Not all letters that readers send to newspaper editors are scathing protests. Common sense ideas are at the top of my list of how elected representatives can listen to we the people. It’s not just reading metro papers, either.
Locally, people are happy to vent their spleen at city management or occasionally (ahem) at viewpoints of others. And that’s okay.
What is interesting and helpful about most of them is that ordinary citizens take their time to share their commonsense viewpoint about what’s happening. Anywhere!
These opinions are reliably more useful to any governmental body than what the elected officials are doing by following the orders of their party leaders! Not to mention cheaper, more cost effective and fairer. Let’s send a few registered voters to the capitols to take control!
To quote John “Cactus Jack” Nance Garner, vice president from 1933-41, his non-partisan viewpoint of all representatives was “they aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit”. Or maybe that was his place on the ticket.
Bear with me here. I’m dangerous when I start thinking “what if?”
An article on film director Francis Ford Coppola’s movie “Megalopolis” (nope, hasn’t shown up here so I have to read about it) apparently wasn’t intended to be a money maker. Coppola bankrolled and directed the whole thing as a dream of how to change the future because mankind is the epitome of the geniuses of the Universe.
He wrote down the 10 things that humans invented, which is pretty much everything that life depends on: work, money, politics, education, law, war, art, sport, celebration and time. There are nuances to all these, but Coppola noted that all rule our lives and most of them are “unpleasant,” he said.
He had a description of Utopia and how all these could be made to make life beautiful, instead. Are you still hanging with me?
Let’s focus on just one of these that could incredibly simplify life in America and around the world.
Get rid of political parties. BAM! They’re gone.
So my question this week is: Can you imagine our American political system, a republic such as we are, that dissolves all political parties and begins running itself? Citizens could employ their own version of “cancel culture” without a sword of Democles hanging over their head. Something DJT#47 has done for the past eight months.
Let Eeney, Miney and Mo pay the filing fees and line up to run for an office—whatever—and voters at the polls choose the one, three or five they know best, somewhat like ranked voting that New York State just tried, successfully it seems. The votes are counted, with the leading candidates put in a run-off and that’s who becomes mayor or governor or even attorney general.
Millions of dollars are saved because PACs can’t promote their party or candidate or even gerrymander political districts, as is happening now in Austin. Many millions of dollars are put to better use. Helping people, for instance. Reducing debt. Feeding small children. Maybe even stopping wars that balloon up from inflated egos and land grabs. The possibilities are exhilarating!
Wouldn’t life be a lot happier and much more pleasant if all those political egos were eliminated in one fell swoop? I’d vote for that.
Maybe you would too. And all that floated out of my brain before a second cup of coffee. Just from reading the letters to the editor in a big city newspaper, which aren’t always better than small town ones, they just have a broader reader base than one-party rural districts. Hence more “woke” ideas from ordinary people.
Why aren’t congressional districts not shaped uniformly, asked one writer, based on population—not race, religion or party affiliation? The 38 Texas districts bear no resemblance to fairness. The party in power gets to choose their voters, not voters choosing their representatives.
Another letter writer quoted Pete Townshend and his song “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: “Meet the new boss. Sames as the old boss.” It is all about the party, not the people, when votes are always “along party lines”.
Another asked why the Texas GOP wants laws for flood projects and warning systems when they could easily shift funds from the MAGA border funds.
Local newspapers are what make this world tick – so maybe you could share some helpful idea of your own soon. Or consider the ideas of other non-political folk, whether you like their politics or not.
A good place to start this week. Maybe the special session in the legislature will listen!
Shelly has worn more hats in the communications field than Carter had pills but forgot to retire when she closed her promotions business. She earned a BA in Journalism at NTSU (before it became UNT) and has never lost her love of words.