Left-Wing, Right-wing, or Central?

[HeyYou]

Okay, class warfare is a 'reality'. So what should we do to the rich people to make them pay us back for everthing they've stolen? They are the problem they must be punished. How do we do that? And how do we keep them in their home countries once the punishment phase begins? Taxing them out of existence doesn't work; the wealthy fled Greece, France, and South Africa once the redistribution taxing started. Not only did they leave, but their money and the jobs they create left with them. People can cry about class warfare, but all they can do is cry because there isn't a tenable and civilized solution.

 

For this mythical class warfare to be resolved in our favor we do need solutions. I guess we could take their travel visas and passports and freeze all of their assets. Then we could do secret midnight arrests and have closed tribunals to determine guilt or innocence. They are already guilty of being rich so it would be a short trial. After their appointments with Madame Guillotine and we have all of their money; what then? Who are we going blame next for all of our problems? And as for problems, how are we going to convince the average citizen that violating people's rights stealing from other citizens is for the common good?

 

This is the common sense dilema Liberals and Leftists have. There are all of these 'problems' and they don't have any answers other than recycling one another's angst and misguided moral outrage. Emotion as a point of reasoning works on the internet, 24 hour news channels and college campuses; it doesn't work anywhere else.

 

 

And here I am trying to reason with Socialist/Marxist/Facists/Communists; and mindset of people who willing defy reason. Serious waste of my time.

Now THAT is FUNNY. I didn't miss your sarcasm there, nor your contradictory statements, by the way.

 

And I DID offer a solution. One that didn't require any tribunals, secret meetings, or, the guillotine either...... The FACT that the rich can LEGALLY PURCHASE politicians is the main problem. Stating that 'they will flee the country, and take their jobs with them', really isn't much of a threat, as the jobs are already gone, not to mention that they are off-shoring their corporate headquarters to better tax havens in any event. Quite frankly, we really don't have anything to lose by leveling the playing field.

 

I also note that you are quick to consider anyone that isn't 100% pro-business as a Socialist/Marxist/etc........ I am none of those things. I am not a conservative either. I think both parties have sold the american people down the river, and at this point, their main concerns are:

 

1. Making their campaign contributors happy, and keeping them that way, by passing their pet legislation.

 

and

 

2. Making as much money for themselves as they possibly can, at the taxpayers expense.

 

anything else, like 'the good of the country' is a distant third.

 

But, as you say, there is "no solution". So, we should just accept our lot as third class citizens, do nothing, and watch as the middle class shrinks at an ever increasing rate, the poor get poorer, and the rich get richer at an ever increasing rate.... Soon, we will look just like all the other third-world nations in the world, and our wages and standard of living will reflect that. Is that really what you think we should do?

[sunshinenbrick]

I think class wars are only a sideline issue. What has changed this is the development of high technology and AI systems and our obsessive compulsion towards it. The birth of a kinda human-machine war... a pretext to a 'Second Renaissance' (Animatrix)

 

WTF? Well...

 

I think humans (as a whole) have become addicted to growth, profit, money and wealth. We have created and continue to create machines that maximise these returns at increasing and unsustainable cost to our own species and its environment. i.e. we cannot escape the laws of physics and biology just becasue a spreadsheet says we can.

 

The real danger is the loss of any emotive (human) thought and everything being operated by proxy so we no longer can actually relate to the world we live in. Simulacrum anybody?

 

Being aligned to one school of thought or the other is pretty much irrelevent anymore and besides, many people can be quite suseptible to changing their minds if presented with a convincing enough arguement.

 

Tell a kid not to touch a hotplate or it will hurt. They will do just that.

[MotoSxorpio]

4 Year or LESS term limits for any elected official.

 

GET THE Bleep RID of the Electoral College. :) I mean that in the best way.

 

I think the question needs to be reworded for the original post, cuz, none of us should be "Wing"-ing it.

[Aurielius]

4 Year or LESS term limits for any elected official.

 

GET THE Bleep RID of the Electoral College. :smile: I mean that in the best way.

 

I think the question needs to be reworded for the original post, cuz, none of us should be "Wing"-ing it.

The founding fathers looked to Athens and Sparta for their modeling of a new form of government. Though they liked Athenian Democracy they also feared the concept of the 'Tyranny of the Majority'. Though Sparta was not the least Democratic , it was incredibly stable as a political unit in comparison to the Athenian political mood swings. So the electoral college was devised as a compromise between direct local voting (Athenian Democracy) and federal representative voting (Spartan Oligarchy). Given that more people watch 'Dancing with the Stars' or some other reality drivel than presidential debates, I for one am grateful for the check and balance that the EC provides.

