Simple Answers to Complex Problems -Political Solutions for a divided world

[PleaseBlitz]

1 minute ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

What would be a better way?  Elected politicians appointing them doesn’t seem to be working out too great.

It works much better in most cases. Not necessarily “great” but much better. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

1 minute ago, PleaseBlitz said:

It works much better in most cases. Not necessarily “great” but much better. 

Based on experience, I’ll defer to you though I don’t understand why it is better.  Can you expand on that a little?  Honestly, my opinion on judges mainly relates to SCOTUS.

[skinsmarydu]

3 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

It works much better in most cases. Not necessarily “great” but much better. 

I've noticed those on my ballots, and I've always left those blank because I know absolutely zilch about the court system in my county (and I want to keep it that way). 

 

[tshile]

7 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

What would be a better way?  Elected politicians appointing them doesn’t seem to be working out too great.

So, I don’t know the names for all the organizations, so I’ll sound stupid but hopefully you’ll understand what I’m saying or someone else can add on in an intelligent manner…

 

watching the reviews of law licenses for the people pushing the big lie stuff… recalling ratings of various judges during the trump era (I recall multiple receiving a grade of “unqualified”)…

 

there absolutely exists organizations that seem to do a good job of grading and evaluating people’s abilities to be lawyers/judges or their actions. They seem, based on what I’ve seen, to do a good job. Something like that would be better. 
 

obviously every system can be gamed so I won’t pretend it’s the best solution forever, or doesn’t need some additional things added to prevent gaming. But, that would be an idea. 
 

Let them pick. Require a candidate to receive a certain grade. Etc. 

 

but right now we get bad people when we elect a bad person and they get the chance to fill the seat. Shifting to elections would just cut out the middle man and make every seat open to being filled by a bad person because we have moronic voting base. 

5 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Based on experience, I’ll defer to you though I don’t understand why it is better.  Can you expand on that a little?  Honestly, my opinion on judges mainly relates to SCOTUS.

Federal judges are just as important. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

2 minutes ago, tshile said:

Federal judges are just as important. 

Oh no doubt.  I just don’t know as much about them because SCOTUS gets the most coverage.  

[tshile]

10 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Oh no doubt.  I just don’t know as much about them because SCOTUS gets the most coverage.  

Right. I recall at least 2 or 3 times a Trump appointment to a federal judgeship was rated as “unqualified”

 

I believe they were basically forced to withdraw because there was overwhelming media coverage about how awful of a pick it was. 
 

 

[goskins10]

Great idea by the way. Love this type of thing.   I have several - well a laundry list but will keep it to my top half dozen. 

 

I agree about the Filibuster in terms of 40 votes needed and I would also add the requirement to get your ass up there and talk. It's too easy right now to abuse so fix that do not get rid of it. 

 

I like the budget idea but you need to address the debt ceiling. You could; write the budget so the debt ceiling goes up based on the budget, not a certain number. In other words if the current budget has deficit spending of X built in - as all budgets do now - the debt limit automatically goes up that amount. No keeping them separate. 

 

I saw bring judges up - no lifetime appointments for federal judges. Give them all terms. Something like 6yrs for all but SCOTUS which would be 10 yrs. I am sorry but these lifetime appointments are not value added. Not to be morbid but these rules were made when people didn't much live past 60. Now people are living to 80 or 90. 30+ yrs is too long. 

 

Gun control - make it work like car licenses and insurance. You can get a license for a certain category of gun - get it with some verified and certified training based on the type of gun. A hand gun would have less rigorous training than say a semi-automatic riffle (not suggesting these be the categories as I admittedly do not know enough to make that call, so it's just an example). Then each gun must be registered and carry insurance in case it's used to commit a crime.

 

Voters Rights - I have no problem with voter ID, but lets get back to it being as simple as a water bill or other utility. And make it same day. Mail in voting would not require a reason. But still need to have some kind of verification - but again a water bill or electric bill would be fine. Still need to address the homeless. Not sure I have a quick solution there. 

 

[steve09ru]

Zero party system.  All independent and people actually vote one substance rather that political affiliation.  There’s so many Democrats and Republicans who agree on certain topics or portions of topics but it’s always a challenge because your party leader and party members may not like it so you cave to those. 

[PleaseBlitz]

46 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Based on experience, I’ll defer to you though I don’t understand why it is better.  Can you expand on that a little?  Honestly, my opinion on judges mainly relates to SCOTUS.

Do you want a judge deciding cases based on the law, or based on what will get them reelected?

