Is the idea of Congress itself fundamentally flawed?

[Delta4Embassy]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anyting important.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"Is the idea of Congress itself fundamentally flawed?"

No.

The flaw manifests with citizens who don't understand what a republican form of government is, and make the mistake of perceiving the United States as a 'democracy.'

 

[G.T.]

We are not a Dictatorship and don't need one. Representative republics have .... derp derp..

You guessed it! Representatives.

One man with ten years of power could fundamentally transform our entire Country and make it not our own anymore, in ten years. Its an idiotic idea, for a plethora of reasons - none of which could ever occur to the child-like mind if the OP.

 

[Sonny Clark]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anyting important.

Obviously, the Kool-Aid has taken its toll this morning. You can't be serious, can you?

The problem is not one of having a Congress consisting of representatives from different states, the problem lies in the absence of control over the Congress. Once elected to office, Congresspersons exert their will, and not the will of the people. This is what needs to be addressed.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anyting important.

Obviously, the Kool-Aid has taken its toll this morning. You can't be serious, can you?

The problem is not one of having a Congress consisting of representatives from different states, the problem lies in the absence of control over the Congress. Once elected to office, Congresspersons exert their will, and not the will of the people. This is what needs to be addressed.

One-person ruling systems of government were the norm a long while before democracies came about.

 

[Auld Phart]

The real question is:

Which one person, in this or any other country, would you want to have sole control of the country for a 10 year period?

Bush? (either one)

Clinton? (either one)

Sanders?

Cruz?

Rubio?

 

[Sonny Clark]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anyting important.

Obviously, the Kool-Aid has taken its toll this morning. You can't be serious, can you?

The problem is not one of having a Congress consisting of representatives from different states, the problem lies in the absence of control over the Congress. Once elected to office, Congresspersons exert their will, and not the will of the people. This is what needs to be addressed.

One-person ruling systems of government were the norm a long while before democracies came about.

And, if they were so good, they'd still be around, everywhere.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anyting important.

Obviously, the Kool-Aid has taken its toll this morning. You can't be serious, can you?

The problem is not one of having a Congress consisting of representatives from different states, the problem lies in the absence of control over the Congress. Once elected to office, Congresspersons exert their will, and not the will of the people. This is what needs to be addressed.

One-person ruling systems of government were the norm a long while before democracies came about.

And, if they were so good, they'd still be around, everywhere.

Vatican City springs readily to mind as an example of a monarchy (where the monarch actually rules and isn't just ceremonial.) A few of the arab countries have em as well. And there's many others with constitutional/ceremonial monarchs like Sweden.

Democracy doesn't work when the population exceeds the number of governmental leaders as we have here. Excellent bit here,

"Democracy? We tend to think that Democracy offers us freedom of choice, but in the last 40 years, we have had little effective input into most of the political decisions that affect our lives.

Do we have a truly Democratic system when most of us never even meet our Representatives at the various levels of Government? Even our State and City representatives probably don't know us and our views about the laws and regulations they pass. The only people most of them see on a regular basis are the lobbyists, who consequently have a disproportionately large influence on those laws and regulations.

Democracy and Optimum Population Size: 2500 years ago, Aristotle considered the best size for a city and concluded that a large increase in population would bring, "certain poverty on the citizenry, and poverty is the cause of sedition and evil." He considered that a city of over 100,000 people would exclude most citizens from a voice in government.

To get an idea of what the founders of the United States had in mind for our representative Democracy, at the low end, the Constitution says (Article 1, Section 2) that a Representative to the House should represent a minimum of 30,000 people. When the Constitution was written, the United States had a total population of around 2.5 million, and the Constitution allocated 65 Representatives to the 13 states. So each Representative of "the People's House" had about 38,500 constituents. Currently each Representative has 712,650 constituents. It's really a form of irony today to call it "the People's House" when only wealthy donors and paid lobbyists really have the ear of your "representatives." What we have now is not Democracy in the sense intended by the country's founders. "
Effects of Overpopulation on the Environment and Society HowMany.org

We have a democracy in name-only sort of government.

 

[Hamlet091765]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anyting important.

There was a time when the Congress got along well and earned its keep but now all we
see is obstructionism. Perhaps a parliamentary system would be better suited to serve the
needs of so many factions. Dictatorships seldom work to the advantage of the common people.

