(Side note: Media-critique sites could showcase real-deal investigative journalism, giving them national prestige each month for doing the right thing. Like “employee-of-the-month”. Let’s encourage journalists to abandon canned photo ops, and newswires, instead digging up the real stories with old-school journalism. Here’s something to inspire.)
— Jealously guard the division of powers. If the you see a government doing something beyond its scope of powers, challenge them. Rally and shame them. Out them by name in the news. Threaten litigation, and legal action — and follow through. It will be expensive and a fight, true. But what was that about “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” again?
— Create crisp division of responsibilities between departments. When “everyone” is doing something, “someone else” is always responsible. Implement procedures to identify the principal decision-maker responsible for different governmental activities.
— Reject “strings attached” deals between levels of government, especially if the larger is bribing the smaller. Larger governments without legal power to tell smaller ones what to do get around that by bribing or punishing smaller ones who resist “doing what they’re told”. This is wrong. (See: Common Core; Obamacare, Tenth Amendment)
— Related to above: do not let DHS morph into a national police force. There is good reason for police power not to be Federal, see “strings attached”, above.
— Begin simplifying laws so that non-lawyers can live their lives without accidentally becoming criminal. Then apply it equally across lines of race and gender.
— Demand a budget, and force departments to stick to it. If a department is running short, make the managers decide where to cut to make up the difference within that department, or face review/discipline. Remember, government expenditure will always expand to meet or exceed their limits.
— In light of current waves of scandals — is there a conflict-of-interest limitation on pardons issued by President or Governor? Can we limit such pardons to any crime not relating directly or indirectly to government officials and their personal/political interests?
— Lastly: demand civil servants act in the public interest. Insist Congress develop “dishonorable discharge”-type laws for flunkies or high officials abusing government powers. Consequences should be substantial: deny pension and benefits; immediate dismissal without severance; open to any relevant criminal prosecution, and if — acting outside the Constitution — fully exposed to civil action by aggrieved citizens.
