Comment Re:Tough to fix. But. (Score 1) 183
I genuinely appreciate your earnestness in wanting to reform the system, and I think more people should have strong feelings and ideas about how to "fix" things as you do. Unfortunately, a lot of things that seem like they have easy answers don't, and that's why they're hard. The devil is in the details, and the law of unintended consequences makes itself felt very keenly here. To wit:
a judge serves a randomly assigned trial with one requirement: it must be somewhere FAR from where they live
For better or worse, people elect judges because they want their views to reflect that of the community where they live. Maybe a liberal area wants judges that are more lenient in sentencing, or vice versa. Do you really want your Bay Area case where some wing nut has sued Google for not basing the Android clock on days since Biblical Creation to be decided by an imported judge from Alabama who may actually think they're right?
Third, plea bargaining has turned out to be an extremely bad thing.
Plea bargaining has its abuses, but more than anything else it is a very practical thing. A full jury trial for any serious (felony) offense is extremely expensive and time consuming, and plea bargaining is a way to reduce the burden on courts and juries by exacting some form of a minimum toll on the guilty without going for the maximum.
Congresscritter dimwit writes up a law that infringes on your right to keep and carry, he's shown the door.
What? Who decides this? Right now, through separation of powers, the courts rule on the constitutionality of laws. Under your idea - does John Boehner get to automatically impeach President Obama because he thinks executive orders on immigration are "unconstitutional?" Who gets to boot Republicans automatically for bringing DOMA to the House floor? What if I just think you're a dick and your law is unconstitutional and you should be gone?
Still in this context, the 2nd is perfectly clear if you're not being outright disingenuous or ignorant
Sorry, friend. I agree with your statement, but probably in exactly the opposite meaning you intend. Why even mention "a well regulated militia" if that is not the justification for the 2nd Amendment? And if you're not in a state-sponsored militia, why do you have this right again? This is just an example of where well intentioned people can wildly disagree on the meaning of legal/constitutional language and there is no shortcut to divining meaning.
Fourth, piling on charges post-arrest should be abolished.
So just to make this clear - I arrest you for drunk driving. But I search your trunk later and find you have a kidnapped person in there, and I can't charge you for it? Or, more likely, I arrest you for stealing a car. While the prosecutors are interviewing witnesses for the case, they talk to a chop shop operator who testifies you stole and sold 25 other cars to him. Why on earth should you not be charged with that?
I suggest lobbyists go as well, in favor of a system where a congressperson has a system that constituents can access where they can either open an issue or join other voices on an issue
You're right, nobody likes lobbyists. But they do actually have a purpose. Let's say that a congressperson from Maine is going to have to vote on a bill to grant or revoke a complicated set of tribal fishing rights on Federal land in California. Is this congress critter going to have constituents who are informed about this issue, or will they have time to learn about the issue on their own? No. Instead, lobbyists - on both sides of the issue - have their opportunity to brief lawmakers and try to sway their vote. Certainly not a perfect system, but you really do want to have professional advocates on both sides of an issue. Imagine if the EFF couldn't talk to congresspeople, and they had to rely on what some dumb-ass "IT guy" in their home district had to say on the issue, having spent all of 10 minutes researching it on Ask Jeeves. You get the idea.
You want to sell stuff here, you build it here from materials sourced from here using labor from here.
What? What if I like champagne, cinnamon or wagyu beef? What if the cost of diamond engagement rings goes up 10x because the US doesn't produce a meaningful amount of diamonds? What is the point of suddenly creating the need for millions of minimum-wage jobs - the sh*t end of the economic value chain, which is the vast majority of what has been outsourced - that Americans can't and don't want to fill?
Anyway, my point is that I admire people with a strong desire and thoughts about how to turn things around in this country. It's just much harder to fix things than it looks, which is why making things better will require people to do the hardest thing of all - converting their zeal to electoral action, and then overcoming partisanship to make compromises and work together.