“There is a way of asking us for our reasons that leads us not only to forget our best reasons but also to conceive a stubborn aversion to all reasons. This way of asking makes people very stupid and is a trick used by tyrannical people.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Gay Science,” P. 208. Note: “The Gay Science” is Philosophy.
A comprehensive approach must be used to provide an outline for honest government, and it follows.
1. Creating and Guaranteeing Honest Elections:
The Electoral Process in General
A process must be in place for peaceful, orderly, and honest elections, as well as the transfer of power. The process should be simple, and should not resemble World War II.
The following are a few requirements.
All advantages Republicans and Democrats have given themselves against potential Competition will be ended.
A. End taxpayer-funded primaries.
Political parties are private entities, not the ‘government’, and must select their candidates privately in whatever manner they choose, at their own expense.
Ending taxpayer-funded primaries will create an interesting situation. Will private political parties allow ‘absentee ballots,’ ‘early voting,’ and ‘mail-in voting,” or recognize their obvious enabling of dishonest elections? Would the Democrats retain the concept of “super-delegates’ and weighted voting?
B. All ‘ballot access’ requirements must be the same for all political parties and individuals.
They also must be reduced tremendously and quickly. Some are state, some are national, but the same procedure should apply. Reduce all requirements by 50%, 3 years in a row.
An alternative would be to require all independent candidates for an office to file nominating petitions with the names of 1,000 registered voters, acquired over the two months from May 1 to July 1, in order to qualify for ballot status.
Registered voters would be allowed to sign for more than one candidate.
Individual political parties could then set their own rules for nominating a candidate.
C. Debates
Public debate on issues should be expanded, not limited. The actions of the Republicans and the Democrats have been reprehensible. Their primary version of public policy communication consists of outright lies and the occasional resort to slander. A logical conclusion is that they have nothing worthwhile to offer on any policy issue and are afraid of any competition.
All incumbents must offer to debate their challengers. There must be at least one public debate among them in the month preceding the vote provided their challenger’s accept.
Unless the challenger(s) refuse to debate, failure to do so will result in the elimination of that party’s candidate for that office until the next election.
Everyone satisfying ballot access requirements will be eligible to be included in state and local debates. Presidential debates will include all candidates eligible to receive enough Electoral Votes to win the presidency will be included. A candidates’ “standing in the polls” is irrelevant.
The reliance on ‘polls’ displays the shallow level of public debate in this country. You can get any result you want from a poll, depending on how you frame the question. (Also, most people refuse to respond.)
D. The Electoral College and State’s Rights must be preserved. This is also important for honest elections.
E. “Absentee Voting”, “Early Voting” and “Mail-In Votes”
“Sixteen years ago, in 2005, the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform issued a report that proposed a uniform system of requiring a photo ID in order to vote in U.S. elections. The report also pointed out that widespread absentee voting makes fraud more likely. Voter files contain ineligible, duplicate, fictional, and deceased voters, a fact more easily exploited using absentee voters to commit fraud. Citizens who vote absentee are more susceptible to pressure and intimidation. And vote-buying schemes are far easier when citizens vote by mail. The committee’s two ranking members were former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker III, a Republican.” – John R. Lott, “Is Ensuring Election Integrity Anti-Democratic”, Imprimis, October 2021, p.1
That common sense outlook has now been turned on its head. The political establishment has been working hard to create DISHONEST ELECTIONS. Their actions must be countered.
A Picture ID should be necessary to vote.
For example, a picture ID is currently necessary to purchase the allergy pill Claritin. (purchases are also limited to a maximum of 15 at a time). Displaying a picture ID takes no time at all.
The vote would occur on one day only.
The only citizens entitled to an absentee ballot should be active duty military personnel.
If someone wants to spend November in Florida but vote in New York, they will have to return to New York to do so.
“Vote Chaos” in New York
“It wasn’t just Brooklyn voters who received absentee envelopes with the wrong name and address on them-hundreds of voters on Long Island were affected as well. Now New York has to resend more than 100,000 ballots before the election.” – New York Post, Page 1, October 1, 2020.
F. Cleaning Voter Rolls and addressing Mail-in Voting
Judicial Watch has been actively doing both. The August, 2020 “Verdict”, among other months of this publication, details much that they have done, including suing California Governor Gavin Newsom for violating the State Constitution.
The January, 2021 issue of “The Verdict” reported that Judicial Watch found 353 counties in 29 states with Voter Registration Rates over 100%. Fourteen other states either don’t post voter registration data online at all or don’t post enough information to determine registration rates compared to the general population.
G. End Gerrymandering /
Unnecessary Re-Districting
Districts should be based on easily recognized geography. Population density is a secondary consideration. Party registration should not figure in the process at all. The Motor Voter laws can stay, as long as no party registration occurs at the same time. The concept of government agencies collecting party registration information must end. Registering with a political party, or no political party at all, must become a purely private decision.
Once this has been done successfully, there will rarely be a need to re-draw districts unless there is a major earthquake, or if part of the earth falls into the sea.
The starting point will be the current districts.
2. Procedural Changes for
Operation of a Government
A comprehensive approach to problems from a free market perspective will go a long way to countering this.
Addressing elected officials and voting on issues once elected.
You recall the absurd number of times and number of co-sponsors Ron Paul needed to bring End the Fed and related issues to a discussion and votes. This type of thing happens all the time, and it happens at the national and state level.
A few suggestions follow to change this:
A. Any item brought up by a member must be discussed and voted on in the current session, within reason.
B. Exactly One co-sponsor will be required to bring this about.
C. Members can only vote on an issue if they certify, under penalty of perjury, that they have read the bill in its entirety before casting their vote. A member can vote ‘present’ if they haven’t read the bill in its entirety.
They can also ask for a one week postponement votes.
D. End Filibusters.
Any member will be able to simply ask to postpone a vote for a reasonable time to allow more discussion. One week, for example.
The focus should be on addressing issues, not avoiding them.
3. Campaign Finance
Incumbents will only be permitted to raise money for one year before a vote for re-election will occur. Currently, they raise money every day of the year.
Any money left over after the election must be dispersed. This can be given to anyone they see fit to disperse it to, with the exception of members of their family. Dispersal will not count as a charitable contribution.
Any individual will be permitted to donate any amount of money to any candidate they choose.
Keep in mind that the major political reform to come out of Watergate was to create campaign finance restrictions in order to make sure that a Eugene McCarthy would never again be allowed to challenge the establishment candidate.
Conclusion:
The hindering of ballot access is the largest problem in the political process, and it must be addressed.
The proper and necessary response is to call for a boycott of all Republican and Democrat candidates, at least until or unless ballot access problems are properly addressed.
After that, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to find any reason to vote for one of their candidates. Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party will be addressing issues in detail.
The Republicans and Democrats have nothing positive to offer. The country is $40 trillion in debt, a number that is expanding by $2 trillion plus per year. They have no plans to address this issue.
The U.S. has bombed 32 countries without a declaration of war since the end of World War II. This is more than one-third of the people on Earth.
And World War II, it should be pointed out, ended when the United States government committed the biggest war crime in the history of the universe, the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese civilian centers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No one has ever been held accountable for this atrocity.