Running for President...

barkerpa3466 wrote:

Starsaber wrote: Any children they have after they immigrate to the US (whether legalized or not) are already citizens.

True but should they be if their both of their parents are here illegally?

My opinion is no and it sounds somewhat mean even to me, however what is good kind and ethical for an individual is not necessarily the same when it comes to the roll of the government in relation to non-citizens.

But I am also in favor of allowing them to become legal citizens once the border is secure.

Sorry first time using quotes on this site don't think I did it right.

Should or not should is irrelevant. It is a constitutional imperative. Somewhere in the Federalist papers, Athens is discussed. Publius mentions that one great problem with Athens is that it only granted citizenship to "natural Born" Athenians, while The Roman Empire had a path to citizenship for conquered people.

That provision was deliberately, and with much consideration, written into the body of the constitution. Yes we might have a rational debate (if such a thing is even possible anymore) on a national level and proper Amendment(s) drawn and submitted for ratification. Until then, though we are stuck with what we got.

PS Not sure I am using them quote things correctly too.

WeirdlyWired wrote:

Again this is something that looks good on paper but is really bad in practice. term limits started as a cynical ploy by the GOP/RNC to try to break "the power of the incumbent" in the attempt to wrest congress from a virtual Democrat majority since 1934. Notice that as soon as they got control the idea of term limits went away. Apparently it had limited life.

Yes they gain power and influence. They also gain expertise. Where there is money there is power. As long as there is a government thee will be power. The question is, WHO gets to wield it. If you limit terms to elected officials, the expertise/power devolves to the bureaucrats if you limit their terms also, they quit, as did the politicians before them, and run to the lobbyists. So you cede control of government away from elected officials, nominally admittedly, responsible to the electorate to the Corporations who hire the lobbyists in the first place. Mission failed.[/quote]

Well I have already limited lobbyist influence by limiting their contact to congress and staff to committee level meetings only...its in my first post on the thread.

and I agree that we need to try and keep experience that is why term limits will be stagard say two 6 year terms for senators and two 8 year terms for representatives and if you do two terms in as one or the other you can only serve 1 extra term as the other....as for the supreme court say a max of 20 or 30 years...just spit balling
here.

As for bureaucrats say they can serve for 4 presidential terms then they are out that still gives them 16 years plenty of people would still be interested.

and yeah none of this will ever happen because we are un-elected people that don't have a vested interest in the statues-quo no one would vote to limit their own power

WeirdlyWired wrote:Should or not should is irrelevant. It is a constitutional imperative. Somewhere in the Federalist papers, Athens is discussed. Publius mentions that one great problem with Athens is that it only granted citizenship to "natural Born" Athenians, while The Roman Empire had a path to citizenship for conquered people.

That provision was deliberately, and with much consideration, written into the body of the constitution. Yes we might have a rational debate (if such a thing is even possible anymore) on a national level and proper Amendment(s) drawn and submitted for ratification. Until then, though we are stuck with what we got.

PS Not sure I am using them quote things correctly too.

we have a path for legal naturalization and I laid out a plan even for the naturalization for those that are here illegally after we secure the border.

I do think that the US system of only two terms for presidents is a good idea.
The bureaucrat tenure is a little more complex due to all the levels. Lots of good medium to reasonably senior people wouldn't have chosen that as a career without some security. Damn hard to get a decent job over 50 unless you are a known star. I went up that ladder and our system is that bureaucrats have a permanent job (barring redundancy, sacked for wrong doing etc), but when near the very top to accept further promotion you give up tenure for a contract (as I did). This means the DGs and Secretaries are fixed term so won't be there for ever.

barkerpa3466 wrote:Define the difference between a lobbyist and a concerned citizen who wishes to bring up an issue with his or her representative.

(If you're really interested in removing the influence of lobbyists, finding a way to disentangle campaign contributions from individual campaigns is an avenue worth exploring)

In my Idea there is no difference, both should be treated the same and have the same access. And the meeting should be public record that way if there is a group with an opposing view point they can see it and schedule their own appointment with the committee……and just because you go before the committee does not mean your idea will be acted on it just a way any citizen or group can be heard by both the government and the people.

