Hereby Is Proclaimed A
'Bill of Ought to Be'
The never-ending efforts of David L Lewis to make civilization safe for civility
In 1958 to ‘graduate’ from 8th grade in Missouri we had to pass test on United States Constitution. Earned a whole $10 bill all for myself when I got an A+!
So, as one who got an A+ on it 65 years ago, I’ve anointed myself an expert on American Constitution. Therefore, herewith, to wit I hereby proclaim the following Bill of Ought to Be (things which ought to be in Constitution but ain’t).
BILL OF OUGHT TO BE
Ought To Be Voting require passing Citizenship Test “to determine if applicants have an adequate understanding of the English language, knowledge of US history, government, and civics.” Making everyone know enough to be a citizen of country in which they vote even if they still don’t for who or what they are voting.
Ought To Be requirement everyone who wants to run for any office undergo a ‘72-hour psych hold’ to determine if they are sick as a dog, crazy as a loon, or dumb as a rock. If they are any or all three they’d probably still get elected; but at least we’d know what we got.
Ought To Be implanted in every candidate a Lie Detecting Defibrillator to shock heart every time they tell a fact-checkable lie. A shock strong enough that anyone within 1000 feet would know it. Assuming, of course, we can find politicians with a heart.
Ought To Be elected for each office both a Campaigner and a Functionary.
The Campaigner would be handsome/beautiful, hypnotically eloquent, and preferably war hero. He/She could make any promise, tell any lies. He/she would have no real duties other than occasional ‘rally around the flag’ speeches to insure re-election of their Party.
The Functionary, on other hand, would be somebody who could just quietly do the job, on time, under budget. As they said when I was in grade school, someone to “make the trains run on time.”
Ought To Be Full Disclosure of donations totaling over $100 to any Party, PAC, or politician. This info could be posted for all the universe to see who’s buying who and how much each politician cost so we could get into the bidding to buy ourselves our own politician.
Ought To Be Term Limit of two consecutive terms in same office, with lifetime limit on how may years a person can hold elected offices. At some point they’d all have to get real job and work for a living.
Ought To Be Keep-It-Simple-Stupid requirement on all new laws. No Bill could include junk thrown in with absolutely nothing to do with anything. As it is now, God Almighty could personally walk into Congress with a 20-page Bill that would solve every problem on earth and cost nothing. By time it got to the President it would have become 5,000 pages of gibberish which would solve nothing, please no one, and increase national debt by several trillion borrowed dollars.
Ought To Be repeal of two laws for every one passed. Sooner or later we’d get down to original ten.
Ought To Be 1776 style ‘tar & feathering’ for violating an Oath. Seems in the past it was assumed everyone would put “duty, honor, country” ahead of all else. Many Laws and all ‘customs and norms and ethics’ assume people who’ve taken an Oath would simply be honorable. I’m all in favor of making America that way again, But, in meantime maybe some swift and certain public shaming might come in handy.
Ought To Be repeal ‘Law of Unintended Consequences’. That way no matter what happens nothing bad will come from worthless promises we hear, lies we are told, or even how really dumb and/or greedy our representatives are. We’d might just make America great again if only the Constitution included this one Ought To Be.
Just proclaiming solutions for some future generation who don’t take an 8th grade Constitution test.
TheOldtimeHistorian!
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