America Fulfilling Its Promise – Section III, Envisioning Who We are as a Beacon, Part III, Our Representative Government

 

By no stretch of the imagination do we have a representative government – – a Republic. And, we desperately need one.

Let’s dream a little –

The two party system is not working – Neither party has a clear vision – Both are more loyal to party than country – Both are more wedded to ideology than to the implementation of the promise of this country.

  • Neither is “representative” of anything other than itself – if that.
  • Neither “looks like” our country in gender, color, education/vocation or beliefs.
  • There is nothing that is “representative” in DC.

Let’s dream a little and see what might be fairly more “representative.” But first, let’s challenge some of the unspoken “beliefs” that underlie what we have.

  • That the people we have elected in the past should be the ones that are “elected.” Maybe this should be the main criteria for who not to elect!
  • That the electoral college represents the USA.

Wrong! Two national elections this century have proved that.

  • That to be a leader in the USA, one needs to be Ivy League-educated and preferably from the East.

Wrong! – This is too close to the assumptions and beliefs that are what our founders were trying to escape from.

  • That a law degree or business or military service should be what defines our leaders.

Wrong – their values and experience may be skewed and anything but “representative” of the changing face of the USA.

Whoever thought opposing parties and dualistic beliefs were a good idea anyway?

  • We are much too important to be broken down in a simple, ideological dualisms.
  • * When you don’t know what to do and your experience is that what you came from wasn’t working,  just go ahead and set up the old model anyway –

It’s safer – – right?

Wrong!

What would happen if the people who went to Washington to represent us – all of us – were not politicians and really represented the people of this nation in the most basic ways possible and were not ideologically bound.

I have been sitting with this idea for some time. How can we come as close as we can to a true representative government? We certainly have not done very well.

The clearest two party split which is really a three party split is by gender (our founders would never have thought about that!)

  • What if we split not into Democrats and Republicans and we broke into Males, Females, Others and had a percentage from each group that reflected that ratio in each state?
  • What if each group was numerically represented in DC?
  • What if everyone was strongly encouraged to attend these selection rallies and those who really wanted to go to DC were given the least weight in the decision.
  • What if the groups agreed upon “represented” their ratio in that state in terms of number of women, men, mixed-education, lifestyle – social class – and type of work.
  • What if we had a government that truly represented the rainbow that we are?
  • What if we had more women (51% at least) in DC representing us than white men?
  • What if we had input from all levels of education? Some of the wisest people I have met have been the least educated and often have had a great deal to teach me – if I could hear it. (I have two doctorates – not from Ivy League schools!)

What if we did not lie to ourselves or others about our trying out a representative government?

And, what if our President was elected by a majority of the people in the US? We could LIVE our principles. We could operationalize our principles. Our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution can be understood by any educated person and we would have public education for all. It has been when more and more lawyers have become involved that our “laws” have become more complex. Just think about it. What if we actually tried what we said we were going to do?!

One thought on “America Fulfilling Its Promise – Section III, Envisioning Who We are as a Beacon, Part III, Our Representative Government

Leave a Reply