But there's a problem here: Representatives campaign on making the voices of their constituents heard. Under your scheme, the second a person gets elected, they get unreachable for their constituents except in settings designed to depersonalize the relationships.
One of the big problems of representative democracies in general and the US in particular is the impression that Government is a big, faceless thing and the elected representatives largely corrupt and unresponsive to the needs of the people that elected them. Long-term, a democratic government can not function under these conditions.

I will just point out that large walls have never worked for long. Research China and Berlin for reference.

Not so much the Canadians ……. but terrorists, drugs and gangs. It seems like Canada does a great job vetting who comes into their country limiting threats on our northern border but we still need to be vigilant because it’s a two way street if Canada ever pissies off a group of people they probably hope that we would be as vigilant as they are.

You know, you should spend some time looking up the statistics for how much of a problem (in a criminal sense) immigrants actually are. They're not as big a threat as you are imagining, not by a long shot (And, speaking from recent experience here in Germany, most of them are fundamentally decent people: We had a terror plot being foiled because the non-stupid refugees recognized the terrorists and reported them to the police).

Creating second class citizens is never a good idea.

I agree one just has to look at Germany during World War II or even Russia

So let’s modify it. After you learn to read and speak English, pay your fine and perform community service you are legalized but you don’t become a full citizen till 10 or 15 years after your legalization. And during that time if you break the law i.e. felony you’re out. We need some sort of voting ban because we cannot integrate 15+ million people into our political system over night. Would be extremely detrimental, granting one political party namely the Democratic Party almost total control for probably a generation and we all know power corrupts.

This sounds fair, but requires a scrupulously fair legal system, which you do not have. You know that thing where prisoners on parole get taken advantage of by bad bosses because they can send the ex-prisoner back to prison with just a small insinuation of misbehaviour? Same thing here.

Also, if your reasoning for not giving these people the right to vote is that they'd vote for the wrong party, maybe you should try to figure out why your party is so bad at getting traction in those new communities and work to fix that. This is a lot like a person who's losing a debate and starts complaining about the mechanisms of the debate rather than working on their arguments.

Not gonna touch this much. The way the US works is fundamentally unsuited for sane approaches to public health care.

I wouldn’t use sane or insane we as a culture we disagree with socialized medicine because our country was founded on the ideology of limited government and self-reliance (though that is changing) I pay for my own insurance I don’t want to pay for someone else’s it’s not my responsibility and I don’t expect others to pay for me. But there is a catch I have no problem paying to cover those who cannot pay for themselves i.e. those with physical or mental disabilities.

If you are paying for an insurance, any insurance, you are already paying for others. That's just how insurances work.

The thing about socialized medicine and single-payer models is that they can better utilize collective bargaining power to make sure prices stay fair. You're currently paying a lot more for less service than you have to, all because your country is stuck in this "every person for themselves" mentality.

Because of our view of limited federal government, it’s not the federal governments job it be involved in it. However just like all things there should be a balance and again our constitution does that nicely, if a state or local government wanted a socialized healthcare system they can.

But that's the thing: State governments or smaller are too small to actually have an effect. Here in Germany, health care is a federal thing, and as a result, our health insurers can bargain on behalf of 80 million people, rather than just 10 or 15 million, which ensures that no matter where you are in this country, you will get the best possible health care when you need it, without much hassle.

But there's a problem here: Representatives campaign on making the voices of their constituents heard. Under your scheme, the second a person gets elected, they get unreachable for their constituents except in settings designed to depersonalize the relationships.
One of the big problems of representative democracies in general and the US in particular is the impression that Government is a big, faceless thing and the elected representatives largely corrupt and unresponsive to the needs of the people that elected them. Long-term, a democratic government can not function under these conditions.

Yes difficult but not unreachable just no personal one on one contact to limit sources of possible corruption. They would have the exact same access to congress as a lobbyist. In my opinion this would actually give the average joe/jane a bigger voice in the bills that congress formulate and act on maybe even creating a forum where the pros and cons of an Idea can be debated on in front of the committee…..and this probably even slows the government down a little, Change is good and necessary but too much change to fast is detrimental to society.

