God Help Us When They Grow Up

[JPhillips]

I've been working with a high school student that will be going to a natioanl mock legislature in June. She needs to prepare her speeches for each of the bills that have the potential to be put on the docket. It has been amazing to see how many of these bills are terribly written or have truly horrible subjects. Keep in mind these are supposedly the best bills in the nation, having come from regional competitions. I'm only about half way through, but these are some of my favorites.

A bill to revoke the UN Charter. I would have thought that someone would have pointed out that we don't have the ability to revoke the UN CHarter. We can withdraw, but we can't get rid of the UN on our own.

On the same topic, a bill to withdraw from the UN. This bill includes a whereas clause stating that the UN continually refuses to elect an American Secretary General. Too bad the UN Charter prohibits all but the traditionally non-aligned from holding the Secretary General position. Of course if we revoke the charter...

A bill to impose a ten cent tax on every plastic bag and soda/beer ring to help the nation's waterfowl. Ten cents each? Do they have any idea how much money they are talking about? All to help waterfowl. Are they planning on golden feed houses or diamond encrusted No Hunting signs?

A bill to establish a national DNA registry for all children born in the US. Ostensibly this will be used for tracking missing children, but does anybody trust a national DNA registry in the hands of government?

A bill to establish a national database of child abuse for the use of schools. The really bad part of this bill is that any school employee that fails to use the database or report suspected abuse will be subject to punishment at the discretion of the Health and Human Services Dept.!

A bill to abolish NASA and contract all needed services to private corporations. According to the wording of this bill even national security services would have to be contracted to the lowest bidder. "Congrats Chinese space service you get to launch our newest high tech spy satellite. Remember to close your eyes when you launch it."

Now these ae high school students, but damn these are some bad bills. I can't imagine some of the things the regional bills proposed. Of course if these kids ever end up as congressmen, I'm sure the lobbyists will write better bills for them!

[KWhit]

Originally posted by JPhillips
Of course if these kids ever end up as congressmen, I'm sure the lobbyists will write better bills for them!

Classic!

[Maple Leafs]

Originally posted by JPhillips
Now these ae high school students, but damn these are some bad bills. I can't imagine some of the things the regional bills proposed.

I'm betting there were plenty of bills to outlaw war, because war is bad.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

These kids arent thinking what some of those bills if passed into laws would cause .

[Franklinnoble]

Kids are stupid.

I know, I used to be one.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Hmm ... frightening as it may be, I've seen worse ideas than these proposed at the state & local level as serious attempts at legislation.
And at least some of your batch might be salvagable.

The waterfowl thing needs some serious help with the math, but it's not the worst environmental funding idea I've ever heard. Add some zeros, shift the decimal to the left a good ways & there might be something there.

And I don't think the child abuse one is that far afield from some existing state guidelines for educators either ... at least not if you shift the responsibility for punishment into the proper hands

And at least I now know that some of the kids have the right idea about how to handle the U.N. And if you've got the right idea, all that's left is to teach the specifics of implementation.

Yeah, my tongue is in my cheek a little here but honestly, these probably aren't as bad as what I would have expected if you'd asked me to predict what they would look like.

[Ragone]

Ah yes.. student legislature

I could tell you stories of stuff my friend and i pulled in one session..

My friend and i wrote a bill.. a incredibly long bill.. My friend.. being the long winded type.. could go on for hours and hours.. So we wrote into page 14 of the bill that either he or i could veto any bill that came up with absolute power of authority

hah.. they passed the bill (legalizing gambling on land) without really even looking at the bill.. thusly we could veto anything we wanted.. The teacher was amused enough to let it stand.. Thus we spent nearly the entire year of local student legislature vetoing stuff we thought was unrealistic

[sterlingice]

Ragone, that's classic!

SI

[BFleming]

The best one I remember from my days in Model Congress:

"To mandate lethal injection as the only form of capital punishment, in all 52 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico"

Ah...the memories...

[Coffee Warlord]

Heh. Student government.

Back in the day, we pulled a coup. Many of my friends, who numbered mainly among the miscreants and freaks of high school, decided to gain control of student council. We had all but 1 junior class seat, and like 4 of the sophomore class seats.

The uppity preppy jerks were not happy.

The classic quote...

"Guys, will you please not smoke during meetings?"

[kcchief19]

Originally posted by JPhillips
Of course if these kids ever end up as congressmen, I'm sure the lobbyists will write better bills for them!

Then again ...

* Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has proposed legislation abolishing the Federal Reserve and reverting the U.S. economy back to the gold standard; abolishing the personal income tax; the U.S. withdrawing from the U.N.; the U.S. withdrawing all forces from South Korea; and repealing the Selective Service Atc.

* The 2003 federal budget includes $250,000 funding for the National Preschool Anger Management Project and $800,000 for the foundation that produces the Grammys.

* Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) proposed legislation creating a National Inventors Day (Feb. 11, Thomas Edison's birthday).

* Rep. Sue Kelly (R-New York) proposed bill to amend the United States Code, to add National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day to the list of days on which the flag should especially be displayed.

* Rep. Thomas Tancredo (R-Colorado) proposed a bill to designate the visitor center in Organ Pipe National Monument in Arizona as the "Kris Eggle Visitor Center."

Doesn't sound like the kids are that far off. Also, from my days in Student Congress, these bills are rarely "the best" offered. Instead, most bills proposed fall into two categories: (1) idealistic teachers who want to propose bills that will allow for two-way debate; and (2) wacky bills submitted by teachers who want to favor their student with something unique they have already researched and have the jump on everyone else.

Also, I looked up the legislation first and then the Congress member for the bills -- I'm sure it was just "chance" they were all Republicans.

[AZSpeechCoach]

JPhillips,

Did you see a bill about normalizing relations with Cuba? I rewrote that bill for our district.

Kevin

[JPhillips]

Kevin: Haven't gotten to that one yet. I'll keep an eye out for it.

[mckerney]

Originally posted by Ragone
Ah yes.. student legislature

I could tell you stories of stuff my friend and i pulled in one session..

My friend and i wrote a bill.. a incredibly long bill.. My friend.. being the long winded type.. could go on for hours and hours.. So we wrote into page 14 of the bill that either he or i could veto any bill that came up with absolute power of authority

hah.. they passed the bill (legalizing gambling on land) without really even looking at the bill.. thusly we could veto anything we wanted.. The teacher was amused enough to let it stand.. Thus we spent nearly the entire year of local student legislature vetoing stuff we thought was unrealistic

Back in my government class we elected a president for writing our class constitution and a friend of mine was elected to that position. Being we were to run another election for our classroom president after, he wrote into the constitution that there would be a judicial committe and no one in the judicial commitee as the constitution said could decline or leave, and no judicial committee member could become president. Then he basicly put everyone in there who would have any ambition of running against him in the next election, ensuring that the position would be his.

I think the whole thing would have worked out if he hadn't got expelled, and then after that we didn't even bother having another election, but it was a pretty good plan.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Down with the Government!!!!1

[Ryche]

A student legislature could have been a lot of fun, I guess that's one of many things I missed being in a school with a graduating class of 20.

Actually, more than anything those proposed bills remind me of some of the some party platforms that were proposed at my local Republican convention. The one I remember most basically banned pornography and called it evil. It actually passed and went to the next level, but that's mainly because people from the local bible college pretty much controlled our precinct.

The Minnesota legislature has a few bad ones slip through, but I think some of the more intelligent members generally can derail the real stupidity before they get proposed.