"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message ...

What we need
is another purge of the party similar to what Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. and
others staged when they pushed out the Birchers, because lately the
right-wingnuts seem happy to steer the Republican Party straight to
Crazytown.

That's certainly a step in the right direction, but I'm coming to the
conclusion that we need to purge both parties. Actually the word I'm
looking for isn't "purge" it's "replace".

From your lips to God's ear.

But as long as politicians are concerned about re-election and campaign
funding, things won't change much. I keep coming back to the idea of
drawing names out of a hat, giving them 6 weeks of free air time to
present their views, and limiting them to one term. Not a snowball's
chance in hell, but it might well work better than what we've got now.

Breaking the cycle of fundraising would be a huge step, but I dont know how
you'd do it short of a constitutional amendment. I'm not so sure about term
limits, they help with corruption but they also get rid of elected
representatives just when they've been there long enough to know what's
going on. That tends to shift power to unelected civil servants and that
brings its own problems.

I'd like to see every member of Congress required to share an office with a
member of another party, and they're not allowed to play golf unless there's
an equal number of players from the other side. Members of Congress used to
be friends with members from across the aisle, they could work together as a
result of knowing and respecting each other. Now if a Republican has lunch
with a Democrat he's labeled a RINO and the Tea Potters target him for
termination. No wonder Congress is such a mess.