I love how it is all about corporations.

The fact is that in America today, the political elites are owned by a combination of corporations, unions, and special interest groups. Each group pays for 'its' representative to fight to get them some form of government subsidy, whether an outright subsidy like farmers get or a more obscure one that increases the profit or power of a union/corporation through indirect legislation.

Take health care, for example. More corporations were advertising FOR reform than unions, atleast until the bill was changed giving union members an exemption from taxes on higher priced plans. Policies and changes like that are what sunk health care here - nor corporations. In fact, many of those pharma companies are facing revolts from stock holders over the aid the provided to the White House (of course, they were going to be making money it).

That is the problem in America. We need to stop legislating for special interests, and instead legislate more general laws that apply to everyone - not exact laws that apply only to this sector or this populace.

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Since everyone seems to enjoy putting in all of these nice 'laws' in their signatures, here is a new one.

Erls' Theorem: With every new post on a PF topic, the odds of the terms 'racist' and 'socialist' being used geometrically increase.

contrary to popular belief the system is working as designed. just because Republicans and Democrats are not holding hands and singing Kum by ahh means we at impasse. The checks and balances are working as designed. when Politicians attempt to enact laws unpopular with the electoral body Americans make their voice heard. each President has a shot at populism, or his view of what the people want. what comes out will make neither party happy and probably do little. which in the end is called compromise.

The health industry wanted Obamacare. Everyone in America would have been forced to be a customer.

I have checked them. I am not at all interested in becoming part of a system of that nature. I apologize for being a self preserving individual.


Where is that not true? Also, how is it that allowing the government to control more of society will reduce the amount of corporate power if indeed the corporations have more power than the vote? Would the most logical answer to this problem not be to slowly erode the advancing powers of the federal government which would in turn decrease the strangle hold of corporatism? Seriously, you advocate giving more power to something you describe as completely corrupt?

That is why I am for decreasing the amount of governmental guns corporations can exploit through unconstitutional legislation.

This statement destroys any credibility in the knowledge that you or anyone else thought you had about American politics.

The argument that political corruption is only American is ridiculous, hell we are only 200 some odd years old, and we are still mere journeymen to the rest of the world in the realm of corruption of the ruling class.

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I find it to be near impossible for someone to have a valid perception of reality and maintain a clear and consistent preference of one political party over another.

Your original statement was so factually incorrect I felt compelled to correct it for you. Less Fox News and more reality please. Thanks.

Isn't that actually a weakness common to all forms of government?

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"It's not a system. It's a country." -- John McClane, Live Free or Die Hard

That is not at all farfetched, and I terrifying prospect to me, because Petraeus would be just like Bush- not smart enough to understand the negative ramifications of the policies he would be given to implement by the wealthy elite.

Yes, our country is highly likely to be ruined permanently. Unless Obama can succeed in turning it around in the next three years, most Americans will be poor and powerless- essentially slaves.

It is a false assumption that people need all that much "governing". Only those in the position to govern, feel that way. Most tax Paying citizens, wish the gubment would just deliver the mail, protect our borders, pick up our trash. and fix the roads. Although Private concerns, could do those jobs better, and for a lot less money. And to stay pretty much out of our lives.----In the beginning, I doubt people got together and said, "lets create a governing body, that will end up bankrupting us as a Nation."

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"Learning how not to try and rush the River"

i think the american people HAVE become ungovernable, but i think the idea that it's "corporations," nebulously defined, that are behind it is a little over-simple.

the problem, i think, is more epistemological: we no longer are able to stipulate with regard to the facts. from what i gather, as recently as the 70s and 80s the opposing sides could at least agree, say, that deficits were too high or that we were engaged in a cold war with the ussr or that homelessness was going on ... basic, verifiable facts. what we disagreed on was the best way on how to proceed.

but now even the facts are in dispute. the liberals say the banks have run amok because they're underregulated. the cons think the banks are OVER-regulated. the liberals think FDR's new deal put an end to the depression, an idea long accepted in the history books, but the cons are now saying FDR DIDn't end the depression and in support of this issue the counterfactual that if FDR's new deal hadn't been enacted the depression would have ended sooner. liberals take basically the stari decisus view of the 10th amendment adhered to by administrations from wilson to ronald reagan, but cons have adopted a new reading of the 10th amendment that would involve, in essence, the dissolution of the federal government.

in short, cons and liberals don't disagree on values anymore. we literally live in completely different realities, and proceed from a completely different set of givens and assumed facts. there is little way for such people to ever achieve a real agreement on anything, since we don't even agree on what the problems are or how to solve them.

the problem is propaganda, if you ask me. americans are the most propagandized people, probably ever, in the western world, outside of dictatorships. when a plurality of the people can believe saddam hussein was responsible for 911 after this is objectively disproven, for instance, it's pretty obvious that propaganda isn't just influencing people here ... it's starting to completely form their worldviews.

now obviously it's multinationals that perpetuate this propaganda but i don't think multinationals per se are the problem. it's the deregulation of the media and telecommunications in the 90s. control the airwaves, you control opinion -- at least until people en masse stop putting their faith in propaganda and believing things not because they seem true but because they wish they were true. if things get much worse here this break with propaganda might happen, or the dependency on it might just get that much worse.

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cons lose wars did cons' mommas show them enough love when they were children? why nazis are cons silly rabbit! jim crow's for cons

"The truth is rarely in dispute. Debate is one side trying to misrepresent it, and the other side trying to make them look foolish doing it."
-- Sparks, QFT

Good luck with that. As long as special interest groups have the money to push our political reps to do their bidding, that is how things will be.

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It is the duty of every American to protect his country from it's government -- Thomas Paine

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. -- Thomas Jefferson

A reading of the 10th amendment that would result in the "dissolution of the federal government"??? Wow...

The 10th amendment simply states that the FedGov can't do anything it is not specifically authorized to do by the Constitution itself - pretty straight forward and honest. I know leftists hate things to be so simple... leaves no wiggle room to play "the game".

As for your idea that our problems are born out of propaganda... that's not the problem, it's complete ignorance of the people that is the problem. The vast majority of Americans believe we are a democracy, and that whatever they say is what should be done - that is not true, or at least shouldn't be true. We're supposed to be a Republic, i.e. under the rule of law - where the law restricts government, not the people... leftists have successfully turned that upside down with all of their "living document" nonsense that is propagandized in the public schools.

Like all democracies, once the majority realize they can simply vote themselves goodies out of the public treasury, it is only a matter of time b/4 the economy and society collapse under the weight of its own corruption.

And when it comes to propaganda itself... yes, Americans are under seige, but we've got nothing on anyone who has to suffer to listen to the BBC - good gravy, lol...

I listen to the BBC while I'm at work... Joseph Goebbels would be proud. It is purely Orwellian, yet it passes for "news".

In the end, Europe is just as close to dissolution as is the U.S... we're both going down, sure as the Titanic sinking was a "mathmatical certainty", so too is the wests demise.

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wist