The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[kittyKaiti]

Republicans and democrats = Enemies of the Republic. You advocate guns in the hands of the ordinary citizen and see the Government as the enemy of the people. Okay Ms Kaiti... spell out if you'd care to the way you'd like to see the USA governed?

There needs to be methods to hold corrupt politicians under strict accountability for their actions. There needs to be increased oversight of powers given to federal agencies like Homeland Security, the ATF, the DEA, among hundreds of other agencies. There needs to be an increase in state sovereignty and less federal government control. There needs to be a way to hold law enforcement officers accountable for their actions and the destruction of the thin blue line fraternity mentality that allows corruption and cover-ups of brutality or other crimes committed by officers to breed in police departments. There needs to be a higher strict standard for following the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Supreme Court justices should be elected, not appointed. The impeachment and the recall processes to remove corrupt politicians should be modified to be easier. The American people themselves should have more direct say in issues. There needs to be an outright ban on political lobbying. There needs to be significant slashing of federal budget waste, like half of the currently existing federal bureaucratic alphabet agencies that have accomplished nothing (like the Department of Homeland Security entirely).

[Prospero]

Excellent. I think you have now laid out a series of points which i am sure the Americans here can debate. Thanks.

[trish]

There needs to be methods to hold corrupt politicians under strict accountability for their actions.

One could just vote them out of office. One could increase the powers of the executive branch to impeach corrupt judges and/or congressmen. One could make it easier for the legislative branch to impeach the president. Any legal action of one branch of government against another is always going to be preceded by expensive investigations and followed up with expensive hearings as we’ve seen in the past. Voting them out is the cheaper option and puts the decision directly in the hands of the voter.

There needs to be increased oversight of powers given to federal agencies like Homeland Security, the ATF, the DEA, among hundreds of other agencies.

As long as voters perceive drugs and drug trafficking to be a problem the DEA will continue to thrive. I believe Congress is already charged with oversight. In the past they have formed special oversight committees and hired investigators to explore various allegations against the DEA. These are always very expensive affairs. Ditto with ATF and Homeland Security.

There needs to be an increase in state sovereignty and less federal government control.

Here it would help if you were more specific. There are some things appropriate for the state and others appropriate for the federal government. Given, for example, that we ship food across States lines on a daily basis, who would be in a better position to prohibit the use of dangerous herbicides to protect our food supply, the Federal or the State government? I know you think the Federal government dropped the ball here, but clearly you think somebody should do something about herbicide use. There is also the problem of what the separate states can afford to do without financial support from the rest of us (i.e. the federal government). If, for example, the State of Illinois wants Federal tax dollars in the form of education aid, then it’s reasonable to expect some Federal control over how Illinois spends those dollars.

There needs to be a higher strict standard for following the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Supreme Court justices should be elected, not appointed.

There can be so strict standard for interpreting the Constitution. That’s the whole point of having a Judicial branch headed by the Supreme Court. Their job is to interpret and apply the Constitution. Some key passages of the document are notoriously and deliberately ambiguous and our understanding and application will continue to evolve. I think the electing Supreme Court Justices would be an extremely destabilizing practice. They need to be shielded from all sorts of influence and especially the influence of the majority. I would admit we could do a better job of shielding. An age limit or a term limit might be a good idea as well.

The American people themselves should have more direct say in issues.

This has not worked out so well for California. Prop this and Prop that have been a social nuisance.

There needs to be an outright ban on political lobbying.

The influence of lobbyists needs to somehow be curtailed, but one would have to have a definition of lobbying to eliminate it, and one would have to dedicate an agency to the investigation of alleged breaches of the law. More money.

There needs to be significant slashing of federal budget waste,

That’s almost a tautology. But what one voter sees as waste, another sees as an essential government function. I agree we could do without most, if not all, of Homeland Security. I also think we spend way too much on military projects and way to little on science and education (I also think a lot of what we allocate to education is ill-spent). You think we can cut some agencies but spending money on more oversight, investigations and impeachments is essential, and in some cases you may be right.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=kittyKaiti;1485885]
There needs to be methods to hold corrupt politicians under strict accountability for their actions.
--In principle, I agree, but what we discovered in the UK when Members of Parliament were fiddling their expenses, is that some of them thought they were acting within the rules, so what you think is corrupt the politicians might think is legal. This needs close attention to the detail of what elected representatives can and cannot do, but ought to be possible to do.

