To Salvage U.S., we need to break up the country into 5 Separate republics, No President

National referendums on everything,
permanent voting places where people can go to vote on everything.
congress has proven time and again that they are out of touch with their constituents and don`t represent the will of the people.

no more backroom deals buying congressmen`s votes.
if you can`t get to the voting place or you just don`t feel like voting all the time that`s no problem there are other people will vote.
less than half of the eligible voters even bother to vote anyway,the president is elected by less than a majority of eligible voters so less than a majority of voters passing a budget shouldn`t be a problem.

congress will be a part time job again as it was meant to be.They`ll go to washington for a few months every year and draft the proposals that they want to put before the people to be voted on.Then for the rest of the year they`ll have to go and get real jobs.

If a particular government dept. is especially keen on having their budget request passed they have to take their case to the people and convince them to approve it.
For example if the NPS wants to build more of these million dollar outhouses they will have to convince the people that it is money well spent.

Ew, what's that smell?! Government racks up million dollar bill... on an outhouse

www.nydailynews.com...

They didn`t build just one of them they have been building million dollar outhouses in nation parks all over the country for years now.

Congress has proven that they can`t be trusted to represent the people fairly,they can`t be trusted to spend our money wisely.

reply to post by Tinkerpeach


reply to post by Tinkerpeach

None of those established things has any effect on why the Articles of Confederation did not work however. They did not fail because there were no parties established yet or because they rode horses instead of cars.

The inherent weakness of the Articles of Confederation stemmed from the fact that it called for a confederacy—which placed sovereign power in the hands of the states.

Specifically, the lack of a strong national government in the Articles of Confederation led to three broad limitations:

1. Economic disorganization
A. Congress could not regulate trade
B. No uniform system of currency
C. No power of taxation

2. Lack of central leadership
A. No independent judiciary
B. No foreign affairs head
C. Inability to deal with internal and external threats

3. Legislative inefficiencies
A. Each state had one vote
B. Difficulty passing laws
C. Impractical amendment process

Source

So there we have. The tried and true reasons why it didn't work. Though I would still add the fact that transport/distribution was still weak, still to much unorganized division, still too early as a new country.

So, how can all those be fixed? Easy:

1. Economic disorganization = Keep it organized. 5 different economies, all separate, yet all linked, including a small centralized overseeing office

A. Congress could not regulate trade = Each Separate Congress of the 5 Zones regulates zone trade, under the auspices of a small centralized overseeing office
B. No uniform system of currency = We now do have uniform system of currency
C. No power of taxation = Keep it federally unified how it is now

2. Lack of central leadership = Have 5 central leaderships who all met monthly
A. No independent judiciary = Keep the Supreme court
B. No foreign affairs head = Keep the one we have now, and have 1 for each zone. Meet monthly
C. Inability to deal with internal and external threats = Keep Military in place, but all 5 zones have to agree on military moves. We are for the most part, secured.

3. Legislative inefficiencies = still exist
A. Each state had one vote = Equal the votes for all states/zones, etc
B. Difficulty passing laws = is corrupt and influenced by corps/lawyers, Big Money, Banks
C. Impractical amendment process = Still exists

Number 3 is still the hardest to clean up.

They failed because of a lack of a centralized power that could dictate the same policy to all the colonies, or states today. If you remove that then you are going to have different states doing different things, especially in regards to commerce, and the country will not be able to function.

Keep the dept of commerce centralized, while giving some lee-way to each zone on small details that will not cause a slow down or problems in commerce. Any nationwide changes have to go through all zone and be approved by majority vote

Here is an example, Arizona had passed a law saying that trains going through its state could only be a certain length because of their new safety standards. This meant that any train longer than their regulation had to stop, break into two, then move across the State as two separate trains which caused enormous delays to shipping throughout the West. Because the federal government was in charge of commerce the Supreme Court ruled that Arizona had to change their law. You take commerce out of the feds hands and things like this will now be allowed. It would be a complete mess.

Cool, so the keep the Supreme court up and running to keep the 5 zones in check and keep everything flowing smoothly as a country. I see no problems with that. 5 zones is still applicable. No Pres is decentralized power, something the founding Fathers were HUGE on.

Each zone will end up with strengths and weaknesses and with survival of the fittest, we can the focus on the strengths of each zone, entirely. For example, many gun manufacturers are moving to TX, SC, TN, etc. So lets say the South East zone become the prominent manufacturing zone. Then let them focus on that strength.

Cali/Oregon/Wash/Col is breaking ground with Marijuana production as a legal, taxable, and potent industry (pun intended). So let them focus on that. Eventually they will be exporting.

Midwest belt is all farm/dairy. Let them focus on that. And so on. Eventually the 5 zones will be self regulated and strengthened upon certain categories of market.

