Answer 1

A More Democratic Democracy

When cities incorporate now they have 4 different kinds of governmental structures to choose from: strong mayor/weak city council, weak mayor/strong city council, etc. It might be time to add a 5th. Politicians these days are elected more on the basis of cash, charisma, and cronyism than on their ability to solve the problems at hand. We should take away those factors so everyone who wanted to run for office would do so on a level playing field. Here's how this form of government would work.

There would be 2 voting periods, a primary and a runoff.

In the primary, anyone who wanted to run for an office would submit a list of 5 problems and their solutions to those problems to the elections commission, which would then print them on a ballot without naming names. The problems could be anything the candidate thought was important. Voters would vote for the whichever set of problems and solutions they thought were best.

In the runoff election, the top 5 winners from the primary would be revealed and allowed to campaign for office. Making their identities public at this stage would let people consider the past histories and sanity of the candidates in their decision-making process. Whoever won the runoff election would then not only have the chance to implement his or her own solutions, they'd also have all those other problems and solutions from the election to use as a resource for making their community even better.

Answer 2

Mideast Politics: The Adoption Solution

Instead of giving Israel $3 billion a year why not create an adoption agency in both countries and fund them at $1.5 billion apiece each year? The only condition would be that Palestinians have to adopt Israeli orphans and Israelis have to adopt Palestinian ones. There have been a lot created over the years.

Truce zones could be created inside each country where both sides would agree not to carry out attacks or train soldiers.

Over time, the truce zones would have to be expanded to accommodate their growing population, leaving less and less acceptable targets. It would also make living in those zones desirable to middle-roaders on both sides of the fence.

The safety of the people inside each zone would be entrusted to a new armed force comprised of members from both sides. As the zones grew, the size of this force would need to grow. After a while there would be a fully-armed 3rd party in both countries.

The 3rd armed force is intended to offset something like Hamas which might try to attack the zones just because people were getting along too well in them. If the force struck back, Abbas couldn't be blamed (thus avoiding a civil war in Palestine); if a group in Israel attacked a zone and the force struck back the Palestinians couldn't be blamed.

Comments

Just a correction on your numbers. The $3B which the politicians acknowledge that we give Israel, is only the funds they categorize as Foreign Aid. We also give Israel about $7B per year in what is called 'military loans', although they haven't paid back one penny of principal or interest in over 40 years, which makes it a $7B giveaway each year.

Answer 3

A New Middle East

A not-so-simple idea for solving to the Middle East problem. As it was written a while back a couple of pieces of it look somewhat like the current ruling structure Lebanon finally agreed on to end its civil war. If you have any thoughts on improving it leave a comment.

1. Declare Israel and Palestine a World Heritage site. Since every country needs a name we could call it something like "The Holy Land."

2. Move the United Nations there so if Iran attacked it it would be attacking the whole world.

3. Since it's unlikely Iran would attack we could let them build all the nuclear weapons they want, instead of starting a new war with them.

4. Create a council composed of religions who aren't claims to the area, like Shintoism and Buddhism, to maintain the rule of law in the country. If this was considered unacceptable, then any sect of the 3 main religions involved having over 1 million adherents could be given seats on the council. That means Sunnis and Shiites would each have their own seat, same with the Catholics and Anglicans, etc. The best way to choose the people who would occupy those seats would be for each sects to decide on their own process to determine who possesses sufficient compassion (as opposed to an excessive 'scribes and pharisees' kind of knowledge of their religion). Then have them sit on the council for a specified period of time.

5. When it came to which rule of law should be followed inside this new World Heritage site, there would be two legal systems. Each religion's legal code would rule on acts that broke intrafaith laws. All interfaith crimes would automatically be tried in secular courts. There would be one caveat – anyone charged with an intrafaith crime could renounce their religion to free themselves ofthat religion's legal code. They couldn't be readmitted to the religion unless they agreed to have the previous charges pressed against them though.

6. The Palestinian's Right of Return would be put into a different context. Each home that's now inside Israel would be given an assesed value of twice its actual value. If the home was then claimed by both its previous and current owners then they would be given a chance to get together and decide how to handle it. If both families refused to surrender their claim on it they would each be given 1/2 the amount of its newly assessed value (amounting to its real value) and the home would be torn down and turned into a public park. If the owners agreed one family should have the home, then the other would be given the whole newly-assessed value of it (twice the amount of the real value) to buy a new one.

The money for this program would come from a $1 tax added to the sale of each barrel of oil sold worldwide. A small price to pay for peace in the region.

