I was thinking that maybe the US could use three presidents - West, East, and Center, each heading up a major chunk of territory. SCOTUS could be expanded to have 50 justices, each state appointing a single justice to represent them on the supreme court. The presidents each could select a single head justice, whose job is to communicate the viewpoint of the executives, and to write up the conclusions that SCOTUS factions have reached.
That sort of thing should help maintain the intention of the Constitution, where branches - or rather, interests, constantly jockey against each other, thus being equal. The problem with our current politics is that too much power has been concentrated into the hands of too few people, essentially destroying the balance of branches.
Giving each state equal representation without a population distribution that is exactly equal across every state inherently devalues the representation of those in population centers, giving disproportionate power to a party that is outnumbered but is spread out over the much emptier land. Equal rep must be based proportionally off of population to avoid devaluing individual voter influence.
I think that in the case of the judiciary’s supreme court, having a huge amount of people would be a ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ problem. The important thing is a diversity of viewpoints who can argue on the technical (and moral) merits of the topic. Each state should send their most capable justice who can persuade their peers.
The way I figure, such an expanded SCOTUS would naturally form four or five cliques of 10-20 members apiece, who work with head justices to articulate their viewpoints into a dissertation on the topic. These proposals are examined and held to a vote, with the weakest being removed from the running - at which point, a rewrite is done on the remaining proposals by aligned cliques, voted on, and repeated until only one remains. Head justices do not get to vote, unless there is an exact tie among rulings.
…honestly, it would be good if there was a scientific research institute, dedicated to trying out political concepts like this in a simulated setting. The big problem of theoretical political systems is that they typically have to be applied to real-world people, which causes no end of social chafing. Having an MMO or roleplay to research these things, may go a long way towards healthy implementations.
That sounds remarkably similar to the court reform proposal by Pete Buttigieg. Although I don’t remember the specifics enough to say with confidence exactly how similar, I know he wanted each presidential terms to get a nomination and to remove the lifetime appointment in favor of a lengthy term. Although I think he wanted a portion of the court to be nominated by the justices themselves, including Chief Justice, but that was probably a more naive mindset that stemmed from a time when we had significantly more faith in the impartiality and apolitical motivations of the SCOTUS. I don’t know if that would be a good idea anymore, considering how easy it was for Trump to ratfuck the composition of the courts.
Yeah I’m starting to think that a triumvirate is the way to go for the office of the president. Let’s have a head of state, a head of government, and a head of _____ idk. But the job is too intense for one individual and we need an escape hatch while also having stability. So we could impeach the head of state but keep the head of government so shit still gets done during that transition.
Isn’t that what the states are for? The federal government is supposed to maintain basic security and then the states are supposed to do all of the actual societal work but it all seems to have fallen apart. To be honest it had fallen apart long before Trump.
Yes that’s how it’s supposed to work. People like to point at Trump but Trump would not have been able to do this were it not for the fact that every president before him has given itself more and more power. He’s simply an opportunist.
This is also the thing Republicans have been harping about for ages. They don’t want to tear down the federal government because they want people to die or because they’re “fascists”. They want to tear it down because its current iteration of it has far more power than was ever intended when the constitution was drafted and it empowers and makes tyranny possible.
The New Deal needs to be replaced with something new that decentralizes power from the federal government while keeping the social nets that were established.
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That’s such an EU thing to do 😄
I was thinking that maybe the US could use three presidents - West, East, and Center, each heading up a major chunk of territory. SCOTUS could be expanded to have 50 justices, each state appointing a single justice to represent them on the supreme court. The presidents each could select a single head justice, whose job is to communicate the viewpoint of the executives, and to write up the conclusions that SCOTUS factions have reached.
That sort of thing should help maintain the intention of the Constitution, where branches - or rather, interests, constantly jockey against each other, thus being equal. The problem with our current politics is that too much power has been concentrated into the hands of too few people, essentially destroying the balance of branches.
Giving each state equal representation without a population distribution that is exactly equal across every state inherently devalues the representation of those in population centers, giving disproportionate power to a party that is outnumbered but is spread out over the much emptier land. Equal rep must be based proportionally off of population to avoid devaluing individual voter influence.
I think that in the case of the judiciary’s supreme court, having a huge amount of people would be a ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ problem. The important thing is a diversity of viewpoints who can argue on the technical (and moral) merits of the topic. Each state should send their most capable justice who can persuade their peers.
The way I figure, such an expanded SCOTUS would naturally form four or five cliques of 10-20 members apiece, who work with head justices to articulate their viewpoints into a dissertation on the topic. These proposals are examined and held to a vote, with the weakest being removed from the running - at which point, a rewrite is done on the remaining proposals by aligned cliques, voted on, and repeated until only one remains. Head justices do not get to vote, unless there is an exact tie among rulings.
…honestly, it would be good if there was a scientific research institute, dedicated to trying out political concepts like this in a simulated setting. The big problem of theoretical political systems is that they typically have to be applied to real-world people, which causes no end of social chafing. Having an MMO or roleplay to research these things, may go a long way towards healthy implementations.
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That sounds remarkably similar to the court reform proposal by Pete Buttigieg. Although I don’t remember the specifics enough to say with confidence exactly how similar, I know he wanted each presidential terms to get a nomination and to remove the lifetime appointment in favor of a lengthy term. Although I think he wanted a portion of the court to be nominated by the justices themselves, including Chief Justice, but that was probably a more naive mindset that stemmed from a time when we had significantly more faith in the impartiality and apolitical motivations of the SCOTUS. I don’t know if that would be a good idea anymore, considering how easy it was for Trump to ratfuck the composition of the courts.
Yeah I’m starting to think that a triumvirate is the way to go for the office of the president. Let’s have a head of state, a head of government, and a head of _____ idk. But the job is too intense for one individual and we need an escape hatch while also having stability. So we could impeach the head of state but keep the head of government so shit still gets done during that transition.
That’s been tried in a certain republic of the past, but the idea is fine generally.
Fuck no. Don’t lump us minnesotans in with basically exclusively red shithole states.
Isn’t that what the states are for? The federal government is supposed to maintain basic security and then the states are supposed to do all of the actual societal work but it all seems to have fallen apart. To be honest it had fallen apart long before Trump.
Yes that’s how it’s supposed to work. People like to point at Trump but Trump would not have been able to do this were it not for the fact that every president before him has given itself more and more power. He’s simply an opportunist.
This is also the thing Republicans have been harping about for ages. They don’t want to tear down the federal government because they want people to die or because they’re “fascists”. They want to tear it down because its current iteration of it has far more power than was ever intended when the constitution was drafted and it empowers and makes tyranny possible.
The New Deal needs to be replaced with something new that decentralizes power from the federal government while keeping the social nets that were established.