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1. Ostracism, A Diamond in the Rough

The concept of ancient Athenian ostracism is loaded with potential, and we can identify why it failed.

So just what was ostracism? In a word — exile. A man would be their defacto leader one day and then sent into exile that night.

Back in Ancient Athens, the voting public gathered at a hill and shouted at each other until they reached a consensus. A loud voice was so important that Athenian orators practiced shouting above the sound of crashing waves. So they shouted and shouted until some blowhard managed to unite the majority. There were no laws that restrained ostracism. Normally such a matter was concluded in a single day. [Pain medication could have been handy after all that shouting too.]

Most of their best generals ended up being ostracized. Their greatest statesmen were also in constant danger of being ostracized. That was why Romans scoffed at the notion, a traditional view that endures to this day.

Now you know the basics.

Was their system simple? Yes. But that very simplicity helped it function better in some ways than modern law. Ostracism did keep the aristocracy from controlling Athens politically. It was a dynamic alternative to our term limits.

No set of laws was needed to keep every Athenian on the straight and narrow. And since no laws were needed, no legal loopholes could be exploited either. The best way to keep from being ostracized [other than obscurity] was to be VIRTUOUS. And for those who were not, they tried to at least appear so.

But the word itself, ‘ostracism’, is all but defined by many as ‘disastrous impulsive and mob-like injustice.’ Well it should be. No government should ever attempt Athenian ostracism again.

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How to Avoid Ostracism's Pitfalls:

1. Debate and Deliberation.

Unlike ostracism, official Excoriation should have a probationary period of mandatory debate [fair time, no moderator, just a timer] and public deliberation periods between each debate. [Like the saucer cooling the tea.] At first, the outraged public will have to make do with mandatory debates — such as eighteen fair debates scheduled two weeks apart — watch the creep ‘fry’ on the hotplate for a while [unless he or she can nurture sympathy or pity]. Most people would prefer fewer debates to hurry up the fun of humiliating ‘the creep’ with Full Excoriation. I realize that most people will probably think that eighteen is too a high number, but the more debates, the more fair we are as a nation. It's not like we have to watch any debates. We're setting the goal post high for that reason, and bloggers can report the highlights.

2. No Exile — Terrible Choice

Ostracism was exile from Athens, one of the worst things to do. Ostracized generals were frequently vindicated over time, but as exiles they were either unavailable or worse — some sought revenge. One ostracized Athenian general even turned into ‘Benedict Arnold on Steroids’.

Rather than exile we should keep whoever we excoriate within our reach and track such rascals electronically [or however else the FBI prefers]. If they manage to escape they should feel like hunted fugitives no matter where on earth they hide.

3. Not Barbaric but Still Ribald

Athens discouraged barbarism during ostracism votes. But with modern technology we can tap into the energy of barbarism without being barbaric physically. There's something to be said for rowdy mob energy, spontaneous jeers, the wildness of hazing someone who richly deserves it — but short of injury other than a few welts perhaps from springy switches.

4. National Deliberation of the Process

First this idea will not merely be vetted — it will be mocked, ridiculed, and the subject of fear-mongering. In fact, it might be suicidal for the GOP to initially embrace it, and the Left will probably call this idea a ‘hate crime’.

But in the end, the states should conclude that the REAL ‘hate crime’ is against patriotism, against safe borders, and even against our veterans.

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Conclusion:

Our nation's ‘primal side’ has been suppressed for far too long. When a thug threatens your family, you fight to the death. There's this inner voice that tells you to inflict bodily harm. It's a survival instinct. Just like a porcupines, our primal side has ‘quills’ that discourage predators.

Well guess what? Thugs are threatening our ENTIRE NATION. They are playing for keeps, and we feel completely disarmed. So load your political ‘guns’ and run out the door with a flurry of ‘bullets’. Please help spread the word!

Excoriate! But only after we deliberate.

Here’s an idea I had: an alternate 2nd Amendment.

A large number of armed men willing to protect it being necessary to the survival of this Constitution, neither the executive, the legislative, or the judicial branch of the United States government, nor any branch of any government of any of the several states, nor of any city, town, county, parish, territory, district, or any other body, or any unelected employee of any of these bodies, shall pass any law, issue any edict, or take any action of any kind that has, whether as an intended or an unintended consequence, any restriction on, interference with, or effect of any kind on the manufacture, import, sale, transfer, possession, or bearing on one’s person of any firearm of any description, or the ammunition, components, spare parts, or any other appurtenances thereto. Congress shall pass legislation mandating criminal penalties for violations of these provisions, and those penalties shall include but shall not be limited to loss of citizenship. This law shall apply to all persons occupying any position in any government at any level.

The term “firearm” means any weapon now in existence, any new technology that may render any of these obsolete, and any technology that in turn renders these new weapons obsolete, and thus forward in perpetuity.