How Much Worse Could It Get?

     In reflecting on the piece below, it struck me that today’s federal government has become so thoroughly corrupt – so anti-American — that I’d be hard pressed to name a government anywhere or anywhen that compares unfavorably to it. And as usual when I’m only half awake, that started a fresh train of half-facetious thought.

     Many years ago, William F. Buckley stated pungently that he’d rather be governed by the first two thousand people in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University. He, too, was probably being a bit facetious, but it’s still an approach that deserves some thought. What if the elections that currently populate the two Houses of Congress were scrapped in favor of the following biennial procedure:

1. On “Selection Day,” tokens representing all the zip codes in the United States are put into a Bingo-style randomizing drum.
2. The drum is spun briskly, and – under the watchful attention of an auditor from Price Waterhouse, of course – a zip code is selected.
3. The names of all the persons in that zip code who are Constitutionally eligible to occupy seats in the House of Representatives are put into the drum.
4. The drum is once again spun briskly, and 435 names are selected. These become our Representatives for the two years to come.
5. The zip code tokens are returned to the drum, it’s spun once again, and a second zip code is selected.
6. The names of all the persons in that zip code who are Constitutionally eligible to occupy seats in the Senate are put into the drum.
7. Yet another spin, and 100 names are selected. These become our Senators for the two years to come.

     Do you think it would work any better or worse than our current system of selling Congressional offices to the highest bidder?