getting shit done

America's elected representatives rarely deal with the people these days, preferring instead to interact with middlemen known as lobbyists. Citizens who try to schedule a meeting with their Congressperson, who try to get some face-time with them, must instead acquiesce to the notion that a majority of their supposed go-to-guys in the national legislature spend a larger amount of time raising money for their reelection campaigns than they do handling the affairs of the people they were chosen to represent. This normalized form of corruption is so widespread and endemic that municipalities and towns across the country must now hire lobbyists just to get enough money to replace a broken manhole, among the most basic and standard elements of any liquid waste treatment system. Instead of being beholden to the septuagenarian widow eating government cheese and surviving on the generosity of her neighbors our elected officials beg and scrape for chump change at the feet of bailed-out bankers; instead of looking past their own personal job prospects and focusing instead on the wellbeing and Happiness of their constituents our elected officials kowtow before anyone with pockets deep enough to keep them in office. America's population has grown dramatically since the republic was founded, and we would do well to increase the number of representatives in our houses of parliament proportionately; our systems of government continue to reside in assumptions and circumstances nearly a quarter of a millennium old, and we would do well not only to incorporate into these systems methods for rapid communication but also to demand vociferously and incessantly of our current leaders greater transparency; and the realities of our time compel us to alter our systems of government to meet the changing needs and capacities of our modern age in anything but a light or transient manner, which we can do by abolishing those agencies that infringe generally upon the rights of the people and allow instead the heavy mantel of Liberty to guide us through these stormy seas of largely our own creation. The only clear way out of our current stagnation is loosen the fetters, shed heavy-handedness, mind our own business, and replace ships of war with freighters of trade. Dial back, dig in, and do good things. Mahalo.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