I am sure you’ve noticed, but just to state the obvious, our government is broken. That is to say, it cannot function to get anything significant done to help the nation cope effectively with the problems, issues, and dangers it faces.
I am convinced this has happened in large part because of the loss of good will among our political leaders that was the foundation for their willingness to work together for the common good. I also think the intrusion of the Christian Right into the political arena that began in the 1970’s is a major factor in this loss of goodwill, what with their moralistic judgmentalism and their adversarial attitude toward those who disagree with them.
But the question is, what, if anything, can be done to stop this slide into a complete rupture of our political system. Believing that collective wisdom is better than one voice, I am curious to hear what your thoughts are. I invite you to write them in the “Comment” box so all of us can read them. Try to be concise and clear, but use the space you need to do that.
I look forward to reading what you say and will respond in a future Blog to it.
linnposts.com 
I think the basic problem is that the voting machinery of our democracy is broken. We actively prevent people from voting in so many ways. We have to make it very easy to register and then to vote. If everyone in this country voted, our politics would look a whole lot better.
The second problem is the structure of politics. Having a two-party system with partisan primaries pushes each party to the radical fringe of folks who actually vote in primaries. But look what happened in California when they instituted open primaries! At a minimum, primaries should be open to everyone, with minimum obstacles to nomination (such as petition signatures).
These two things would be a good start.
Unfortunately what you concluded is accurate and true. Too much judgmentalism and not enough willingness to resolve the basic issues facing our nation and the world.
The biblical witness is that government will always be broken, so don’t put much confidence in it. At the same time the Christian community should be witnessing for justice. Perhaps like Pharaoh our leaders need to experience the “plagues” to further the collapse of empire and oligarchy and set us free from economic obsession to focus on issues of freedom and justice.
My view is very simplistic: I think we need more good statesmen/stateswomen to step up and run for office. Too many people spend their energies complaining instead of actually really bringing about positive change by getting involved. I agree that the Christian Right is too judgmental and adversarial, but the same can be said about the Left. Both are real turnoffs for this voter. I would vote for…say, a Jan Linn. Go for it, Jan!
To say government is broken overstates the issue because a lot of stuff gets done by the government i.e.The governments response to a national tragedy, the NIH research, rapid response to tainted food, airline crash investigations, the US air traffic control system is the best in the world. It is odd for me to be defending the government because i think a lot needs to change. Our political leaders need to stop putting party over the nation’s good. Reasonable people in the leadership roll need to come together to write legislation for the betterment of the people.
I think that term limits would be a good place to start. If we had really dedicated people to take office and do their best for a few years maybe they could care more about getting the country on a good footing instead of caring about getting re elected. I also think that this mindset would help by not giving them the extended salary and benefits that they are getting now.
The influence of money in politics, and therefore government, has become pervasive and destructive. The Citizen United decision made the problem significantly worse. and must be overturned. Unfortunately those who have to overturn it, members of Congress, are the beneficiaries of it; so I think the chance of overturn is slim. The cost of our political campaigns is totally out of control and Citizens United made it much worse. I think that public financing of political campaigns is necessary, but I don’t see anyway that is going to happen either. Sorry to be a pessimist on this issue, but that is where I am at.
We now have four political parties. Where we used to have only the Democrat & Republican parties, we now have those two plus the Tea Party and the Religious Right, both masquerading as Republicans and being elected with Republican Party support. If the Tea Party & the Religious Right want to be political parties, I have no problem in their doing so as long as they stand up and behave as political parties instead of trying to coat tail and sneak under the tent of someone else. I doubt either one would survive very long as viable, free standing political parties.
I think that term limits is a very naïve, idealistic proposal. Yes, in an ideal world we would have dedicated elected officials who would do their best for the country as a whole for a short time and then return to their “regular” lives. I submit that we are not even close to that, instead we have career politicians Making that ideal world happen requires a very educated, well informed electorate who demand more than typical sound bite campaign slogans on which to base their voting decisions. We do not make use of the “term limits” that we already have, known as elections, as evidenced by the fact that over 90% of incumbents are re-elected. We have those, who in my view, are dysfunctional members of Congress. Names that quickly come to mind are Bachmann, McConnell, Rand Paul, Cruze, Boehner. Folks, we the voters, elected those people.
Good commentary and suggestions here. As I see it, the checks and balances built into our system have been compromised, and, as has been alluded to, we the people are partially to blame for that. We are not seeing, or taking the time to see, the “corporatization” of America, always a driving force, as it’s evolved today. In varying degrees, they own the media so that check is gone, they own the supreme court so that check is gone, they own legislative and executive branches so they don’t balance one another effectively, except to effect complete stoppages. We the people are too divided and are “influenced” to continue to be that way by those who benefit by that state of being. Several ideas above sound good but, fundamentally, the citizenry must act in large numbers, demand “whatever it takes to reinstitute the checks and balances” to effect change. This is individualism vs. collectiveism! Old! There is a role for both, but, currently, many corporations, multinationals and libertarian types are selling the privatization of everything as the ideal way for everyone to live (until they need a bailout) and treating the collective as idealogical and financial burden. This is a predatory, arrogant and spiritless view of human society and must be countered. When we conquer our own complacency in sufficient numbers, meaning tens of millions, and raise our voices then we will effect change. Until then we should expect things to get worse.
I think America needs to go back and review and take to heart George Washington’s warning about “not getting involved in foreign entanglements” and Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the looming power of the “military industrial complex”. We have ignored those pieces of wisdom pretty regularly since the beginning of the Vietnam war at a huge cost to us in lives, dollars, and wasted resources. Along that line our Constitution gives the ability to declare war solely to Congress. Unfortunately, Congress has either abdicated that responsibility to the “unitary executive” or looked the other way when we went to war anyhow. Why are we still at “war” in Afghanistan? I have no idea and I suspect that no one else does either.
I would like to recant a little and agree that a big part of our government is broken and that was quite evident Thursday when 46 NRA senators voted against the will of 90% of the people who supported background checks to by guns.
I think like Guy Linn that the term “government is broken” it a much too broad of a brush. As he says there are many components of government that function well and provide necessary services. However, I think it is clear that there are sectors of government that clearly are broken and grossly dysfunctional. I think that the Legislative branch of the Federal government and the political apparatus and money influence surrounding it are nearly catastrophically broken. I also have some concern that the Supreme Court has been infiltrated by politics, which is simply unacceptable. I also think that the “military industrial complex”, although maybe not correctly stated as “broken”, has way too much influence on how our government thinks and operates. Along with that is what I consider to be the very counter productive way we conduct our foreign affairs. I think America has become very imperialistic in our views of the rest of the world. I do not believe that any good can come out of that stance.
As an example of the brokenness of the Legislative branch, I submit yesterday’s disgraceful Senate vote on gun legislation.
The current problems in our government have many many causes. Others have already listed some of the basic problems and some potential solutions.
I would agree that the influence of money is a very serious problem, but in my view the basic problem is the lack of participation by the majority of the voters. There is just a little over half who vote and few of those are informed votes. It takes some time and effort to be a player in our political system. Most won’t or don’t want to get involved. History has shown that most will not get involved till there is a major crisis.
A hearty agreement with Jack’s second paragraph