I understand wanting to discuss these very important issues regarding elections and such and I won't say take it to the political section because that does not work. Just no personal attacks, ok? I know there are liberals, conservatives, democrats, republicans, tea parties, etc. that's what makes this country and this forum great. Let's keep it friendly and I won't bitch. Personally I'm sick of it all and I have no idea what will even bring this country back to the greatness we once had. I have my opinions and I chose to keep them to myself because for every idea, there is another opposite idea. It only leads to banging my head against someone else's head. This country is as polarized as I've ever seen it. I miss the days when America was feared because of our power but also admired because if our freedoms. No one fears us now. No one respects our rights. Everyone is under attack and everyone is out to take advantage of a government that has grown so big it can't manage itself.

 

They've tried but it fell over like a lead balloon. He wrote a piece back in the early 70's that provided excerpts that sounded bad when taken in isolation, but which in context weren't seen as offensive by anyone. The stir lasted less than a day -- people went and read the original piece when the noise hit the media and that was the end of that.

I'm a-thinkin' that we're getting a chance to put the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence to the test. I, for one, think it'd be really nice for Americans to live in a country where the government instituted among men to secure those unalienable rights actually does so. As it is, we have to expatriate if we want to live in such a country, and that just ain't right. Better for us common folk to get uppity again, I think.

 

Nothing like a good revolution to set things right eh? Sometimes I wonder if that isn't what its going to take. Of course, I fully expect things to be forced on us, when we can no longer borrow money, we default on our loans, and the world economy takes a major dump. Greece on a MUCH grander scale. I give it ten years or so.

Unless something drastically changes here, that is the future I see for us.

 

Only because divide and conquer works. A government in stalemate cannot govern, and that's been the stated goal of a certain faction since January of 1981: to reduce the government until it can be drowned in a bathtub.

Divide and conquer's success is also its downfall: It must be conducted in plain view in order to succeed, but all it takes to defeat it is for the divided to open their eyes to it and unite.

I'm not going to call anyone names or make things personal. As far as I'm concerned the government we've got is the one the majority of the electorate wants, and if Americans want something better then they'll vote for it. If they don't, I've just that much more reason to be glad that I don't live in a city.

 

At this point, I think most thinking americans vote for the lesser of two evils..... regardless of which party they belong to..... We don't have the government we actually want, we have the government we were stuck with, because of a crummy set of choices on election day.

 

Wasn't it George Washington who said factions(i.e. parties) would be the downfall of this country?

 

Precisely. I haven't voted since the Supreme Court overstepped its authority in 2000 because there's really been no point to it -- I get the same world to live in no matter which of the wholly owned candidates gets elected. Now we have a candidate who's not owned by the rich, and all that remains is to see if that's the kind of candidate we want to elect.

Have ya ever revisited Jimmy Carter's Crisis of Confidence speech?
That certain route to failure was the one we chose when we went to the ballot box in November of the following year. We chose it then and we can choose differently now. That's really very rare. Our choice ever since 1981 has been limited to which color, red or blue, we wanted on our status quo.

I've been revisiting that speech every now and then ever since it was delivered. The man told us the truth. In his various speeches he told us what we could look forward to if we refused to accept that truth and act upon it. Today we live in the world he told us would be ours, and we can't claim we didn't know when the man told us what our choices were. That's why I say we've got the government we deserve -- we voted for the deregulators, the trickle-down supply-siders, and the warmongers. We approved of their deregulation, wealth redistribution, and wars, every time. Kinda funny that we say we love democracy then use the ballot box to destroy it, eh?

 

I have always felt that, americans, taken individually, we have some very smart cookies, but, taken as a collective whole, we got nothin' on a box of rocks. Yes, we did indeed do this to ourselves. We not only let it happen, by our votes, we encouraged it.

Carter is touted as being one of the worst presidents..... I don't agree. I think Bush was the worst. The man that got us into two wars, with no way out. WE are the ones responsible for all the turmoil in the middle east. We started it. We encouraged it. We turned our back on long-time allies, distasteful as some of them were, and created a mess. We need to face reality, we flat out SUCK at nation-building, in cultures we have zero understanding of.

At this point, I don't think it really matters who we elect. Both of the major parties are quite similar in foreign policy, free trade, etc. The Repubbies are a bit more free and easy with the military, but, I think that's about the only significant difference.... Both parties are wholly-owned by their campaign contributors. Citizens United, and a few other decisions since then, that decided that corporations are people, and money equals free speech, pretty much guaranteed that our country is going to fall. And not from some outside foreign power, but from within, and policies that benefit the top 5% or so, at the expense of everyone else. The collapse is going to be epic. I hope I don't live to see it. I certainly won't live thru it.

 

I'm afraid I'm going to see the collapse. Hopefully it's not for a while. I need to stock up on a few things...

 

I consider him one of the greats, myself, and voted to re-elect him in 1980. No one else on Earth could have got Begin and Sadat at the same table -- even if it did first require Sadat to start a small war with Israel. It's a shame that Congress hamstrung the guy and we let them do it.

If you need an excuse to shake your head in dismay, just think back to 1976. We elected an honest president the same year Paddy Chayefsky released the movie Network. Both told us what was coming if we didn't get our heads in order, but we got the election of 1980 anyway. Yep, collectively, Americans are damnably stupid. Ya tell 'em where they're headed and they mash the gas pedal to the floor to prove you wrong, then blame everyone but themselves for the wreck.

Guess you ain't been checkin' out Bernie Sanders, huh? He's taking no billionaire money, no Super PAC money, and is a very vocal opponent of Citizens United. There are lot of videos on YouTube -- the media's not going to give him attention because his clearly articulated goal is to take on the billionaires, and the owners of the media corporations who control what we see and hear are all billionaires. They'll ask him about Hillary, but not about his agenda.

Bernie was in Denver yesterday and drew a standing room only crowd of about 5,000. That's a huge crowd for so early in the campaign and for a Senator who's not been attention whoring so was largely unknown before he announced his candidacy and remains largely unknown because the media is afraid of him. I figure a guy who scares billionaires so badly must be a righteous enough dude that I'll register just to vote for him.