In particular, thanks for the explanation of the limits to politician arrest while doing their jobs. That would indeed have be necessary for them to be able to perform their jobs, and when considering when that was written, and the states had not been together too long, it makes all the more sense.
Extremely well put. You and I might differ greatly on our views of "balance the use of resources", but great goals.I'm for government that works, and works correctly. I like what Abraham Lincoln thought about how government should work (paraphrasing and condensing in good faith, I think): it needs to balance power within society, it needs to balance resources, it needs to preserve the rights of all the people, and it should work over the long term.
In the same way that the founding fathers worked out the structure of the government that balanced the power of the three branches -- the government itself along with all the people, must figure out how to administer things so as to balance the power of all the people, and to balance the use of resources, and to do all that while preserving the rights of all the people. All the while, it must fight the tendency to usurp power and money and bloat and corruption -- and all the people must pay their taxes, and vote, and otherwise partake in government, so that it all stays on balance.
That's all the government has to do.
Also, your no self doubt point is very true and maybe the scariest thing about him.
I also agree that Bush is WAY too much in the pockets of big business. But by omission you seem to be saying that Clinton was not in anyone's pocket. Bush and Clinton used the presidency way too much for personal gains. Yes, Bush is in the pocket of big business, and Clinton was in the pocket of the Chinese and North Koreans. Selling Pardons, stays in the Lincoln bedroom, giving nuclear secrets to the Chinese and Nuclear materials to the North Koreans for huge campaign donations (and who knows what else) isn't exactly squeaky clean either.
For several elections now, I have been pretty disappointed in our political process, and wonder if we need to change things to do better.
I think that our process helps feed the confidence and ego's of some of these guys. Maybe having way more parties, and then the parties having to work together to accomplish change might shortcut some of the extremes of two parties as well as represent voters better.
We start out in primary elections, and maybe both parties have a large number of candidates, each with 10% of the people behind them. Soon though, we start narrowing it down, and the parties both start getting behind their guy, and the positions start getting more extreme and partisan. Finally, before the general election, there is this illusion that almost everyone from each party is solidly behind their guy, and then the winner feels that he has this huge mandate and often that goes to their head.
I think that this illusion of going from 10% support to "Wow, look, a majority voted for me" is dangerous and a contributor to the arrogance and power hungriness of who we get from either party.
If there were 5 parties for example, then the electoral college would not look so useless, and everyone might find a party that was a closer match to their views than just picking between one of the two champion political machines that have become so powerful that they forget to look at the voters they pretend to represent.