Random, discombobulated, but... somehow very important to me.
If we want our country to be a better place, the people running it need to be better people. Not smarter. Not younger. Not "more in touch." Better. They need to be civil servants and they need to know that their job is to make this country grow. Much like a parent needs to know when they have to be the friend and when they have to be the disciplinarian, our government needs to learn that following the whim of the crowd is a sure way to end up exactly where we are now. Debt up to our eyeballs, divided, angry, weak, and bitter.
So. To keep the folks in the legislature in the place they need to be:
1- No elected official (Edited per comments on 2/19 at 1031 PST) will have an income greater than 110% of the median income of their constituents. These people are civil servants first and foremost. They SERVE the people, not lord over them. If there are people in your constituency struggling to put food on their table, you should not be debating your third car on their dime. If the cost of living at the capitol is too high, Uncle Sam can build dorms. Nice, secure, somewhat posh dorms, sure. But dorms. You do not need a brownstone and a limo for the six months you're working when there are people losing their homes in droves electing you.
2- Armed forces will get access to the same insurance plan that congress gets at the same cost. If the people sending our friends and family off to die get amazing health coverage on the public dime, the people actually losing their limbs do too. It's that simple. There is exactly zero logical or emotional way of supporting the idea that men and women in suits in some of the most protected buildings in the country have better healthcare than the men and women we send overseas to fight and die in our names. That has to stop right now. RIGHT NOW.
3- When your job ends, so do your benefits. I've been in the corporate world for a decade now. I've changed jobs a number of times. I've yet to continue getting paid, insured, or compensated by an employer after leaving the company. Time for our government to be "of the people" again and realize that when you leave your job, it's over. You don't get a pension for four years of service. You don't get health insurance on the public dime for the rest of your life. You are one of us, you live like one of us. You cannot legislate for your constituents if you are unable to grasp the situation we are in.
4- Barring top secret/high clearance work, every meeting, every committee, every governmental email, every document and every version of every bill is public. You work for us. We pay your salary. We buy your computers, cars phones, and everything else you use for your living. Your entire job is to work to make our country a better place. My employer makes me sign a notice that my data is theirs. Your data is ours. You make good money- go buy a private cell phone if you want to send dick pictures, flirt with pages, or tell your bros how many of our jobs you'll trade for a vote on your bill.
5- There will be no more than two people (or twenty percent, whichever is smaller) on a committee who are not well-versed on the subject of the bill. If you have no background in education, you do not debate the merits of standards-based curricula. If you have never been trained in the use of a firearm, you do not debate the merits of firearms training. If you have no medical background, you do not debate... You get the idea. There is no reason for people with no background in science or in education to be debating science education. It's detrimental. Stop it.
More to come but if I ever run for office, I'm gonna have a weird platform.
