Government of, by, and for the Government

The other day I was listening to a radio program when a woman called in and proposed an interesting idea. She suggested that political figures such as Congressmen and the President be required to acquire and maintain a sort of license in order to "practice". Her argument was that many other professionals (doctors, lawyers, plumbers, etc.) need to maintain some form of license in order to remain in business, so public servants should as well. Logically this may appear to be a reasonable idea, but practically it has one major problem.

The problem is, who would be responsible and held accountable for the licensing program? After all, accountability is the name of the game in this new administration. Requirements would need to be established to determine whether or not an applicant qualifies to hold a license for occupying a federal position and tests would need to be established to ensure that the applicants meet all of those requirements. Currently the Constitution states that to be President, an individual must 1. be a citizen of the United States of America 2. be at least 35 years old and 3. have been a resident of the United States of America for at least 14 years. It also states that to be a Congressman an individual must 1. be either 25 (Representative) or 30 (Senator) years old and 2. be a United States citizen for either 7 (Rep.) or 9 (Sen.) years. That is all.

But if a licensing program were to be put in place in addition to the requirements established in the Constitution, who would be in charge of it? Congress? How could they responsibly authorize and license themselves? The majority would end up simply voting changes to the requirements in order to license only nominees that are on the same page as their agenda. The President? Sounds like a dictatorship. The Supreme Court? That may be a little more promising, but they would be bought off and swayed very easily. ACORN? Please.

Anyway you slice it, we would end up with a system of extreme corruption. Once a majority, such as the one that is in power right now, gains control, they would be able to easily manipulate the program to block out individuals that do not agree with them and expedite the acceptance of new partners in crime. This would in effect create an aristocracy where those in power have command over who is even eligible to merely run for office, which would completely do away with the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.