Imagine that you are given unlimited funds and resources to reverse the trend in voter apathy...?

Question

Imagine that you are given unlimited funds and resources to reverse the trend in voter apathy. What would you do at the local level? What would you do at the state and national levels?

Answer 1

The number one reason behind voter apathy is the feeling of separation between goverment and those being governed.

You can tell people until you are blue in the face that it is worth voting and still these words have little effect. People are influenced over a long, incremental period. They store up every crooked incident of voter betrayal and how much each budget affects their spending power.

Perhaps the best method would be empowerment and inclusion. If people can actually see how their votes take effect and actually feel themselves part of a process, apathy might be reduced.

This is a 'what' answer, rather than a 'how'.

Answer 2

Introduce programs in schools and in all sectors about the importance of their participation and educate the voters of their responsibility is such a way they can decide for a right person who has the vision for good governance that would eventually redound to the benefit not only to the voters but all people including the members of their family.

Answer 3

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

       This is quoted from the American Declaration of Independence.

We need a new political party! We need a party that works for the regular Americans like customer service in a department store, for the little guys like you and me. Our government treats us worse than they treat third world refugees, look at the Tsunami and New Orleans after the hurricane.

We had people on the ground 18 hrs after the Tsunami, on the other side of the world! New Orleans, it took 36hrs for help to get started! FEMA held the Navy off, with the Navy being ready and on the backside of the storm. While FEMA's head man is asking " Do these clothes make me look fat?". Our political system is a disgrace, not one man, ALL OF THEM! No Senator, no Representative,  no elected official of any kind came to the aid of the storm victims  in anything that can be described as a timely fashion!

We now work our brains out at low level jobs because the flim flam men politicians have rewritten the laws to corkscrew us and sent our good jobs abroad. They gave away our tax money to foreigners that built their factories with our tax money. This has to stop, it doesn’t work for America, it robs us and our children of our future.

The National Income Party :

America could conquer the world. Not with warring, but with such overwhelming wealth that the whole world would l**k our boots to get our help for themselves. I can make a provable, tangible, graphable outline for doing this.

    First someone like me would have to the President. I say that because I'm the kind of man that can't be knuckled under, I’m iron willed, with determination to spare, I don't take you can't do that and just quit, and no matter how hard the job is I never stop short.   I’m a working class man, I came up doing body work, so I know how to fix the tangled mess others have made.

    As President, this being THE most powerful position in the world, I would go completely around the flim flam men in the Senate and the House. I would use the Executive Order and write the checks to get what needs to be done so they happen ASAP! The treasury is in the executive branch and Lincoln wrote checks to get things done, so I would do the same.

    By Executive Order, I would start with fixing the governments money problems and getting the citizens tax problems solved. Then I would stop the foreign companies that cheat the US out their share of taxes, and make a loophole free way to collect every penny they owe.

    Next would come the illegals, I'd get them all registered, employed, and put them on the tax roles not us. We need the illegals paying taxes because there's just not enough Gen Xer's to pay the SS for the Boomers and Gen Xer's.

    I'd make millions of high wage jobs with renewable power plant construction,  renewable power would be a priority. I'd build so much clean power we would have power in overabundance, and we could supply the whole world with clean US made power. 1/3 of the money from the foreign power bills would be put into a fund and every head of household would get a paycheck and NO tax bill!

    To continue doing this would make a book so I'm going to outline what’s to be:

