Recently, a group of Warsaw people were sitting around in Marco Island, having dinner, swopping lies, solving the world's ills, including bemoaning with vigor the dysfunctional antics of the Halls of Congress.
One wit, a retiree high up on the food chain of a local orthopedic company, offered an inspired solution to the lamentable fiasco being played out daily in the Beltway. Put the names of those interested and faintly qualified for the legislature in a hat. There were some disqualifications such as criminal record, mental illness, single-issue holders, those who view the human condition in terms of black and white, racists, white supremists and such.
Someone from each district, say a 10-year-old picked at random, plucks out a name. He/she serves a four-year but no more than an eight-year term, thus eliminating the compulsion for self-propagation, which in and out of itself engenders lies, half-lies, mean-spiritedness and all those misdeeds our Sunday school and kindergarten teachers admonished us about.
This proposal got a rousing approval since we felt we would get at least as good a government as we now have. My father-in-law, a gentle soul, who went to meet his maker 36 years ago, was fond of saying that this country is so great that even the politicians can't ruin it. It is highly doubtful he would be saying this today.