And venues like town halls would be acceptable because there is no one on one dealing but allowing the congress member to get a feel for his or her constituents.

You know, you should spend some time looking up the statistics for how much of a problem (in a criminal sense) immigrants actually are. They're not as big a threat as you are imagining, not by a long shot (And, speaking from recent experience here in Germany, most of them are fundamentally decent people: We had a terror plot being foiled because the non-stupid refugees recognized the terrorists and reported them to the police).

I am not as crazed as you seem to think I am, I read as much as I am able to and do not think the majority of illegal immigrates are bad people I think that an over whelming majority of them are good people and several are great people but as a president or congressman I have a responsibility to put my citizens first that is my ethical responsibility. I have no problem with immigrants that want to come here and better their lives and assimilate into our culture and share a little of their culture with us, they are not the problem and in fact make us better.

But

In the military there is this thing that we called the 10% and I have seen this be approximately true in civilian life too. Take any group of people approximately 10% of them are either evil, bad or just plain stupid. Now our citizens are our problem we deal with them as our laws dictate us to. But the illegal acts of illegal Immigrants should not be something that our citizens have to deal with, one of the purposes of government it to protect its citizens. And a simple way to do that is to make sure that our boarders are secure and that we do the best we can to only let in the 90% that will in some way contribute positively to our society and culture.

And I will differ to you being there but what I have been reading in the news, Germany is having a major problem with the mass immigration of refugees. There have been several rapes (correction sexual emergencies. ) and stabbings that have made national news, issues with immigrates not being able to speak the language or having useful skills there for making it difficult for them to find work and assimilate. And I am sure that there has been a sharp crime rate rises in several local areas that have not made international headlines. Are these crimes committed by the majority of the refuges hell no! But if the government acted more responsibly that 10% could have been at least reduced so that these crimes either would not have been committed against these citizens or have been much reduced.

Let’s also look at England and France were there are no go zones for police or that if they want to patrol a certain neighborhood they need to contact the local imam (not sure if I spelled that right no disrespect intended.) and last I read in England there are 80 sharia courts. Granted I am not sure how they relate to the grater society there but having two sets of laws for citizens is just as bad as creating second class citizens especially if these laws are the antithesis of the laws established with the country.
Now what is the ethical choice for the government just to let everyone in and do your best after the fact to try and I identify that 10%, or to put your citizens first and do your best to try and Identify the 10% at the border?

This sounds fair, but requires a scrupulously fair legal system, which you do not have. You know that thing where prisoners on parole get taken advantage of by bad bosses because they can send the ex-prisoner back to prison with just a small insinuation of misbehaviour? Same thing here.

This is the thing that our founding fathers understood and why they placed the limits on our government that they did………Humanity is fundamentally flawed we are imperfect so there for any government that we create will be flawed and imperfect.
There is no scrupulously fair legal system on the face of this planet all of them are flawed and it is impossible to be fair to everyone all the time that is why pure communist and socialist governments do not work very well they ignore the fact that we are imperfect. We just have to try and do the best we can and address the injustice when it is brought out into the light.

And again ethically who comes first the illegal immigrant or the Citizen?

Also, if your reasoning for not giving these people the right to vote is that they'd vote for the wrong party, maybe you should try to figure out why your party is so bad at getting traction in those new communities and work to fix that. This is a lot like a person who's losing a debate and starts complaining about the mechanisms of the debate rather than working on their arguments.

This address that same point I made about welfare type policies enslaving a group of people to a party or government when I tried to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson. One party is promising the moon and sky and if they get elected to make you and your family legal or expand welfare programs that you use or would like to………if you were one of these individual who would you vote for?

So how would I fix this perception as a candidate of a party that does not have the same voice in the media as my opposite? Easy compromise my principles and promise to increase the welfare state or make other people pay of it to keep it going (kind of like Germany and other EU member state having to pay to prop up Grease.) and espouse that we are all one global community and should do away with borders as we are all citizens of the world while we are at it I will acknowledge my white privilege and male privilege.

