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So there's no equivalent of a no confidence vote or double dissolution?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dissolution

Granted these are political based solutions. (The people just can't demand an election)

What do you do if you have a government that says "We will do everything in our power to screw this country over!!!"

Is the only option rebellion?

No, there's nothing like that in the US system. If the Congress is deadlocked, then just nothing ever happens until the deadlock is broken in some way. Typically by making backroom deals, or by just moving on to another topic that can be agreed on.

You can have individuals forced out, or recalled, but that only happens under extreme circumstances, and a single vote here and there would rarely make any kind of difference.

The US system is based around checks and balances - if Congress does something stupid, the president will hopefully veto it. If not, then it goes to the courts to get invalidated. And if that doesn't work, the only option is to wait for the next elections. House of Reps is every 2 years. President 4 years. Senate 6 years.

The problem is that everyone in the US likes their own representative in Congress while hating everyone elses. They all blame others for adding pork, getting political favors for their districts, etc. Yet if their own representative doesn't do the same thing they get voted out in favor of someone who will.

Edited 2011-11-18 04:39 UTC

You have to understand that the government in America has very little power, because the politicians are owned by the corporations, who are really the ones running the show.

It IS possible for the people to elect somebody who doesn't work for the corporations, but these candidates generally get little-to-no attention in the mainstream press, so they are quickly weeded out. The candidates who are spotlighted in the media and get all the attention are basically a bunch of jackasses who have been pre-selected to do the bidding of their corporate masters, and who nobody likes. So, the election process is basically weeding out the candidates that people hate the most, until you're left with just 2 candidates (one republican and one democrat), at which time the people vote for the one whom they believ to be the lesser of two evils, who are both little more than corporate shills.

As an example of what I'm talking about, in the 2004 presidential election, Ralph Nader was the obvious choice for the liberals. However, since most of them didn't think he had a chance in hell of winning, they settled on jackass John Kerry and voted for him instead. As it turns out, some liberals actually did vote for Nader, and he took away enough votes to cost them the election. Had they ALL voted for Nader (which is the guy they really wanted), the election probably would've turned out differently.

Edited 2011-11-18 05:15 UTC

No sir... not much can be done. When their term comes up we vote them out (or if they suck up to their constituents enough the last few months we vote them back into office, only to have them revert to their bad behavior).

Some states do have clauses in their constitutions that allow revolution. I know NH does. Or at least did up to a decade or so ago.

My own choice for gov't (which will never happen with the Dems and Pubs holding onto power) would be libertarian or something similar where the function and scope of the federal gov't is drastically reduced to managing interstate and international commerce law, and defending our borders.

Well, on the state level, some states have the ability to initiate a recall on the elected official. This was most recently used against the governor of California, Grey Davis. Which led to the election of Arnold.

I'm not sure if individual electives to the house or senate can be recalled by the states, but the house of representatives are up for election every two years.


Instead of bloody revolt, we could always bypass the US government entirely and amend the constitution with out them.

http://www.usconstitution.net/constam.html#process

If I were one of those extreme political types who thinks the government doesn't represent the people any more, that's the route I'd take. I however am not so optimistic to think that we do not deserve the government we have.