Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[Sgt PSN]

on what planet is mmh interesting

i know right.  on what planet would an educated, relatively well informed person ever be considered interesting? 

[MDS]

not on this board, thats for sure

[Sgt PSN]

yeah, talking about ma and black people is far more stimulating. 

[General_Failure]

You've got it backwards, I think. The people need to be able to discuss politics without thinking in terms of teams and winning before the politicians will. Otherwise we'll just get more politicians that think like the people.

[Diomedes]

There are large systematic problems with our system.

We need term limits.

The balance of representation is way out of whack.  When the constitution was written the ratio of most populous to least populous state was something like 10:1.  It's now 70:1.  Since 1911, the number of house seats has been set at 435, meaning that even as the cities and surrounding suburbs have exploded in population, their representation has diminished, and the interests of the relatively few people living in the country has grown.  Congress is often controlled by the concerns of a tiny portion of people living in rural areas...when the three senators from Montana, Wyoming, and Utah decide they don't like something, the rest of the country is farged.  This needs to be fixed.

We need public funding of elections...take the money out, set everyone on a level playing field.

Filibuster rules are retarded.

This is a small issue, but it's instructive of the ass backwards ways people are represented in the U.S.:  when the census counts prisoners, it logs them as residents of the town/state in which they are incarcerated rather than the town/state from which they were extracted upon conviction.  So you put a prison in remote east bumfarg, fill it with 10,000 prisoners from the cities, and presto, you get all the money representation due to your population size.  The cities these guys came from are effectively robbed of funding and representation. 

And while I'm on prisons, it is wrong to outsource them.  The government wants to convict all these people, it should be their responsisbility to care for them.  Our laws should not be a mill which produces the product by which private corporations generate profit. 

The route by which ex-cons can re-aqcuire their right to vote needs to be standardized and the threshold for doing so dropped.  It made sense as a deterring threat in the early days of the nation to strip people of their right to participate upon conviction of a felony, but it's now a big impediment to a working democracy.  It needs to be made easier for these people to rejoin the community of citizens who have a stake and a say.

Lobbyists are a huge problem, mostly because they represent the interests of the powerful only, blotting out the efforts of small time players called citizens.  A corporation can pay all it wants to lobbyists and write the cost off.  Non profit organizations advocating for the people's issues are under much more restrictive rules which effectively prevent their voice from being heard. 

The draft should be permanently reinstated.  No more wars fought by mercenary corporations.  No more volunteer only military class of Americans...everyone has a stake.  No more lawmakers and autocratic Presidents pitching us headlong into war without having to face an entire nation of directly impacted citizens.

what else, what else....maybe another cup of coffee and a smoke

[Rome]

USA!  USA!  USA!

[Sgt PSN]

Agree with all of that except bringing back the draft.  No one should ever be forced to fight and die in any war they don't beleive in. Nor should they be forced to put their lives on hold to fullfill their service obligation.  Find another way to deal with mercs. 

[General_Failure]

More robots?

[Diomedes]

Agree with all of that except bringing back the draft.  No one should ever be forced to fight and die in any war they don't beleive in.

Conscientious objection is one way out.  An honorable way.  Or you can dodge.  And then deal with those consequences.

Nor should they be forced to put their lives on hold to fullfill their service obligation.

Tough shtein.  Life is "on hold" for the whole country during war.  You don't get to sit out the consequences of war while others kill and die.  If you don't like it, protest.

Find another way to deal with mercs.

Pink slips.

More robots?

I gather you jest, but many who suggest that idea don't.  I oppose the idea for a few reasons:  The cost is ridiculous..fiscal responsibility applies to war as well.   Drones and robots aren't accurate enough to avoid killing civilians...soldiers with proper training can do a much better job avoiding unecessary death.  Furthermore, drones and robots, even if they were 100% accurate, serve only to inflame hatred:  killing people with these things is so clinical, so extremely overpowering, that it doesn't just kill people, it turns the survivors into enemies.  When you use way more power than you need to, and risk none of your own blood, then you sow the hatred that only completely defenselss, cornered, doomed animals exhibit..a hatred which cannot be defeated.  One reason our current terrorists are so willing to die is that they know they have no chance.  They will lose no matter what, the enemy is killing them from space for farg sake, so they might as well kill themselves on the off chance of stinging the merciless goliath.  You need to let your own blood to win a war.  The enemy will never respect you if you do not risk.  He'll only hate you. 

[Sgt PSN]

Agree with all of that except bringing back the draft.  No one should ever be forced to fight and die in any war they don't beleive in.

Conscientious objection is one way out.  An honorable way.  Or you can dodge.  And then deal with those consequences.

Nor should they be forced to put their lives on hold to fullfill their service obligation.

Tough shtein.  Life is "on hold" for the whole country during war.  You don't get to sit out the consequences of war while others kill and die.  If you don't like it, protest.

Find another way to deal with mercs.

Pink slips.

am i the only one who is a bit surprised by dio's support for a draft? 

i don't and never will support establishing the draft again.  we've been at war for nearly a decade and while that war may have affected many of us in one way, shape or form, there's only really one person here whose life went "on hold" for it and that was dmf.  for the rest of us, it's pretty much been business as usual for every single day of this war and that's the way it's supposed to be. 

besides, the day people aren't willing to voluntarily fight for this country is the day that this country is no longer worth fighting for. 

[mpmcgraw]

While I find the idea of term limits for congress intriguing i'm not sure its going to solve anything. 

First and foremost the biggest problem would be that it would increase the power of political aides because there will be a lot more unexperienced politicians who will need to be guided.  Political aides are not subject to regulation, the will of the people, etc...  Second, quite a few states have adopted term limits and while it does not have the doomsday consequences that some claim it hasn't really changed anything for the better either.  Politicians are politicians.  Third, there's a chance with widespread turnover and inexperience in the Senate and House you'd get even less done than now.  This is offset by the chance that senators will worry less about their seat as a career and worry less what their electorate thinks (its amazing how few people realize that the electorate of a senator ISN'T supposed to have a huge impact on their vote) and more about the good of the country. 

It's a nice thought, but I don't think there's a clear enough advantage to warrant changing it especially since it would need to be an amendment to the constitution.

[MMH]

Anything that hurries the exodus of asshats can't be bad.  Of course, they'll probably be replaced by more asshats but one can hope.

As for the draft, compulsory service I'd be OK with, except that fargstick Bush sent our troops into harms way to protect his oil buddies.  I don't want my kids on that train.  farg the draft.

[Diomedes]

That's a large part of the reason I support a draft.  If the country goes to war for good reason, no problem.  If it goes to war for bad reason, you have people who actually have a stake in it because it's their kid that has to go fight.  We'd war less often if we had a draft, and that would be good especially given the wars our leaders have pitched us into recently.

[MMH]

I understand the theory behind your argument, just not the execution. 

The kids of the people in power don't go to battle.  They get arranged for cushy, safe jobs if they're in the military.  It's the rest of our kids that get blown to smithereens.

[phillymic2000]

The president signs a 1 year extension of the Patriot act, wait aren't there a bunch of people here that hated the Patriot act?