Essential: December 2007 Archives

Representative government needs more than being refurbished. Dynastic power cannot be fixed up, renovated, or reconditioned. It must be eliminated.

First step: apply term limits to all government branches, functions, and positions, not just the President. Examples: representatives, senators, and judges who have been in power for decades.

Second: introduce role limits; no person who has served government in one branch or level may serve in any other role. Examples: governors and senators cannot become president; soldiers cannot become representatives; mayors cannot become governors. Serve honorably in one role, then return to a normal citizen's life, with our appreciation.

Third: establish relationship tests; no person who is a sibling, child, spouse, or parent of someone who has served in government may serve in any government role -- and no sibling, child, spouse, or parent up to two steps removed from one of the above may serve either. Examples: senators Ted Kennedy (his brothers) and Hillary Clinton (her spouse), current president Bush (his father and brother), governor Schwarzenegger (his wife's uncle).

Somewhere along the way we probably also need to reject and abolish the neurotic notion that a corporation is a person and can thus be used as a vehicle to finance political campaigns.

The software industry, and the Web, have been crawling and suffering because too many people are trying to seize pieces of locked estates, instead of opening up access to new lands and enabling everybody to act similarly. You can't enjoy vast vistas, tall mountains, deep oceans, lush forests, cool meadows, and colorful lakes, if you are locked into a walled garden, for instance.

Listen to and learn from Dave Winer, doing his part on 1996-Oct-24:

here's an invitation to truly embrace the creativity of others. Instead of beating your breast about how great you are, try saying how great someone else is. Look for win-wins, make that your new religion. Establish a policy that nothing will be announced unless it can be shown that someone else will win because of what you're doing. How much happier we would be if instead of crippling each other with fear, we competed to empower each others' creativity.

Not only should you say such things, and maintain creativity-friendly policies, you should also walk the walk. I've seen too many so-called leaders who undermine the principle at every twist of the road, every single time they make a decision. Example: you have a stream of useful, realtime information that could help others understand what they do, and what they could do better; you choose to hide it from them, and when asked to share you refuse, without even thinking about the lost opportunities.