[beowulf_cluster]

> It should be a goal, eventually.

Warning: Completely tangential musing/rant...

That "eventually" word is killing me. When we leave these sorts of issues up to the forces in power, they never seem to get done. What we get instead are watered-down, doomed-to-fail, design-by-political-committee "solutions" such as the ACA.

I think we need an official roadmap. I think the public deserves a direct voice in guiding the direction of the country. At the very least, I think we need to set in stone a clear vision of what milestones we want to achieve as a nation.

My entire lifetime, our leadership has repeatedly demonstrated it is incapable of moving us in any single direction long enough and far enough to be meaningful (aside from war, perhaps). Let us choose the direction; let them work-out the implementation.

/end rant

I'm just speaking my mind. What do you all think? Is this even a "good" idea? How could we even begin to make this happen?

[maxerickson]

I think we need an official roadmap. I think the public deserves a direct voice in guiding the direction of the country. At the very least, I think we need to set in stone a clear vision of what milestones we want to achieve as a nation.

My entire lifetime, our leadership has repeatedly demonstrated it is incapable of moving us in any single direction long enough and far enough to be meaningful (aside from war, perhaps). Let us choose the direction; let them work-out the implementation.

To some extent the back and forth you talk about is evidence that the public doesn't agree on the direction to take.

[beowulf_cluster]

Sure, there's never going to be unanimous agreement. Put it to a vote. I'm mainly just talking about letting the public choose which issues the leaders should focus on, and holding them accountable if they don't.

[maxerickson]

How would that be different than what we have now?

I think there are things that would be incremental improvements (like having more members in the House of Representatives) and maybe better districts, but most elections have the candidates crafting a message based at least partly on what they hear from people and pretty high desire to get reelected (so they have to at least appear to follow through on their message).

There's a lot of things I see people proposing that end up boiling down to wishing that others would 'vote better'. That's a tough problem to solve.