[PleaseBlitz]

1 hour ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Oh no doubt.  I just don’t know as much about them because SCOTUS gets the most coverage.  

 

There is also a bias that comes from watching the one President we've ever had that cravenly and repeatedly nominated SCOTUS judges purely based on politics and nominate federal judges who are entirely unqualified for the same reason.  Trump is (and hopefully always will be) an outlier.  

[TheGreatBuzz]

2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Do you want a judge deciding cases based on the law, or based on what will get them reelected?

Obviously law.  But we have a million examples of appointed judges making decisions that don’t seem to be based on the law.  I don’t see how not electing them changes anything.  Again, I’ll defer to your experience but would appreciate a short explanation.

[NoCalMike]

The "keep more of your own money" con is something that sounds great on the surface, but in reality what it means is, take home more of your paycheck on the front end, but the services you need cost way more on the back end so you end up not really "keeping more of your own money" it just means your paycheck itself might have a bigger number on it initially. 

 

The same thing about the big vs small government argument.  Smaller government sounds great, and I think we all agree that there will always be places and orgs that can be audited and reduced when appropriate, but common sense and logic says that the reason the gov't has grown is because the population has grown and it takes more resources to run these agencies and new problems come up through the years that the private sector either isn't willing to spend the time & money to fix, or are outright trying to game the system and the people and need oversight.

 

Too many people in this country allow themselves to not really look at policy details and what it means versus just blindly following slogans and carefully concocted ideals. 

 

Until you can get money out of the equation in every way possible, then you will continually run into the situation we have now with the infrastructure bill where Sinema and Manchin are literally going back and forth between The Whitehouse and donors in order to figure out how to proceed.    If your main objective once in office is to figure out how to stay in office, then your allegiance is always going to be those who help you stay in office and because running campaigns are expensive, you will be in debt to those who fund your campaigns at all times. 

[PleaseBlitz]

13 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Obviously law.  But we have a million examples of appointed judges making decisions that don’t seem to be based on the law.  I don’t see how not electing them changes anything.  Again, I’ll defer to your experience but would appreciate a short explanation.

 

One answer is that elections provide the opportunity for special interest to buy a judge's holding on their specific issue, while appointing judges only allows the appointer to select someone likely to rule in agreement with them on most issues.  Another answer is that elections give an opportunity for judge's to be attacked for making unpopular rulings, even if they are in the interest of justice.  Another reason is that elected judges are more likely to side with corporate interests over individuals, since corporations are more likely to bankroll their campaigns.  Another reason is that elections happen often, whereas appointments generally have very long terms, which theorectically should cause that judge to be much more independent and much less partisan.  See Roberts, John.  

 

Certainly the increase partisanship of our politics recently decreases the difference between elections and appointments, but just because it's less better doesn't mean it's not still better.  

 

Here is an explainer from a civil rights organization:  https://www.lambdalegal.org/justice-out-of-balance/judicial-elections

 

Here is a clip from a HBO show:

 

 

 

Edit:  These are great questions and I'm glad you care enough to ask them.  Sorry I had short answers yesterday, work was off the rails.  

Edited September 30, 2021 by PleaseBlitz

[bearrock]

In an ideal world, you would want an appointed independent judiciary, who's then held accountable by a responsive flexible legislative branch, routinely overriding rulings that doesn't mesh with popular will, all overseen by an electorate that doesn't view the Constitution that was written a few hundred years ago as handed down from Mt. Sinai etched in stone tablets.

 

Sadly, US has grown accustomed to using the judiciary, especially SCOTUS, as societal tie breaker and a convenient political scapegoat.  

 

And while appointed judiciary still has issues with judges who make rulings with an eye on external factors (such as potential appellate bench nomination), it's better than an elected judge imo.  It shocked me to learn when I was pro hac vice in a Nevada case that counsels, especially big firms, routinely make campaign contribution to the judge presiding their case.  Then judges are to exercise their own independent discretion as to whether a campaign contribution would unduly interfere with the exercise of impartial administration of justice.  Guess how many judges recuse themselves over campaign contributions.

[Cooked Crack]

 

1 We're literally staring at a man made recession because of this dumb rule.

[The Sisko]

On 9/27/2021 at 6:48 PM, TMK9973 said:

Have you ever noticed that when online - Any debate on Politics sooner or later end up just repeating the same talking points of elected leaders from both major parites?

 

However - When talking 1 on 1 with a friend IN PERSON who is on "The other side" very often you all find common ground and then move on?

