What do I want in a Republic?

What is a Republic?

A Republic is a representative democracy where citizens elect representatives to pass legislation to govern the nation, establishing the rules of law. The people are the sovereign and their representatives should represent the people. In the great experiment of the United States, over the centuries, we have begun to drift from the original representative democracy to where the representatives more represent corporations and moneyed interests.

In the United States we also elect a President to execute the laws passed by our representatives. The President is NOT a representative of the people.

I submit some suggestions to improve the Republic.

1) Each Representative will represent no more than 100,000 citizens. The current constitution sets a lower limit of 30,000 citizens per representative, but no upper limit.

2) There will be 6 Senators elected from each state. Each Senatorial election will select the top three vote-getters on the ballot to be a Senator from that state, with 1/3 of the Senate being replaced every two years.

3) No Congress critter may serve consecutive terms in the same office, i.e. Representative or Senator. (If someone wanted to be a professional pol, they could go on a run of Rep, Sen, Rep, Sen, Rep, and serve 18 consecutive years in Congress.)

4) Federal Judicial appointments are not for life but will end after 20 years on the bench or when the Justice turns 70 years of age or by impeachment.

5) Every 24 years, the citizens will vote on whether to retain the current Constitution. A majority vote will retain the current Constitution. A Constitutional Convention will be called in the event of a failure to retain.

6) The Electoral College will be disbanded. The President and Vice-President will be elected by citizens in a direct election.

 

This was inspired by an episode of The Thomas Jefferson Hour.

Getting your money’s worth

It occurs to me that people who make large amounts of annual income in the United States do so because of the general infrastructure that the US provides. All the way from easy transport, financial support, security protections, and a stable business environment, along with a lot of other good things. People who can take advantage of all these positives, demonstrated by increasingly large incomes, don’t think they should pay for it. Let the working stiffs, who are barely surviving from paycheck to paycheck, who aren’t benefiting from the glorious infrastructure that America provides, pay the bulk of the cost. This doesn’t seem fair or equitable.

Debating Points

I would like to see the Presidential and Vice-Presidential debate moderators ask the debaters about how they would move forward with:

  • forming a more perfect Union
  • establishing Justice
  • insuring domestic Tranquility
  • providing for the common defence
  • promoting the general Welfare
  • securing the Blessings of Liberty

Bonus points for knowing where these discussion items come from.

Tracking Nutrients

I have started this Low-carb diet and am using a food journal to keep track of my daily intake. My goal is to stay under 40 net carbs a day; under 2000 calories per day. That give me about 1800 calories to be made up with fat and protein (and alcohol but I am avoiding the temptation). So far so good.

One of the other nutrients I am interested in tracking is my potassium intake. But it is very hard to find the nutrient data for potassium, starting with the actual amount of potassium an adult is supposed to ingest each day. 4700 mg seems to be the recommended amount, but I also see references to 3500 mg as a recommended level on food labeling so I am a bit confused. I know there is a lot of potassium floating around in meats and vegetables, so I should be getting lots, but how much? Either way, I have a hard time finding the potassium level in the food I am eating since it is not a required nutrient on the US food labels.

I have been taking a potassium supplement because I sometimes get cramps from exertion. At the time I started this I didn’t realize the recommended daily allowance is 3500 mg and the recommended daily intake is 4700 mg  – wait, the recommended daily intake hasn’t been established for potassium. The supplement is 99 mg – 3% of RDA – what sort of supplement is that? And then I found out that high potassium levels contribute to lowering high blood pressure! which I have! I definitely want a better handle on potassium in my diet.  From what I have been able to extrapolate so far, I seem to be consuming between 1000 and 2000 mg of potassium daily. No wonder I get muscle spasms.

Open Request to Food Providers: Even if you are not required to put the Potassium level on the food label itself, could you, at least, put it on your website? Along with all the other micro-nutrients that are needed in a complete diet, e.g. magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, phosphorus…

It would be greatly appreciated. Also on the web page, put in the numbers for the entire container, not just for per serving. If I am using a 1 lb package of Italian Sausage in a recipe, I don’t need a breakdown of the individual servings, especially if they are “about 2.5 per package”. I am using the entire package, give me the package totals.

Well, back to burrowing into nutrition details. Maybe I shall uncover some more Potassium sources.

 

Where to go.

I have, in the past year or so, been using Facebook as my main commenting tool. As the recent takedown of Jim Wright’s 9-11 posting demonstrated, Facebook is not a reliable place to post and share information, especially if some trolls get upset. So I will try to use my blog site < exemplia gratia > to originate my commentary and cross-post it to Facebook and Live Journal. Oh, I have a Google+ page as well.  I will make replies to the Facebook comments in Facebook, but it makes sense that if I want to make a comment that I should originate it in a place where I have some control.

Also, in my never-ending quest  to find a way to make the strike-through character a ‘/’ instead of ‘-‘, I have found an answer. Libre Office lets you change the strike-through character! Now to see if it can be copied out –

StrikethroughStrike-through

Nope