7. The seat of this new government would be located in the one place that Jew, Christians and Muslims are all gathered together to fight on the side of the righteous during the end of days – a place called Armageddon, which is a couple of hours north of Jerusalem. The righteous of all 3 major religions are lying side by side in a cemetery there waiting for the day they'll be called to fight on the side of Allah/God.

8. Since there's no way the Israelis would give up their nuclear weapons at this point, nor should we expect them to since we're going to let Iran build its own, we would let the existing nuclear arsenal remain under Jewish control for as many centuries as it would take for them to feel safe. A fixed percentage of the defense budget would have to be earmarked for it.

Instead of having them try to get enough missiles to deter every country in the region though I'd suggest they announce that the missles were going to be re-targeted specifically to religious sites like Mecca (and we'd have to let the Saudis have missiles in return to target Jerusalem). Some kind of radiation detector system would have to be built into the Jewish nuclear launch system too. This would be done to prevent a non-state sponsored nuclear attack from a group of terrorists (think backpack nuke given to them by Iran). If the potential terrorists knew that setting off a nuclear bomb, even a dirty bomb, would result in the destruction of Mecca due to their actions then they'd be more likely to decide against it because the gates of Heaven would surely be closed to them.

Answer 4

World Lobbyist

During this last election in the U.S. a lot of people in other countries complained that it seemed unfair that they didn't get a chance to vote on an issue that might ultimately have a significant impact on their lives (i.e. the next President and his policies). Creating the new position of World Lobbyist, funded by the United Nations, would at least give them a voice on a subject that concerns their future.

To make this happen, every country would elect a candidate for the position via popular vote, and then each country would have one vote to choose the ultimate winner (with each country being forbidden from voting for its own candidate). Once this lobbyist was elected his job would be to present the rest of the world to the U.S. via current media outlets inside the U.S. so its people would get a better picture of how the rest of the world thinks about things. It wouldn't be his job to influence U.S. policy one way or the other on any specific issue - he would be paid to get across the idea that people living in other countries really are people and not just stereotypes. For instance, too many Americans are surprised when they see a story coming out of Africa that has actual buildings in it instead of just dirt villages with huts. Commercials would tell short stories of real people and what their lives are like. It would give the audience something to relate to when they start voting to do this or that.

Answer 5

We Fixed That

Solutions from around the world.

It seems like a lot of times a government will say they can't do this or that and give some plausible-sounding reason for their position. At the same time the problem has been solved elsewhere in the world despite those plausible excuses. A couple of cases in point:

1. There's no way to keep potholes from popping up in the highways in the Northeast US while other countries have solved the problem just be adding more rubber to the asphalt.

2. You can't put Bott's Dots in northern highways because the snowplows will tear them up, while other countries that get snow have no problem keeping them on the road.

This idea is simply for a website that's set up in point-counterpoint fashion. Categories would list problems people say can't be solved for such-and-such a reason. The counterpoint section would tell where the solution was widely-known to exist (although I've never felt comfortable with the 'widely known to exist' phrase that's often thrown around. Unless someone is well-travelled "narrowly known to exist" might be more accurate. But I digress.)

Having a website like this with proven solutions would save a lot of arguing. You'd just send a link showing the solution to both the politician that said something couldn't be done and to the news station that carried his comments.

Answer 6

Ghost Torture

The Science Channel had a program on not too long ago where they were investigating different kinds of paranormal phenomena and trying to come up with a rational explanation for it. During one test they put a band that completely blocked all visual stimuli around the head of their test subjects and then aimed electromagnetic pulses at different regions of the brain. This caused a lot of fear-based hallucinations, including the appearance of ghosts. It would be interesting to subject some terrorists to prolonged periods of this. No physical harm would be done and we'd turn off the fear as soon as they told us what they'd planned to do next and who was still out there waiting to do it. A humane sort of torture, so to speak.

Answer 7

16-year-old's have been given the right to vote in a referendum on Scotland's independence. Engaging teenagers in the political process earlier in life could get them more involved and motivated to participate as they grow older. Why not try lowering the minimum voting age in the US?

Answer 8

Regift Israel

It's a white elephant anyway.

The reason people gave white elephants as a gift in the Eastern world was to bankrupt their enemies in a friendly way. It usually took more than the receiver could afford to maintain the elephant. In a sense, that's what's happening in Israel. If God truly did give the country to the Jewish people then, judging by how much it's cost them, it was a crappy gift. Maybe the Jewish people should just regift it to the Palestinians. How could God be upset at them if his gift was given to someone else in the name of love or compassion for them?

Answer 9

Amendment 1

A different take on it.

