Let's imagine what would happen if the Founding Fathers were alive today.
First, I think they'd be pretty jazzed about not being dead anymore. That's a given. Secondly, and this is fairly obvious, I bet their minds would be absolutely blown by Dippin' Dots. Which is precisely why we shouldn't serve it as a snack. They'd be talking about Dippin' Dots all afternoon and that would be a giant waste of time. Thirdly, my guess is they'd be a little surprised about our modern political system.
Not that it's deadlocked. Or that our nation has split into red and blue states. No, I think they'd be surprised that the country they founded hundreds of years ago (Wikipedia says 1776) was still using pretty much the exact same political system. I doubt they would elaborate too much, however, because they'd probably spend the rest of the time asking about Super Bowl scores and past American Idol winners.
But the point they would make would be clear. We need to stop trying to figure out what the Founding Fathers would want us to do and do what the Founding Fathers did. We need to keep what's best about our Constitution (freedoms) and tweak the boring parts. We need to bring common sense to our modern political system. We need to allow for the scientific and technological breakthroughs the modern world has provided us. We need to be visionaries again. The kind of visionaries that invented Dippin' Dots.
That's why I propose a new political party. The Amerivisionarycan Party. Or, for short, Amerivisionarycans. Our mascot would be half donkey, half elephant, half Walt Disney, and half Steve Jobs holding an iPhone.
Our proposals are simple:
A perpetual line of cloned George Washingtons as President. Every American from every political party loves George Washington. I mean, he chopped down a cherry tree. The Founding Fathers even wanted to make him king. Today, we have the technology to make it possible. We create multiple clones from his actual DNA. We send them to the finest private schools. We show them only the good Eddie Murphy movies. Each clone serves two terms only, then goes and sits on the board of GE or something. Or is destroyed. We'll figure that out later. The point is, no more divisive presidential elections.
Turn the vice presidency into a fully symbolic office. A terrible, awe-inspiring office. With an endless supply of cloned George Washingtons, we don't need a vice president to ascend to the presidency in case of an emergency. That frees us up to try something new. Like a T-Rex. Now, hear us out. To even get to this point in our proposal, we've gotten pretty good with DNA. So don't say it's impossible. Instead, imagine the possibilities. Worldwide respect. Awe. A healthy fear. We can send our VP on diplomatic missions to meet with our adversaries. And if our T-Rex VP goes off script and commits a gaffe (eats a foreign leader), we can shrug our shoulders and say that's what dinosaurs do.
Big decisions. There's an app for that. Give each American a free iPhone and service plan on any carrier and let them vote on all huge pieces of legislation, including declarations of war. The Founding Fathers didn't even consider this because there was no good way to vote using a rotary phone. And yes, illegal aliens will get a free iPhone and the ability to vote. But they will be forced to use the AT&T network so just a few votes will actually go through. Citizenship has to mean something.
Better Congressional pay. At a price. Pay each senator and congressman $1 million a year. There. That should give people who weren't born into the Bush or Kennedy household some extra incentive to run for office. Maybe bring some new perspectives and ideas along with them. Then, and this is the important part, make every single person in Congress wear a 24-hour webcam. Forever. So every move. Every meeting. Every bedroom encounter is recorded for the pleasure of the voting public. That should eliminate the bribes and shady, backroom deals. And maybe a few less pervs will run for office -- unless your district likes that, of course!
There. Just a few of the ideas you can expect from Amerivisionarycans. Just because the Founding Fathers barely knew how to operate their AM radios doesn't mean we should limit our thinking today. Technology can bring this country together, eliminate corruption, and make individual voices heard like never before.
And if the thought of watching George Washington give a State of the Union speech in front of a T-Rex and a webcam-enabled Speaker of the House doesn't excite you, you're not invited to the Amerivisionarycans Party.
Follow Tim Siedell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@badbanana
Change can be a b*tch sometimes.
We could do the same with Congress - just program each Senator/Congressperson to oppose whatever the other party proposes. That way the American people either vote a super majority to a party or enjoy a permanently hung legislature.
And if the Cheney-Biden dinosaur connection doesn't do it for you, then how's the DoD? Errant bomb hits wedding? That's what errant bombs do.
An app for big decisions? Got it. It's called American Demockracy. The voices are heard, just not listened to.
And when you factor in the perks: healthcare, retirement, further lobbying/employment connections, etc. the house members are making more than a million, and costing the taxpayers even more than that. And, hell, at this point we all have a camera on us 24/7.
I'll give you one thing, though: If the founders were brought back to life tomorrow, they'd go from being Masons and Humanists to Christians immediately - cuz they'd think they was Jesus.
Listen, a T Rex may be glamorous, but for sheer intensity of live TV action, a marauding stegosaurus wins hands down. You have the trampling, the battering ram force, but most of all, you get that spiked tail whipping around. Imagine that thing on a 46 inch HD plasma TV! It would be a BFD.