[geeks] 4th Amendment Gone

[Phil Stracchino]

On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 03:49:33PM -0500, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> I think we should stop voting for lawyers myself, and also forbid anyone
> to become a professional politician.  
> 
> What we need in the legislative and executive branch are doctors,
> policemen, programmers, farmers, engineers, and all kinds of
> different professions, temporarily doing a "tour of duty" in
> government.
> 
> Permanent positions tend to create the wrong kind of environment and
> people.


I have thought EXACTLY this myself for many years.  This particularly
applies to the Presidency -- anyone who wants to become the President of
the world's only hyperpower badly enough to spend anywhere from 40 to
(reportedly) 170 million dollars to get to the Oval Office, is probably
the absolute *LAST* person you want there.

Another thing I've considered is the passage of a Constitutional
amendment stating that if you are in elected office and you write or
sponsor a bill that is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of
the US or of your state, you are immediately removed from office and
permanently barred from running for public office again.  (It'd probably
even be a good idea to extend this to anyone who votes for a bill that
is openly unconstitutional.)  I include in this any bill that the body
in which it is presented does not have the power or authority to pass,
like Rep. John Major of New York and his asinine grandstanding bill,
re-introduced every year, that stated simply "The Second Amendment is
hereby repealed."

I'm also, frankly, somewhat in favor of Robert Heinlein's standpoint
that one should have to earn the franchise by public service, rather
than having it freely granted.


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