Someone should challenge the foreign aid that the U.S. is giving to Israel based on the idea that it violates the 1st amendment of the Constitution - "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion..." Foreign aid goes into a budget bill, budget bills are signed into law, and Israel was established to help a specific religion, so from where I sit it looks like the budget bill law is supporting the establishment of a religion. The U.S. gives aid to a lot of other countries that have a single religion of course but those countries weren't created specifically to benefit a single religion.

Answer 10

One welfare solution

Families living at the poverty level could relocated by charity organizations to an area that has an abundant natural resource already being extracted, say a gold mine for instance. Once they became the majority they could tax the mine into bankruptcy, take possession of it for the delinquent taxes, and then work the mine themselves, paying for their own welfare (a Communist economy thanks to a democratic government).

Answer 11

Banks that are "too big to fail" still do fail sometimes and then they pose a threat to the world economy. The government should force big banks/companies to be broken up (or block their mergers) to keep them from getting too big. "Big" defined as having assets or liabilities greater than 1 day's worth of the world GDP (0.3% of the annual GDP).

Comments

Countries (or the UN) should declare some companies as "too big to fail" and assign regulators to other big ones that fall outside the definition. Limit their risk and leverage by putting public officials on their boards. This could prevent some financial tsunamis!

Answer 12

When the economy is growing states usually spend all of their income. Then they're forced to cut their spending during a recession when more spending is really needed. Each individual state should be taxed by its parent country during economical expansions and the country would then pay it back to the states during recessions. That would create a better balance.

Answer 13

There needs to be more spending on world development aid. Start an ad campaign in the richer nations of the world. Educate people about what % of their national budget is being spent on aid. It's a lot less than people think and a lot less than it should be.

Answer 14

In third-world countries where they need to slow the population growth they can do it by both cutting the support a couple gets from the government and raising their taxes every time they have a child after they already have two healthy ones.

Answer 15

When countries have too much corruption the UN should organize boycotts of oil purchases from them. Too much oil revenue is being diverted from the citizens to the leaders.

Answer 16

Let free trade work by buying products that are made in poor countries (like coffee and tea) and shipped directly to stores over here. Beats buying stuff made by the huge multinationals. The poor producers benefit when we cut out the middlemen.

Answer 17

In the gov. employment system abolish caste-based preferential treatment, both in the legislative and education posts by amending the India Constitution. Base the new scale on the poverty level and have reservations for the people that are below the poverty line.

Answer 18

Suicide bombers target police and army recruits during wartime in places like Iraq. Instead of gathering them up in one place or lining them up so they can be mass targets stagger them so they're recruited at a number of different random times.

Answer 19

Use government stimulus money to offer small businesses low interest loans to expand. There are more taxpayers when there are more jobs. The government could get the money back with interest (even if just a little) so that would be good for them too.

Answer 20

The US and the EU exporting tons of jobs to China, India, etc. They should try to export more to Haiti, Palestine, and other trouble spots.

Answer 21

Check out these 10 stories the world needs to know more about from the UN. Then take action by writing to your legislators about them and talking them up on the net.

Answer 22

In every country start a global movement to get them involved in the rebuilding of countries that have been torn apart and ravaged by war.

Answer 23

Encourage donations to charity during elections. Buttons for quick donations to a candidate's favorite charities on their website and card swipes at the ballot box to donate at the same time you're voting to the candidate's favorite charity or choose one from a short list. Wouldn't slow down the lines too much.

Answer 24

Require all elected politicians to send their kids to public schools.

Answer 25

Establish a democratically-elected government in exile for Somalia. All dcisions will be backed up by UN forces.

Answer 26

Move Tax Day just before Election Day to incentivize politicians to lower taxes.

Answer 27

Politicians should get a little shock every time they lie so they know they're doing it. hehe Have a panel of political experts at every debate and during the debate if enough of them press a button the politician talking gets a shock or a light on their podium goes on! That'll teach them.

Answer 28

Send multinational "Love Armies" of skilled civilian helpers into countries (like Haiti) that need wholescale rebuilding.

Answer 29

Change the two 4-year presidential terms to one 6-year term as the last 2 years of the 1st term are wasted on re-election efforts for the 2nd term.

Answer 30

Pass an amendment to give the votes of parents with young children...

Answer 31

Move rapidly towards near-total factory automation in developed...

Answer 32

Why don't they induce comas in prisoners when we get booked into...

Answer 33

Make veterans exempt from paying federal income taxes.

Answer 34

Veterans shouldn't have to pay income taxes. They've paid their...