Comment by pc86
7 hours ago
The problem is that "the authoritarians" (read: almost every politician at every level of government, but a drastically increasing percentage the higher you go) only need to get something passed once then it is there forever.
Every law should have an automatic sunset period of 1-10 years that requires it to pass the entire legislative process again, or at least both full chambers + signing.
Increasingly wishing for this from a fictional constitutional convention:
> I note one proposal to make this Congress a two-house body. Excellent — the more impediments to legislation the better. But, instead of following tradition, I suggest one house of legislators, another whose single duty is to repeal laws. Let the legislators pass laws only with a two-thirds majority... while the repealers are able to cancel any law through a mere one-third minority. Preposterous? Think about it. If a bill is so poor that it cannot command two-thirds of your consents, is it not likely that it would make a poor law? And if a law is disliked by as many as one-third is it not likely that you would be better off without it?
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress
Add money to politics - more accurately add even more money to politics - and see how this works out.
>Increasingly wishing for this from a fictional constitutional convention:
There's an interesting, one-time shakeup that we could actually accomplish. While it's true that there will never again be another constitutional amendment... there's already one out there that will never expire, partially ratified. Completely beyond Congress's ability to rescind it or cockblock it. Article the First.
Were it to be ratified, nearly immediately (whenever the next Census is), the House of Representatives has over 6000 seats. So many that the existing party apparatus wouldn't be able to vet candidates or manipulate. Lobbyists, even, would have a hard time allotting the slush funds to bribe them all.
And what would it take to do all of this? Maybe 10 or 12 people hammering (gently) on some state legislator in Nevada or Kansas. Convince him or her to pass the resolution to ratify. Nothing more than that. A single state even attempting to ratify it would start the ball rolling, and no one would be able to stop it.
This looks like something only a libertarian would like
I love that book, and its teachings of cell structures for decentralized rebellion. But it is a libertarian fantasy. And we've seen in the US, particularly due to the voting-system-imposed two party cap, that bad faith actors will sabotage good government as a goal in itself. I'm not confident that we need to make it even harder to pass laws in the US. We need to have voting reform in the country to allow a real free market of political parties that accurately represent the will of the people, and hold true to the values that we have in our Bill of Rights such as freedom of speech and freedom to privacy and civil rights.
Then you will have a lot of Constitution amendments. That's first.
The burden of ever-changing law landscape will be carried by ordinary people, not by legislators. That's second.
In the saga period of Iceland, 1/3rd of the laws had to be recited orally each year in a public assembly. If we had something like that then our legal code would be a lot slimmer.
Slim is not always better once people find exploits and loopholes which helps them but hurts society at large. Sunsetting is better.
But clearly what's going on now with omnibus bills that no one has read in its entirety are ok?
That would indeed solve many problems. It would also focus legislative minds now and in the future. Not sure it would be beneficial for the judicial branch.
Also beneficial perhaps would be to have it be necessary that the law spells out the technical implementation. Sort of like patents do.
I remember the patriot act.
In this very comment I started talking about the patriot act two or three times but kept deleting it because I didn't want to ramble. But yeah that's exactly what I was thinking of - for people who care about privacy and freedom it was really one of the worst pieces of legislation in modern US history, and permanently changed the country for the worse.
The Patriot Act is perfect example of the adage, "Never let a crisis go to waste."
Or rather "Always construct crises proportionate to the desired delta of the current Overton window's position".