1st90 days by Executive Order

Establish Earth Rights for all of America like in Alaska

Make foreign tax cheats pay, tariff goods @retail every container

End income taxes; fund the Gov the right way, not on our backs

End tax paper work for the citizens, not business

End all welfare programs, high wage work instead of welfare, save the money

Balance the budget, officials are not paid till it’s done

Regular people for elected officials, no lawyers or rich with only 2 terms

End lobbyists, take the money out of politics

Make all graft illegal, have mandatory jail time

Close the DOE, save the money

Take the Gov out of the schools, PTA run schools, save money

Set Iraq’s oil to pay for the war, make an exit plan with the military

Prisoners work for the jail costs, not us, save the money

Register the illegals, put them to work and on the tax roles, not us

Private SS accounts, makes us millionaires, no government access to the money

After90 days by Executive Order

Build renewable power, make millions of high wage jobs

Build electric powered roads, make  more millions of high wage jobs

Thousands of jobs building electric cars &trucks

End our dependence on foreign oil

Clean the polluted water with clean electric power

Build a fund from foreign power bills like Alaska uses to PAY us

End Nuclear power

Return America to 50% of world’s economy

      The Alaska state constitution claims common heritage rights of ownership of oil and other minerals for the people of the state as a whole. Citizen dividend checks are distributed every year in Alaska out of the interest payments to an oil royalties deposit account called the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) created in 1976 after oil was discovered on the North Slope. The APF is a public trust fund - a diversified stock, bond and real estate portfolio - into which are deposited the oil royalties received from the corporations which extract the oil from the lands of Alaska. The first citizen dividend check from the interest of the APF was issued in 1982 and was for $1000 per every person for everyone in Alaska who had resided in the state for at least one year. Annual citizen dividends have been issued every year since then, for a total of more than $23,000 per person.

      In 2003, each of the nearly 600,000 Alaska US citizens (residents of Alaska for at least one year) received a check for $1,107 from the APF. The total amount dispersed was $663.2 million. The $25 billion investment fund's core experienced stock market losses which led to the dividend's decline this past year compared to the several previous years. The amount was $433 less, a 28 percent drop from the 2002 pay out of $1,540, and a 44 percent decrease from the all-time high of $1,964 in year 2000. The amount changes based on a five-year average of APF investment income derived from the bonds, stock dividends, real estate and other investments.

     Alaska relies on oil for about 80 percent of its revenue and has no sales or income tax. Alaska state government is mandated to invest 25% of its oil revenue into the APF while the other 75% of oil royalty revenue is dispersed to other government funds to finance education, infrastructure and social services. If 100% of Alaska's oil royalties had been deposited into the APF, it is conceivable that the CD this year could have been about $4,400 or $17,600 for a family of four. But then there would have been no funds for roads, education and other public services and no funds available to run the state legislature - a libertarian dream fulfillment or a social and economic disaster, which one we will never know. If state services were to have been maintained while 100% of oil royalties were deposited in the APF, there would of course have been the need for income, sales and other taxes on wages and production.

     Alaska uses Earth Rights to pay about $1000 p/yr and not tax their residents. With all 50 states my fed government could pay $50,000 p/yr, NO TAXES, and fund the government!

      The foreign tariff money, the illegals taxes, and earth rights money pays all the government expenses, funds the military better than now, and pays down the national debt with NO deficit.

The Renewable power fund would pay what I call a National Income Program, and when the fund matures in about 30 years, would pay about another $50,000 p/yr.

      So $50,000 p/yr from the Earth Rights and NO taxes. Millions of high wage power plant construction jobs, we would need to build 5000 power plants just to start, and continue to build for many years to come.

      Then make millions more high wage jobs to build new electric powered roads to use the clean power. Make thousands of high wage jobs to build electric cars and trucks that use the clean cheap power from the new electric powered roads.

Foreign oil dependence would end! The Arabs could drink their oil, we don’t need it any more. The oil money that funds the terrorists would dry up, and terrorism would strangle, then die. Domestic oil production would supply all our needs.

      Then comes the $50,000 p/yr from the National Income Program, with the Earth Rights money my government could then  pay every household $100,000p/yr, all with no income taxes.

The private SS accounts would have about a $1,000,000 in them for your retirement, after  a working career. The rich make fortunes by building money in funds just this same way, so what works for the rich, will work for the nation.