 

[longknife]

If you look at every other form of governance in the world, there is absolutely none even close to ours!

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anyting important.

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen?

What needs to get done?

 

[Maryland Patriot]

Term limits is the answer.
The problem is not with congress as an institution or as a branch of the government, the idea behind congress is good.
The problem is that being a representative was never intended as a life time job, or a career.
People like Reid, Pelosi, Bohner etc.. that have been in office for as long as they have been, have found that representing the corporations instead of the people is a much more lucrative way to spend their energy.
If a congressman or a senator could only spend 4 to 8 years in the position, there would be a much greater chance that they would represent those that elected them. They wouldn't have time to become as corrupt and because of a short finite term things might get done faster.
To make it even more likely that they would actually do things that are good for the citizens, one has to consider that they would be making laws that would apply to them when they left their elected position.
Take the ACA, as written, how many in congress would have voted for it if they had read it before passing it, and realized that in just a few years they would also be required to comply with everything in it, including the costs and waiting lines at the health care providers?

 

[longknife]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anyting important.

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen?

What needs to get done?

The entire purpose of congress was to have representatives of the people and the states decides what gets to be done by a majority - either a simple or 2/3 majority.

The founders purposely made it to avoid mob rule and to also include a bit of common sense and cooling off. Instead of instantly responding to mob hysteria, the idea was to come up with a reasonable solution.

 

[there4eyeM]

We can vote directly now. The House is unnecessary.
Keep the Senate.

 

[Maryland Patriot]

We can vote directly now. The House is unnecessary.
Keep the Senate.

Not until the voting process is made secure in the Nation. And right now, it is not.

 

[Idadunno]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anyting important.

Oh Dorothy, let's not go to Egypt

 

[Christophera]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anyting important.

Except it is too prone to corruption or despotism when not being of the people. And, Article V puts the states over the congress and courts if those entities suffer corruption.

All that needs be is for the purpose of free speech to be understood and used by the people to exercise their natural law rights through their unity.

The Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy had a huge impact upon the framers.

The Six Nations Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth

Haudenosaunee Confederacy

Iroquois and the Founding Fathers Teachinghistory.org

Chp 4 Such an Union FORGOTTEN FOUNDERS Benjamin Franklin the Iroquois and the Rationale for the American Revolution By Bruce E. Johansen

 

[Christophera]

We can vote directly now. The House is unnecessary.
Keep the Senate.

Not until the voting process is made secure in the Nation. And right now, it is not.

Opinion controls democracy, opinion comes from information, information comes from media.

Media is owned by the oligarchy. We will never know how to vote in our interests.

The purpose of free speech and a fair lawful vote can only be returned by constitutional amendment. Then, campaign finance must be effected the same way.

Doing those three things makes the nation constitutional enough for Article V.

Both of you support a lawful and peaceful revolution but do not know it.

CDZ - A Lawful And Peaceful Revolution US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

 

[Maryland Patriot]

We can vote directly now. The House is unnecessary.
Keep the Senate.

Not until the voting process is made secure in the Nation. And right now, it is not.

Opinion controls democracy, opinion comes from information, information comes from media.

Media is owned by the oligarchy. We will never know how to vote in our interests.

The purpose of free speech and a fair lawful vote can only be returned by constitutional amendment. Then, campaign finance must be effected the same way.

Doing those three things makes the nation constitutional enough for Article V.

Both of you support a lawful and peaceful revolution but do not know it.

CDZ - A Lawful And Peaceful Revolution US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

Term limits to reduce the chance of politicians being bought by corporations is not a revolution, it is only an attempt to return honor and dignity to an arm of government that has lost its way.
Restoring the intent of congress as outlined in the constitution is not a revolution. For congress to be acting in the manner that they are is in fact a revolution that is taking the power from the citizens as intended and transfering that power to the corporations as not intended.

 

[danielpalos]

If 435 people's approval is required to get things done isn't that a systemic failure waiting to happen? Isn't it more effective the fewer people required, and optimally just 1?

Abolish Congress and the Presidency, and reform the USA as an elected dictatorship. 1 head of state is elected for a single 10 year term. Then they're out and someone else is elected.

1 person with absolute power can get things done. 436 can't decide on a lunch order let alone anything important.

Maybe; but, I take the view that 435 persons with experience and education should be able to come up with synergistic solutions commensurate with their combined education and experience.