Heck some people just can’t debate (I am probably one of them.) but that does not mean that their idea or argument does not have merit it just means we need to work harder to articulate our positions and hope the media wont chop it up and use pieces of it out of context.

If you are paying for an insurance, any insurance, you are already paying for others. That's just how insurances work.

Granted to a degree……..I can still choose which companies which allows me to pick the pools that I want to be a part of and I can also choose the level of coverage I feel that I need or based on what I can afford. Now if government would allow competition across state lines that would give more choice to the consumer and allow the market to find the real price of health care. And there are a lot of other things that can be done to further reduce our price while increasing coverage.

For me and a lot of other Americans the government solution should be the last one to be considered and if deemed required as limited as much as possible.

The thing about socialized medicine and single-payer models is that they can better utilize collective bargaining power to make sure prices stay fair. You're currently paying a lot more for less service than you have to, all because your country is stuck in this "every person for themselves" mentality.

Self-reliance is not a bad thing. It’s like the saying goes give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him how to fish and he can eat for a life time.

So what is better for a country? Citizens reliant on the government to give them their fish or a country were the majority of citizens can get their own and are capable of helping those who are not capable i.e. physically or mentally disabled? Who would you want the majority of your citizens to be?

An another aspect of socialized medicine is its single point of failure and source of corruption one just has to look at our VA system to see that. Also you point out that we do not have a "scrupulously fair legal system" so how could we have a scrupulously fair medical system? so why rely on the government to supply it?

But that's the thing: State governments or smaller are too small to actually have an effect. Here in Germany, health care is a federal thing, and as a result, our health insurers can bargain on behalf of 80 million people, rather than just 10 or 15 million, which ensures that no matter where you are in this country, you will get the best possible health care when you need it, without much hassle.

So part of our federal government is to settle disputes and handle any trade issues between the states. So like I implied in my first post if the feds come in and mandate a standardization of laws for healthcare so the insurances companied can compete across state lines we could easily have insurance pools of 80 million in fact we could have about four of them allowing them to compete for our dollars…….So what would drive our prices down more one pool of 322 million with no competition, or 4 pools of 80 or even 8 pools of 20 million where the consumer gets to pick where his or her dollar goes.

barkerpa3466 wrote:And I will differ to you being there but what I have been reading in the news, Germany is having a major problem with the mass immigration of refugees. There have been several rapes (correction sexual emergencies. ) and stabbings that have made national news, issues with immigrates not being able to speak the language or having useful skills there for making it difficult for them to find work and assimilate. And I am sure that there has been a sharp crime rate rises in several local areas that have not made international headlines. Are these crimes committed by the majority of the refuges hell no! But if the government acted more responsibly that 10% could have been at least reduced so that these crimes either would not have been committed against these citizens or have been much reduced.

I hate to do this, but you have no actual idea what you are talking about, because the sources you're using are very likely not local.

The official statistics show that there were around 70000 crimes or attempted crimes by Refugees in Germany over the last year. Given that there are currently 1 million refugees in Germany, this equates to about .07 crimes per refugee, which compares favourably to the overall crime rate in Germany (.08 crimes per citizen). So, whatever else they are, they certainly aren't worse than the people already living here.

The thing I'm trying to get at is that, no matter what parts of the media may be trying to sell you (or, rather, the parts of the german political spectrum that roughly equate to the Trump/Tea Party movement in the US), in actuality most of the people coming here are just as law-abiding as the rest of us.

Secondly, speaking of integration difficulties: Of course there are some. It's to be expected. It's being dealt with, and I expect the situation to stabilize in the coming months now that the big migration wave has passed.

Ultimately, it boils down to this: Our democracy and culture is strong enough to absorb this influx of new people, and if handled correctly, those people are going to be a vibrant part of our country in a short period of time. Germany needs these people, and the change they bring.

Now what is the ethical choice for the government just to let everyone in and do your best after the fact to try and I identify that 10%, or to put your citizens first and do your best to try and Identify the 10% at the border?

In the absence of true mindreading capability, there is no way to stop people from coming into the country under false pretenses. Given that, I see no reason to bar people from entry just because they might be idiots; We have a functioning police and judicial system that can deal with those.

