Part 1 of 2

After over 200 years of America being America, there are certain things that need to be reviewed, revised and changed in our constitution.

The founding fathers were brilliant and courageous men, but they were not infallible. No one, man or woman, could foresee every possible problem with a new democratic government and appropriately plan for each one, especially over two centuries down the road.

It’s well known that our current Democrat-controlled Executive branch and Senate has done little more than simply lock horns with the Republican-controlled House over the past three years, and almost nothing of relevance or helpful to our ailing economy has gotten done. Many politicians on both sides have been saying for much longer than the past three years that “Washington is broken.”

OK, most of us can agree, so fix it. And that’s where they seem to stop having any useful ideas.

One of the major differences between our government structure and governments in other developed countries, such as the U.K., is that ours is a presidential system versus a parliamentary system. One of the major differences is that in a parliamentary system, once a prime minister is elected, he or she can appoint people not only to the executive branch, but can appoint congressional leaders as well.

In the U.S., the president has no control over who sits in any congressional seat.

One might think, well that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Actually for many reasons, it’s not. Parliamentary systems are more efficient and more responsive to crises than ours because they’re executive and legislative branch are much more unified and willing to work together. In our current state of Washington, we have a nearly equally divided congress and executive branch that most of the time won’t go along with someone’s ideas, no matter how good they may be, simply because a member of the other party came up with it. That is nothing short of stupid and childish, and it hurts America as a whole.

The reason our system is so difficult to change is because it is in fact constitutional, and the constitution is nearly impossible to change, even when it’s clearly for the greatest good. The founding fathers decided on our presidential system, in which they placed multiple “veto points to impede decisive legislative action,” according to editor-at-large Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect.

America is no longer the standard to which the rest of the world looks. Instead, other countries now marvel at our inability to move forward and improve, instead of our ability to innovate, advance, and a strong leader on the world’s stage.

There is much more to be said on this subject, and the number of examples and supporting materials for this argument simply won’t fit in the space provided in our little perspective corner of the world, so make sure to check out part two of this article in tomorrow’s Northern Star.