Conflict and Coopretation

Conflict is important to the proper functioning of government. Without conflict laws and policies are adopted without being analyzed or justified. This is leads to abused within the law and government policies favoring those who made them. Conflict can prevent this by raising the standard for action from the desires of a small number of people to the consent or agreement of a much larger group. It also fuels the promotion of virtue by providing the resource necessary to expose the wrong doing of each side's opponents. Conflict also reduces the amount and scope of laws created thereby reducing the amount of government imposition into the lives and liberties of the people.

The modern committee system is an example of a mechanism designed to reduce conflict. I believe it has served to increase the litigiousness of congress as well to shield pork style kick-back spending. It has also created a disparity in power among representatives in congress a situation which denigrates the votes and influence of a large numbers of citizens.

Here are some proposals I think might be worth considering to increase and facilitate positive conflict within the federal government.

1. Remove the power of committees over legislation reducing their role to investigation, submitting reports to the full assembly, and overseeing the operations of government agencies.

2. Require a vote on any legislation endorsed by ten percent of the members in either assembly.

3. Limit the amount of text that can comprise a single bill (excluding amendments) or amendment to 1400 words.

4. Allow the President to veto amendments to bills as well as bills.

5. Allow the Supreme court to review the constitutionality of a law at the request of either house of Congress, the President, or Vice President.

6. Return the election of Senators to the State Legislatures but allow them to appoint or recall Senators at their discretion.

7. Use a single pool single transferable vote system to elect House representatives within each states.

8. Require the attendance of members of Congress while Congress is in session.

9. Give the Vice President parliamentary control over the Senate.

10. Allow the either house of congress to repudiate the actions or policies of government agencies.

The calls for cooperation in government neglect the fact that government is not analogous to any non-government organization or system. It is not self-selected or optional. It represents all citizens who have many conflicting goals and desires. It must protect the rights and freedoms of the minority as well as the majority. Those who call for cooperation often in-vision their agenda being adopted or an end to the acrimonious intrusion of government into their perceptions. But the repression of dissent is necessary to eliminate conflict from a free government and the creation of the mechanisms to enact such repression usually creates corruption in and collusion between those who come to hold that power rather than the begin cooperation in-visioned by those who support it. Somethings have to be done the hard way and government is one of them.