Re:   More on Molecular Politics

2008-12-12 13:22:00

Dan writes:

"It sounds above as if the elected representative will not have such authority, but must simply vote his constituency every time no matter what or he will no longer be supported by the 'Molecular Organization.'

"Is this correct?"

JJ:

This is correct. Unfortunately, in politics things have to be pretty black-and-white. If one allows an inch in leeway the politician will take a mile and give the most creative excuses possible for his "one exception to the rule," which turns into many exceptions.

One may ask, what if the majority demands something crazy, like sending a nuclear bomb to destroy France?

First, something this crazy will not even come up for vote and secondly if it did the representative could just vote for what he thought was right and become a one term representative.

LWK writes:

"In 'Molecular Politics -- Part Three' you outline a scheme where an organization is created and in return for support from politicians seeks to get the politicians to take an oath to support the will of the people.

"This has been tried before and has not been terribly successful so far. There is an organization that has sought to get politicians to sign voluntary self 'term limits' and some have indeed signed, and some have reneged. For the most part it is just ignored.

"I see no reason to believe that your organization and voluntary pledges would do any better. Actually I believe that if real statutory term limits could be imposed it would accomplish most of what you believe your 'Molecular Politics' would accomplish. However I don't see any chance of that happening any time soon."

JJ:

Yes, I remember that drive to get politicians to sign voluntary term limits. I thought it was one dumbest ideas I have ever seen and knew it wouldn't work. Don't get me wrong I think enforced term limits is a good idea, but this idea was doomed for two reasons. First it had no teeth to enforce it and a representative would suffer no repercussions for breaking the pledge. Secondly, the ones who did take the pledge and kept it were the cream of the crop that we did not want to resign. This merely turned out to be a way to get rid of the few honest people we had in Congress.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Molecular Politics, when established, will have teeth because every representative wants to get re-elected and keep his good reputation. When the people see that their will is being followed through the Molecular Politics organization they will continue to vote within that system. If a politician defies the will of the people he will be thrown out of that system and disgraced so he will not be re-elected. The voting of the people will be turned away from voting for the personality to actually voting for issues.