This is still a viable idea

reply to post by Tardacus


You are describing Direct Democracy. Which I personally feel is an ideal, a goal to work toward... but I don't think we are ready for it, sadly. People are not nearly educated enough for it not to have some potential (likely) disastrous results.

reply to post by Dominicus


What amazes me is that we still possess the tools we need to halt all this nonsense our government is spewing on an hourly basis, people keep coming up with extreme measures to "fix" this instead of using them. We have the power to recall Congress, why we aren't doing it is beyond me.

All we need to do is REMOVE ALL DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS FROM OFFICE! Bam!!! Instantly our problem is solved. They are all self serving greedy bastiges.

Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin. It is a filthy currency tarnished by greed and corruption that will no longer purchase honest representation for the American People. Democrats and Republicans conspire in Washington to scam, defraud, and extort money from the American people and give it to their butt buddy corporate friends.

Every election cycle we have to choose between the lying, thieving, whore mongering Democrat or the lying, thieving, whore mongering Republican After every election the headlines scream "REPUBLICANS WIN!" or they scream "DEMOCRATS WIN!". But they never, never, never scream "AMERICANS WIN!". Why is that? It is because when Democrats and Republicans win, Americans get screwed.

The only way Americans will ever have an honest government is to quit electing Democrats and Republicans. We need to elect citizen statesmen who love America more than they love power and money. Men who can stand on their own two feet instead of being propped up by gangs of criminals. Honest men with sweat on their brow and calluses on their hands.

The true patriot is not the man who blindly defends a corrupt government. The true patriot is the man who defends the Constitution from that government.

imagine a world w/out borders...nothing to die for...it's easy if you try...imagine all the people living in peace...you may say I'm a dreamer...but I'm not the only one...a brother hood of man....more or less John Lennon 'Imagine'
DeCeit and all the rest of the socalled leaders - promote war.

Is a "rouge" agency anything like a "black" agency, but instead of black it's red/rouge??

Anyway, on topic...

Splitting the country up will only serve to make five (or whatever number) SLIGHTLY smaller dysfunctional governments instead of one slightly bigger one. In fact, it'd probably be more difficult to monitor five (or how ever many) separate and independent - to one degree or another - governments complete with their own redundant Rogue Agencies and their incumbent abuses. We have a hard enough time standing up to The Man when said Man is just one set of jerk-offs.

People are people; rogue, rouge or otherwise.... and as such will make a Charlie Foxtrot out of any attempt at organised government.

The Op has pointed out that to salvage the US that we will need to break the country into 5 separate republics, with no centralized power. To that end the following can be stated:

As much as this may seem appealing to some, there are a few problems with that in its own self that is not considered or even thought of in the initial OP. The first problem would be that a good quarter of the country would be come separated in the mix, and there would be no guarantee that such would be able to come back to the part(s) that such in in. Take out states like Oklahoma and other states with large Reservations; do you honestly think that the Native Americans would want to be a part of a new country or republic? Chances are no, they would demand to be autonomous regions, and that would remove a quarter of the USA from the mix.
Then you combine other states, which have been talking about separation, and looking to be their own country. And they would use that as an excuse to break away from the country, pointing to the break up.

Now you have problem states, who would want to live in a region that has say California with a large debt, or even say a state like Illinois, where the Chicago politics are corrupt?
No you want to make the country a better place and to save it; it has to start with WE THE PEOPLE. It means that we need to stop electing the same person to the same office, time and time again. We need to review and remove bad laws off of the books, and then there has to be equal enforcement of the laws across the country. And finally, as much as I would hate to advocate it, there needs to be in the minds of all those who would be elected, that the option to forcibly remove them from office, even at the point of a gun, needs to always be on the table.

opethPA
The problem isn't the system, it is the humanity.
It's like people that believe their is some technological way to prevent wars from happening. Weapons do not fire themselves, people do.
So you can play a shell game and separate the country into as many parts as you want but that does not change the fact that people cause every evil thing that ever has or ever will happen in the world.

correct. in a perfect world, communism without the human greed, corruption, and buddy systems.

But, we all see what happens. Family hires family for all the good positions, others are left with the crappy stuff.

We are here now because there is such massive wealth imbalance. In a community where all have close to the same, there is checks/balances.. but now, few have it ALL, and many have jack squat, and those with the J in jack squat are just as selfish and greedy as those with all.

POWER CORRUPTS... MONEY is POWER..

NONE should have over 2 million wealth.. THEY ARE NOT THAT DARN SPECIAL..!!

The funny thing about this thread is that I think it is possible that our country might be breaking into segments very soon - the two parties have come to a stand-off and it looks like we could be defaulting on our debt.