P.J. O’Rourke has a good article on how we lost in this election because all we did was elect a bunch more politicians. People are always arguing over who is the true conservative in the race, but it’s a trick question because a true conservative wouldn’t even get in the race. Politics is a liberal job; it’s about not doing anything useful but meddling with people who do. Why would a conservative want that?
So instead of our current system designed to make sure our government is run by ambitious sociopaths, I’ve always like the idea that O’Rourke outlines that we instead have Congress more like jury duty. We randomly select people to represent us and you can’t get out of it until your term is up. Then we can maybe get that mythical true conservative in Congress — the guy who is only in government under threat of law.
Hear-Hear! We should be able to find our congress from among the unemployed and homeless. They would surely not be any worse than the ones we suffer with now. further we wouldn’t be misusing the productive.
Would I get a lifetime retirement for one term?
I agree with PJ! One of my favorite writers all the way back to his days at National Lampoon when I was a young nardewell! We use to laugh hysterically at his writings along with the rest of the mag. I guess we had strange funny bones back then, but I’m glad that we have “grown up” and now read sites like IMAO!
Do you really want someone making laws that’s not even smart enough to get out of jury duty.
I tried jury duty. Once. They did not like me. Between the law and engineering degrees and the my mention of being a Boortz and Limbaugh fan I got sent home right away. I’d be a big hit for congress.
That is completely brilliant.
I was on a jury once. They accused the guy of attempted murder but we aquited the guy. The prosecutions “evidence” was so thin and laughable, trust me, you don’t want to know how thin and laughable it was ’cause you’d be horrified that charges like that could be brought based on such thin and laughable evidence. Did I say the evidence was thin and laughable? We laughed at the prosecution as the verdict was read. Naaaah, we didn’t laugh. We just sat there stunned they could prosecute someone on such thin and laughable evidence.
As far as PJ’s idea, it sucks. Really. I wanna be able to VOTE for the sucker. Think about it. If they pick congress critters like jury duty they will call on Keith Obberman or Rachel Maddow or Michael More or some other dumb@#$% libtard to serve. Case closed.
But remove me (a “mythical true conservative”) from the random pool, Frank, because my first vote would be to permanently disband the stupid thing.
Random? Random is never the best option.
I hate to inject some reality into Mr Rourke and Fleming’s stellar observances about politics but the fact of the matter is that there are going to be a certain number of conservatives, a certain number of liberals, a certain number of independents and a certain number of either the ignorant or irresponsible in any country. The person running for office, in order to get elected has to appeal to the majority of voters. If he is a strong conservative in a liberal area he won’t get elected dog catcher.
This is one of the reasons that people with like ideals, backgrounds, mores, cultures like to live together. They run their communities the way they think they should run. Diversity is all find and good until you have to get something unpleasant accomplished. Then like “racial profiling”, “targeting illegals”, and any other of the new progressive code words, all bets are off.
Conan O’brien once said discussing the profiling of Middle eastern men by airport security, “When little old red haired Irish grandmothers start setting off bombs on airplanes, security should target them, until then we target the people setting off the bombs.” While he was being “funny” he inadvertently stumbled on the truth. Little blonde haired three year olds aren’t usually stuffed with explosives. Most civilized human beings don’t do that to their children.
Just the animals. We should be targeting them.
Um… Ronald Reagan.
Heck, I’ve been suggesting this idea for 20 years!
You select the pool of possible nominees from the registered voters/tax payers in each district, weed out the felons and give each remaining nominee one opportunity to make a speech to the voters.
Subject of the speech: ‘Why I Don’t Want To Go To Congress.’
Voters select the one who they think made the most convincing speech.
O’Rourke must be reading my mind – I need to re-enforce my tin foil hat!
I continually disagree with your assertion that, “politics is a liberal job,” and that, “it’s about not doing anything useful but meddling with people who do.” If I were to run, it would be to remove the people and laws built to meddle with individuals.