Robert, You complain about the dominance of money?? How about adding a way to cap the compounding of unearned income somewhere below infinity.? I can only model the negative image of that, what can't happen if that's not done, though. Very few people are exploring the consequences of making money finite and sustainable that way.
Phil From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Cordingley Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 3:26 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance Someone wanted to know what we could do. Well, to break the connection between money and power which I think is a core problem, nationwide, I'd start with: Influence peddling: * Ban all Special Interest Groups. Elected officials will have to listen to their electorate for guidance. SIGs limit freedom of speech of the person in the street and are non-democratic so can be declared unconstitutional. * Ban jiggory-pokery with redistricting, use geography and population densities * Eliminate term limits: find a good guy keep a good guy, vote the others out. * Require Federal funding of campaigns (as has been suggested) and State * Reduce the number of elected officials to those that count for political purposes: make the rest civil service career positions appointed by non-partisan processes. You are a Judge because you know the law not the power brokers. You are a Chief of Police because you've achieved great crime reduction goals etc. Side benefit: short ballot papers and elections are more relevant to the voter. On voting rights and polling * Register everyone to vote when they get a driving license. You drive a lethal weapon: you vote. You vote in the district of your current DL address. OR * Register everyone to vote when they submit their tax return. You file taxes: you vote. You vote in the district of your current tax return. * Registered party members are not allowed to vote in primaries of other parties. Unregistered party members voting in primaries of a party become registered in that party for the next x months. * Make it illegal not to vote, punishable with $50 fine or, give everyone $50 when they vote. The rich can afford not to vote. * Use school bus routes and drivers to get everyone that has no transport to the polls. Make polling-day a day-off-school or on a weekend. Use schools as polling stations - give everyone one regular school meal for their time and their voting receipt! Side benefit: all parents see something about the local schools. * Open and close polling stations at the same universal time, for one 24 hour period. * Make it illegal for polling officials to be party officials. and it probably goes on ... We might need a national voter registration database (ooooo...tricky) and way more cooperation between different arms of government than we probably now have (ever more tricky). Quick questions: What political animal does this make me? How do I get started? Can someone model all this to see if it would make a difference? Robert C
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