the parties have prevented that process in an effort to make the process more manageble from their perspective... We already had inertia built into the system... There was no way the Senate could be democratic because it did not have any sort of proportional representation, so it has always been what it is today; and one of the most conservative to reactionary elements in government...The house, which is supposed to be responsive is not... The parties divide the districts by gerrymandering to minimize representation to the minority party to a single district, while all other districs are plotted to give a victory by a 5% margin to a single party, so that a huge proportion of the people is denied representation... It is a foregone conclusion that the Supreme Court, which is not elected by a popular vote and has a life tenure will be reactionary...There too, the parties play a roll in shaping public opinion and legal decisions... The changes the government has made outside of the contitution, to limit representation and to have parties has been a disaster for this country...

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@Fido,

Fido;171733 wrote:

If you want more options, get rid of the parties... They are not constitution, but extra constitutional, or perhaps more accurately, anticonstitutional, since their object is to make certain the aims outlined in the constitution are not me... We do not need more choices, but more representatives if government as we have it will work... We are supposed to have one representative in the house of reps for every 30 k, and now we have one representative for every 600 k... In other words, the democracy was supposed to grow with the nation, and the parties have prevented that process in an effort to make the process more manageble from their perspective... We already had inertia built into the system... There was no way the Senate could be democratic because it did not have any sort of proportional representation, so it has always been what it is today; and one of the most conservative to reactionary elements in government...The house, which is supposed to be responsive is not... The parties divide the districts by gerrymandering to minimize representation to the minority party to a single district, while all other districs are plotted to give a victory by a 5% margin to a single party, so that a huge proportion of the people is denied representation... It is a foregone conclusion that the Supreme Court, which is not elected by a popular vote and has a life tenure will be reactionary...There too, the parties play a roll in shaping public opinion and legal decisions... The changes the government has made outside of the contitution, to limit representation and to have parties has been a disaster for this country...

exactly! i completely agree with what your saying. theres no reason why the represenative ratio for the house and senate to be off scale; thats not a TRUE democracy. and something like a government shouldent be easy to manage. i know theres red tape everywhere, but i believe in this day in age we could honestly a reprenative in the house for every 30k persons (i.e.) I think what really bothers me though is the fact that the constitution is losing its pwoer in the worst way, and personally, i balme that on the supreme court; its thier job to uphold it. The Patriot Act is a huge example. its soooooooooooooo soooooooooo hypocritcle. Its just the fact that if the country "thinks" your a terrorist, then the act becomes valid. I can make excuses all day of why someone "might" be a terrorist. the act itself is a crack in the window that is, the constitution.

Like, I AM ALL FOR the constitution changing and evolving with the people, but this a complete pejoration of personal freedom, its borderline fascist.

I think we need to start from the source. I THINK we need to destroy the supreme court system itself and reorganize it. I believe we need 50 justices on the supreme court, one from every state. and i believe WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE need to vote and elect local justices, that then move to the ranks of the countys, from the countys to district, and from district to ultimately, we choose our state representative. the presidents should NOT be the one appointing them. thats too much power.

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@imfreakinman,

imfreakinman;172227 wrote:

Like, I AM ALL FOR the constitution changing and evolving with the people, but this a complete pejoration of personal freedom, its borderline fascist.

I think we need to start from the source. I THINK we need to destroy the supreme court system itself and reorganize it. I believe we need 50 justices on the supreme court, one from every state. and i believe WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE need to vote and elect local justices, that then move to the ranks of the countys, from the countys to district, and from district to ultimately, we choose our state representative. the presidents should NOT be the one appointing them. thats too much power.

The framers didn't like the idea of the justices being elected. The reason is that they would be more focused on winning the next election than keeping the constitution. But as we now see a majority of the justices care nothing for upholding the constitution. I don't think we should try to make them elected. I have a different idea that might be a better solution.

Why not appoint the people as justices, but instead of making them judges why not a jury? All you need is a moderator but the jury decides. These people can be pulled directly out of the population like they are for criminal cases. If it works on that level why couldn't it work on the larger scale court cases. I understand that many of them wouldn't be educated in constitutional law, but right now we have justices who are educated but they make horrible unconstitutional decisions anyways, so it couldn't be any worse.

This would solve the problem of election, since you wouldn't need to elect them. They wouldn't be out trying to buy voters. You would completely by pass this issue all together. Secondly you could have a turn over rate which means you might get some bad decisions but you won't always have them because they would be replaced on a common basis, rather than life appointed.

So you would get some who were educated, and some who are not. But as they cases are heard these people could be brought up to speed very quickly. All a person has to be provided is the law itself. The ways in which those laws are interpreted and how it relates to the case being tried. I am sure even the most uneducated could probably make a rational decision and I would even go as far to say probably a better decision that the current justices have.

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