United States Needs smaller goverment

We need a new way to vote in the United States we don't need congress to vote for us anymore we need an online voting system to vote on all bills and laws in the United States by the people and only the people of the U.S.

All bills and laws should be bemade availiable to read 6 months before all votes must been in and for people who do not have online acess can go to somewhere set up by our goverment to vote for free because ever citizen has the right for his or her vote and only 1 time a year new bills and laws will be voted on with plenty of time to read and simple and easy bills not 1000 page bills no one will not want to read they will be very simple and easy to understand by all the people.

The president has to much power and the people should have that power he is just thier for show to give us his ideas nothing more we need an honest goverment not about of liars.

This is our country no one can take it from us its ours were FREE and always will be one way or another.

In the event we need to vote fast on war or other disaster we would need some kind of plan how to deal with voting or another idea how to do this fast.

Our military is more controlled by the people meaning if the president says we need to go to war or take control of a another country like Iraq we make the final decision not him.

I personally think we need to stop bullying ever country and worry about our owe country before its to late if it isn't all ready.

While you are headed in the right direction, you need to go back and study US history. The founding fathers believed in a small, limited federal government. In fact, they feared a large governement. Congressional size and Presidential power are not the problem. The problem is the great number of beauracries that have been spawned since the the turn of the last century.
Prior to Theodore Roosevelt, our federal govenment was small, representatives were chosen by citizent election and senators were appointed by state legislatures. There was no income tax.
Once the progressives came to power (T. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman), we begain moving toward big government.
We now have one of the most left leaning progressives ever elected "leading" this country. There are some true conservatives out there who are trying to take the country back. We are trying to do it through public awareness and legislative process. We only hope we aren't too late.

Originally posted by kettlebellysmith
Once the progressives came to power (T. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman), we begain moving toward big government.

It's because during the time of Teddy Roosevelt all the way up to Truman we became active on the World Stage and our nation, and the world we were taking a part in, became far more complex. Isolationism was no longer a feasible option, and the idyllic form of government we once had was no longer sufficient to do it's job in addition to all the new roles it had to undertake in the changing nation.

Change rapidly happened far faster then anyone could have anticipated and hasn't slowed down since, but rather accelerated since those times.

The problem is that government added to itself piece-meal as the needs arose, without foresight or much thought. It was a reaction rather than an action. Because of that, most of that additional government was created without proper oversight, checks and balances, and without a clear purpose when times continued to change.

Governments do need to change with the times, and as a population gets larger, those governments are bound to get larger as well. That is inevitable.

However, we do need to streamline our government with foresight of what the future may have in store for us and make it more dynamic, able to change according to needs, but with limitation and checks and balances to keep it all reasonable, efficient, and self-regulated. There is no doubt that our current government is bloated and sick and needs to lay off a few pounds by shedding some of it's weight to get better. K.I.S.S. needs to apply to our Federal governmental model.

Although I do agree with the OP that the time is right for introducing a Direct Participatory Democracy.

In my mind, the biggest problem with our government is that an elite social class has been created, a new aristocracy of life-time politicians and multi-generational politicians who lead this nation. We have allowed those elite to not only stay in power but to be corrupted by greed spread by Corporate Interests, Lobbyists and Special Interest Groups. By allowing Congress the ability to both draft the laws and vote on the laws, we have become as close to a Corporatocracy as one could possibly come. The easiest solution, to reign in Corporate power over government and make our government by the people, of the people, and for the people once again is to limit Congress to the drafting of laws, allowing the people to vote on legislation directly rather than limiting that ability to the same people who drafted those laws in their own interests. Congress can still retain it's same oversight powers over the Executive Branch, however, it is long overdue that people take back the power to pass legislation back from Congress and reserve it for the people at large, rather than the select few who serve only their own financial interests in serving the Corporations, Lobbyists and Special Interests rather than our own.

I have been saying the same thing for years.

For my part I have been ridiculed for years.


Nice to see a like mind on the issue for a change.

S&F.

