Can We Design A Better Government?

May I call you WB?

I agree consquences & accountability are lacking!

We come back to education, re-education.

Increasingly severe re-education "camps", forced public service would be another way to look @ it. There was some merit in the old way of sending wayward youth to the military services as opposed to jail. Farm labor seems like another choice [helps the immigration problem too!], there's probably some mining that needs to be done.

examples:

Keeping kids out of foster care, keeps them out of trouble later in life, so bad parents should be re-educated or probably pre-educated.

rehab & re-education is the most effective for drug offenders.

I'll stop here & see where we go.

Check out the methods this guy is using - he's my hero right now!

Check the YouTube on this guy .....here

I think the UK could do with borrowing the guy !

Yup,

Joe's doing what he can, making the most of his resources, chain gangs w/pink & black stripped jumpers.

He keeps getting re=elected so he has support!

I you mess up & end up in jail you should be shown the error in your ways & the how/why of not repeating your mistakes.

Most criminals are victims, the crimes that have been perpetrated against them, teach the wrong lesson, that crime pays.

We should make every effort to, use our resources to keep victims from becoming victimizers!

Well said Garth -a lot of criminals are victims, but we have to start somewhere though . 'The buck stops here' sort of thing. Harsh but maybe true ? If prisons are comfy, what lesson does that give ? I've met folk straight out of prison who have been given more support than honest folk seeking work/housing etc. It's an odd world. I wish I knew the answers.

Yes, effective communication

Well Kris, Scapolie,WB, what is your plan, and how does it work? What is new or improved about it? Is not a bank card simply an electronic check? They don't use anything but cash in Iraq, and that sure works great aye!

It is better to make a standardized system work for you and yours, than it is to wish it would go away.

In such areas I want my hackers to be better than your hackers.

They don't use anything but cash in Iraq, and that sure works great aye!

As long as it's worth the metal it's made from ? Ie gold. This is a discussion to try find out , not some absolute answer forum. Bet you half a chicken, and I want 3 eggs change ! Anyway, I thought lead was the currency there.

Not much of a tourist destination and not so great for business.

Isn't finding out in science, an absolute factual answer?

In the case of politics, the skew is one of belief, and hence the confusions with integrity of belief systems with faith degenerating towards theology at its worst.

Nobody uses lead as a currency that I know of. (Of course I like lead, and want to get my hands on it to make my own batteries, sort of, well really it is poisonous, so I intend to get it in hand wearing gloves.)

Okay we can just spin our wheels to hear the sound of rubber on the road, going somewhere same as we've been, but seen some scenery, wasted some time.

Give us a break now, the control of money and violence in Iraq leaves room for improvement.

Tell you what, you go there with all your individual assets in your pocket and see if you feel safe to do some business.

There are experiments we can conduct or make note of to come to a set of conclusions. I'll not apoligize for enjoying a destination as much as the traveling to get there.

Oh, I get it you're an alchemist! Sneaky how you snuck that lead and gold thing in there.

(The lead comment was referring to bullets...)

Hi CSM.

The lead comment was refering to church roofs! At this moment in time there is a huge shortage of lead, so gangs of organized criminal have been stripping church roofs of the stuff here in the UK.

So, as Kris stated, lead is the new gold over here.

Another thing is the shortage of copper, people who go away on holiday can expect to come home and find that all of the copper piping in their house has been nicked by thieves and bandits.

Spencer.

Yes, but Kris was talking about Iraq, not the UK.

Hi Kris.

Heres something to fill your head with!!!

Our government or it's agencies has lost a huge amount of data of millions of British citizens this past year! Now it seems nobody is accoutable for these losses???

A change of goverment? Yes Yes Yes, we want a government that is accountable to it's citizens, don't you agree???

Spencer.

Wouldn't it be better to have citizens accountable for their government? I must confess my own guilt here. For a long period of time I, like many people I knew, was under the mistaken impression that our system of government in the US was so well designed that it didn't need fixing. What I did not realize was that our republic depends upon the participation of responsible citizens that are committed to maintaining the just and peaceful society we once enjoyed. I also thought that most people were like me and had no ill will towards anyone else, nor did they want to control or rule over anyone else. Was I in for a rude awakening. After spending the first several years of my adult life in this naive fog, I came to the realization that there are evil forces in this world that are out to destroy us. They are not always redily apparent. We as citizens need to work to rid our culture of the effects of these forces or reap the consequences of our apathy. I was a little late waking up to the dire situation we are in, but I am not without hope that it can be turned around if we can just get enough folks to understand what needs to be done to fix it. It's not a matter of trying to find a new way to organize our society. What we need to do is clean out the junk that has cluttered up our house. Our founders built a very good structure, but we have failed to maintain it. Many won't agree, but our country was founded on principles rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. You don't necessarily have to be a Christian to recognize the practical benefits of the principles for governing oneself and consequently one's society in general that are contained in that tradition. The idea of being responsible to your neighbor for considering the effects of your actions on his life and liberty is fundamental. Our modern culture promotes self above all else. Many have the attitude that they are accountable only to and for themselves. This is wrong! Did I just say something was "wrong"? Yes, I did. That is just one area that needs to be cleared out. We need to get back to what used to be an almost universally accepted standard of what is right and what is wrong. Everything today is subjective because there is the idea that every individual sets his own standard. Some think of freedom and liberty as "no one can tell me what to do". We have lost sight of the tremendous responsibility that comes with being free. Many want the benefits of being free, but don't want to have to pay the price. That price is constant vigilence against the forces of evil that would destroy the lives and enslave the souls of mankind.

