The Idea: Move to Amend the Constitution to Include Vote of No Confidence and Congressional Weekly Access to Executive Officers
For explanation, keep reading...
I confess, I've been a bit of an Anglophile in the past.
All cultural things British and Irish, etc...media, literature, art...and yes - Parliament.
I love Parliament...Sunday nights, 9ish on CSPAN with, then Prime Minister Tony Blair, standing up in front of the legislative component to defend and articulate rationale for/against policies in question. Having to answer to the "people"...it has been a dream for me, especially during these past 8 years.
Imagine Bush doing that...Ha! Imagine our senate being able to grill our executive officer live on CSPAN every weekend! One shouldn't view this as a negative thing b/c no one should seek the office if they cannot entertain a healthy verbal debate about the progress of this country.
I mean, in effect, we have a relative monarchy thanks to Bush. Our forefathers are rolling over in their graves! Every time he peeps out to the microphone we are supposed to be thankful that he even has a pulse...whether he truly knows what's going on is another matter! Nonetheless, there's something entirely too regal about the office now. It makes me uncomfortable that we are stuck with someone for 4 long years, who doesn't think he needs to explain anything to anyone and dispatches his appointees out into the court to do his bidding. We are graced by his presence, are we not?
I move to amend the Constitution to include weekly visits by the POTUS to the Senate for televised Socratic dialog...and the VPOTUS to the House for televised Socratic dialog. Thereby instilling accountability and accessibility to all offices of government. It's not an undemocratic proposal...I mean, we already are getting a socialized financial system.
Oh! And here's where that wonderful other parliamentarian mechanism comes in ...The VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE!
Don't you wish, just for a minute, that it was part of our system in the last 4 years especially?
Imagine all those low approval ratings actually meaning something to the president. Imagine a president who actually had to be on his/her toes in serving the people of our nation as the elected official that he/she is. Knowing that a referendum could be called and the people could speak their minds more than once every 4 years, he/she wouldn't dare feign supremacy over the people and hold us hostage at his/her will. You may ask why we don't already have this in our system...
Well, I think it's b/c when our forefathers drafted our constitution, 4 years wasn't too long, given that it took days/weeks for information to pass between parties. Things moved slower than they do now.
I don't think they ever dreamed about a presidency becoming so powerful that it controlled the DOJ and/or partisanship dominance would rule as a triple threat...for, in their times, it wasn't a 2 party system they created, we managed to do that on our own.
The other upside of the vote of no confidence would be that actions would take precedence over empty talk. No longer would we waste our time with 2 yr long presidential campaigns. Nit-picking candidates and endless scrutiny of every minute word they've spoke their entire lives is ridiculous! The record of service/votes would stand as testimony to the people...their actions/not the cars they've driven or the types of food they like (beer/wine drinkers!)
The people of this country would face more control over the direction of the nation by being forced to participate in more frequent elections, if said course of country was wrong. More frequent and more meaningful citizenship would empower the people instead of holding them hostage for years as their will was flushed down the toilet.
So when you think of this financial crisis we're inheriting, imagine how it would be if you actually had had more of a say in the past 20 years...and ask yourself, do you only want a say once every four years...or do you want to make the kinds of changes you can truly believe in and give yourself the due respect you deserve as a tax paying citizen of democracy. Get the fat cats off their butts and make politics work for you!
What are your thoughts? I figure if there can be talk of a potential amendment about gay marriage...we sure as hell can start talking about this! Besides, I own part of the govt. as of this Friday, right?