This is the thing that our founding fathers understood and why they placed the limits on our government that they did………Humanity is fundamentally flawed we are imperfect so there for any government that we create will be flawed and imperfect.
There is no scrupulously fair legal system on the face of this planet all of them are flawed and it is impossible to be fair to everyone all the time that is why pure communist and socialist governments do not work very well they ignore the fact that we are imperfect. We just have to try and do the best we can and address the injustice when it is brought out into the light.

You are not addressing the point I made, I note. You know that the system isn't perfect, and so I have to conclude that you're willing to accept a number of false positives that would lead to people being deported without cause.

I wonder if you would be that tolerant of mistakes if you or your family were at risk.

And again ethically who comes first the illegal immigrant or the Citizen?

How a society treats its criminals is a clear signifier of how civilized it actually is.

This address that same point I made about welfare type policies enslaving a group of people to a party or government when I tried to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson. One party is promising the moon and sky and if they get elected to make you and your family legal or expand welfare programs that you use or would like to………if you were one of these individual who would you vote for?

Look, it's like this: The conservative movement in the US is richer, whiter, older and more male than the current average american is. If this trend continues (and it shows no sign of stopping), then the conservative voice will vanish into irrelevance. This is something that cannot be allowed to happen, as democracy without alternatives and dialogue is just oligarchy with better PR. So, the conservative movement will have to change with the times: It cannot survive if it spends most of its energy on fighting a change that is irreversible. If this means compromising on some core beliefs, then so be it; it's not as if that's an unprecedented thing (see for example how southern racists shifted their vote from the democrats to the republicans in the fifties and sixties).

So how would I fix this perception as a candidate of a party that does not have the same voice in the media as my opposite? Easy compromise my principles and promise to increase the welfare state or make other people pay of it to keep it going (kind of like Germany and other EU member state having to pay to prop up Grease.) and espouse that we are all one global community and should do away with borders as we are all citizens of the world while we are at it I will acknowledge my white privilege and male privilege.

I am not asking conservatives to become a carbon copy of liberals. But you guys need to figure out a way to deal with the perception problems you have, and one way to start with this is to start talking to people and stop silencing them (see for reference recent changes to election procedures proposed by Republicans under the guise of improving the security of the vote but which incidentally also reduce the part of the voter pool which is more inclined to vote democrat).

Granted to a degree……..I can still choose which companies which allows me to pick the pools that I want to be a part of and I can also choose the level of coverage I feel that I need or based on what I can afford. Now if government would allow competition across state lines that would give more choice to the consumer and allow the market to find the real price of health care. And there are a lot of other things that can be done to further reduce our price while increasing coverage.

The thing about medical insurance is that you do not know what you are going to need. Maybe you live out your days in the best of health, in which case you'll have wasted a lot of money, maybe you'll contract an exotic disease not covered by your health plan, in which case you are quite royally fucked. Health care which doesn't cover everything might as well not exist; It is outrageous that a civilized country would accept losing people to preventable medical issues out of an overzealous belief in the individual.

For me and a lot of other Americans the government solution should be the last one to be considered and if deemed required as limited as much as possible.

We've had government-mandated health care, in some form, for 130 years. We are, on average, healthier, happier and freer in this regard than you are, while paying drastically less for the same level of service. Ponder that for a bit.

So what is better for a country? Citizens reliant on the government to give them their fish or a country were the majority of citizens can get their own and are capable of helping those who are not capable i.e. physically or mentally disabled? Who would you want the majority of your citizens to be?

That's ... okay. You really, and I mean really, need to do some research on this. Okay, quick primer. Above, I said that we are happier, healthier and freer than you are. Why are we happier? Because we know that, no matter what happens, we do not have to worry about visiting a doctor to get the care we need and getting a bill that bankrupts us. Why are we healthier? Because we can get medical assistance sooner. We can get a checkup when we start to feel bad and not have to postpone them until we're already mostly dead. Why are we freer? Because, again, we do not have to plan for this particular class of emergency. This leaves us with a lot more mental freedom to pursue other things.

