I’m a very big history buff, and as we are in the middle of the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War, I’ve been doing research into the political causes of that conflict. As I did my research I came across an interesting number: 238.

238 was the number of seats in the House of Representatives in the election of 1858, the last normal pre-war election. The population of the United States at that point was roughly 30 million people and so the average congressional district had a little more than 125,000 people in it.  In 1911 when the number of House seats was capped at 435 the average size of a district was about 210,000 people. Today we have more than 300 million people and still only 435 House seats, for an average of almost 690,000 people per congressional district.

I believe this is a travesty and that our founders are spinning fast enough in their graves to power a major city. A major reason why American political participation has declined is because most people believe that “my vote doesn’t matter” and “my <various elected official> doesn’t listen to us” and in many cases they are absolutely correct.  They don’t listen because their elected officials are too busy coddling up to whatever special interest is giving them the  money to get 700,000 people to reelect them to Congress. This dangerous disconnect has soured our people on politics and the allowed the poison of apathy to seep into our national bloodstream.

I think that the size of the House should be tripled, that’s right, tripled.  Think of the benefits:

1: Greater contact between ordinary voters and their Congressman, allowing a better representation of the average Americans voice to be heard in Congress.

2. The new members would sweep the “Old Guard” establishment away,  and create opportunities for new people and new ideas to come to the forefront.

3. Decrease opportunities for gerrymandering certain districts

4. Perhaps it would slow the spinning of the founders down some, maybe just enough to power a mid-size city….

I’m a big Civil War buff, if you ask me just about any question about it I can answer it.  I knew in the back of my mind that the Confederate Constitution was mostly identical to the U.S. version, but that it had some interesting things in it, ( I know mentioning anything Confederate and you are an evil racist. ) but that info generally stayed in the back of my head, finding it less interesting than the battles my ancestors fought and bled in. That is until recently, when I began to look harder at the document and found a couple of ideas that are worth reviewing:

Line Item Veto: This is the one we are most familiar about so I’m not going to say too much about it.  I still don’t know how we haven’t gotten this passed yet.

Limiting the President to 1 Six-year term in office: I find this appealing for many reasons.  Six years is about the time that most presidential administrations start going stale and lose focus.  A six year term would somewhat limit the power and influence of lobbyists and special interest groups, it won’t make go away completely, but that would reduce it and I think that is good for the country.  And if the President isn’t worried about getting reelected, there is more time for him to WORRY ABOUT THE AFFAIRS OF THE COUNTRY! Isn’t that his job in the first place? Look at our current President, who is on pace to shatter records for time spent on his own fundraising and reelection activities. Why don’t we expand the idea to include members of Congress too, say limit members of the Senate to two 8-year terms and members of the house to four 4- year terms. This way we can get new blood in there. It might take some creative election scheduling but it could be done.

I find that these ideas were incorporated in the C.S. Constitution interesting because some very smart men of that era had thought these reforms necessary even then. Remember that many of the founding generation had only been dead 30 or 40 years, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had only been dead 35 by the time the Civil War broke out.  And these men weren’t just backcountry plantation owners, most had considerable experience in the U.S. Government, and in the South it was much more acceptable for a Gentleman to involved with politics.

But like I said before, mention anything Confederate and you are looked at like a mad dog. Such is life I guess.

For much of the past couple of weeks I’ve been coming to terms with the failure of my preferred candidate for President, former Governor Tim Pawlenty.  Governor Pawlenty ran a solid if unspectacular campaign, but in the end couldn’t reach the escape velocity needed to get out of the current morass of GOP presidential candidates.  In ending his campaign the way he did, he showed he was a rational person and politician,  not someone driven by ego. That’s right, I’m looking at you Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich. I loved Pawlenty for the following:

1.      Pawlenty was the true Anti-Obama: You can call Tim Pawlenty many things, but “godlike” isn’t one of them. No thrills running up Chris Matthews legs here. I really liked Pawlenty for being as modest as one who runs for President these days can be. Being relatively boring and very competent is what our country needs to repair itself now. Our last three Presidents have had what I felt was an excess of hubris that has caused a lot of unnecessary grief for our country: Clinton and his women, GWB and his Yankee bred aloofness, and Obama perhaps thinking he really is a god.

