In today's post, Brian uses the Food Safety Bill (S.510) to explain how the U.S. Senate has been rigged to favor corporate special interests, and presents a convincing argument based on today's news for repealing the 17th Amendment. It is well worth your time to read.
Update Dec. 7: Brian posted a comment in his own blog that is worth reposting here:
Thanks Harold. It's been up and down over the years but the blogging keeps me partially focused on the shenanigans in the US Senate.
Getting this repealed is a tough fight, but at least for now I hope we are waking people up to the origins of the US Constitution and the creation of Congress and the role the US Senate once had.
But even if the repeal did happen we would still need to make a modification and add a recall provision that was left out of the Constitution from the Articles of Confederation. That would put the states back into the Federal Government and restore the 10th Amendment.
5 comments:
Don't take away my right to vote like Ohio did with term limits 20 years ago (I have come to regret my decision back then to vote for term limits). I cannot agree with going back to the days of political cronyism choosing our senators.
So-called unfunded mandates wouldn't be a problem if this country weren't spending more than $1.2 trillion per year on the military-industrial complex and our nearly 800 overseas military installations. They wouldn't be a problem if Congress wasn't spending some $250 billion per year on corporate welfare (according to some estimates).
We have to have some things done in the national interest. The money is there to pay for them, it's a matter of priorities.
I see the real problems with the government as our bloated security and military-industrial apparatus that's turning us into a police state, corruption by corporate and wall street interests and a warped campaign finance system aided and abetted by a supreme court that has issued decisions over the years starting with Union Pacific RR vs. Santa Clara County, California and ending most recently with Citizens United that guarantees things stay corrupt.
I forgot to add the Federal Reserve system as one of the main problems I see with our current government. There is no reason we should be paying interest to a consortium of private banks on our money supply. Especially since some of those banks are among those responsible for the economic meltdown.
Anonymous1:
You vote for the state legislators, don't you? You certainly could hold them accountable for their votes for U.S. Senator.
One could reasonably argue that the problems you cite in your last paragraph are related to the problem of directly electing U.S. Senators; because the Senatorial campaigns are so expensive that they invite corruption through campaign contributions.
Anonymous2 (I guess you're the same as Anonymous1...):
I agree, We need to abolish the Federal Reserve Bank and the fiat (unbacked) currency that goes with it.
Harold:
Thanks for the plug. I really appreciate it very much.
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