Flaccid Election & Other Independence Day Thoughts

Most guys celebrate Independence Day by watching some fireworks, grilling meat, and pretending the dishes will wash themselves. Not me. Even Independence Day is an opportunity for ideas to fix America. Here are three of them:

1. The U.S. election process is insufferable

In the UK, prime minister elections and campaigns take two weeks. Adjust for the size of the US and let’s make it a tight two months, but that’s it. This pathetic pole dancing for donor$ and kowtowing to six cows in Iowa is undignified and a huge waste of resources. It’s like a 14 hour horror movie – no one can be scared for that long. Basically, campaigns are a media jobs program that launders donor cash through politicians into advertising.

See this chart I originally made for Represent.us:

The solution is simple – voter-financed elections.  For details on the problem read my piece “Fire Them All” and my 7-point plan to kiss our booboo and make it all better.

2. Too many politicians & big empty states

There are lots of guys (and a few gals) running around calling themselves “governor” or “senator” (former or current). Most of them consume space, our time, and levels of prestige vastly disproportionate to their lemonade stand economies.  Look at the spread between California and Vermont. Jerry Brown manages $156.4 Billion. Vermont’s unnamable Governor manages $3.6B. That’s almost 44½ times smaller! Still, the senators from both places are equally noisy and powerful – and allotted the same number of meals.

So let’s either go BIG or go tiny. Anything in between is just irritating.

Let’s make lots of mini-states that eliminate the need for both state and local governments. Or, let’s consolidate. Maybe it’s time for some state mergers & acquisitions. Do we really need a North AND South Dakota?? East AND West Virginia??? Vermont?!?? It’s a park with a flag!

As the late, great Patrice O’Neal brilliantly suggested, it might be time for “The United Areas of America“. Imagine six or seven regions with roughly equal populations, named after cool places you’d actually want to be in. The Midwest will be Chicagoland; the Northeast: NewYorkville; the Pacific Northwest will all be Seattleland, etc. Of course Texas can stay Texas – and absorb anything that borders it.

Listen to Patrice explain it:

3. Stop Mexico from taking over!

It’s clear Mexico has gotten too powerful and must be stopped. First, they flooded America with heaps of people willing to do all the work we weren’t – cooking, farming, handiwork, delivery. Now, we’re hooked. None of us know how to do any of those things. Mexicans have cornered the market on keeping Americans alive.

Now, they’ve shown exactly how powerful they’ve become by crippling a presidential frontrunner. This poor, unsuspecting, very very rich man just lost his TV show, beauty pageant, clothing line and line of mattresses (??). Maybe it would be lovely to sleep on a fluffy orangutang combover. Now, I’ll never know. Why?? Mexico.

If Mexico can be stopped, it will be done with robots. I am hereby announcing my newTrabojo Es Muy Dificil Por Americanos Fund. Please give generously so we can transition smoothly from dependence on Mexicans to dependence on robots.

Happy 4th!