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The last 30+ years have been a disgrace to our Founding Fathers. How about we get back to our Enlightenment ideals before vast areas of America reach a permanent plateau of 20%+ unemployment and negative growth in personal wealth.
The road to recovery starts with the vast majority of sleezebags on both sides of the aisle putting America first over kowtowing, fawning, emulation and self-righteousness mudslinging.
Good luck with that as our political establishment is a reflection of that of our citizenry and just one look around here should tell you that 95% of debate is now little more than "neener neener". Just put the word "Obama" in the threat title and the usual suspects turn out for yet another, taste great, less filling scream fest.
Tried to answer a few of these kinds of questions in a recent thread here, but as you can see, talking about concepts and ideas isn't very popular.
The last 30+ years have been a disgrace to our Founding Fathers. How about we get back to our Enlightenment ideals before vast areas of America reach a permanent plateau of 20%+ unemployment and negative growth in personal wealth.
The road to recovery starts with the vast majority of sleezebags on both sides of the aisle putting America first over kowtowing, fawning, emulation and self-righteousness mudslinging.
The last 30+ years have been a disgrace to our Founding Fathers. How about we get back to our Enlightenment ideals before vast areas of America reach a permanent plateau of 20%+ unemployment and negative growth in personal wealth.
The road to recovery starts with the vast majority of sleezebags on both sides of the aisle putting America first over kowtowing, fawning, emulation and self-righteousness mudslinging.
S.
Amen Brutha!
But good luck on getting the partisans to agree. They have become so 'high' on playing t*t for tat and excusing their party of every sort of wrongdoing that I doubt they are able to distinquish right and wrong anymore even privately. Of course it doesn't help that the the reps and dems eat this division up and propagate it to the best of their abilities. Our public servents serve themselves, and yet so many people will not admit it for fear of their party 'losing face'. Until all people - even the partisan blowhards - are unified in holding all politicians culpable then nothing will ever change.
But those on the right consider it their god-given right to be mudslingers! They celebrate it, they actually celebrate their rudeness. I've read the comments made by the friends of one of our most conservative posters here on C-D and they write like cheerleaders egging this poster on to "make them squirm" (for example). There's no solution in that! They only want to WIN their argument, not actually solve the problem. They love attacking people, they love finding enemies to blame. They attack people rather than ideas and that's the main reason we are in this mess.
The left thinks collectively, while the right puts on blinders and cannot see past its own backyard. Until the right can actually expand its awareness to include those NOT like themselves, our problems will persist.
To add...I don't support many liberal ideas and I don't support many conservative ideas. Most people are indeed like myself, stuck in the middle somewhere not being heard at all.
The last 30+ years have been a disgrace to our Founding Fathers. How about we get back to our Enlightenment ideals before vast areas of America reach a permanent plateau of 20%+ unemployment and negative growth in personal wealth.
The road to recovery starts with the vast majority of sleezebags on both sides of the aisle putting America first over kowtowing, fawning, emulation and self-righteousness mudslinging.
S.
The rhetoric from each side is more immature than ever. I've never seen this level of hatred. The problem is that liberals and conservatives have different ideas on how to put their "Country First". Personally, I want to see a mix of lower taxes, budget cuts, and much stronger social benefits for citizens and businesses.
We are paying the piper for an economy that had been put on consumer and governmental credit cards since the 80s. The Reagan and Clinton administrations have near sent us into a depression. The maintenance of our world military empire is crushing. Taxes and health insurance is crushing business and consumers alike. It eats up too much of the our discretionary income. Therefore consumption is at a very scary level.
I am tired of decisions being made on principle and not logic. Something has to give!
For those with some memory of how things used to work, it is not so hard...on paper.
1. Enough with the childish and acerbic displays of anger and arrogance. Sadly, politicians are mere reflections of ourselves. Just so say "no" to patronizing those who are high on witty six second sound bytes but low on in depth analysis.
2. Patronize those threads, blogs, websites, books, and programs where political solutions are discussed rationally and without the faux urgency being pressed. This goes for idiotic policy discussions on the climate, the financial crisis, health care, and immigration. Experts in these areas take a back seat to yahoos and morons from both the GOP and Dems. As stupid and careless as most of these politicians have been, they are mere reflections of the masses who have become dumber by the minute. Gosh, is it that long ago that William F Buckley and Noam Chomsky held their classic debates on the nature of governance & society? It is almost as if they were from a different country, replaced by a whole generation of eye candy and frat boys. Instead, watch Charlie Rose or "Uncommon Knowledge" from the Hoover Institution. Read books without pictures that are recommended not by Oprah but by the Financial Times or the Economist magazine.
3. Do not look for answers (the biggest sucker ploy of any politician), but for those seeking to ensure the sanctity of our political processes and rights such that the pluralism inherent to our country of immigrants and dynamism can reach multiple equilibria. We are a country of 305 million+ in a federal respublic of 50 states, federal district (DC) and a commonwealth (Puerto Rico). Why on this green earth is there such a push for singular solutions? Insane and un-American.
4. Following #4, confine the role of the Federal government to those matters inherent to the functioning and defense of our nation...and NOTHING else. Shrinking the size of the Feds will shrink the needs we perceive and manufacture for the Feds. This in turn will constrain the Feds from its absolute love affair with unfunded mandates and with its "spend first, fund later" approach to policy making. Doing so will shrink the size of the US military and get it the hell out of the sh*t holes of the world we have been in for the past 25+ years. Enough with interjecting ourselves in "family" disputes that have gone on for thousands of years and will not abate regardless of our presence. Firing a hundred thousand or more federal employees will begin to reverse a trend badl in need of reversing. Same goes for the states.
5. Let the high and might Europeans back up their hot air with action. Let private individuals take it upon themselves to fight for their causes and shoulder those risks. Same goes for Asia.
6. Support government transparency groups. When one follows the wasted money following the invasion of Iraq, it is mind boggling to read, with the wastage totaling more than enough to fund most health care proposals for 5-10 years. Disgusting.
7. Break free from the corporatist trance we have been in for the past decade. These are the same characters that have made lobbyists "worth their seven figure salaries." Support policies that encourage the innovation and risk-taking of small business.
8. Start thinking for yourself and educating one's self not from recycled opinions but from number crunching and looking at the letter of the proposed laws. If we are unable or unwilling to do so, we are not worthy of much more than the crap we now see.
I could go on, but I hope we start with #1 and recognize that change starts with A#1. If the vast majority of Americans actually enjoy our sorry state of moral and economic decline, then the faster the implosion, the better for those who still of think of America as a land of freedom and opportunity.
Good points! I wish we could recognize that we can disagree but that it doesn't have to get ugly. I can respect that people have differing opinions from me but get on the defensive when people make comments to me like "keep on drinking the coolaid", "soandso is out to destroy America", etc. If people have to resort to those kinds of statements, well their arguement must not be very good!
My question is, do you think it is worse today than it has been or has it always been this bad. I'm 35 and over the last 15 years I've become increasingly interested in politics. The nastiness was bad with Clinton, Bush, and now Obama, so those of you that are older than that, was it this bad before then?
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