In America we are effectively governed, not by rational, educated people, but by spoiled brats, whose claim to fame is that they can gerrymander constituency boundaries and thus cannot be easily removed. They consistently ignore decisions democratically arrived at.

Since they do not wish to govern responsibly, they not only should have their pay sequestered, and should be fined a year’s salary for every week they halt the workings of government (naturally, it won’t happen).

There are legitimate concerns about Obamacare (are there enough doctors to cope? Why doesn’t it address the issue of rationing, and the incentive for doctors to casually over-use expensive technology). But the Tea Party people are too lazy, or incompetent, to do their homework and put forward ideas for improvement of the law. They prefer bomb throwing. Epicurus told us to ignore party politics, but in a burst of un-Epicurean zeal I propose the following for the benefit of everyone, except the extremists:

1. The appointment of a non-party Electoral Commission with the power to overrule local, corrupt politicians and impose fair electoral boundaries based on population changes, not on party politics. This works well in Europe.

2. Taxpayer funded elections: give, for instance, each Senatorial candidate $10 million and each Representative $1.5m for election expenses and jail him for twenty years if he accepts a dollar more from lobbyists or anyone else. Grants to the cost of living index; private donations illegal. This is a dirt cheap investment if we get our democracy back.

These proposals would work against the radical government haters and would allow our elected representatives to do a full-time job, instead of constant fundraising. Best of all, it would reduce the power of money, corporations and their lobbyists. (Naturally, it won’t happen!)

Epicureanism stands for a decent life and getting on with everybody as fairly as possible. The current system is broken and will break the United States.
We cannot stand by.