Important to realize that there is a double dynamic at place here.
One is career politicians stay in their role for decades, the other is the People signing over responsibility to run things to them.
The swindle is this: all you have to do is "elect" the representative, and your responsibility stops there.
So while the population is lulled into sitting back, letting the career politicians run the city, or state, or country, and focusing on their own affluence, the spirit of civic virtue - serving your community, city, state or nation - is gradually diminished and even (almost) extinguished.
Term limits for congresses (national and state) would mean that members of the community -the people - have a responsibility to put up their hand and serve for a period of time.
This would be the end of career politicians, but its cannot happen unless the People are willing to step up and take real responsibility for self governance.
Trump is the embodiment of that spirit. Sacrificing family, life and time in order to step up and serve the country that has given him so much.
The real key to the current corruption and problem is reviving the spirit of service to one's community/country/state/nation. Every able-bodied adult should be required to offer something for maybe 6 or 8 years of their life to serve in a public role, on one of those levels.
And it's not something you can legally mandate without creating more problems. You cannot force virtue on to people. Thus, the only real solution is a revival of a sacrificial, serving spirit that serves the whole on some level.
That sacrificial serving spirit is at the heart of Christianity, and its why the system of 'democracy' (i.e. a republic with representative self-government) is wholly unsuited to anything but a powerfully religious or spiritually oriented population. As per John Adam's statement.
For America to be great again, the root of the corruption needs to be addressed. Sure, deception was involved, but if you hand over the keys of your house to your servants and then expect them to run the show while you enjoy your personal individual prosperity, don't be surprised when the servants end up swindling you out of the ownership.
This is why civic engagement in self-governance is so critical and crucial to the future of the nation. Without it, removing all the corruption simply will not work. There needs to be a true spirit of love and service to fill the void that the vacated corruption leaves.
One of the challenges then becomes establishing continuity of governance. Because someone jumping in for a term (and only one term) is most definitely going to be limited in experience. So, its a double edged sword. On the one hand, you make it drastically more difficult to establish ongoing pervasive corruption, but on the other hand, you will have the challenge of providing quality governance.
Technically, this means that the civil servants around the elected officials are going to play an important role. We know that the roots of the DS are found in the entrenched civil servants in our modern governments. So that will be one challenge; how to optimize smooth governance while minimizing the ability for civil servants to become too entrenched.
It seems to me that there should also be term limits for civil servants. Something like 10 year. So that they can maintain and pass on knowledge, but not become so entrenched that its a life-long occupation.
I'm not in favor of a single term, but I think that a double term for any elected official should be the limit.
Either way, key to all of the above is drastically reducing the size of government, and releasing all that responsibility back to people themselves.
In the old days, it was faith communities and institutions that primarily looked to the welfare of the wider community. flawed in many ways, because we're human, but because the welfare system was largely 'private sector', they were able to require responsibility of those who received their support.
That's an example of the government NOT being the be all and end all that it has become today. Massive reduction in the size and activity of government is key to taming the beast.
Important to realize that there is a double dynamic at place here.
One is career politicians stay in their role for decades, the other is the People signing over responsibility to run things to them.
The swindle is this: all you have to do is "elect" the representative, and your responsibility stops there.
So while the population is lulled into sitting back, letting the career politicians run the city, or state, or country, and focusing on their own affluence, the spirit of civic virtue - serving your community, city, state or nation - is gradually diminished and even (almost) extinguished.
Term limits for congresses (national and state) would mean that members of the community -the people - have a responsibility to put up their hand and serve for a period of time.
This would be the end of career politicians, but its cannot happen unless the People are willing to step up and take real responsibility for self governance.
Trump is the embodiment of that spirit. Sacrificing family, life and time in order to step up and serve the country that has given him so much.
The real key to the current corruption and problem is reviving the spirit of service to one's community/country/state/nation. Every able-bodied adult should be required to offer something for maybe 6 or 8 years of their life to serve in a public role, on one of those levels.
And it's not something you can legally mandate without creating more problems. You cannot force virtue on to people. Thus, the only real solution is a revival of a sacrificial, serving spirit that serves the whole on some level.
That sacrificial serving spirit is at the heart of Christianity, and its why the system of 'democracy' (i.e. a republic with representative self-government) is wholly unsuited to anything but a powerfully religious or spiritually oriented population. As per John Adam's statement.
For America to be great again, the root of the corruption needs to be addressed. Sure, deception was involved, but if you hand over the keys of your house to your servants and then expect them to run the show while you enjoy your personal individual prosperity, don't be surprised when the servants end up swindling you out of the ownership.
This is why civic engagement in self-governance is so critical and crucial to the future of the nation. Without it, removing all the corruption simply will not work. There needs to be a true spirit of love and service to fill the void that the vacated corruption leaves.
Good post. This is what we were taught when I was young. At home, at school and in the community.
One of the challenges then becomes establishing continuity of governance. Because someone jumping in for a term (and only one term) is most definitely going to be limited in experience. So, its a double edged sword. On the one hand, you make it drastically more difficult to establish ongoing pervasive corruption, but on the other hand, you will have the challenge of providing quality governance.
Technically, this means that the civil servants around the elected officials are going to play an important role. We know that the roots of the DS are found in the entrenched civil servants in our modern governments. So that will be one challenge; how to optimize smooth governance while minimizing the ability for civil servants to become too entrenched.
It seems to me that there should also be term limits for civil servants. Something like 10 year. So that they can maintain and pass on knowledge, but not become so entrenched that its a life-long occupation.
I'm not in favor of a single term, but I think that a double term for any elected official should be the limit.
Either way, key to all of the above is drastically reducing the size of government, and releasing all that responsibility back to people themselves.
In the old days, it was faith communities and institutions that primarily looked to the welfare of the wider community. flawed in many ways, because we're human, but because the welfare system was largely 'private sector', they were able to require responsibility of those who received their support.
That's an example of the government NOT being the be all and end all that it has become today. Massive reduction in the size and activity of government is key to taming the beast.
They should also be paid by their respective states and no federal funding allowed at all. No retirement none of it.