[WursWaldo]

There is nothing wrong with the electoral process, just the people running for office. Or to be more precise, the people who get elected into office. But that is our fault.

[Lisnpuppy]

 

4 Year or LESS term limits for any elected official.

 

GET THE Bleep RID of the Electoral College. :smile: I mean that in the best way.

 

I think the question needs to be reworded for the original post, cuz, none of us should be "Wing"-ing it.

The founding fathers looked to Athens and Sparta for their modeling of a new form of government. Though they liked Athenian Democracy they also feared the concept of the 'Tyranny of the Majority'. Though Sparta was not the least Democratic , it was incredibly stable as a political unit in comparison to the Athenian political mood swings. So the electoral college was devised as a compromise between direct local voting (Athenian Democracy) and federal representative voting (Spartan Oligarchy). Given that more people watch 'Dancing with the Stars' or some other reality drivel than presidential debates, I for one am grateful for the check and balance that the EC provides.

 

 

The issue however is the electoral college is run by tradition of the candidate that has the biggest percent takes ALL of the votes. This is not a rule (as one of my fellow West Virginian's showed at one time by voting against the rest for a vice presidential runner. They in fact can vote for whomever they wish.) If it were fair then they would follow the closest breakdown to votes for all or the top two (like a president, vice president like they used to do.) it is a broken system with no consistent rules. The voting of today is very different that when the Founding Fathers first engaged in this grand experiment. They never would have imagined the populations we have or the world which we find ourselves today.

 

I have mentioned this before and always get outrage from everyone. But if each candidate were limited and given x amount of dollars from tax funds to run, a certain amount of tv time and that was it...they might actually talk about something important. The fact that you are so wealthy should not dictate your ability to run for public office. A level playing field may actually get some proficient people to run who otherwise could not afford to do so. It is also difficult when the Supreme Court decided to let corporations act like individuals when it came to the giving of money to political candidates (and in many other ways but that is another story.)

 

At the end of the day however, we all have the ability to sift through (wade through?) all the crap and find things out about each person that runs for office. We can choose to blindly believe the rhetoric of each camp, or listen with a more even temperament to several views, doing our own research as to each. We spend more time deciding where to eat out on Saturdays than we do deciding who is going to be responsible for our health, wealth and welfare. I think that is a bit insane. So...the idiots that seems to run for office from all sides of the fence...we have only ourselves to blame.

[sunshinenbrick]

 

 

4 Year or LESS term limits for any elected official.

 

GET THE Bleep RID of the Electoral College. :smile: I mean that in the best way.

 

I think the question needs to be reworded for the original post, cuz, none of us should be "Wing"-ing it.

The founding fathers looked to Athens and Sparta for their modeling of a new form of government. Though they liked Athenian Democracy they also feared the concept of the 'Tyranny of the Majority'. Though Sparta was not the least Democratic , it was incredibly stable as a political unit in comparison to the Athenian political mood swings. So the electoral college was devised as a compromise between direct local voting (Athenian Democracy) and federal representative voting (Spartan Oligarchy). Given that more people watch 'Dancing with the Stars' or some other reality drivel than presidential debates, I for one am grateful for the check and balance that the EC provides.

 

 

The issue however is the electoral college is run by tradition of the candidate that has the biggest percent takes ALL of the votes. This is not a rule (as one of my fellow West Virginian's showed at one time by voting against the rest for a vice presidential runner. They in fact can vote for whomever they wish.) If it were fair then they would follow the closest breakdown to votes for all or the top two (like a president, vice president like they used to do.) it is a broken system with no consistent rules. The voting of today is very different that when the Founding Fathers first engaged in this grand experiment. They never would have imagined the populations we have or the world which we find ourselves today.

 

I have mentioned this before and always get outrage from everyone. But if each candidate were limited and given x amount of dollars from tax funds to run, a certain amount of tv time and that was it...they might actually talk about something important. The fact that you are so wealthy should not dictate your ability to run for public office. A level playing field may actually get some proficient people to run who otherwise could not afford to do so. It is also difficult when the Supreme Court decided to let corporations act like individuals when it came to the giving of money to political candidates (and in many other ways but that is another story.)

