Its about the issues, lets face it.
“What do we want? Abortion rights! When do we want them? When our political leader gets into office, and then hopefully we can get something done in four or maybe eight years from now!”
We have two parties in America, the democrats and republicans. Yes, there are others, but when was the last time they won? Face it…two party system. They even have their own mascots, colors, slogans and territories/fanbase. I’m sorry, were we talking about society or football?
In consideration of voting for president, we vote for the man (as of yet), what he “stands for”, his color, his creed, his national origin, his religion, the company he keeps and on and on. Amusingly, if we chose our employees like that, we would go to jail. If you watch religulous, you will find testament of people saying, “I don’t know much about politics, but I’m voting for George W. Bush because of his faith!” In the recent election, we heard over and over, “it’s time for a black man to be president!” Well, maybe it is (and the results indicate it was) but is that really how we are making our decisions here?
Now, of course, you may be clear to say that Bush was going to be tough on crime, give small businesses a break, ensure that the American lifestyle was preserved and (as the sole platform for his second term) be tough on terror and you may be quick to say that Obama was going to help those without health care, get us out of the middle east, save the environment and stabilize the economy. But what is all of that? Those are ideas, notions, pleasantries…those aren’t goals. There is no measureable criteria assigned to those concepts. There is virtually no way to gauge the success of most of those criteria (save for whether or not we are actually physically present in the Middle East) without an exceptional amount of assumptions, debate and political maneuvering to assure that the end results parallel the intended goal; not to mention whether or not the “success” is attributable to the actions of the president and not other organizations, individuals, nations, events, circumstance, the weather or random chance.
Here’s a bold fresh new idea, just a thought…since we are playing in that territory, as to how we might get something done that is to the overall benefit of this country.
What if, IF, WHAT IF…we voted purely on issues and merely had a figure head with no actual power? Obama would be perfect for this job…in touch with the people, well spoken, educated, refined. But, I guess, on that note, so would W. He was a good ol’ boy, ready to sit down and chat, have a drink, shoot some guns, tell some jokes. Well, I guess, so was Clinton, he was a soft spoken southerner with a drawl that could melt the ladies. He was also sharp as a tack and a good conversationalist. Regan was a MOVIE STAR! Well, sort of. He was a man’s man, kept in great shape and didn’t take crap from nobody! Carter, he was a commoner – not a political elite. A good old fashioned farmer type…just like you and me! I guess…well, we have been electing figure heads, people that we LIKE, and the debatable secondary is whether or not they are fit to wield power; I won’t bury myself by commenting on their politics.
What if people ran for “health care chair” or “war watcher” and we then summed up all of their specific ideas, policies, where the money would come from and how their success would be measured. Then, they and their team would be in charge of solving the problem…to the satisfaction of the majority that voted for them. They would gather more votes based on the express detail, problem solving, cost effectiveness and feasibility of their idea and lose votes if they expressed generalities, strayed from the issue, started slinging mud and so on. Instead of trying to please all people all of the time by covering the top 20 American issues, they could afford to keep their more controversial views in the closet and just do what they do best…war, health care, education, whatever.
When contractors bid for jobs (anything from construction to test development) the client decision is almost solely based on satisfying client needs (the people) with the best price in mind (all the people’s money). If a team was elected to education chair and, after 5 years, failed to improve our enrollment into four year universities (or whatever criteria they may have offered) they would be unlikely to get another job ever again. On the contrary, we have lifelong politicians that are so far removed from the public eye that their performance, promises, progress and goals are NEVER evaluated. As such, they can continue to holler empty words and get a paycheck.
Consider this: The news would actually have something important to report. “The welfare chair has dictated that they will clean up welfare by 2012, imposing XY and Z limits on XY and Z and getting people employed.” At the commencement of 2011, you would be damn well aware of how that was coming along. Instead, we rely on ONE MAN to tackle all of the problems and issues that we care about. Yes, the President appoints educated and qualified individuals to tackle the problems of energy, war and healthcare, but they are all competing interests. The media, the people, the president himself only has so much attention to give. For every meeting with the welfare committee, that’s time not spent tackling environmental issues.
We can boil it all down any way we want, but the reality remains:
We elect men based on their personality and secondarily on their vague promises
We cannot hold them accountable for action, because their promises are vague
Nothing gets done (see the above two reasons) and when “stuff gets done” it’s usually because of high approval which leads to low barriers rather than solid planning and financials (i.e. invading Iraq)
The people tend to blame it on the other side which leads to our current times within an incredibly toxic political atmosphere
As such, people vote exceedingly based on party politics so as not to let the “enemy” be in charge
Is this not a broken system? What if we were able to forge a system that allowed some semblance of clarity and democracy so that political officials could be held accountable and, perhaps prior to that, be given some leverage with which to actually do their jobs. “Bang, Mr. Jones and his team have been voted to tackle California’s welfare system. Bam, Mrs. Smith and her associates have been selected to tackle fisheries in Florida” and so on. You could have individual groups placing bids for these jobs, for which they would receive a fair salary, commiserate with their skills and experience, propose a budget for resolving the problem and then, based on their proposal approved by some form of public vote, be empowered to make a change.
I can already envision a super team sweeping the country, solving all of the problems because of their shrewd skills, fiscal responsibility and relentless dedication to clear objectives.
I mean, let’s face it, among the reasonable people within this country (party lines aside) we all want the same things: safe streets, low teenage pregnancy, low gang violence, access to resources, better education, access to cheap energy, reliable food sources and clean air and water. Let’s take abortion for example. We get all hot and bothered over our positions “we want abortion rights…my body my choice!” and “We want to preserve the sanctity of life…no murdering innocent children!” The question no one asks is, “under what conditions can we prevent unwanted pregnancy?” That way we don’t HAVE to terminate pregnancies and, at the same time, we don’t have to TERMINATE PREGNANCIES…wait, did I just say the same thing. Surprise! The end goals can be the same. Let California try teaching sex education and birth control and Alabama can try preaching abstinence. The proof is the in the pudding…teen pregnancy rate? Check. Dollars committed to social services for young mothers? Check.
My idea is far from perfect, but I hope, that at the very least, it inspires some thought as to what we are doing and how it came to be this way. Certainly we can better identify the interests of the country, formulate a plan to address, resolve, mitigate or improve the condition of those interests than by electing a single man every four years based on the failings of the previous president to address every want, need and concern of 380 million people.