      This builds America to be 300,000,000 millionaires. The money would be passed to your Aires and NO INCOME TAXES. Each new generation would be richer than their forebears. Soon newborns would be born millionaires, and the system would continue to multiply their wealth for each next generation.

      America would be so wealthy that soon we would be the envy of the world, and people from around the world would l**k our boots for us to help them get where we would be. America rules the world with wealth and prosperity, not war.

     With stable third world power comes jobs, with jobs comes prosperity. Prosperity makes life comfortable, with comfort comes contentment. Contentment would bring peace, and war would be a thing of the past. If someone for some strange reason wanted start a war we could just stop beaming them power.

     Electric power can be beamed on a microwave inside a laser beam to a satellite and put anywhere it's needed on the earth! So cut the beam and no power. It's hard to ,fight a war with no lights or power. America controls the power!

      The renewable power is fuel-less so it's cheap clean power! It’s without the inflation of fuel costs, so the price would remain stable.

I grew up loving to watch Super Man as a kid, he made a lasting impression on me. I’ve lived my life by his motto “ Truth, Justice, and the American Way!”, it still rings in my ears today as it did when I was a child. I want to bring this to America’s government, and drive out the flim flam men! I want America to BE the shining example all the world wishes to emulate.

The Flim Flam Men:

They make speeches about they must have taxes, and every politician knows what is being done in Alaska. Alaska PAYS all their residents with earth rights and doesn’t tax their residents. This makes all the politicians liars!

They make speeches to get elected and make promises about what they will do for us. They say nothing about getting every dime of lobby money to do what big biz wants that’s opposite what they promised you. That makes them all cheats!

They stole your grandmother’s retirement money from SS and left them living on a pittance compared to what they were due. Now you face getting nothing for your SS payments. That makes them all thieves!

They tax us, but they know the foreign companies pay no taxes on the goods they sell here. The goods are sold then bought on paper in a foreign port to skate the tax laws. Thus eliminating their profit on paper to cheat the US out of the taxes they owe. This makes them all backstabbers!

They take lobby money to put earmarks and pork in every law that passes their desk. Then they do photo ops, and news clips to promote themselves as doing something good for us and America. So they all corkscrew us!

They make back room deals and give our tax money to foreigners who build factories with our money. Then they take campaign donations from those foreigners and write laws that send our jobs overseas. This makes them all dirty dealers!

So lets total all this up. They lie, cheat, steal, backstab, corkscrew, and dirty deal. h**l their Flim Flam Men! Just like in the George C. Scott movie “ The Flim Flam Man”! They are called the “ Honorable” Senator or Representative. h**l Flim Flam Men have NO honor what so ever! They’re crooks, criminals for God’s sake!

The BBC has film of ALL of them going in and out of Abramoff’s restaurant. That was THE place in DC to get loaded with lobby money. The BBC has been running this story, and trying to get the US media to run it too. The US media refuses to run the story.

We are all slaves, we own nothing! Even if you paid off the bank, try not paying the extortion tax, and the government takes your house. Try not paying the income extortion tax, and you go to jail. You can’t even run away like the slaves of old. The government will hunt you down, and you got to jail.

What’s the difference? You pay with your work, or you work to pay. We are slaves, the smoke and mirrors propaganda hides the truth from us. Da masser geds his’uns pound a flesh. Sucks! Doesn’t it?

It’s time to take America back! Get registered! VOTE! Vote for anyone that’s not a Democrat or a Republican. They have ALL the power and ALL the control. They must bear ALL the responsibility for their gross mismanagement and abysmally poor judgment! It’s time to put THEM in the unemployment line!

      If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

         Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire, the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the anarchist; the part of the repast that himself supplies is the disgrace before meat.

       Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

     Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

      George Orwell

     To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

     Thomas Jefferson

A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.

      George William Curtis

      America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality.

       Adlai Stevenson

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.

        Dwight D. Eisenhower

The universe grows smaller every day. The treat to security by any group, anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or none are secure! This requires giving up no freedoms, except the freedom to act irresponsibly!

