Some suggestions that appeared in the comments section of a post by Francie Grace "What Does 'GOP' Stand For?":
Greed Over Principle
Guardians Of Privilege
Greed, Obstruction, & Paranoia
Guardians Of Privilege
Greed, Obstruction, & Paranoia
I keep hoping that the Republican Party opens its eyes and turns itself around. What happened to the party that used to represent - first and foremost - these beliefs and principles?
- individual freedom
- oportunity for all
- fiscal responsibility and good economic sense
- true conservatism - supporting first that which has been tried and proven
- being open to considering, and cautiously testing, new methods and new ideas
- loyalty to our constitution (e.g.: separation of church and state)
- fair return to individuals for hard work and good accomplishments
I'm sure there are yet many Republicans around (like yours truely) who still live by these beleifs. I'd like to see us revive these as the core platform of the GOP.
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To be fair, the Democratic Party is no better than the Republican. Both parties have politicized themselves to a degree that is ugly and... just plain evil. The pledge of both appears to be "above all else, pursue and hold power".
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I really think its time we do something to heal the disease that has infected our national political scene. Term limits, e.g.: 12 yrs max serving in the House plus Senate, would be a good start. Go here to pledge your support: http://termlimits.org/.
Another good move might be to implement the "Patriot dollars" part of the "Voting with dollars" proposal (source):
It was originally described in detail by Yale Law School
professors Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres in their 2004 book
Voting with Dollars: A new paradigm for campaign finance.[7] All voters would
be given a $50 publicly funded voucher (Patriot dollars) to donate to federal
political campaigns. All donations including both the $50 voucher and
additional private contributions, must be made anonymously through the FEC.
Ackerman and Ayres include model legislation in their book in addition to
detailed discussion as to how such a system could be achieved and its legal
basis.
Of the Patriot dollars (e.g. $50 per voter) given to voters to allocate, they propose $25 going to presidential campaigns, $15 to Senate campaigns, and $10 to House campaigns. Within those restrictions the voucher can be split among any number of candidates for any federal race and between the primary and general elections. In the context of the 2004 election cycle $50 multiplied by the approximately 120 million people who voted would have yielded about $6 billion in “public financing” compared to the approximate $4 billion spent in 2004 for all federal elections (House, Senate and Presidential races) combined.[8] Ackerman and Ayres argue that this system would pool voter money and force candidates to address issues of importance to a broad spectrum of voters. Additionally they argue this public finance scheme would address taxpayers' concerns that they have "no say" in where public financing monies are spent, whereas in the Voting with dollars system each taxpayer who votes has discretion over their contribution.
Of the Patriot dollars (e.g. $50 per voter) given to voters to allocate, they propose $25 going to presidential campaigns, $15 to Senate campaigns, and $10 to House campaigns. Within those restrictions the voucher can be split among any number of candidates for any federal race and between the primary and general elections. In the context of the 2004 election cycle $50 multiplied by the approximately 120 million people who voted would have yielded about $6 billion in “public financing” compared to the approximate $4 billion spent in 2004 for all federal elections (House, Senate and Presidential races) combined.[8] Ackerman and Ayres argue that this system would pool voter money and force candidates to address issues of importance to a broad spectrum of voters. Additionally they argue this public finance scheme would address taxpayers' concerns that they have "no say" in where public financing monies are spent, whereas in the Voting with dollars system each taxpayer who votes has discretion over their contribution.
Hi Keith, nice to run into you last night at SC. I agree that our political system is broken. I've been thinking that it's going to be difficult to fix any other problems without addressing this first. I believe there are two important things we could change that would help. First would be to have open primaries, or more preferably some form of instant runoff elections, getting rid of primaries altogether. The reason I think this is important is that the current primary system (along with gerrymandering-another abomination), results in disenfranchisement and a high probability of candidates with extreme views being nominated. The second is elimination of unlimited, anonymous money in the political system. Colbert has done a good job pointing out the corrupt nature of the current system.
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