I'm back! I haven't provided a new post since February 5, 2020. Since then I published my second novel, The Activist with KDP on Amazon.com and wrote my third, The Survivor, which I plan to publish this summer. Both concern the continued relationship between a grandfather, an aging liberal activist from the 1960s, and his grandson, a conservative libertarian supporter of Donald Trump through the events of January 6, 2021. More on this later. I am also happy to report that I and my extended families survived the pandemic and the lockdowns! Now, with political campaigns and general elections coming up this November, I want to say more to you through this blog.
I'm a Democrat for Democracy
When I was in high school many years ago, I sat through the state-required class called Problems of Democracy (POD). The teacher asserted that American democracy has always had problems, but we have gotten past them, because our Constitution is inviolate and our system of government is rock-solid stable.
Now I wonder. We were
taught that voting is a privilege and a civic duty, but a great number of
people don’t. We used to have
competitive races in politically balanced districts, yet now we have extensive
gerrymandering that produce guaranteed results and unaccountable
representatives from state houses to Congress.
Presidents are being elected by
razor thin margins in just a few swing counties in just a few swing states due
to the “winner-take-all” Electoral College regardless of the total popular
vote. A violent mob provoked by the President himself attacked the Capitol. We used to boast of our individual
liberties and now neither our homes nor our bodies are free from government
interventions. And I could go on and
on….
I remember an old man in my neighborhood when I was a child who told me that he
was getting more conservative as he grew older, but he hated to think that life had already passed him by. He was 92 years
old then, and I’m now on my way there myself.
I refuse, however, to give up my long-held progressive ideals. That’s why in our current troubled times, I
remain standing as a Democrat for democracy.
I want to move forward with five very important propositions:
1. Let every eligible voter vote and count every valid vote. The presidential election of 2020 challenged the very foundation of American electoral democracy. In the future, we need to both encourage and facilitate every eligible voter to vote. Let's make it very easy for eligible voters to register and to vote – to vote only once per voter but by many different options. We cannot disenfranchise voters away from home, the elderly, and the home-bound sick and disabled as well as their caregivers. We also need to get stricter about voter eligibility. Voter registration should be rigorously validated and updated in systematic and transparent ways. Vote counting should likewise be more rigorous and open to easy and accurate certification. In addition, there must be substantive voter equality by holding elections in politically balanced districts or other geographical units. Maybe we should abandon districts within states and have only state-wide elections for at-large representatives.
2. Make all governments more efficient,
effective, and responsive to the people they serve. American manufacturers
lost their global dominance in the 1970s to competitors who could produce
superior quality products at lower prices.
They rebounded because of new facility investments, process
re-engineering that assured quality control at lower costs, waste reductions, and deployment of
technological advancements, such as CAD/CAM and robotics. Following the example of manufacturing,
service companies have also undertaken process re-engineering. Now it’s time for similar process
improvements in the public sector. They
must deliver superior value for taxpayers.
Governments at all levels need to modernize facilities, reduce time
delays and customer frustrations, improve accuracy, and reduce costs to provide more effective and
efficient services to Americans.
Government business should be as transparent as possible while
protecting national security and individual rights.
3. Restore ethical government. We need to go much further with ethics laws
to make public the personal assets and financial interests of all people who
serve in public offices from city and county offices all the way to the White
House. We need to stop conflicts of
interest and corruption from the very start.
There should be no relatives or business partners or big contributors of
office holders also on government payrolls.
Contracts and investments made by government offices need to be carefully
reported and monitored.
4. Protect Personal Liberties. Consistent with the intensions of the
Founding Fathers in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we must strongly
re-affirm the role of the national government to protect at the national level
the personal liberties of individuals. Among
other provisions, the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments should be
broadly interpreted to include the individual right to personal privacy,
including one’s health and integrity of physical body as well as real property,
possessions, and assets. No person can
be denied rights to body and property without due process. Americans are entitled to privacy in the
bedroom as well as other places in homes.
They are also entitled to their privacy online as well as other forms of
personal communications. Individuals should
be allowed to mind their own business as long as they are not infringing upon
the rights of other individuals. Governments
at all levels must police abuses to individual rights by corporations,
organizations, other individuals, and governments themselves.
5. Define infrastructure broadly. Governments at all levels are responsible for a commonly shared infrastructure. In earlier times, infrastructure was narrowly defined as streets and roads, bridges, and public buildings. It also included public safety and health services, such as clean drinking water, sewage treatment, garbage collection, and responsible police forces. In the changing world that we live in today, infrastructure must be broadly defined to include air and water standards and regulations, climate change mitigation, management of pandemics, universal access to health care, and affordable education for all households from pre-school through the post-secondary levels. We might further define infrastructure to include a nationwide system of public and private sector collaboration to provide broadband connectivity and electricity from manufactured energy sources.
copyright 2022 Stephen M. Millett (all rights reserved)