 

At the end of the day however, we all have the ability to sift through (wade through?) all the crap and find things out about each person that runs for office. We can choose to blindly believe the rhetoric of each camp, or listen with a more even temperament to several views, doing our own research as to each. We spend more time deciding where to eat out on Saturdays than we do deciding who is going to be responsible for our health, wealth and welfare. I think that is a bit insane. So...the idiots that seems to run for office from all sides of the fence...we have only ourselves to blame.

 

 

So relieving to meet people who make sense!

 

How important it is to try make a difference too, as now really is the time to be awake. We wield technology without respect or caution, like an extension of ourselves. However pretty much every human mind is as chaotic as it is awesome and also sometimes terrifying, yet we just plug in and never fully realise the extent of our actions. Technology amplifies and distorts our senses and actions.

 

Maybe, we will just ride the wave like with many other revolutions over time... but things seem different, not only because of their scale, but also in the expoential amount of force we can inflict. I think technology will continue to redefine our species, unless it just helps wipe us out all together.

 

I think we all place ourselves slightly off centre most of the time. This is not only because these concepts are very old hat, but also because perspectives tend to be in relative terms.

 

May I ask how people feel about trading less privacy for more transparency (and a say) in politics? If there are things we would find very difficult to come to terms with, would we prefer to know?

 

Just a couple of things I have been thinking about since reading these posts over the last few weeks. Personally I think the short answer for me is, yes. I think nothing irritats me more than shameless, unabashed two-facing double standards.

[Aurielius]

Old Sam Clemens is pithier than I, so...

 

"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made politicians."

 

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

[HeyYou]

Old Sam Clemens is pithier than I, so...

 

"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made politicians."

 

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

Unfortunately, I think it is the latter. What is even more amazing, is that we have made it this long, being led by mentally inferior (deranged?) folks, that are only interested in further themselves, not the nation they were elected to help lead.

[WursWaldo]

Unfortunately, I think it is the latter. What is even more amazing, is that we have made it this long, being led by mentally inferior (deranged?) folks, that are only interested in further themselves, not the nation they were elected to help lead.

This is also why Sanders and Trump are popular. People are tired of 'business as usual' in Washington and I don't think anyone wants to see another Bush or Clinton coronated.

 

OPINIONS

Democrats

Biden needs to run for President and the Democrats need twice as many debates as the DNC has scheduled. They need to have a party platform and not run on granny Hillary's appeal, be casue right now she has none and even people in her own party are asking questions. Another problem is campaigning. The 'war on women' isn't going to carry the day, especially when she has to face Republicans who will call her by name and associate her with Benghazi and the email disaster she's facing. Once that happens the debate moderators won't be able to protect her and she'll have to respond. When she stalls and diverts and doen't answer the charge that will be the beginning of the end, because she cannot cope with people questioning her. She gets emontional and angry too easily when people don't accept her word. For all of Joe Biden's short comings he is a Statesmen, and that is what Democrats need right now. It is also what America needs, along with strong foreign policy and immigration. The Democrats really need to work on those.

 

Republicans

The Republican party is on fire right now politically. They have candidates, which is important. They also have Trump forcing them to deal with things they do not want to talk about. I think this is good and I wish the Democrats could have a shake up like what Republicans are dealing with now. To me, the two hidden stars are Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson. They are not politicians but they have Statesmen-like qualties, and anyone other than another Bush is a win. The one issue I have with some of the Republican candidates is their stances on abortion, but that is a topic I do not wish to discuss here. Anyway, the dust up in the Republican party means real choices for those voters. And with Trump in the race, the superpacks are not as important as people might think. In the last poll I looked at, Rubio was ahead of Bush, even though Bush has a large war chest. I think this is happening because of The Donald. Trump acts like himself, everyone feels awkward and the standard political answers do not work.

 

Conclusion

The Republicans do not want a third term of Obama. Democrats want more Obama because that's the only thing they have. Their field is small so the best bet for them is Biden, but that means more of they profess to hate. 'The party of the young and minorities' will be ran by old white career politicians. The Republican field if anything it is diverse; an African American brain surgeon, a woman who was CEO of a mulltinational corporation and also breast cancer survior, center-left closet liberals like Bush and Christie, second generation children of immigrants, and some of the youngest people to run for President in a very long time. The Republican field is very wide and somewhere in it is a potential President. They just need to pick the right on; anyone other than Bush, that is.