There needs to be increased oversight of powers given to federal agencies like Homeland Security, the ATF, the DEA, among hundreds of other agencies.
---I am not an American so I cannot comment on this.

There needs to be an increase in state sovereignty and less federal government control.
---I understand the American context for States rights, but can't really comment. I think this is one of the key elements of the character (and historical development) of American democracy, but I don't really know how this works or should work on a policy by policy basis. Are there some issues, such as the right to vote, which should be determined by the Federal govt rather than a state? Do 'human rights' always trump 'states rights'?
On Guns -is this a Federal issue, or a local/state issue?

There needs to be a way to hold law enforcement officers accountable for their actions and the destruction of the thin blue line fraternity mentality that allows corruption and cover-ups of brutality or other crimes committed by officers to breed in police departments.
---We have this problem in the UK. There are no easy solutions, part of the problem is recruitment and the kind of people who choose to become police officers. In this country, class has been a significant factor, with many police officers coming from the same social background (sometimes the same schools) as the criminals. The lack of minorities in the UK police force tends to reinforce a belief that there is bias in policing -the majority of young men stopped on the street and searched by the police have been 'Black and Asian', yet the conviction rate is small by comparison. Not sure how this applies to the USA. I suspect that in both countries where gangs of Black youths are common, the fact is that the most lucrative criminals are white, and wear suits.

There needs to be a higher strict standard for following the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.
---No comment.

Supreme Court justices should be elected, not appointed.
---If you mean every American voter, a) very expensive, and will the richest Judges get better coverage and more votes?; b) could they be elected by Congress? Who chooses the list of candidates?

The impeachment and the recall processes to remove corrupt politicians should be modified to be easier.
---Again, as with the scandal over expenses, MPs were prosecuted and sent to jail, but in some cases MPs have been falsely accused when they were innocent. In the case of a government official, Andrew Mitchell was leaving Downing Street on a bicycle when the policeman refused to open the central gate, suggesting Mitchell use the side gate prompting the MP to get upset and allegedly call the copper a 'fucking pleb'. It has subsequently emerged that police officers who were not even on duty in London at the time posted incriminating evidence which, on your argument could have lost Mitchell his seat -instead 3 officers have now been sacked from the force. Corrupt politicians may not always be corrupt, just because someone doesn't like them and smears their reputation is not a sound basis on which to throw them out.

The American people themselves should have more direct say in issues. There needs to be an outright ban on political lobbying.
---Imagine that a group of transgendered people decide to form a political action group to lobby their state and federal representatives to change the law so that transgendered people can change their birth certificate to reflect their new gender status. They might not have the funds the Koch brothers have, but their right to lobby is equal. I think you might want to change the rules on how lobbying works, rather than ban it outright.

There needs to be significant slashing of federal budget waste, like half of the currently existing federal bureaucratic alphabet agencies that have accomplished nothing (like the Department of Homeland Security entirely).
-The amount of taxpayer's money that goes awol because of incompetence or duff government schemes is beyond belief. In the UK alone it is measured over the last 20 years in billions of pounds -not dollars, pounds. If elected politicians were made financially responsible for the money they allocate to useless projects, in the form of a surcharge or liability, then maybe bridges to nowhere would not be funded, and 'integrated computing' systems actually work!

[broncofan]

There needs to be methods to hold corrupt politicians under strict accountability for their actions. There needs to be increased oversight of powers given to federal agencies like Homeland Security, the ATF, the DEA, among hundreds of other agencies. There needs to be an increase in state sovereignty and less federal government control. There needs to be a way to hold law enforcement officers accountable for their actions and the destruction of the thin blue line fraternity mentality that allows corruption and cover-ups of brutality or other crimes committed by officers to breed in police departments. There needs to be a higher strict standard for following the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Supreme Court justices should be elected, not appointed. The impeachment and the recall processes to remove corrupt politicians should be modified to be easier. The American people themselves should have more direct say in issues. There needs to be an outright ban on political lobbying. There needs to be significant slashing of federal budget waste, like half of the currently existing federal bureaucratic alphabet agencies that have accomplished nothing (like the Department of Homeland Security entirely).

Many of these changes would require Constitutional amendments. You can't change the appointment process for federal judges without an amendment as any deviation from the current process would contradict the appointments clause. Impeachment itself is also prescribed in the Constitution so if you want to change the standard for impeachment, that would also require a Constitutional amendment.

