From: hal9001@panix.com (Robert A. Rosenberg)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 95 20:31:13 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Three strikes you're out!  for politicians... yeah we wish!
Message-ID: <v02130504ac375fb78fb1@[166.84.254.3]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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At 04:00 7/22/95, Craig Hubley wrote:
>>
>> About two weeks ago, there was some talk in here with regards to holding
>> DC lawmakers crominally liable for passign bad laws.  This was followed
>> up with postins pointing out that you can't do that.
>
>Here's something you *can* do:
>
>"Three strikes you're out" for politicians.
>
>Any time the Supreme Court strikes down a law, any politician who has been
>found to have voted in favor of three such laws is immediately stripped of
>all offices and rendered ineligible to run for public office ever again,
>at any level.  (The same might apply to those found to have lied to a court
>
>A politician who would trade citizen rights for political gain must be denied
>the benefits of such a tradeoff.  This might prevent the rise of demagogues.
>Term limits, etc., would of course help as well.  It would also give those
>politicians who vote for 'motherhood' issues like 'protecting kids from the
>perverts on the Internet' a good reason to think twice about the real issue.
>If they REALLY believe they are protecting someone, they will still vote in
>favor.  If they are going with the flow to avoid criticism, they'll lose in
>the end.
>
>My reasoning is that any politician whose laws are consistently struck down
>should be deemed to lack a fundamental understanding of the rights of the
>citizens of his/her country or jurisdiction.  They are thus a poor guardian
>of those rights.
>
>You heard it here first.
>
>Craig Hubley


I'd love to see the system described in H. Beam Piper's "A Planet for
Texans" implemented. Under that system, all Politicians are BY LAW
representing the interests of ALL their constituents. Any constituent who
feels that he/she is not being adequately represented (or feels that
his/her views/interests are being misrepresented) is by law granted total
access to the Politician and may register this disapproval of the
Politician's Performance in any way up to and including killing the
Politician. If the Politician (or his/her survivors/friends <g>) feel that
the constituent used excessive force (such as using a car bomb or a long
distance weapon like a rifle as opposed to using a personal weapon such as
a hand gun at close range) or force out-of-proportion to the action being
protested, they can bring charges in the "Court of Political Justice". In
such a trial it is the job of the prosecution (ie: The Politician or
Representatives) to prove that the constituent did, in fact, overstep the
accepted rules for registering disapproval.