1. ????

2. Some days I think our Politicians should be handled like Jury duty. Random selection.

   1. I’m fine with this as long as they are taxpayers.

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   2. We need a third chamber in Congress.

      Two randomly selected registered voters (whom are not already government employees) from each state. All bills passed by the House and Senate must also win a simple majority vote from this new chamber, all votes of which are cast by secret ballot. Debate on these bills in this chamber is limited to the Representative(s) or Senator(s) who sponsored the bill, no more than sixty minutes total.

      If you can’t convince 51 randomly selected people that your law was a good idea, then it probably wasn’t.

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      1. I like it.
         A similar principle with a different answer shows up in Robert Heinlein’s idea (in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” I think) that laws should be passed with 2/3 majority, but repealed with just a 1/3 vote.
         He has some other interesting variations on the theme there as well, for example a couple of different ways to decide who should have the right to vote.

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         1. I won’t deny that Heinlein’s been a massive influence on my political and philosophical thinking. This is more or less a cross between his “House of Repeal” and William F. Buckley, Jr.’s quip that “[he] would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.”

            I’m thinking this would be an easier thing to add to our current system than to implement a wholly new legislative process.

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            1. Ish, have you read “Hope” by Smith and Zelman? (Yes, Aaron Zelman, founder of JPFO.) It’s a stand-alone novel though it’s very loosely tied to their earlier and also excellent “The Mitzvah”.

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3. “I’m Mitt John Fitzgerald McCain “Beto” Buttigieg-Kennedy, Jr. and I approved this message.”

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