Too many non-elected representatives
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Re: "Changing Senate is against spirit of bicamaralism", Letters, August 26.
Vint Chavala says that holding elections for the US Senate ensures that both the people and the government are represented. I’ve heard a lot of strange concepts in my life, but that is the strangest.
The government is conceived to represent the people, not itself. The people choose the legislators. The length of terms for congressmen and senator in the US means nothing. Both are elected by the people to do the people’s will.
If you want to know what is wrong with Thailand, simply look at its government. It is vastly overstaffed, and far too many people are appointed rather than elected. Why should Parliament have more representatives than the US when the population is 60-odd million versus 300 million in the US, and Thailand has a landmass about the size of California? Come on, who is kidding whom?
Thailand is a great country, but its government is an insult to the intelligence of any thinking person. It’s in the business of promoting itself, not the people’s interest. Cut the size of it and require that everyone, with the exception of Cabinet members, be elected, and I assure you that things will improve for the average man on the street.
John Arnone
Yasothon