2.      He wasn’t over-threatening to the Left:  While Pawlenty didnt’ over excite the conservative base, he didn’t cause much angst for Democrats, and that was good. The last thing we need to do is give the other side is a reason to fight. Better to let them wallow in their own misery and Obama hangover (an Obam-over?) while sneaking up on them to deliver the coup de grace. Think about it, Unions are disgusted with the Democratic party and are starting to pull money out to use for their own goals, and just about every other left leaning interest group is similarly disaffected in one way or another. I think someone like Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin will cause the left to get their backs up and unite.  I think that’s counterproductive in the end because in this Obama economy a battle between two unmotivated bases means that we win. Big.  Is it counter-intuitive? Yes, did I think it would work, Heck yes.

Oh well. No use crying over things that never were and never will be. Now to review the surviving candidates (barring new entries) and try to figure out who to support:

1.      Mitt Romney: Ah, no. I don’t trust him and I think he would say anything to be the next President of the United States. He has many of the same problems John Kerry did, flip-flopper, too wooden, ect. Romney even has the rich Massachusetts guy part down.

2.      Michelle Bachmann: Better than Romney, but I think she is still too wet behind the ears. She has six years in the House as a junior member, which I don’t think is enough to be President. She is also very divisive, a very popular target for the left, which will give them added motivation going in to the election. I also question if the has the personality to be an effective president, she seems a bit inflexible in her ways for my tastes.

3.      Rick Perry: Almost our winner by default. I like Gov. Perry’s blue collar southern background, and he has the experience to President.  Both of which are nice contrasts to the current President. I do have my concerns though, I fear that the country may not be ready again for someone with a Texas swagger (at least Perry’s is natural, unlike GWB) We’ll see if his charm and campaigning skills can balance that out and produce us the next President of the United States of America.

This is a question I ask myself quite a lot these days, as the bombing of Libya continues to little result. The how’s and why’s of that operation are worthy of a separate post, so I’ll save my thoughts on that for the near future.

But what is clear is that NATO is no longer the force it once was a generation ago. Twenty years of defense cuts, political incompetence, and the general anti-military feeling of Europe’s population has turned even the best of the European militaries into something akin to the common jellyfish,  stinging, even painful, but not a life threatening opponent. Even the British military is facing painful cuts, with the British Army considering disbanding one of its most famous regiments, the Coldstream Guards, in order to cuts spending. Because of this, the U.S. military, and by extension, the U.S. taxpayer get left covering the weakness of our “allies acroos the pond”. This is intolerable, but what are we to do about it? Why do we care?

We care because NATO has stabilized European affairs to the point where a major European war is about as likely as a Martian invasion of downtown Duck Hill Mississippi. A U.S.-less Europe is much more likely to get itself into trouble that will eventually cause us to get involved, it’s happened twice before, and it will happen again if NATO goes down. Now, what to do about it?

Option#1 would be to use diplomatic pressure to make the Europeans spend more money on their defense. This is basically what we have been doing for years now and it has gotten us nowhere. Former Defense Secretary Gates gave them a firm warning shortly before he left and so far it hasn’t affected their thinking at all, as they are too worried about cutting popular (and unsustainable) social programs.

I suppose the most emotionally satisfying option could be called the “De Gaulle” option. Basically it’s the total withdrawal of U.S. forces from the military and political structure of NATO and the de facto end of the Atlantic Alliance.  Troops and Equipment would return stateside, propping up the local economy of wherever they were placed and making some Congressmen and Senators very hapy in the process. The Europeans would be left to the mercy of Mr. Putin and his merry band of Russians.

The downside of this plan is that it leaves the newly freed states of Eastern Europe out from U.S. protection and most exposed to possible future Russian aggression. These are the very nations that are the most pro-U.S. in NATO and hanging them out to dry would leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. So that eliminates Option #2 for now.

Option#3 could be considered a  variant of #2: a sudden, partial, draw-down of U.S. forces from Europe back stateside, along with an equally sudden increase of military aid to the Eastern European states. When asked why, the State Department would give the Europeans the type of vague and unsatisfying that they revel in, causing further alarm in the western European governments. The idea is to scare the other NATO members straight and remind them that the U.S.  can leave whenever it wants to and focus on affairs closer to home or out in the Pacific. The could override a European politicians natural instinct of “bash America, more social spending” enough to cause them to to put more resources up toward their common self interest.

I think this last option has the best chance of achieving the long term goals of the United States, after all the whole purpose of NATO  is to “Keep the U.S. in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.” The Europeans know it too, they just need a little reminder every now and then. If not, then it’s back to the old “Fortress America” idea, which would be a tragedy for all involved.