(June 28, 2011 at 3:41 pm)bozo Wrote: From a Brit perspective, how come you get so many poor candidates for the highest office in your country?
We get " career politicians " this side of the pond, you just seem to get rather stupid ( and dangerous ) people with millions of dollars to burn.
Our system has become incredibly corrupt by European standards. Because running a campaign is expensive, a politician needs to either sell his soul to some corporate interest, gaining campaign contributions in exchange for representing their interests, or else they need to be so wealthy they can underwrite their own campaign. Corruption is so ingrained into our democracy, or what's left of it, that it's not even hidden any longer. It's all done right before our eyes. Every voter knows, "this is the oil industry candidate, this is the union candidate, etc." We even have ethical standards that regulate how to take bribes (campaign contributions) and how your vote can be bought and sold.
This is why the "union busting" efforts in some states is so pivotal. I don't know if you've seen any news on that in your country but one of the big political issues here is conservative governors who are trying to break public unions. This is essentially the corporation's endgame strategy. Since money is so important to our system, the unions are the only major contributor to the left wing. Destroy them and the right wing totally owns our elections, lock, stock and barrel.
My solution would be to ban all political advertisement and thereby remove the money from the democratic process. Fat chance that would ever happen anytime soon.
If all this weren't bad enough, Fox Noise is a propaganda machine that has effectively brainwashed and dumbed-down a huge swath of our electorate. It's essentially the Pravda of the right wing. We Americans, much as we pride ourselves in our culture of individualism and free expression, are just as prone to propaganda as any other people in the world.
We haven't arrived at fascism yet but we've gotten close enough that the road signs indicating which exit to use are viable.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