This has nothing to do with government handouts. After all, health insurance isn't free; it gets taken out of everyone's paycheck. But since everyone is paying a little bit, we pay a lot less than you are right now.

An another aspect of socialized medicine is its single point of failure and source of corruption one just has to look at our VA system to see that. Also you point out that we do not have a "scrupulously fair legal system" so how could we have a scrupulously fair medical system? so why rely on the government to supply it?

That's what law enforcement is for. I am not going to claim that our system is free of corruption, the amount of money involved makes it practically a given, but we are working on improving this.

I should also point out that there isn't a single point of failure. There are 118 health care insurance providers which are part of the social security system; while any single one can fail, there is more than enough redundancy in the system (and very strict rules about when and why an insurer can reject an applicant [meaning: almost never]) that the failure of one provider does not actually have a major impact on the people that use it.

To save another wall of text I say that what The E last wrote could very nearly be written by any citizen of any developed country bar the US (the exception is the million immigrants, we have some but not that many).

On the medical cover topic we have thoroughly covered this here before, but in short the US system is the odd man out with massive duplication, outrageous salaries, high costs and poor outcomes. I'm an Australian but currently in New Zealand where my Medicare card will still work if needed. Travel insurance to the US is massively dearer because of this.

I can't advise as to how to fix the US political system, but looking at the current presidential candidates something needs to be done.

barkerpa3466 wrote:I am not as crazed as you seem to think I am, I read as much as I am able to and do not think the majority of illegal immigrates are bad people I think that an over whelming majority of them are good people and several are great people but as a president or congressman I have a responsibility to put my citizens first that is my ethical responsibility.

No, that is your practical responsibility. Ethics has not a thing to do with it. Ethically any persons responsibility is to aid those who need it. Only the practicality of not being able to do that for absolutely everyone requires us to curtail who we do and do not extend that aid to and prioritize some over others, but that is an unfortunate reality to be subject to when required not some kind of ideal to be pursued.

I can see no imaginable ethical argument you can present in favor of letting suffering people suffer for the simple reason that they don't have the right country on their passport.

In the military there is this thing that we called the 10% and I have seen this be approximately true in civilian life too. Take any group of people approximately 10% of them are either evil, bad or just plain stupid. Now our citizens are our problem we deal with them as our laws dictate us to. But the illegal acts of illegal Immigrants should not be something that our citizens have to deal with, one of the purposes of government it to protect its citizens. And a simple way to do that is to make sure that our boarders are secure and that we do the best we can to only let in the 90% that will in some way contribute positively to our society and culture.

Great. They already have this process of screening you may have heard of so that takes care of that. They are not, nor have they EVER, just let 100% of immigrants free flow into the nation at will.

Let’s also look at England and France were there are no go zones for police or that if they want to patrol a certain neighborhood they need to contact the local imam

Discredited right wing mythology. And the E has already addressed the inaccuracies in your views about immigrant crime rates in Germany.

and last I read in England there are 80 sharia courts.

If by 80 you mean 0.

There are of course in any religion going to be various administrative bodies that tell the faithful how to behave, there are in England, there are in the U.S., there are anywhere you have any religion that claims the authority to tell believers how they are supposed to behave.

But none of them have any civil or criminal authority. At least not in England. They are not "courts". People trying to spread hysteria by calling them "courts" are deliberately misleading people into thinking they have been given *any* kind of legal authority when they have not.

And again ethically who comes first the illegal immigrant or the Citizen?

Again, ethically the citizenship of a person in need is completely irrelevant. The name of a country on the passport in a person's pocket has precisely squat to do with ethics.

If you are paying for an insurance, any insurance, you are already paying for others. That's just how insurances work.

Granted to a degree……..I can still choose which companies which allows me to pick the pools that I want to be a part of and I can also choose the level of coverage I feel that I need or based on what I can afford. Now if government would allow competition across state lines that would give more choice to the consumer and allow the market to find the real price of health care. And there are a lot of other things that can be done to further reduce our price while increasing coverage.