Klaatu

      He loves his country best who strives to make it best.

        Robert Green Ingersoll

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

         Abraham Lincoln

A man's feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.

          George Santayana

        Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"

         George Bernard Shaw

        I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.

            Abraham Lincoln

   A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

             Edward Abbey

    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

             Edmund Burke 1729-1797

     This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.

            Theodore Roosevelt

     I believe in America because we have great dreams - and because we have the opportunity to make those dreams come true.

           Wendell L. Wilkie

           The strength of a civilization is not measured by it’s ability to fight wars, but rather by it’s ability to prevent them.

           Gene Roddenbery

If our forefathers were alive today they would lay siege to DC. They would tar and feather all the politicians and then hang them right on the steps of the capitol buildings. They would leave them there for all to see what happens to those flim flam man politicians that corkscrew Americans.

It’s time to put all of America to work for all Americans. When America leads the way to such overwhelming wealth the world will follow. Prosperity here will breed more prosperity world wide as stable clean cheap power becomes available to all the world. This brings jobs and stability to the third world. The jobs and stability will bring peace, and then we have a fighting chance for “ Peace on Earth”!

Join me in the one real true fight for all mankind, a stable world with “ Peace on Earth”!

I’ve made a very strong case for being able to do what I’ve said needs to be done. I think our founding fathers would be proud of these things being done for America. I believe I’m the man who can do just that, because I believe in doing them 100%,  without any doubt!

Would you vote for me to be the President?

www.uspto.gov  enter patent # 5,430,333

www.earthrights.net/docs/oilrent   that’s oilrent

www.pfd.state.ak.us

LinkTV  BBC expose on US officials and lobby money

The Flim Flam Man starring George C. Scott

Answer 4

Nothing.

We can not force people to enjoy politics, or become informed. If we make the uninformed or indifferent vote, we get a bad pick.

I would make a small test the voter must take at the time of the election. It will be on the ballot. (before the vote) A question like the following.

*Check the box next to the names of people running for president in this election.

_ Barack Obama

_ Bill Clinton

_ Andrew Jackson

_ Ron Paul

_ Rudolph Giuliani

_ Al Gore

And

"America is between ________ and _______ years old."

a. 80, 50

b. 118,110

c. 401, 190

d. 1210, 401

...Look at these softballs as brainwave verification.

I would put money towards donations for schools willing to take a 1 month course on the Constitution as a requirement. I would put the money towards making this a graduation requirement for highschool, and light learning on the subject in gradeschool.

It is critical issue, and learning the constitution in school WILL CREATE more voters, as they see this country is going in the wrong, unconstitutional direction.

*But if you dislike the Constitution, and America, you can use that unlimited money for

. Bus & Taxi rides to pick up people who promise to vote

. Food for them

. A gold or Silver ring with the name of a preferred candidate on it which they can keep once they  are dont voting. This means (if they can read) they can see who to vote for (since  they most likely wont remember).

Answer 5

I'd fund voter rallies, make election day a National holiday, allow people to vote online, and make absentee voting easier.

I'd also like to see if there are ways to educate voters in an entertaining way instead of our traditional "attack ad" process we have now.

Answer 6

Easy, i'd just pay people to vote for fred thompson.

the same at the local level.

Answer 7

I'd hold elections on Saturdays.

Answer 8

First, uniform Federal voting laws.

Second, register all High School seniors.

Third, an advertising campaign emphasizing your vote is your voice, use it!

Fourth, a paid half day off work providing you can prove you voted.

Answer 9

It's all ready happening.  So far we've been subjected to almost 12 months of campaigning for the office of President of the United States. We've got another 12 months to do.  The money being spent is almost unlimited and the resources used are mind blowing.

We won't know if the experiment is successful until November 5th 2008.  

Personally, I don't believe that voter apathy can be cured in this country.  Most people don't believe that politicians are in it for anything except their own interests.