Good news!

At least that's my gut reaction to the news that Ariel Sharon is leaving the Likud party in Israel, and is going to form a new party. At least there's the possibility that Sharon won't be pushed around by hard-liners anymore, and will be free to continue on the "roadmap to peace", avoiding Likud's own "roadblock to peace". Of couse, much is dependent upon the outcome of elections, which look like they're going to happen in the end of March. While I'm no expert on the subject, I believe that if no party gets a majority (or maybe it's 2/3?), then some sort of coalition government must be formed. So if this new party and the Labor party get enough votes, they can kick Likud to the curb.

You know, when I look at other democracies around the world, I have to say that some of the things they do are so much smarter/better than the way we have it. We're all, "Yo! World's oldest democracy, fools! Y'all based everything you KNOW about democracy around us, so bow to the master!"

Imagine if we could just dissolve our legislative bodies and call for new elections? I mean, what if the Speaker of the House one day just said, "You know, we're just not getting anything done, at all. You Democrats keep wanting to talk about Iraq, and we keep talking about cutting taxes for the wealthy. Let's have an election, we'll see what the voters want, and we'll come back with some fresh faces in a month and see if we can do better."

I mean, that sounds reasonable, does it not? Or howzabout this one - on the first day of elections, we vote for the House of Representatives members, both for the state House and the national. We get the results, and we maybe say, "Day yam! Lookit how many [puppet party A] members are in there! I may have voted for one, but they need to be kept in place, or those whackjobs will ruin everything!"

So the second day of elections, we vote for the Senate, to keep those rowdy House members in check. Part of the reason this could work is that Senate terms are 3x as long as House terms, so you don't always get to vote for one. Boo-hoo. Hopefully you won't cast some knee-jerk vote against whichever puppet party won, because you have to live with it for six years. Like everything I write on this blog, it's a first draft, so there are still a few kinks to be ironed out. Besides, I'd classify this as a rambling more than a plan. Though when I form my own nation, this blog will be the basis for its government. Maybe I'll have guest bloggers who are capable of this foreign process called "revision and editing"

So then we move on to the Big Kahuna, the Preznit. Always a tough call, always gets the most press coverage, and always the election in which your vote has ZERO impact. Voters answer the tough questions: who would I rather have a beer with? Who would I rather windsurf with? Which candidate is most likely to cost Al Gore the election? These are the issues that matter to the American people.

Okay, so we've picked our president, the dude who we're going to have to hear about for the next four years. Wonderful. You're really taking a shine to this democracy concept, aren't you, loyal reader? We've had three whole days of elections, but the party's really just STARTING. On the fourth day of elections, I say let the American people choose the cabinet. No, I'm serious. We let each party pick a candidate (if our democracy was capable of supporting more than two parties things could actually get interesting), and then those candidates fight for the love of the voters. Maybe for this one, no ads are allowed to run, because people are probably sick of them by now. Each candidate gets one interview with the news anchor of their choice, maybe they can write something to be published in a paper, whatever. But wouldn't it be sweet if we could pick who the president relies upon for his information?

After re-reading that last paragraph, that's a completely absurd idea. However, if implemented, and the president didn't like some of his cabinet, he could dissolve the entire body and do it all over again. It's just another excuse for the executive and the legislative to compromise, which they do oh-so-well.

Well, my ideas are pretty much the only thing that can save democracy, so take heed! For you moderates out there, another good idea might be making election day a national holiday, but I know that would cut into someone's precious GNP.