Drop a lit match into a tank of gas and what happens? An explosion, and burning bodies of anyone within the blast radius. But put that tank 10 feet away, attach a tube, fuel pump, spark plugs, and a contained area where a regulated amount of fuel receives a limited spark, among other implements, and you have created a miracle of power. Democracy unfiltered is a match coming into contact with a gas tank, and the damage thus caused is an inevitability. Presidential politics, national politics, presently unfiltered, causes unimaginable destruction, and the entire nation stands within the danger zone. The United States is divided into an armed camp, Left versus Right, conservative versus liberal, et cetera. We are children playing with matches and gasoline, and every four years the fuel is increased, more distilled, more pure, and the resulting explosion far more destructive. Neighbors, families, and married couples come to hate each other, ripped apart by the manufactured chaos that descends upon us every four years. We’re pressured into taking sides, we become emotionally invested in our candidate and our party, neither of which ever comes to represent us when they claim their temporary power. National politics is destroying us, and the rage that it spawns lasts for years, even decades. We’ve all met someone still personally jilted over some Presidential campaign from decades ago. They bring that animal grudge with them into the future, remembering it at the ballot box, and when they’re spewing their bile in online rants. Berzerker, animal rage fuels Presidential campaigns, and the hucksters most gifted at channeling and inflaming that rage end up the nominees of their party, and who eventually end up in office, enacting the policies and agendas of their donors, not the people.
There must be a better way, another path to choosing the leaders who will direct the fate of the most free and tolerant nation to have ever existed. This doesn’t mean we must scrap democracy altogether, but we must install filters, rebuild the political engine, if we are not to destroy ourselves.
This means removing certain political positions from popular vote altogether. As anathema to the American conscious it may be, I believe the office of the Presidency should be removed from popular vote altogether. How should our President be chosen? By our state representatives, or by lottery, or by black robed Constitutional scholars who are themselves appointed and removed from the wildfire of mass public opinion. Our President should be someone chosen not for their ability to Pied Piper the masses, but who is bred for power, trained as a steward of the nation created by the Founders. Our President should be a king in all but name. The President’s staff should be chosen in a similar fashion, and removed from the President’s vote as well. His staff will be appointed for him, not by him. Constitutional and military scholars, with a firewall firmly placed between themselves and the influences of money. They may be shuffled at the discretion of those who appointed them, but the President himself would remain in office for a far longer length of time than a mere four years. A twenty or thirty-year term, which would force him to plan and think long-term. A smaller age window would be required to be eligible for the Presidency, say, ages 40-55. No one younger or older would be eligible to serve.
“Democracy” would be a privilege afforded to American citizens, not a God-given right to use and abuse at will. Citizens would vote in local and state elections, choosing these smaller offices, and possibly starting little fires that could easily be put out. Democracy at the national level risks a wildfire that would burn the nation down.
Democracy is dangerous, but necessary. We must treat it as such, and chain it down, regulate it intelligently, and withhold it when necessary. This obviously goes against everything we wayward, emotional, and unfocused citizens of the West. We’re taught that we are entitled to put everything to a vote. We’re taught that if we don’t get what we want, we’re entitled to burn everything down, either figuratively at the ballot box, or literally, with riots and maltov cocktails. This is the destiny of all unlimited democracies if filters are not put into place.
Who gets to vote? Legal American citizens. Even at the local level, a large degree of filtering must take place. Someone who moves to another state should be barred from voting for at least five years. A person who moves to a new city should face the same restrictions on local elections. This would prevent emigre political revolutions from masses who arrive from a state or county that they’ve destroyed through the ballot box. This would preserve the will of the local residents who have lived in the same state or town their entire lives. The consequences of emigre voting can be seen all through the Midwest, as refugees from California and other left-liberal strongholds flee to safer and more prosperous states arrive in Texas and other states, and proceed to vote how they did in their previous home.
Established residents would enjoy the privilege of voting for their state representatives, mayors, city councils and other small offices. And when in office, these functionaries would be restricted in their power as well. Taxing power would be severely restricted, as the ability to bequeath tax credits and corporate welfare to favored business entities. But that is another discussion entirely.
Our Congressional representatives would be chosen by popular vote, but those only with families and careers, non-criminals, non-vagrants, established citizens who hold a real stake in the future of their home and community.
Democracy has become a drug, and we’re addicts. Unfiltered democracy provides a fireworks show unlike any other, and far too many are content to allow their world to be disemboweled for the spectacle alone.
Democracy-induced societal fracturing will be the end of America. We must find another way.