I think our elected officials should not be paid more than minimum wage, and should take the form of almost a monk. to prevent any type of Corruption. This position should not be one of a career but of a Service to your country, and to its people.

And All votes should be made public and need to be backed by a certain percentage of american citizens.

hey I can dream right. I pay dream tax.

The one thing we do not need is an online voting system. Such a system would be open to hacking and manipulation. Absolutely nothing is 100% secure with online access.

With all the Chinese hackers who routinely attempt to hack U.S. military servers, the results of an online voting system would be highly suspect in my opinion. In addition, any private firm contracted to handle the votes could manipulate them.

the best way to fix our government is to return to a strict interpetation of the the constitution, and the bill of rights. the founding fathers look wiser and wiser as this gov. gets out of control.

Originally posted by Phedreus
the best way to fix our government is to return to a strict interpetation of the the constitution, and the bill of rights. the founding fathers look wiser and wiser as this gov. gets out of control.

“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”
-Lysander Spooner

The constitution had many great ideas. The problem is that a piece of paper is defenseless against the cruelty of man.

you cant. While defending the ideals of Athenian Democracy, Aristotle speculated that for proper democracy to work, every citizen was to be involved. He also speculated that democracy would only work in smaller populations where it would be possible to have everyone vote on an issue. Keep in mind the the Greek City-States like Athens had smaller populations than let say, us. Going further to the left we end up with a Rousseauian type of democracy which is complete democracy almost bordering on Anarchism which means that all sorts of government institutions would be done away with and that every member of society participate and have an equal voice in every decision. The reason such a concept would not work in our society is that we're a nation that has millions of citizens and everyone would have their own point of view that essentially would counteract each other and nothing would ever get done.

Furthermore, not all of the founding fathers wanted a small government. Have we forgotten Alexander Hamilton and his vision for our country? While Jeffersonians wanted the agrarian way of life to continue, Hamilton advocated that the U.S. concentrate on being an economic power concerned only with making wealth and emphasis on trading, essentially requiring a big Federal Government to run the country. So it's a very false assumption that the founding fathers wanted a small government. More proof can be seen that after the Revolution, the people wanted Washington to become our first King instead of our first President.

If not online, we could have up to a certain number of bills and laws allowed to vote for butter remember they will have to wait 1 year before new bills and laws will be allowed to be voted on.

All bills and laws will be online 6 months before a the vote and the goverment mails out the voting valids to all citizens or will be available to pick up at a local FED office, go online at home or libary
or place set up by goverment and fill out your votes and take it to your local townhall and go through the regular voting system.

The president would only be for his ideas for the country and dreams but the people have the final decision on the bills and laws.

As for a war or emergency and need to vote fast if we have time we could do a single vote just go to town hall and place your vote, and for emergency the miltary will automatically respond to emergency if it is in reason like 911 or Katrine. We only go to war automatically is if we are in threat or invasion.

The president should have little to no power at all any power and should be for the people and give his speeches and foriegn relations and present his bills simple and easy to read and understand no 1000 page bills, 20 pages max no provisions or fine print no hidden agendas.

Why can't the United States get it together and start being the 1 true super power it once was we need our goverment to listen to us and not make decisions behind our back, and we want full disclosure
too we want to be told everything no more lies.

reply to post by DINSTAAR


I disagree. Any constitution is only as strong as the people who support it. The framers of our constitution went to great lenghts to try and limit the powers of both the federal government and political groups. The reason our constitution has failed is simply because we allowed it to be defined as an living breathing evolving document. The framers made it difficult to change or ammend our constitution for a reason. They did not want our constitution to be mangled at every whim of congress. Alas they didnt allow for the idea that we would let our representatives deform and misinterpet, such central themes as "promote the general welfare" (as far as I can see they have simple deleted the words "promote the" and just left "general welfare"

reply to post by slipknotrules2009


just an aside. the founders of our constitution were deeply afraid of a democracy. They intentionally made our government a represenative republic for that very reason. A simple example of a democracy, 10 men one women, they vote on raping the women, democracy in action.