My take - there are 330 million Americans - but Ideas for solutions seem to only come from a few hundred, maybe thousands (If you include think tanks).  But Many great, compromisable ideas, are out there. But they are NOT making it up to the right people.

 

What are you simple, but good ideas that can move us forward again?

 

I'll start with my 2. 1 simple, 1 not so simple.

 

1 -Filibuster.  There is not doubt that the Filibuster is now being abused and is now being used to require 60 votes for ANYTHING.  IT was never suppose to be that. IT was a quirk in the rules that in theory - the minority party could use on the most extreme laws and positions of the majority party.  Today- because its easier (you don't need to do a talking filibuster anymore) its used for everything. At some point, I'll go over all my ideas to fix congress (I got lots!  ) but for now - I think we could fix just this one.

I don't want to vote to remove the filibuster because the result would be a consistent battle to pass and repeal laws every time the majority changed.  So I think the filibuster is a good tool, just abused.

So here is my simple change.

Require 40 votes to continue the filibuster.  

You may be thinking, that's the rule now. But its not.  The rule todays is you need 60 votes to END a filibuster. But that is reverse.  I think the last big bill to die in the filibuster with a vote was the bipartisan bill to investigate Jan 6th.  died with it was 54 to 35 to end the filibuster.  5 votes short of the 40 you would need if my idea passed.  Would there have been another 5 senators that would have shown up to vote against the investigation? We will never know.  Change the "burdon" and lets see what happens.

 

Next one -Will be a little more controversy.

2- Voting rights and Gun rights - look.  I support gun bills and voting rights. HOWEVER the other side has a point.  Gun rights are in the constitutional and we have to be careful about how we limit constitutional rights.  I also support easy voting for more voting - but try as I might, somethings like Voter ID laws, dont really bother me (Except in places that pass voter ID then limit the type of ID). Here is my simple bill.  Tie voting and gun rights together.

Same day registration for voting? Then Same day registration for a gun.

No pre registration needed for gun? Then no pre registration needed for Voting.

3 day limit to be approved to purchase a gun or you are able to purchase it? Then 3 day limit on how long it must take to be approved to vote.

I could go on and on. But BOTH are constitutional rights.   BOTH have limits (Felons, non citizens have their rights limited).  So tie them together. This will make places like Texas and GA rethink what voting limitations they are willing to do, while it will also limit some states on what gun laws they pass.

 

 

Ok -your turn. What are some simple answers for complex problems??

I've had exactly the same thought about tying voting and gun rights together. It makes too much sense and the politicians wouldn't get nearly as much $$$ from the NRA, among others. However, I think the reverse of that could work, i.e. blue states could start implementing similar BS laws used to deny women abortions. Of course the garbage SCOTUS wouldn't have any compunctions about ruling against them even though doing so would contradict prior ruling(s).

 

On 9/28/2021 at 11:08 AM, Dan T. said:

Regarding the filibuster, I agree with those who say to revert it back to its original format.  Put the burden of time and effort back on those employing it so that it is used more judiciously.

Pretty sure that's why the minimum age for Senators was set at 30. The founding fathers must have figured that having older Senators would limit filibusters due to the growing prostate effect.

 

Finally, I have a couple of other ideas that would never fly because they make too much sense. First, companies shouldn't be "people" too, as RMoney put it. It gives them too many rights that make them even more powerful than their money already does. Second, all campaign contributions should be outlawed. All candidates should get a set, equal amount of public funding for their campaigns. Sorry but giving money to candidates isn't "speech". It's just not.

Edited October 9, 2021 by The Sisko

[Renegade7]

We need to start taxing the **** out of megachurches

 

 

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

On 9/29/2021 at 4:48 PM, steve09ru said:

Zero party system.

I hate political parties so I get where you’re coming from. The issue with this though is that the way our constitution is written, this would almost certainly render nearly every presidential election irrelevant and the house would usually end up deciding who the president is.

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Springfield]

No political ads allowed on TV, radio, internet or any other media. I’ll take my Nobel peace prize now.

[China]

3 hours ago, Springfield said:

No political ads allowed on TV, radio, internet or any other media. I’ll take my Nobel peace prize now.

 

I'll go further.  No political campaigning until 3 months prior to the election date.  Politicians shouldn't be perpetually campaigning, they should be governing.