I'm going down that road again.... suffice to say that the problem we face is deeper than just what form of societal governance we choose for ourselves. We need to recognize the characteristics of our nature, the very things that make it necessary to have a government in the first place, and begin addressing the fundamental cause of the symptoms we are attempting to deal with in creating a system of government.

Thinking along those lines, in my darker moments I sometimes wonder if we as a society are ready to govern ourselves. Would we not be better off with a governing class that can keep us on the straight & narrow without giving in to the petty whims of power? Of course, keeping that ideology "pure" would prove just as difficult as situation we face now. Maybe we can clone Thomas Jefferson and instate him as president-for-life. Okay, dark moment passed, whew! Power to the people!

Would we not be better off with a governing class that can...

I believe that they are called aristocrats. They seem to be losing popularity over the last few centuries. Especially in France.

or you can find it on you tube by typing in aristocrats/comedy

Just so...

Hi Spencer,

We can change the Government, but all those QUANGO's and the Civil Service continue.........And another one that bugs me, is why do so many seem to walk around with masses of data on laptops that they don't need to have, and then loose anyway ! CD's lost in the post - flippinn' heck what were they thinking of ? Maybe one of those nifty Government computer systems wasn't working. It's all just the tip of the iceberg.

A Good and Professional Bureaucracy is consistently required by Chiefdoms on to States.

Systems are known to prevent such losses as you note and bemoan.

As many things I have done, like getting married again, we sometimes repeat prior mistakes, and then remember why we thought better of it another time.

Bureaucrats are supposed to conform to the institutional memory and not repeat preventable mistakes.

Actually that means they are not actually supposed to think, or trust, or take things for granted but just do their prescribed job.

I am not so bady married at all, but am just sort of using the example about you forget what you did right, or did wrong after awhile, but you are not an institution.

This post is about how you are not an institution, but you may be part of an institution, and the guiding principiles of that institution are actually important for you as part of the institution are worthy of your internal and external active support if you want to be a professional bureaucrat, who we want to aspire to technocratic combined excellence in my country, transcendia.

Here perhaps ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy

I suppose their is a sort of precedent, Isaac Newton was in Charge of the Royal Mint. Trouble is that power always corrupts, and even Scientists and Engineers argue/disagree.

Hi Kris.

"Technocracy" I believe that you have hit the nail on the head with that word when it comes to our government!!!

This New Labour government seems to think that computers are God!!!!!!!!!

What they havn't realised is; "That if it's made by man, then it can be undone by man". I also agree with you on the question of these so-called Quango's.

Here where I live I belong to a group called, "The Citizens Panel", we are a group of people that help to keep the local government on the strait and narrow. Within the Dudley MBC there are 7 such groups, one for every small town or village within the borough of Dudley.

To prove to you that this really does work, we have a very low crime count, and the councillors have to watch their step if they want to overstep the mark when it comes to financing a project.

For the last five years we have won the coveted borough award for best MBC!

Consultants have to be vetted by us before they are employed by the council, then if they get the figures wrong they are held to account!!!

One of our successes was the fortnightly bin emptying proposal, we soon quashed that idiotic proposal.

I wish you a Merry Christmas, and hope that your wishes come true in the forthcomming year.

Spencer.

Hi Spencer,

That sounds really good. Total respect to those who get on top of their elected (and non elected) representatives. I haven't really got the stomach for politics, but do my own little bit in other ways at a more direct level (School PT association etc). My own area (Shepway) is a hive of bickering self-promoting pseudo polticians. Every year I get a mail box full of leaflets from each party saying how bad the others are.

Anyway, a very merry X-mas and New Year to you and yours Spencer !

I've only scanned through this thread - time is rather limited just now - but I'd like to suggest that the biggest problem in politics is set lengths of office.

In any company, no matter how long the contract is for, it can be rescinded if the employee strays from the requested aims. This is not true in politics, where only those voted in can decide when to ask the public to vote again. There needs to be a way of legally removing politicians/parties who do not meet (or try to meet) their manifesto pledges.

I would even go so far as to suggest, open ended terms for top proformers. We need better ways to feed back, a streamlined recall procedure.

Politicans are like managers w/no job descriptions, busy scurrying around trying to justify their existence! Nothing worse than having someone in charge, w/no defined task(s) & or duties.

I want fins and dual headlights!!!

Old engineering expression: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

NOW GET OUT THE DAMN MANUAL, READ IT, AND STOP USING IT LIKE A BUNCH OF MORONS!!!

Not broke eh?

Might be time for a little PM & no that doesn't involve guns or ropes.

