Lifer,
I did not see your post and the question to me on Friday as about the time you posted it I had left for work. By Saturday morning when I posted a quick reply to Sleeve and my Vote for Nobody, your post was about 1 1/2 pages back, mostly a back and forth between Moreluck and Klein and to be honest I wasn't going to wade back through that. Since then I've been busy elsewhere so there you go.
On the one hand, you asserted in the original post that I would just ignore you but I guess you never gave thought that I might not see the question to begin with.
If I were President? I'd do all I could to abolish the office to begin with. For starters, I'm not a believer in the unitary executive doctrine. John Dean in his book Broken Government said this about the Unitary Executive theory,
and I believe if not before, we reached that point with Bush and even more solidified now. Even Congress who has sole constitutional authority on all matters of spending and taxation defer their duty to the President and await that office to give a national budget that sets both spending and taxation. Congress in that respect stands as a puppet IMO and the last thing it wants to do if follow the Constitution and it's Article 1 duties. Even worse are on the one hand people who say that gov't should be limited in it's size and scope and some even use free market rhetoric and yet they turn right around and scream about the sorrow job that Obama has done because, "he's not creating jobs and stimulating business activity and growth." The gov't should play no roll in the economy whatsoever, they should stay out of it and that includes all form and manner of actions of intervention. Just as gov't shouldn't be taking my money from me at the point of a gun to give to one side of the economic spectrum in the form of welfare subsidy, neither should it do the same for the otherside of the spectrum in the form of corp. welfare and subsidy and yes that includes all manner of subsidy to UPS. If UPS can't sustain itself without taking 1 penny of stolen money in the form of tax dollars from someone else, we all deserve to lose our jobs and go find something else of a more honest labor.
At the least, if I were in charge for a day, I'd abolish the Constitution to begin with and return to the Articles of Confederation.
On a broader answer, there are numerous possible solutions but here are some to consider:
Theory of Multi-Gov't or a form of Panarchy
There is also
Market Anarchism that differs widely but agrees generally all that the gov't does can be addressed by market action using voluntary and self organizing action among people. And then there is
Voluntaryism which could almost be infinite in how it would organize society and market actions. There is also what is called mutualism or what some called socialism absent the nationstate form which also adopts an individualist, absolute free market framework. In the 19th century, Benjamin Tucker was a leading advocate of this model and he was often described as an "unterrified Jeffersonian democrat."
When it comes to the term free market, I personally see society and market actions as one and the same but others are free to see it different and they should be. Why should an organization be granted a monopoly of force and then force others to see things this way or that? That goes straight to the heart of the concept of the "right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
As for voting, this covers several ideals also. I believe in the
Non-Aggression Axiom and on some level voting violates that principle and those who win and election in elect use gov't to force those in the minority to do what they may not do if left to voluntary action. The threat of force must be used to gain acceptance and compliance. The elective process is also described by the great H.L. Mencken in more direct terms that aren't as tasteful when seen as they really are.
From election to election, from party change to party change very little really differs so IMO voting for a democrat or republican is a complete waste of time and I've not voted for one in a Presidential election since 1980' when I voted for Reagan. Thinking he was a paleo-conservative of the Goldwater strain, I soon found out this was all wrong. But another paleo voice who even shortly before he died announced he'd found anarchy was one Joseph Sobrane who also
spoke out against voting and the waste of time that it is.Voting can also be seen as a market action, the candidate as the market product or service and the vote itself as the medium of exchange.If someone walks into a store and doesn't find a product worthy of their money being spent, would you condemn their action as wrong on some level and belittle them with the excuse, "well you should have bought the lesser evil product anyway?" Really? You would actually say that? If no, then why say it to people who withhold the currency of the elective process, the vote, as they hope by doing so would force a market action in which a better product comes into the market place? Maybe the reason we have such poor choices is because voters refuse to be smart consumers.
I don't pretend for this to be a complete answer, it's just the tip of the iceberg and a very large one at that. Solutions for free peoples to self organize can be as numerous as the number of people themselves and seeing free society as a free market and not as a restricted market, such answers in numbers should be welcomed and in many cases the best working solution may indeed be a little bit of this and a little bit of that but unlike a monopolized market, a free market allows modifications, adjustments and a cafeteria style approach to societal organization. But then elites and ruling hierarchies who control such things in the first place for their own self interests don't want you to have these kinds of choices to begin with. Hope this answers some of the question you posed.
out of Cain ?......OR.....why didn't she make a police report at the time of the incident ?? At least it would be on file.
