If you were in charge...
POSTED BY: SoupCatcher
UPDATED: Tuesday, May 3, 2005 08:30
VIEWED: 14890
PAGE 6 of 8
Finn: It's a definite bonus to have at least one person on a team who's always thinking about the big picture but I could see how having the entire team composed of big picture people could be problematic. Some portions of the design process we understand better than others - although we've definitely gotten our own back from the ass-kicking we took in the seventies from the Japanese automobile manufacturers (Concurrent engineering. Who knew?). But every time I listen to a conference talk where someone presents their very own brand new boxes-and-arrows model of the design process without any empirical basis I just feel like screaming.
Signym: I'll hold off until next weekend. Gives me a chance to come up with some more myself 
.
Kirikoli: No inconvenience at all. I'll just try to pull out some descriptive sentences from what you've posted.
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Next up: Early "Nutcrusher" Jubal and the Firebuggers
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Thanks, Soup!
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TAXATION
The Estate Tax will be repealed.
Current income tax law will be completely round-filed, in favor of a flat tax for individuals, businesses and corporations. All corporations will be taxed at 20%. All individuals will be taxed at 15%.
The Social Security cap will be reduced to $50,000/year. All Social Security will be completely privatized. A Social Security emergency law will be established to come into effect at the onset of the any economic Depressions.
Lazy people will not be eligible for welfare. Individuals on welfare must demonstrate an ability to be self supporting. Welfare is not a right; it is privilege granted to people who can use it get through hard times.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I would make gun ownership contingent on reading comprehension!
Good start. I would make gun ownership contingent upon 3 additional things:
1) Being a legal adult
2) Being a law-abiding citizen (i.e., not a convicted felon... non-violent misdemeanors don't count)
3) Attending a course in gun operation/safety and passing both a written and a practical test.
Personally, I have no problem with private gun ownership. I own a few myself. We require people to be trained in the use of motor vehicles because of the potential for injury and abuse. It makes perfect sense to require the same thing for gun ownership... for the same reasons.
Beyond that, the gov't specifically (and society in general) should have no skin in the game until the gun owner uses the gun improperly. We trust trained people with cars until they abuse them... should be the the same for gun owners.
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I agree. (I owned a few guns myself and used to be pretty good at plinking until my eyes went bad. Old age... sigh... it's everything it was cracked up to be, and more.)
To continue:
I would put pretty stringent CAFE standards in place (fuel efficiency standards). We burn up 60% of our oil just moving things from place to place.
I would require that ALL state voting procedures be 100% auditable, and require that the process of voting not be performed by for-profit corporations.
I would require that the airwaves (television, radio) provide at least an hour of free per month time for each valid Presidential, Vice-Presidential, Senatorial and gubenatorial candidate for three months before the election. And maybe we could impose a moratorium on advertising one week before the election, which is usually when political races get plain hysterical.
Any entity that has gathered more than a threshold of information ("X" GB) on individuals in a database must inform said individuals of the database, provide each individual with a list of the information- updated yearly- and provide said individuals with opportunity to correct/ annotate the information. This will prevent DBs from being constructed for trivial reasons. Also, entities that maintain such DBs are required to keep them secure with a unix-like firewall, and ensure physical security of drives, backup tapes etc.
I would REQUIRE that every member of Congress read- by themselves- every single word of every bill that they vote on. Not only would this have eliminated the Patriot Act- which most members didn't get a chance to read before they voted- it would also eliminate unecessary bills and overcomplex "omnibus" bills.
I would renegotiate our international trade agreements to exempt non-signatories like states/provinces, cities etc. from their provisions.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I would REQUIRE that every member of Congress read- by themselves- every single word of every bill that they vote on.
You're assuming that they can read.
(Sorry, I'm just a little bit irritated with almost all elected officials at the moment.)
If you can be an idiot, I can be an idiot. - D'Argo
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Just a bit of musing here....
One of the things that annoys the heck out of me is our laws. If you look at them, they're so very complicated! It seems as if the very first thing that happens when there is a problem is that somebody decides to write a law. Polly's law. Megan's law. The Brady Gun Control Bill. The Energy Bill. Aggravated assault v manslaughter v murder v murder with special circumstance v murder and mayhem. I guess that's to be expected when 99% of our legislators are... well... lawyers. If all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
But there are issues where yet another law... or another refinement to an existing law... is not the best solution. I've been involved in our agency's rule-writing process, and I can tell you from experience that laws, rules, and regulations are blunt instruments of change.
Got problems with drug addiction and addict-related crime? Well, we could write YET ANOTHER LAW, or we could invest in research on breaking addiction, effective education, and many many more treatment beds. Do we have a pollution problem? Perhaps contracts, technical guidance, infrastructural investment and land-use policies would get better results.
Another source of unecessary complexity is that laws are often enacted piecemeal, without much consideration without how they affect- or are affected by- other laws. On the other hand, when a BIG problem is addressed, it often turns into a monolithic nightmare- look at the Energy Bill. The Energy Bill is like Microsoft software- everything is built into one giant program. What a mess. Perhaps good law-making could be like good software- everything is modularized, and the interfaces between modules all have to meet some technical specification.
'Nough wild-hair musing.
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Oh, and I would eliminate the death penalty. DNA is showing that many convictions are erroneous. what do you say if you've taken someone's life in error- oops?? Sorry??
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I agree to a degree Signym on the Death Penalty Issue. Someone SHOULD get the death penalty if they are proven beyond any doubt to have been guilty of a capital crime. I.e. Mass Murder, murder of a child etc..etc..
In other words..if the person admits guilt or is caught with the proverbial smoking gun. Light em up.
DNA evidence is bit more tricky IMHO and much easier to plant or manipulate.
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Connorflynn, I'll go ya one better, if the evidence in a capital crime case is inconclusive, and the suspect says he done it, grant his wish! Then continue investigatin' in case he was lyin' 'cause he was nuts. Anyone doesn't want to be here should be allowed to leave (permanently). And hopefully before they take one, or more, with them.
The stern Chrisisall
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Oddly, I happen to know someone who was charged with murder. "Don" happened to be a first-class jerk: stealing the family rent money for drugs, dragging his wife and kids thru h*ll, being hounded and beaten up by drug dealers who were just a wee but pissed off at not being paid. A charming (or sometimes not-so-charming) self-centered liar.
I got an eyeful of how the system works since I was in touch with his wife. The detective had an idee fixe- I really don't know why- that "Don" was the criminal. He wanted to solve the case. The DA wanted successful conviction to rbing up their stats. Somewhere along the line, all kinds of contradictory evidence was trashed- the fact that the scene of the crime was 60 miles away from where "Don" lived, that his wife said he was with her at the time, that it was a homosexual murder and that "Don" may have been a lot of things but gay wa definitely not one of them. So "Don" was yanked from a decent-paying job and cooled his heels in jail for six months while the lab worked down their backlog of DNA. It made me realize how driven the system is to convict someone- ANYONE- regardless of the evidence.
But even if the evidence is incontrovertable, I don't think the death penalty works. It doesn't deter crime, because the people who commit themost serious crimes are generally not in their right minds anyway. Most death-row prisoners are brain-damaged in some way. These are NOT people who consider the consequences before they act.
Now, where the death penalty would REALLY deter crime in white-collar crime. THOSE people think things through. Ken Lay might have not been os cavlaier with people's penions if he knew he might swing at the end of a rope because of his malfeasance!
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