Meatstick Idea: Ostracizing

America is only 229 years old. In that short amount of time we have been able to create one of the greatest forms of goverment the world has ever seen. When planning our new nation the Founding Fathers had a few major advantages on their side that allowed them to create the wonderful system (for the most part) that we enjoy today. First, they were able to start from scratch. An opportunity to form a government from scratch does not happen very often in the history of the world and the few times that it has things have usually worked out pretty well (I don't count Iraq or Afghanistan b/c those revolutions didn't come from within). France seems to be enjoying their ruling ways after they beheaded their king during the French Revolution and although Russia picked the wrong type of government after they overthrew their tsar in 1917, they at least managed to have an interesting run for over 65 years with communism.
Secondly, our Founding Fathers had the benefit of knowing what type of governments they liked and which types they think worked well. As such, they borrowed different aspects of many forms of goverments (mainly from Greece, Rome, and England) to come up with the ingenious three branch system and balance of power. They also decided it should be a democracy and allowed the people to vote for their chosen leaders to represent them in the Executive and Legislative branches.

With all the great ideas they had, I'm sorry to say that there is one idea that they completely missed out on. The idea I am talking about is something the Greeks came up with called OSTRACIZING. This word is used in our vocabulary today but it got its origin from an ancient Greek practice known as ostrakizein, meaning "to banish by voting with potsherds." This practice was done in order to remove somebody that they felt had too much power. The leaders simply got together and placed their vote on a piece of pottery known as the ostrakon. Whoever received the most votes was then legally banished from Greece, normally for up to ten years and most of them never came back (see: Themosticles).

You can take what you want from this, but man those Greeks were really onto something!