Limited government?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2004-06-14 03:59pm

Could it work if government was segregated into separate congresses, each for a vastly smaller purpose? For instance, we have things like the FCC, FDA, etc. Should each of those organizations have a congress set aside for them, where only people familiar with the part of life (communications and technology, food and drug, etc) could legislate therein, without a single major congress making all the laws? Would it be safer to have minicongresses where only the knowledged and informed could make decisions rather than highly opinionated but very ignorant people also being able to vote? Or is the nature of democracy to allow the stupid and ignorant to voice their misguided opinions regardless of how harmful they may be?

I could see certain benefits: Better, more rational laws being made based a whole heck of a lot more on the real facts. Also, the process of making laws would, overall, be sped up because you'd have multiple houses all working simultaneously passing laws in parallel, and maybe made up of fewer people.

What other benefits could you find? And what flaws are there?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2004-06-14 04:00pm

Note: The congresses would still be elected, but the ability to run for a seat in a given congress would require a certain degree from uni, or a certain amount of experience.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-06-14 04:08pm

Just on the elections:

Understand that people in general are lazy and stupid. The numbers of people voting for presidential elections are abysmal. Off-years are typically half that. You wouldn't have many people voting for these congresses, and even if you did stick them on a long ballot and got people to show up, a lot of times the people who vote for the big ticket things on the top (governor, senator, etc) don't go all the way to the county commissioner and other things like that on the bottom. Having multiple technocrat congresses will probably then mean that they're elected by small handfuls of people.

Not to mention that the government is damned bloated already with just one congress. It'd be a bureaucratic red-tape nightmare on par with Brazil just to keep each congress from fighting and contradicting the other ones.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-06-14 05:24pm

Koji, agencies like the FCC and FDA are already given quite a bit of freedom by Congress to independently create their own regulations, which basically will have the same effect as legislation. You could almost consider the federal bureaucracy the fourth branch of the U.S. government.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2004-06-14 05:49pm

Many of the already existing committees become hijacked by special interests, despite their supposed government oversight. One example is in interstate trade. For years, freight trains were not permitted to lower their prices to compete with trucking, despite their costs decreasing as engines became more efficient and more powerful. Thus, we have the situation now, where for any cargo traveling more than 100 miles, trains are cheaper than trucks. Despite this, 97% of all cargo traveling by truck travels over 100 miles, meaning that all that cargo is shipped in an inefficient manner. To permit such special groups to oversee themselves would only tend to perpetuate and increase such abuses of power.

Symmetry · Post by **Symmetry** » 2004-06-14 09:17pm

We need a scheme to create new congresses and merge or get rid of existing ones first. Also, given how limited the public's attention span is this would probably be a lot more appropriate in a demarchy than a democracy.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-06-14 09:24pm

Actually, what we really need is a President willing to gut the beaucracy and able to be elected without pandering to special interests.

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2004-06-14 09:52pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Actually, what we really need is a President willing to gut the beaucracy and able to be elected without pandering to special interests.

But how's he gonna get elected? This ain't the Old Republic...

Son of the Suns · Post by **Son of the Suns** » 2004-06-15 03:09pm

N&P subject.

Damn people!

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2004-06-15 06:09pm

Xenophobe3691 wrote:But how's he gonna get elected? This ain't the Old Republic...

Explain the old republic remark..

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-06-15 06:16pm

kojikun wrote:
Xenophobe3691 wrote:But how's he gonna get elected? This ain't the Old Republic...
Explain the old republic remark..

Watch Episode 1 and 2 of Star Wars.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-06-15 07:18pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Actually, what we really need is a President willing to gut the beaucracy and able to be elected without pandering to special interests.

*raises hand*

If one can relate to the people, they will elect you.

"Look, I am not a career politician. This is the first office I have run for since student council"

Being honest will help

"Those other men in this debate are lying to you, flat out lying. This is what causes inflation*stuff* and here are my references*nobel lauretes* "

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2004-06-15 07:24pm

I doubt it'll help government if you created an even bigger bureaucratic monster to control the current one.