On 07/16/10 10:13 pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:

Psalm 109:8

"May his days be few and let someone else take his position of
leadership."

Look it up if you don't believe me!!

IOW: Replace the person who's gradually figuring out how the system
works by a newbie who has to start from the beginning.

We should try it with our major corporations.

Eggs-zactly!

WTF is it with all this hoo-ha about term limits and incumbents? In
addition to the observation you made, it turns out that we already have
term limits, and a way to deal with incumbents who ought to be removed
from office: they're called ...

ELECTIONS!

(The *real* problem is getting $$$$ out of elections[1], which of course
we've done practically nothing about. Can you say "publicly financed
elections"?)

[1] Of course, the recent Supreme Court decision (Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission) sends us in the completely wrong direction
here.

Here is the proposal for political reform I posted in another ng just a
few weeks ago:

Hold a new election for all positions --

(a) A publicly funded election with a permanent prohibition of all other
political contributions, whether corporate or private.

(b) A permanent prohibition of political advertising by radio, TV and
print media.

(c) The public funding shall include the financing of printing and
distribution of policy statements (an agreed set maximum number of words
or pages) by each candidate to every household in his/her electoral
district (for elections to the House), state (for elections to the
Senate) -- or nationwide (for the President/VP). These could be separate
publications for each candidate, or they could to advantage be combined
in a single booklet to each household. Such publications to be in at
least both English and Spanish, and where more than x% (to be decided)
of the population of any area has as its mother tongue a language other
than those two, such publication should be in that language/those
languages as well.

(d) To become a candidate and thus qualify for such public funding and
get one's name on the ballot would require nomination by some specified
modest number of citizens and payment of a modest fee; both number and
fee might well vary according to the position being sought.

(e) Direct election of President/VP -- no Electoral College.

That should be a good start.

Unfortunately, most of it would be ruled unconstitutional. But now we
see all the problems with the "it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time"
Constitution and its amendments -- or at least with the specific wording
that was employed.

Perce