REFINING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY BY T.S. KHANNA

 

Refining American Democracy

By T.S. Khanna, June 15, 2022.

 

Under the euphoria of Democracy as the best form of government, we are not able to identify its weaknesses too dangerous to ignore.  Socrates and Machiavelli, at different times in history, pointed out that democracy would likely lead to chaos and tyranny.  In recent times, we saw “Hitlerism” out of German democracy; fascism in Italy; and, in America, it seems we are heading toward bankruptcy and the chaos of socio-political divide, in spite of the first President Washington’s warning in his farewell address.

 

Now, in the changing world order, if the inherited form of democracy is not refined, we run the risk of losing it all.  Respecting publisher’s space and reader’s time, detailed discussion is excluded.  To initiate a serious discourse on the subject we recommend:

1.     Redefine Natural Rights with attendant obligations, including the right to free speech, guns, and the media;

2.     Improve quality of elected public officials by adopting requisites for candidates and for voters;

3.     Adopt performance standards for public officials to evaluate them periodically;

4.     Make all elected positions a single 6-year term in life-time;

5.     Phase out the current political economy and adopt safeguards against political economy for political expediency;

6.     Establish a non-partisan National Election Commission with adequate powers to eliminate fraud, falsehood, and enforce civility;

7.     Adopt measures disallowing strikes and protests at public places or disrupting economic activities and assign an area in every jurisdiction for protest

participants;

8.     Establish a National Commission on Wages to judiciously evaluate the Unions’ demands, keeping in view the sustainability of local markets and competition in world markets;

9.     Abolish the Senate and establish a non-partisan, 15-member Supreme Council to be elected by the American citizens to take over the Senate responsibilities as well as the President-Vice Presidents offices.  The highest two vote getters may be the President and Vice-President for the 6-year term.

10.  The Supreme Council, in consultation with available resources, may adopt National Goals to be met in their 6-year term, with powers to amend the Constitution;

11.  Political parties, through their elected officials in the House of Reps, may act as advisers to the Supreme Council in pursuit of the adopted goals; and,

12.  Establish an Institute of Political Learning to train voters, candidates, and observe democratic operations for testing the assumptions in Democratic Ideology.

 

America is certainly the greatest nation in history

And the biggest hope for humanity.

SHE MUST BE SAVED.

POST PUTIN ERA By T.S. Khanna

 

POST PUTIN ERA

By T.S.Khanna, May 29, 2022.

Foundation For Better Government,

 

Russia’s political culture has been shaped by its past Czars and Dictators.  They turned Ukraine into the crucible of cataclysms: Ukrainian language banned, books confiscated, intellectuals and patriots murdered, peasants starved to break their resistance during the Stalin rule in the 1930s---a persistent effort to eradicate Ukrainian identity to submerge it into Russia.

 

Putin is the product of that culture and is repeating the same evil.  The stock of reasoning and possibilities of resolving public issues under dictators is limited to the use of force.  People under dictators become cult-oriented and believe in them and obey them without questioning.  They are not familiar with the range of possibilities in resolving public issues peacefully in a system-oriented democratic society.  That is why perception of the same facts is different by dictators and, unfortunately, perception is reality in politics.

 

Putin’s perception of “self-defense” as the cause of this war is contrary to the world’s perception of Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.  Putin’s perception of reality is that Ukrainians do not have a right to exist and their genocide is moralized, whereas American perception of reality is that “…all men are created equal”.

 

Collectively, people have a limited rational capacity.  To make up for this deficiency, persons in governing positions in a democracy are trained in using prudence displacing pride and prurience.  They imbibe characteristics of Aristotle’s “temperate man”.  Putin never had that benefit.  He frequently threatens the use of Nukes while others, even better equipped with Nukes, exercise prudence in their choice of words and actions.

 

Putin has cleared his mind of the sins of atheism by rehabilitating Orthodox Christian Churches demolished under the USSR era.  However, he still seems unfamiliar with the basic tenet:

“Do unto others as you would be done by”.

 

Putin is not aware that this war is epoch changing and having an effect reverse of what he intended.  Ukraine has been consecrated by the brave Ukrainians who sacrificed their lives for the country’s sovereignty and by those innocent defenseless civilians mercilessly massacred by Putin’s forces and buried in mass graves.

 

Now there is no going back.  The world bestows an honorable remembrance to the resolute Ukrainians whose valor against Putin’s outnumbered forces made them immortal in public memory.  They have enshrined Ukraine as the citadel of European democracy------a pilgrimage for freedom lovers.

 

For sight, we need eyes; for insight, we need factual knowledge and rational analysis of facts with cause and effect.  With our limited knowledge of facts about the secretive-opaque Putin’s government, it seems next few weeks are critical for Putin.

 

It is time to start planning for rebuilding of Ukraine by using the personal assets of Putin, his cohorts, and his oligarchs, estimate at $ 300 billion.  They possess these assets illegally by denying the benefits to the Russian citizens.