This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I don't believe that a single day goes by where one or more letters to the Public Forum fail to complain about Utah's elected officials, as though elected officials in Montana or New York or anyplace else are somehow better.
They are not. It is the inherent nature of elected officials to be arrogant, narcissistic, divisive, power-hungry and, eventually, corrupt. I'd never let my daughter marry one. They learn this in the eighth grade when their mothers made them run for class president instead of learning to block and tackle on the playground. They should then never be allowed to run for ninth-grade class president.
Our officials should be selected, not elected. I think that a system similar to the old Army draft would work better, or maybe something like jury duty. Randomly select 535 of us (or even better, just five of us) plus someone to live in the White House, for two years only, and then send us home. We would consequently have a statistically perfectly diverse representation by race, religion, sex, age, political persuasion and, of course, sexual orientation.
After all, this expensive "best and brightest" idea has clearly failed us miserably. So, what the hell? Let's give it a shot.
Mike Smith
Salt Lake City