Posts published in “Day: November 20, 2013”

BARRETT RAINEY   Second Thoughts

Sitting in the timberlands of Southwest Oregon – after having lived in several other states over the years – I hear many people tell me how “conservative” the area is. They’re right. But they don’t go far enough.

These five wooded counties harbor more radicals, political extremists, flat-earthers and outright socially-disconnected people than any other place I know. Despite my lengthy residence and familiarity with some of these people, I am unable to tell whether they were radicals before they came here or whether living here has radicalized them.

But one thing I do know is that, after a decade of residing here, some of this “different” thinking is rubbing off on me. Not that I’m becoming a flat-earther or developing a strong desire to buy dried food supplies and more ammunition. No, it’s more that I’m having the beginnings of some “radical” thinking, too.

Here’s a bit: the political structure of our government is not currently serving us well. Together with some goofy political practices – like the phony GOP filibuster carpet bombing that appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution – we’ve tried to live more or less as the founding fathers intended. But, in doing so, we have become gridlocked, separated from recognized solutions to our own problems and are unable to react to national conditions that change much faster than they did in 1776.

The intention of the authors so long ago was to have co-equal branches of power: executive, legislative and judicial. Worked fine for awhile. Even with the resulting slowness with which government operates. We’ve had times in the past when slowness – or outright inaction – saved us from making some large mistakes or going down the wrong road. That’s not entirely bad.

But we now can achieve little or nothing playing by the old rules because of the highly partisan, fractured nature of modern politics and huge changes of technology in our lives. The system of balances has become a three-way struggle for control. Answers to problems immediate and massive job creation are really achievable. There really are remedies to our national economic and financial mess that economists and other professionals know will work. There are many doable ideas to streamline the military, make government more effective, improve everyone’s quality of life and realistically reorder our national priorities and goals.

All that – and more – can be done. Now. But not if we cling mindlessly to the old ways because 235 years ago, a couple dozen guys in a hot Philadelphia meeting room did the best they could to negotiate solutions to the issues of their time. Their time! Slavery. British tyranny. Taxes. A war in some of their states that threatened an entire nation as they knew it. Then. Not one of them could imagine supersonic flight, computers, organ transplants, cloning, sending men to the moon and beyond, a worldwide economic system tying all nations together and all the other things we take for granted. Well, maybe Franklin could. But no one else.

Still, we try to run a country as if we were using quill pens on parchment paper to send messages by horseback. Jefferson had a three-day ride from his home to Philadelphia but we send people in space around the entire world every 90 minutes. George Washington couldn’t find wooden dentures that fit well but we now grow human ears and noses in a laboratory and graft on entire faces.

I haven’t yet designed a new system. But I’ve been looking at others that offer some interesting tools to help us change our current bitter stalemate.

Parliamentary is just one example. A prime minister is elected every four years or when a “vote of confidence” is necessary. That post virtually controls the political system when it comes to a national course of action, the economy, relations with other countries and much more.

Can mistakes be made? Sure. But corrections can come quickly in a streamlined decision and action process designed for our time. Does this vest a large amount of power in one person? You bet. But accountability is achieved at the ballot box and parliament. Does it work where it exists today? Pretty well, actually.

Of course, this is all just a guy here in the forest talking to the trees. Such a major redesign of our national government would take years to bring about and require an awful lot of work. And trust.

Would it be worth it? Well, you decide. How do you think we’re doing now?