[balki1867]

Ranked voting with instant runoff would address 90+% of the issues we see in the current political system.  For those who don't know, the way it works is that you can have any number of candidates and each voter ranks them all from 1 (most preferred) to N (least preferred).  When the votes are counted, all of the votes initially are cast for the #1 candidate from each voter.  Then the lowest vote-getter is dropped from the tally and all of those voters #2 votes are counted.  This is continued (the lowest candidate dropped, and the voters' next ranked choice counted) until one candidate crosses  50%.  The state of Maine and IEEE already use this as their process so there are proof points that it works.  This accomplishes a few things:

 

1) Negative campaigning will largely go away.  Each candidate will have their devotees, however they will be incentivized to form coalitions and co-campaign with other candidates because they want to be ranked high on those voters' lists

2) Third parties will get a boost.  If you're a staunch green or libertarian, you can still vote for your party without throwing your vote away. You'll make a mark by showing your party got 14% (or whatever) in the first count, but ultimately, your vote will still support a meaningful candidate in the election

 

We'd still have other things to clean up (namely how to clean up the electoral college loophole for when any candidate fails to get 270 votes) but this would introduce a ton of civility back into politics IMO.

[NoCalMike]

On the minimum/living wage debate.  I really wish in the future the argument would move away from fixating on a dollar amount and more coming up with a clear definition of what minimum wage is/what it should provide an individual.  Once you do that, it becomes easy to figure out what it would required to be in order to fund said things.  I could even be open to a regional minimum wage where it goes by the local cost of living expenses.  Not sure if it would by state, city, or county, but I think the problem with fixating on a dollar amount has always been that when the price of everything rises over the course of a decade or more, without the minimum wage being adjusted as well, we end up back at square one debating the same thing over again.  Come up with a clearly defined purpose, leaning towards what was said when it was originally signed into law, and design the entire thing around maintaining that principle value. 

[hockeysc23]

As a mostly lurker this topic was very intriguing. I love the term limits etc. 

 

One area I’d love to see. Reward government savings versus spending. The use it or lose it mentality leads to terrible purchasing at the end of the FY. It doesn’t work for every branch but for many If there was an encouragement to save (ease of role over, bonuses for staff for being diligent with tax payer dollars, etc,) it would make a big difference. 
 

In general the government spending and budgeting process is a disaster and encourages the wrong behavior. 
 

In addition, any government contracting officer must work in the private industry at least 2 years so they understand what the impacts of their decisions and actions are. 

[China]

On 9/27/2021 at 6:48 PM, TMK9973 said:

Have you ever noticed that when online - Any debate on Politics sooner or later end up just repeating the same talking points of elected leaders from both major parites?

 

However - When talking 1 on 1 with a friend IN PERSON who is on "The other side" very often you all find common ground and then move on?

My take - there are 330 million Americans - but Ideas for solutions seem to only come from a few hundred, maybe thousands (If you include think tanks).  But Many great, compromisable ideas, are out there. But they are NOT making it up to the right people.

 

What are you simple, but good ideas that can move us forward again?

 

I'll start with my 2. 1 simple, 1 not so simple.

 

1 -Filibuster.  There is not doubt that the Filibuster is now being abused and is now being used to require 60 votes for ANYTHING.  IT was never suppose to be that. IT was a quirk in the rules that in theory - the minority party could use on the most extreme laws and positions of the majority party.  Today- because its easier (you don't need to do a talking filibuster anymore) its used for everything. At some point, I'll go over all my ideas to fix congress (I got lots!  ) but for now - I think we could fix just this one.

I don't want to vote to remove the filibuster because the result would be a consistent battle to pass and repeal laws every time the majority changed.  So I think the filibuster is a good tool, just abused.

So here is my simple change.

Require 40 votes to continue the filibuster.  

You may be thinking, that's the rule now. But its not.  The rule todays is you need 60 votes to END a filibuster. But that is reverse.  I think the last big bill to die in the filibuster with a vote was the bipartisan bill to investigate Jan 6th.  died with it was 54 to 35 to end the filibuster.  5 votes short of the 40 you would need if my idea passed.  Would there have been another 5 senators that would have shown up to vote against the investigation? We will never know.  Change the "burdon" and lets see what happens.

 

Next one -Will be a little more controversy.

2- Voting rights and Gun rights - look.  I support gun bills and voting rights. HOWEVER the other side has a point.  Gun rights are in the constitutional and we have to be careful about how we limit constitutional rights.  I also support easy voting for more voting - but try as I might, somethings like Voter ID laws, dont really bother me (Except in places that pass voter ID then limit the type of ID). Here is my simple bill.  Tie voting and gun rights together.