I feel like I just let the Tasmanian devil out of his crate [you're such a trickster]

If we look at all the governments that have been created by all the countries in all the world since the beginning of time, my answer would be an empathetic "NO!"

my answer would be an empathetic "NO!"

I assure you all that Mr Vermin meant 'emphatic' and NOT 'empathetic'.

(otherwise it just wouldn't be Verminese)

Here's the corker...

"We recognize that all men are created equal..." DON'T STOP THERE YOU IDIOTS!

"We recognize that all men are created equal, in that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are the rights to LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUTE OF HAPPINESS."

I don't see how one could have said it better... Just stop quoting it out of context!!!

Thanks for the generous compliment of my parents!

You typically are an intelligent jackass, which is part of your adorable, uhmm, persona, but that bit of self righteous OPINION even surprises me.

cr3

Don't stop here folks ! I want to here interpretation of the 'right to bear arms'. Tell me, tell me ! Is it a licence to shoot us Brits/neighbours, or is it just a sun-tanning policy.

Did't listen in history class eh?

Don't you think that unrestricted and uncontrolled exchange of ideas would be dangerous?

Wouldn't it be better to have someone checking to make sure that easily influenced people are not exposed to undesirable thoughts?

Better to be safe than sorry?

I mean , just think what would happen if some one were to challenge God's word as written in the Bible? Before you know it , cats would be living with dogs, the "theory" of evolution would be taught in school, who knows where and if it would end?

What we need is effective communication of the constitution of the US and implementation of it as originally written.

I kinda like the 14^th amendment, added many years after the constitution was originally written.

That's fine it's originally written providing for adjustments made through a process of and a provision of amendments but legislating from the bench or oval office is not.

CR4 ADMIN: Deleted Post #245 - Politics/Religion: This post was deleted because it was overly religious or political.

As far as chips are concerned if implanted at birth, this would mean for those entering the Intelligence services, that the chip would need to be removed. Likely either everybody in every nation gets them, or there will be resistance. Course some will get implants voluntarily for reasons of their own, sometimes finding some of the technology valuable to them.

Where is the best place to plant a chip anyway? I suppose it might be somewhere on the back of your hand if it is to function like your wallet.

Would this mean thieves would find it profitable to cut your hand off?

When I worked on theories of government concerning Transcendia I of course wanted the ideal. So the "ideal" is all voluntary and universally well educated, and trained. In the ideal there is little real need for government since "all the people are good looking, and above average."

If some people were impossible you simply kick 'em out of the country, which shoves your born into responsibilities off the books. Once you start down the hard road of reality you find it really is hardball. In the US Federal Governmental system, I am way for use of the line item veto, but aware why it was not originally granted.

-somewhere in the archives of CR4 is a much better essay, at least as concerns the line item veto power in the hands of the President.

Somewhere as well Roberts Rules of Order has been discussed as a real lynchpin of government, as we might have it. I am fortune in some aspects of my Education for having lived and worked in Rochdale College in Toronto, along with my work at Monroe Community College. I did not complete my Associates in AV because I couldn't answer the elective History class question, "Does the Greatman make history, or does history make the Great Man." But hey I passed my Flight Written test, as an independent make up! I suppose it is my habit to get to the top, and then retire. Last entry in my logbook is a DC6.

Transcendia with a real and functioning government with Staff at least is realistic enough to know how weak it is. A Transcendian Passport is unsupported. From the beginning all Transcendians would be volunteers anyway, and ought to have another passport. So far I've made about 200 bucks from Transcendian Passport sales. Some of that period I've not had a phone. There are only about 250 Transcendian Passports printed since 1990 or so.

Somewhere along the line I discovered a serious flaw in my reasons for inventing Transcendia, in the first place. The art project was anti war, but in reality to have a real nation, one must conduct a war. What makes a real country is blood in the ground. The first responsibility of a government, is defense. The second is Education.

My friend is fond of saying that, "No nation has taxed itself to prosperity." You could as easily say, "No ignorant nation has been prosperous either." To have a perfect government, well you first do have to know what it is supposed to do. All it is really supposed to do perfectly is defend and educate. After that it is all about doing the best you can. Some Monarchs, Royal Families actually have done as good a job as some Democracies, so it is not all simple. I believe it was William James who said nothing works if you don't believe in it. I believe there is another great paragraph in his book of Harvard Lectures that speaks of how Democracy is a delicate thing.

As artists and thinkers and writers and teachers William James impresses me, partly because he himself seems to have had about as good a life as one might have.

Yah know I am for certain Certifications and found my flying adventures encouraged me to love the rules for that. You can actually fill out the application for the Transcendian Passport, but you can't get it from the site. Hardball means evidence of character. It would be unethical for me to sell a real passport to just anybody, though just anybody can buy a membership to the American Automobile Association. I suppose though at this time I am decided that we can somewhat design a better government. I have designed up to a point, one that could exist as a reality in the world.

Still what we really need to know now is; What sort of government is to be the Real World Government? We do not have near a perfect world of co-operating nations defending and educating all people from natural events, or barbarism.

The ultimate question for our time politically, is what World Government would work for everybody?