No, there really isn't. Not in a free market system when we're talking about health insurance. The incentives are all backwards. It is stunning to me that people don't get this, because it is so incredibly obvious.

If we were talking about goods like produce or cars or televisions your point would be valid.

If we were talking about services like travel booking or investment advice or legal representation your point would be valid.

But. Not. Insurance.

The thing that incentivizes lower costs and better products in all those other things is that the customers you want to attract are the customers most in need of what you are selling. The customers who will use the most of it. Because the more they use the more money you make. So all your incentives are to serve the greatest demand by meeting *those* customers needs better than the competition.


Do insurance companies want, as customers, the people who use their insurance the most?

NO. They. Do. Not. Because those aren't the people they make money off of. Those are the people they LOSE money on.


So the incentive is exactly backwards. They have no reason to strive to tailor their businesses to the people who need their services the most, they have every incentive to drive those customers away while trying desperately to convince the people who need their services the *least* to buy them. Which does society no good, that is working against the needs of society.

Left to its own, a free market will always always always always ALWAYS create an insurance system that is optimized to do one thing and one thing only... suck the maximum amount of cash out of people's wallets while providing the minimum amount of benefit.

Which is why in every single instance developed nations who strongly intervene in insurance provision with the public sector have FAR superior systems to the boondoggle that is the American system and it's insistence on trying to maximize private sector participation. And that will never change as long as Americans are unable to shake this silly dogma that the private sector does everything better.

To avoid walls of text I'm cherry picking individual topics. The ongoing conservative myths about sharia courts and no go areas have been quoted verbatim, with the name of the country added as needed.
Just as any hillbilly can become an evangelist, any muslim can declare himself (never her) an inman. He can then gather some deluded followers and hold self declared "sharia courts" that his dupes may recognise. They have no legal validity and when they brush up against common law are always the losers. The no go areas are simply areas of higher risk due to community tension, and are highly over stated.

barkerpa3466 wrote:
Well I have already limited lobbyist influence by limiting their contact to congress and staff to committee level meetings only...its in my first post on the thread.

WARNING: any similarity of the characters n this post with real persons is totally accidental and unintended.

Your Proposal: Gavel hits the table. The Hon. Senator Blutarsky calls the banking committee to order, roll is called. The junior member of the minority party as Sergeant at Arms opens the committee room door to admit all "concerned citizens" who wish to attend.
Hugh Louis Dewey, esq. is admitted. Huey Dewey the Sr partner of Dewey Cheatham, and Howe is also the registered lobbyist of Visa/MasterCard. "Senator Blutarsky, committee members, The credit card industry has recently taken severe hits to the bottom line. My clients have some areas of concern." He holds up a plain white envelope. Mr. Flounder, Blutarsky's legislative aide approaches and takes the rather thin envelope.

"Out of respect for the committee's time, I have summarized our concerns and the points are rather concisely stated in the contents of the envelope Mr. Flounder is holding. If you have questions ..., otherwise, I will take up no more of your time."

Gavel hits the table. "Is there any further business?" Gavel raps again. "Meeting adjourned."

Does this meet your contact limitation?

WHAT really happened [as in the actual events] :

Mr. Dewey's paralegal, Buffy, meets Mr. Flounder at their usual Starbucks for lattes. Ms. Buffy pulls a package (brown paper wrapped and tied with twine) from her brief se and plops it on the table. "Mr. Dewey would appreciate it if Sen. Blutarsky take the necessary action." They engage in the usual "shop chit-chat" finish their lattes, air hug, air kiss and part company.

Besides not being in "committee" would this violate your proposed Limits on obbying?

Because what ewas eventually received by Sen Chuck Grassley was "proposed draft Legislation of a bankruptcy and consumer protecton bill" [italics mine]

Which was taken unread and (obviously) unedited and submitted by Sen Grassley in 2008 and became law.

It is not the amount of time the contact required, that does the damage, but the size of the political contribution.

The Campaign contributions law was tossed by the SCOTUS [Citizens United v FEC 558 US, 510 (2010)] Your only options: congress passes another law and specifically exempts it from review by SCOTUS, or amendment to the constitution.