You also say you want more states' rights. That would require an amendment to the Constitution (the 10th amendment would have to be re-written or an enumerated power of the federal government narrowed). You say the Bill of Rights should be more strictly construed. Usually when the bill of rights is construed more strictly that tends to invalidate states laws that conflict with it.

The bill of rights is written into the federal constitution and incorporated via the 14th amendment to apply to the states. If you have a stricter standard for applying the bill of rights you have less not more state sovereignty. For instance, if a state wanted to ban guns and it was too broad, that state law would be invalidated by a stricter application of the 2nd amendment. As it stands, courts balance the compelling interest of the state against the challenge to the fundamental right embodied in the Constitution. With guns, they would balance the fundamental right of citizens to own guns against the state's right to control who is allowed to possess them in furtherance of their interest in the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens (the state's police powers).

But generally, by enforcing the first 9 amendments of the federal constitution you put a limit on the ability of a state to pass laws.

[Randydude7]

Gun nuts have been warning us about the upcoming gun ban for almost 50 years. Of course, I don't see any reason to doubt YOU.

[broncofan]

Many of these changes would require Constitutional amendments. You can't change the appointment process for federal judges without an amendment as any deviation from the current process would contradict the appointments clause. Impeachment itself is also prescribed in the Constitution so if you want to change the standard for impeachment, that would also require a Constitutional amendment.

You also say you want more states' rights. That would require an amendment to the Constitution (the 10th amendment would have to be re-written or an enumerated power of the federal government narrowed). You say the Bill of Rights should be more strictly construed. Usually when the bill of rights is construed more strictly that tends to invalidate states laws that conflict with it.

The bill of rights is written into the federal constitution and incorporated via the 14th amendment to apply to the states. If you have a stricter standard for applying the bill of rights you have less not more state sovereignty. For instance, if a state wanted to ban guns and it was too broad, that state law would be invalidated by a stricter application of the 2nd amendment. As it stands, courts balance the compelling interest of the state against the challenge to the fundamental right embodied in the Constitution. With guns, they would balance the fundamental right of citizens to own guns against the state's right to control who is allowed to possess them in furtherance of their interest in the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens (the state's police powers).

But generally, by enforcing the first 9 amendments of the federal constitution you put a limit on the ability of a state to pass laws.

What I was trying to say but didn't get around to is that Kitty is not recommending more fidelity to our Constitution. She is recommending strict adherence to those portions she likes, even more than the document contemplated, and abdication of those she doesn't. The result would be a government that would not have checks and balances, that would not have a strong federal government (the entire purpose of the Constitutional convention), that would not have an insulated and independent judiciary, that would also not allow for delegation by the legislature to create federal agencies, which would in turn neuter the executive branch.

There's a very good reason for Judges to be appointed. When they interpret the Constitution and the laws, they are not responding to the popular will. They are a check against majority rule that was built into the Constitution so that certain rights could not be curtailed no matter how people vote. I find it strange someone could be so big on the bill of rights and then want to make the Judges who interpret our founding document accountable to the whims of the voting public! Legislators who pass laws already are. Judges are there to say certain laws cannot be passed no matter what the people's indirect representatives vote for because they have a Constitution to uphold.

[robertlouis]

This is a rather neat dovetailing of two critical issues. Yes, why not?

[martin48]

There needs to be significant slashing of federal budget waste, like half of the currently existing federal bureaucratic alphabet agencies that have accomplished nothing (like the Department of Homeland Security entirely).

Before we discuss "waste" which always going to be difficult. Let's look at how much the average American takes home after tax. These are recent figures of the % of salary you take home for the G20 countries. US is about in the middle.

• Italy - 50.59% (takes home $202,360 out of $400,000 salary)
• India - 54.90%
• United Kingdom - 57.28%
• France - 58.10%
• Canada - 58.13%
• Japan - 58.68%
• Australia - 59.30%
• United States - 60.45% (based on New York state tax)
• Germany - 60.61%
• South Africa - 61.78%
• China - 62.05%
• Argentina - 64.02%
• Turkey - 64.64%
• South Korea - 65.75%
• Indonesia - 69.78%
• Mexico - 70.60%
• Brazil - 73.32%
• Russia - 87%
• Saudi Arabia - 96.86% (so you take home $387,400 out of the $400,000 salary)

Interesting!


Now have a look at http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/economic-crime-survey

Discuss

[yodajazz]

My assertion is that things like this are more likely to happen, than use for protection.

http://fox8.com/2014/04/27/bride-sho...n-wedding-day/