SayUncle: Supreme Dictator
Via Wachel (who also fisked her own post) and Phelps, comes a fun game:
Suppose you were elected Temporary Supreme Dictator of America.
What are 10 laws you would pass/repeal or government programs you would create/tear down? (Assume that you are in office for however long it would take to do these things and that any changes you make will remain in place after you leave office.)
Kinda similar, but we played this game before only it was presidentin’ not dictatin’. But, here goes:
1 – Disband the ATF. All agents and employees will be allowed retain their current position and salary once they arrive at the border to guard. May as well do something useful.
2 – End social security, medicare, and medicaid. Yeah, we all like to feel good about helping people out and all but you’re bankrupting our country (in 2005, those three things were over 40% of the budget). Of course, we can’t just end it outright lest some people would be royally fucked. So, effective now, people entering the work force will stop contributing to all three. Begin the phase out thusly:
Everyone who has a supposed fund in social security will be paid their cash balance. At this point, I will point and laugh at Congress who will finally have to admit what I’ve been telling you since I started this blog which is that there ain’t no fucking money in an account for you.
Continue funding medicaid/medicare for those over the age of 30. Everyone else, put on your big boy pants and deal.
Sorry, thems the breaks but you’re killing us.
3 – End the war on drugs and release the prisoners. Ok, just the non-violent prisoners.
4 – Repeal the 17th amendment. Fire all senators, reps. Redraw district maps so they make sense (i.e., your district will probably be shaped like a damn square). Hold elections for senators and reps. Gerrymandering will be a crime punishable by death.
5 – Any law passed by congress and signed into law will automatically expire four years from its passage. All laws currently on the books expire four years from today. You want to keep them, you got work to do.
6 – Flat tax. All accountants/tax lawyers who suddenly lose marketable skills can report for border duty along side former ATF agents.
7 – No more immunity for government employees. Limited immunity for things that are normal course of business for them. For egregious violations of the public trust, these employees can be held personally liable (I’m looking at you, Nifong, who I think should be under the jail).
8 – Stealing from Phelps: jury trial for eminent domain and asset forfeiture proceedings.
9 – Pass a law mandating that judges inform all potential jurors that they have a right to nullify.
10 -Executive order repealing all executive orders.
That ought to be enough flame bait for ya.
Update: Either 11 or an addendum to number 4 – From jon in comments: let congress know that we mean that commerce clause shit. It means regulate commerce not regulate anything that happens to incidentally be a part of commerce.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:04 am
Flame bait???
Flame hell, Unc for PUSA!!!
tweaker
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:08 am
I agree with most – especially #4 (repeal 17th).
I would replace one of those with this:
– Amend the “Commerce Clause” to specify that the FedGov can regulate the *manner* of trade among the states, but not the *content*.
Think about it.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:41 am
The only thing I think is superfluous is firing the senators. The states would do it soon anyway.
Also, outlawing jerrymandering- good luck doing it in a way that state legislators can’t get around. We have been trying this for 200 years to no avail.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 am
hard to gerrymander when you’re dead.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:46 am
Excellent start, but requires some attention to foreign policy. Would add:
Withdraw from the UN and remove that organization from the U.S.
Withdraw from NATO.
Close the State Department for two years; then revaluate and consider a new limited role.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
And you forgot to get rid of the 4th branch of government. This is an enormous constitutional problem that no one outside of the legal world seems aware of.
For the doubters, what branch of government does the FDA belong to? The EPA? The ATF? The SEC? The NLRB? The FEC? The FCC? And so on…
If they belong to the executive, why isn’t their power vested in the president as required by Article II? Why can’t the president fire employees and officers of these agencies? Why do they have the power to legislative through rulemaking? Why do they have judicial powers through administrative adjudication?
The truth is that most of the government occupies this fourth branch, and has thus been rendered largely immune to political repercussions. When was the last time that voters fired everyone at ATF? It simply can’t be done because ATF controls its own staffing independent of the influence of the other three branches.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:06 am
that’s where congress delegates to agencies the decision making (read: law-making).
ATF is under justice and reports to the prez.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:07 am
I don’t think you understand the difficulty in stopping gerrymandering. Populations don’t line in grid form for the convenience of having perfectly square borg cubes for districts. To preserve some semblance of 1 man/1 vote, you need irregular shaped districts. Exactly how those districts are shaped and who is in them affects election outcomes. And you don’t need a weird shaped district to accomplish these political effects.
If there really was a death penalty for gerrymandering, legislators wouldn’t participate in the process without getting prior approval from whoever was in charge of deciding who gets the axe.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 am
Are you serious? You don’t see any problems with congress delegating its powers to the executive branch? Ever hear of separation of powers?
Also, ATF is not actually “under” DOJ or the president in any meaningful sense of the word. Who has the ability to fire who? Who controls whose budget? What powers do the political appointees at the top of the agency have over the inner workings of the agency?
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:12 am
i didn’t say i had no problem with it. just pointing it out.
Who appoints ATF director, again?
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:21 am
I’d repeal the constitution, keep the bill of rights and say “enjoy freedom.” I would eliminate the biggest coercive violent racket in the history of mankind.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:47 am
President appoints but congress approves. Also, president can’t remove him. And the political appointee has little direct control over the employees or the day to day operations.