Same day registration for voting? Then Same day registration for a gun.

No pre registration needed for gun? Then no pre registration needed for Voting.

3 day limit to be approved to purchase a gun or you are able to purchase it? Then 3 day limit on how long it must take to be approved to vote.

I could go on and on. But BOTH are constitutional rights.   BOTH have limits (Felons, non citizens have their rights limited).  So tie them together. This will make places like Texas and GA rethink what voting limitations they are willing to do, while it will also limit some states on what gun laws they pass.

 

 

Ok -your turn. What are some simple answers for complex problems??

 

On 9/28/2021 at 11:08 AM, Dan T. said:

Regarding the filibuster, I agree with those who say to revert it back to its original format.  Put the burden of time and effort back on those employing it so that it is used more judiciously.

 

On 9/28/2021 at 5:49 PM, PeterMP said:

Filibuster to me is the easy one.  Go back to what it actually was.

 

You want to Filibuster.  Great get up there and talk and keep talking.

 

On 9/28/2021 at 6:41 PM, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Changing the filibuster back to its original state and earmarks sound good to me. 1 year term limits for president sounds good to me, but it should be 6-10 years. 4 years isn’t enough Time, especially if Congress is in office for 6 years.

 

The Senate Has Forfeited Its Right to Exist

 

You know your country is in a bad way when you’ve developed a sort of hierarchy of the awfulness of mass shootings, depending on the location and the number and identity of the victims. It’s safe to say the worst of all happen in an elementary school. The Sandy Hook massacre was a special kind of horror that transfixed the nation for days, and now so is Uvalde, Texas, where a lone gunman butchered 19 children and two adults in a local school on Tuesday.

 

In response, some senators proposed a vote on a background check bill that has passed the House several times, most recently last March. The swing Democratic votes in the Senate leaped into action to clarify that nothing of the sort would be done. Reached by reporters at the Capitol asking if he would support ending the Senate filibuster to clear the way for the bill, Joe Manchin refused, insisting, “The filibuster is the only thing that prevents us from total insanity.” Kyrsten Sinema concurred, telling reporters that she doesn’t think “D.C. solutions are realistic here.”

 

The Senate leadership barely even pretended to try to force their hands by scheduling a vote. Instead, senators are reportedly going on their Memorial Day recess. It’s a broken, worthless institution.

 

Now, as my colleague David Dayen writes, the background check measure under consideration probably would not do much to curb mass shootings. This particular one was committed by an 18-year-old with no criminal record, so he would not have been stopped. On the other hand, as I have previously argued, there is good evidence that even a package of fairly modest reforms—more rigorous and quick national background checks, plus waiting periods, age limits, restrictions on guns shows, and so on—would make a reasonable dent in gun violence if taken together. Many crimes are committed impulsively; it stands to reason that making it harder and slower to obtain a gun would make some difference, even if much more aggressive policy would obviously be warranted.

 

It’s worth mentioning that in a 2019 poll, 57 percent of Americans favored banning semiautomatic guns altogether—a legitimately bold measure that would make a big dent in gun violence.

 

At any rate, whatever gun control policy we might want will have to get through the Senate. That will be absolutely impossible unless the filibuster is abolished. Republicans will never, ever do anything of their own accord, and given the chamber’s increasing bias toward rural, disproportionately white states, Democrats will be very lucky to maintain 50 votes in the chamber, let alone 60.

 

The only way to get actual bipartisan action on gun violence is by abolishing the filibuster. A couple of Republican senators have expressed support for some modest gun control, and several more might jump on board if some legislation were actually going to pass. But so long as it’s possible for Republicans to bottle up President Biden’s agenda, humiliate his party, and demoralize liberal voters by blocking all normal legislation, they are going to do it. They’ve been doing it for 15 years straight.

 

All this should be obvious to any bright nine-year-old, which is part of why Manchin and Sinema’s knee-jerk defense of the filibuster is so incomprehensible. Just in its basic structure, the Senate is already a gross affront to basic democratic principles of “one person, one vote” and governments “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” But because of a stupid rules change in 1805 that accidentally created an infinite debate loophole, which has been progressively more and more ruthlessly exploited, senators representing just 11 percent of the population today can block any normal legislation.

 

The Senate’s hollow slogan is that it’s the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” but it is not even a deliberative body. Debates or even short arguments virtually never happen there, and those that do never affect legislative outcomes. 

 

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