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Meant to give people the impression it is of the people and for the people, when in reality it is an entirely separate entity operating on its own terms. I would put money on it. It only recruits from the people.
An excerpt from an interesting article that some young snot nose wrote. Not too bad for a whipper snapper.
This may be discomforting for some to consider, but elections are mostly scams perpetrated by the ruling elite to con average, unsophisticated people into thinking that they control the government. This is best evidenced by the farcical presidential elections held every four years, where the establishment fields two interchangeable candidates as your "choice."
It’s not necessarily that vote counts are being rigged (although such fraud undoubtedly occurs in some cases); it’s that, regardless of who receives the most votes, the government is re-elected. Whether the voters chose interchangeable Socialist-Fascist Candidate A or B is mostly irrelevant.
Going back over the last generation, what was the urgent difference between George W. Bush and John Kerry, George W. Bush and Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, or George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis?
In reconsidering these races, don’t look back on them in terms of relatively trivial distractions like gay marriage, stem cell research or medical marijuana; think in terms of fundamental questions about the legitimacy and nature of the state:
For example, by what right does the state presume to tax your income at any level? Are you still a free person when you have a portion of your income confiscated as the price of making a living? If you believe you are still free now, at what level of (arbitrarily determined – but, of course, not by you) confiscation would you no longer consider yourself to be free?
By what right does the state presume to steal another 15% of your income, supposedly on the assumption that you’re too inept to save for your own retirement?
By what right does the state presume to tell you what you can put in your own body? Does the state have the right to protect you from harming yourself? If so, should it also prevent you from drinking too much alcohol, smoking cigarettes, eating fast food, or not exercising? If not, why should it try to stop you from ruining your life with heroin, but not with gambling, bourbon or cheeseburgers?
By what right does the state presume to tell you whom you can hire to perform a service for you, through things like licensing laws? If an unlicensed professional offers cheaper services and can provide evidence to reassure your doubts, what business is it of the state’s?
Etc.
Think back again to the presidential races of the past generation. Based on such fundamental questions, should you have had a preference between either of the two major candidates in those elections – even if you personally choose not to vote or to even endorse the political process or the state? Would your life have been significantly better or worse by any of these fundamental criteria if one candidate had been elected over the other? If so, how? Even if one seemed preferable, did that candidate do what he promised, or not do what he promised not to do?
Even the "lesser of two evils" argument is deceptive. For example, a fairly strong case could’ve been made for a libertarian in 2000 that Bush was at least the lesser of two evils compared to Gore. Many who were aware of third-party candidates Harry Browne, Howard Phillips or Pat Buchanan preferred them, but voted for Bush anyway to keep Gore out of office, and because none of those other candidates had a chance to win.
But look how that turned out – "lesser evil" Bush has enlarged the budget roughly three times faster than did Clinton; has invaded two countries, one of which was clearly a criminal violation of international law, totally based on lies; has enacted the largest increase in entitlement spending since LBJ’s "Great Society"; has shredded civil liberties, including issuing a series of Executive Orders that lay the groundwork for martial law and allow the government to detain American citizens indefinitely without the habeas corpus protection that is a basic right of civilized society going back over 700 years to the Magna Carta, and helping to create a massive, monstrous new federal bureaucracy, all in the name of fighting "terrorism"; and has allowed the real inflation rate to climb as high as 15% on his watch; among other atrocities.
What could Gore have done that would’ve been worse than all of that?
The nature of this farce and the illusion of choice is further evidenced by the fact that third-party candidates who might disrupt the establishment’s script are not allowed into the debates (Perot was invited in 1992 only after he spent enough of his own money to make himself so visible that the establishment was embarrassed into including him. He got 19% of the vote, which is why they didn’t make the same mistake with him in 1996, or with anyone else in 1996 or since) and are crippled from raising, and effectively spending, money through campaign finance and ballot access laws.
Even one year ago, 2008 promised to be yet another farce.
The last time I voted for a major party candidate for House/Senate or Prez was Gerald Ford and have been promoting Libertarian ever since. I'm certainly not a libertarian, just looking for an option.
If only ten percent of Congress were third party, who would have the majority? If there were 196 dems and reps each and 43 libertarians in the House, which party would have Speaker or if there were 45 dem/reps and 10 libs in the Senate which party would have Prez Pro Tem?
Gotta agree with TnHilltopper. None of the major candidates from either party seem too much different from one another. I get a sense that no matter which one of them gets elected, things will be pretty much the same as they are now with some cosmetic chages thrown into the mix to make it look like something is changing. Anyone of the lot is most likely to sell out to one special interest group or another. Not one of them is likely to represent we the people.
NewAgeRedneck, just for shoots and ladders, I did something that gave me that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I went to the main google search page, clicked on "news" then simply typed in "Ron Paul" and scanned through various articles. Not a great deal of the big names out there pumping up Paul but there are TONS of indies and some that have some fairly decent writers and content.
I am seeing cracks emerge, but a lot of this is probably my own confirmation bias because I want to see it. Ron Paul is definitely gaining traction.
NewAgeRedneck, just for shoots and ladders, I did something that gave me that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I went to the main google search page, clicked on "news" then simply typed in "Ron Paul" and scanned through various articles. Not a great deal of the big names out there pumping up Paul but there are TONS of indies and some that have some fairly decent writers and content.
I am seeing cracks emerge, but a lot of this is probably my own confirmation bias because I want to see it. Ron Paul is definitely gaining traction.
With each presidential election I am becoming more and more convinced that there really isn't a democrat party or a republican party. If there truly were, where are the contenders? Where are the candidates who have a vision (and not just chanting the word 'change', but an actual plan), fire and a point of view? It still boggles my mind that W was the best of the best back in 2000. And Kerry? Really? And now that the dems finally have wrested control of the house and senate after lo these many long years --- what have they done? They investigated steroid use in millionaire ballplayers, but what the hell else?
No, this has become a one party system and that party is called greed, for both power and money.
I will vote Ron Paul.
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Please tell me it's true...
