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RE: what would it take to reform a government?
December 9, 2010 at 4:24 pm
(This post was last modified: December 9, 2010 at 4:25 pm by TheDarkestOfAngels.)
(December 9, 2010 at 3:54 pm)Mishka Wrote: And yet "The One" is appearing to be running to the center. Why? Cause liberal progressives got their butts kicked in the last election.
Ah... right. The Nov 2010 election was so damaging to the democrats that they maintained complete control of the senate and just barely lost control of the house.
Despite polls saying that Republicans had a greater wind to their backs than they did in '94. How's all that hard-line ultraconservative rhetoric working out for them? Nowadays the center is just a place for RHINOs to go when they're kicked out of the Red State club.
You know what I love about the tea party candidates now though? Many of the so-called deficit hawks and hardliners on earmarks and soaking up billions in spending and earmarks already.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: what would it take to reform a government?
December 9, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Since they haven't taken office yet, it's's hard to say what they will do. But going from 59 seats in the senate to 53 means a great deal. A lot harder to invoke cloture and there are 23 dems up for election in 2 years. You don't think that will affect their votes after seeing what happened in Nov.?
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RE: what would it take to reform a government?
December 9, 2010 at 5:00 pm
(December 9, 2010 at 3:54 pm)Mishka Wrote: And yet "The One" is appearing to be running to the center. Why? Cause liberal progressives got their butts kicked in the last election.
The "one" has been right of center for some time now. And last I checked, it was Conserva-Dems who lost big in the last election.
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
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RE: what would it take to reform a government?
December 9, 2010 at 5:00 pm
(December 9, 2010 at 4:54 pm)Mishka Wrote: Since they haven't taken office yet, it's's hard to say what they will do. But going from 59 seats in the senate to 53 means a great deal. A lot harder to invoke cloture and there are 23 dems up for election in 2 years. You don't think that will affect their votes after seeing what happened in Nov.?
Not to any greater degree than however much politicians usually worry about getting reelected.
I didn't say the change is irrelevant - I said that the election wasn't a total Republican uberwin. It wasn't even a win so much as they went from being a minority obstructionist party to a stalemate obstructionist party.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: what would it take to reform a government?
December 9, 2010 at 5:41 pm
(This post was last modified: December 9, 2010 at 5:42 pm by Oldandeasilyconfused.)
The great sociologist Max Weber wrote in the 1930's that to make real societal/ political/economic change the existing system needs to be abolished.
The US political system seems to me to be arguably the most corrupt in the developed world. I think it could be improved a bit with some fairly simple ,but hard changes which simply ain't gonna happen.:
Things might improve if MOST of the electorate actually bothered to vote.
IF there were another two or more viable political parties so that a real choice existed,rather than the current Tweedle Dum Tweedle Dee.
Abolishing the corrupt system of lobbying
Making ALL political contributions illegal.;that reduces the power of the lobbys, patronage and influence of big business. The cost of election campaigns capped and/or paid for from the public purse might help make elections about issues rather than personalities and slogans and reduce the corrupt practice of political deal making.The last US presidential campaign cost ONE BILLION DOLLARS. THAT is obscene.
HOWEVER,at base, politics is pragmatic and amoral.It's not possible to make it cleaner or more honourable as an occupation.The best we can hope for is to make it less transparently corrupt,and get rid of some who are incompetent and stupid as well as corrupt. (like many in the last administration,starting at the top)
