On July 13th, 2024, the United States was an inch shy of civil war. Yesterday, September 15th, as a country we again peered over that edge into a murky abyss.
There are many bad ideas circulating in politics. Some bad actors will latch onto them and campaign on these as policies. We can recognize and dislike these bad policies and their proponents, but citizenship requires that we respect our countrymen’s right to their opinions. The way we prove such policies and opinions mistaken is by voting against them at election, since it signals to their proponents that they cannot count on our support, regardless of the election’s result. Political violence guarantees not just the absence of support for given policies, but concerted disruption of their implementation and proponents, so it is counterproductive, and more to the point, it is morally repugnant!
If there are those in our country willing to kill – and undoubtedly expecting in the process to be killed --another human being based on this person’s prospects of winning the presidency, then now’s a good time to realize that the modern presidency has too much power. If a given candidate’s victory threatens your livelihood and lifestyle, then the institution has too much power to entrust to anyone. Half the country voting to force its will on the other half, is the wrong paradigm to follow.
It is time to divest the federal government of overarching powers to the greatest extent possible. Devolve to the states, so that no one is beholden to federal one-size-fits-all policies and citizens can vote with their feet for the “laboratories of democracy” which attract them. Let a bevy of private entities compete for the delivery of services people have come to expect from the federal government, so that the citizen can vote with his dollars for the provider which best serves him. Relegate the federal government to running the courts, securing borders, and harmless, relatively inexpensive functions like standardizing weights and measures. Let the presidency be divested of so much power, that few will think it worthwhile to take a life and lose their own in elimination of a candidacy.
There will be oddballs who seek headlines, so vigilance is always warranted. If nothing else, July 13th showed us one federal agency to top a growing list of functions to offload to the private sector.
I agree! All representatives have too much power and that means their power can be bought -- or if they are not corruptible -- they can be eliminated. If the power were in the people instead, it would be a lot harder to buy us all off and/or kill us all.