Dave Hardy has written extensively about all the little tricks agencies do to keep the appointees carefully insulated from making any decisions. The appointee is basically dependent on the career agency people for all their information. Control the information and you control the decisions. Dave Hardy’s research on Waco revealed a lot of these games. The guys in charge of the siege fed Reno a bunch of lies about child abuse and the willingness of the davidians to surrender to get her to sign off and then ensured that she was away at a speaking conference the day the tanks rolled in.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I think 5 would need to be something more like 8 years otherwise I like it
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
It’s superfluous to just fire Senators when you can set them on fire! “Gerrymandering will be a crime punishable by death” – that’s almost too good
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Not sure how to fix house representative districts. By county, maybe … with bigger population counties getting multiple reps. Make all reps in multiple rep counties “at large” … you get to vote for one, and the top vote getters elected to the posts.
Some counties will be over represented ( Deaf Smith in Texas has maybe 40 residents ) … too bad.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Thomas Sowell (an economist) suggested paying each Congress-critter a $1 million per year salary. I’ve supported this for a while. Gerrymandering would become moot, as would a host of other problems. Our best and brightest would compete for the “legislative lottery”. And you wouldn’t need term limits because there would always be someone hungry enough to out-work the incumbent. The competition would be fierce, ala American Idol.
And because business-people-types would be making the laws – laws they would have to live and operate their businesses under when their term is done – one would expect the laws to be more citizen-friendly and freedom supporting.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
For #9, I would put jury nullification explicitly in the constitution and require that the judge read the entire constitution to the jury at the time it is seated, and then again before they adjourn for deliberation.
On #7 I think I would add violation of civil rights under color of authority to the definition of treason in the constitution, and thus a capitol offense. I would also add that all cases of treason must be punished with hanging or firing squad within 24 hours of conviction.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
How about Tam’s suggestion that US Senators become appointed by the state Gummint this cutting the pork barrel motivation potential? Seems that might solve several problems at once.
Eagle 1
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Eagle, see 17th amendment.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
“Withdraw from NATO”? I think not. We should double up on our commitments and increase the number of countries participating.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I wouldn’t change a thing. I like America the way she is. Yeah, we flounder around sometimes and fall flat on our faces sometimes but for a hell of a long time we have had the greatest nation in the history of the world. Our “problems” are momentary and the American people solve them when they feel like getting around to do it.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I would add to Number 1 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Education, and a host of other stuff that the states should be handling on their own.
Methinks we’d have the best-protected borders on the planet (hehehehe).
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
i would change the voting laws so that you had to take a comprehensive test in order to vote… im tired of unemployed morons that cant even name their senators or the vice president being able to ruin this country based on whatever politician promises to give them the most money… there is no right to vote guaranteed in the constitution
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I think I’d withdraw from the U.N., and kick them out of the country.
Repeal Wickard v. Fillburn — that goes to the commerce clause, and Jon, I think that allowing regulation of the “manner” of trade doesn’t go far enough. Whatever commerce clause reform is done, it has to go to very strictly defining what consitutes interstate commerce, e.g. (regarding Fillburn) only when items actually move in interestate commerce can the feddies get involved.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:43 pm
I would include “cancel all foreign aid” to Uncle’s list.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:12 am
How did you not include revoking BSL?
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:13 am
I would make it a crime for any legislature (local, state, or federal) to author or sponsor any law that doesn’t pass constitutionality check first. These laws about handgun bans, registrations, and other crap that passes for laws is much more difficult to expunge after the fact than catching it up front. Supreme Court isn’t doing its job because it takes so long to review and overturn.
May 4th, 2008 at 1:08 am
The headcount of the federal government would be reduced to 33% of current levels over a period of time, and would then be fixed proportionally to the population level. This would include core functions, anyone with decision making capability. Would not include non-management postal employees or the military below 0-7 as long as they are working in their specialty. Services like janitorial or cafeteria could be contracted out and would not be part of headcount. Temporary staff does count, if their job would count otherwise, but on a pro-rated annual basis–4 people working for 3 months counts the same as one person working for a year, regardless of which months they work.
Congress, the President and federal judges will be paid extremely well (millions), but will forgo most other sources of income. Their staff budgets will be set to fairly low levels.
The Constitution shall be interpreted in the manner that will give the most freedom to individuals. (This should end commerce clause abuse)
Felonies must have a victim with significant harm, threat or risk of harm, although the victim does not have to be a specific individual. Only Congress and the equivalent elected state government may create a felony, and this power may not be delegated. Only felonies can be used as legal justification to remove or restrict an individual’s constitutional rights, with the exception that welfare recipients cannot vote until they have been off welfare for 1 year. (Ending Lautenberg, the War on Some Drugs and much ATF abuse)
Bills shall be made of related items only. The final version of a bill must be available to the public for 3 days before a binding vote takes place. (Reduce pork barrel, earmarks and “hidden” clauses in laws, last minute additions)
Not more than 25% of federal taxes may be collected from any source other than a retail sales tax. Any fee in excess of the aggregate cost to perform that function will be considered a tax, and the agencies budget will be reduced by the same amount.
Prosecutors may not offer plea bargains of less than half the charges they will bring to a jury, If a jury finds the defendant guilty of less than half the charges (based on jail time and fines) the defendant is not guilty for all charges. Police and prosecutors will be liable if they do not mitigate the damages caused by search warrants and seizures. They must show cause why they cannot provide copies of seized business records and computer files in a timely manner, especially those unrelated to the case.
…and I’d pick a few of the other suggestions to round it out to 10.
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May 4th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
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