Political Parties are Killing the United States

[BurnItDwn]

One party is trying to take the right track, the other the left track. All that happens is that the country gets further and further derailed.

 

[Franz316]

The second that positions in power could be bought, the entire integrity of the system went out the window. There are so many conflicts of interest in the Government that it is no surprise we are where we are.

We need to arrive at decisions using facts and science instead of making decisions based on emotions.

 

[Craig234]

One party is trying to take the right track, the other the left track. All that happens is that the country gets further and further derailed.

A play on words is not a useful position.

Your post, no offense, is ignorant and vapid. Try discussing what you are for.

If you do, you might come to realize how easy it is to manipulate simplistic 'centrists' by just moving the bar for right further right over and over.

 

[Craig234]

The second that positions in power could be bought, the entire integrity of the system went out the window. There are so many conflicts of interest in the Government that it is no surprise we are where we are.

We need to arrive at decisions using facts and science instead of making decisions based on emotions.

It's about money being concentrated, not emotion.

 

[Ninjahedge]

The problem is 90% of the people here (and in the world) are sheep.

They are easily led to where they feel comfortable, even at the expense of others (and they blame the others for whatever befalls them). It has happened over and over again.

The majority of the other 90% are easily led by feeding them lines and getting them hung up on issues that bear little weight in the overall scheme of things. Abortion would be a dead ringer right there. Whether you agree with it or not, passing it or forbidding it would have such a SMALL net effect on the country we live in compared to, say, the allowable profit margin for private insurance (of ANY type) than it is easier to get people to start crying over something that will personally effect such a small percentage, than to actually handle issues where people would have to sacrifice something "for the greater good"......

Or just something that would not see an INSTANT return.

All you have to do is read the topics here, a place where we are SUPPOSED to be more intelligent than the "average" and see how much time we have spent discussing things that really would not matter a rats ass if we were hungry.

 

[BurnItDwn]

A play on words is not a useful position.

Your post, no offense, is ignorant and vapid. Try discussing what you are for.

If you do, you might come to realize how easy it is to manipulate simplistic 'centrists' by just moving the bar for right further right over and over.

Well, politically, I see a lot eye to you with you to be honest. I believe ...

1. Americans should have a national Public Health Care system in place. Everybody gets the same access. Health care should be considered a "right" and not something that goes to the highest bidder. (something like the system Canada, the UK, or Norway have.)

2. The Gini coefficient is way out of wack here. As the economy grows, the people at the top of the food chain are the only ones getting gains out of it. While there are always new people rising to the top, the regular "working man" just keeps getting his nose rubbed in tho dirt. I'm not suggesting we enforce "maximum" wage, but I think we should consider adding more tax brackets, take 40-50% of any income over 500,000, take 50-60% of any income over 1,000,000, and then take 75% of any income over 5,000,000. The guy who makes 300k a year or 400k a year isn't the problem, they may be considered "rich" by some, but the issue are the greedy fvcks who make many millions per year who do not care about the well being of the "little people."

3. Offshoring/outsourcing of jobs is going to happen in a global economy, but, we should not be trading with countries that do not meet human rights standards.
We also need to charge import taxes when dealing with some countries as quality has been an issue in the past, and we need to fund "import quality control" to make sure we aren't importing toys with lead paint or poison cat food. Essentially, if we are going to import their cheap made junk, they are going to pay the price to make sure it's not a danger to health or safety.

4. Gay marriage should obviously be legal nationwide. This is a open and shut human rights issue. People who have an opinion that gay people should not be legally permitted to get married simply have the wrong opinion. This should be settled by the supreme court if none of the politicians have the balls to push it through.

5. All political campaigns should be financed publicly, all valid campaigners should get the same level of funding.

6. Money is not speech.

7. Lobbyists should not be allowed to give gifts or donations or any sort of compensation to any government agency, official, or relative of any official. What lobbies do currently is legalized bribery, and it needs to stop.

8. Corporations are not people

9. While I am very much in favor of regulating businesses to keep them out of politics and keep them from corrupting the country, I am very much in favor of businesses continuing to make things or provide services. There is a LOT of red tape required to start up just about any business anywhere in the country. There shouldn't be. If you have the capital, the know-how, and the time, you should be able to start up a business without hundreds of hours spent looking through tens of thousands of lines of code and many consultations with a lawyer. It's too complicated/costly to build Nuclear Power plants due to overly complicated regulations. It's also too costly and complicated to open or run various types of mining or logging operations. It's often too costly and complicated to open new factories. Part of this is due to overzealous environmental regulations, part of this is due to regulations which were influenced by lobbies which dominated the market in order to prevent newcomers from intruding on their market segments.

10. I believe in the bill of rights. I think free speech is universal and should be unrestricted. (note, remember, money is not speech though.) I believe that every individual who is of age, not currently on probation, and not currently incarcerated should have the right to own firearms. I don't like government wiretapping without specific warrants for each case that they want to tap. I don't like torture, sleep deprivation, food deprivation, water deprivation, or any other inhumane treatment in order to coerce somebody into disclosing information that they may have. I also think that locking somebody up in a cell for many many years and essentially taking away their freedom is cruel and unusual for just about anything less than murder. I don't believe in capital punishment. I do believe in corporal punishment. Let's bring Caning to our system. We can give prisoners a choice, locked up for how many years, or we beat you with a stick until you cry, and then we nurse you back to health, and then we maybe release you before you learn better how to be a criminal from all the other criminals.

11. I belive that everybody should pay into tax system.
If you work minimum wage, you should still pay a percentage of your income as taxes.
The amount you get back due to rebates and credits should NEVER under any circumstances result in 0 or negative income taxes paid.
This means that even if you make $8 an hour and have 12 children, you will stay pay a little bit in income taxes.

12. There should be no "EBT" cash or anything like that. If you do not make enough money to raise your family, I think it's fair of the government to help pay for housing/food/utility costs, but, that does not mean lobster in a mansion with heat set to 80 degrees.

EDIT:
13. Republicans are pretty much all owned by the various industries/lobbies.
Most democrats are owned by the industries and lobbies too. (or unions.)
The few who are not extremely corrupt back without putting up too much of a fight. It seems like politicians are spineless. I believe Obama is not corrupt, yet he does not fight hard enough for what he claims he believes in. Those who are not corrupt need to fight dirty, fight hard, and fight tirelessly, it's an uphill battle, and the odds are stacked against them.

 

[YoungGun21]

Ignorant people are the problem.

 

[Craig234]

Burnitdown, first, that reply was not ignorant or vapid, much better.🙂 I asked you to state your positions, and you listed several.

You're right, we largely do agree. Naturally I'd have some modifications, but actually pretty minor.

I do have some stronger objections to #9 - we just watched the head of a mining company with thousands of safety violations and a major disaster apparently caused by cutting costs on following regulations lecture us on how his anti-government ideology makes him the guy who should make all the choices on safety, and I support 'good' regulation, we need more of that more than we need less bad regulation (see Wall Street).

So, we can use a reduction in the money in politics. Good you support that.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Burnitdown, first, that reply was not ignorant or vapid, much better.🙂 I asked you to state your positions, and you listed several.

You're right, we largely do agree. Naturally I'd have some modifications, but actually pretty minor.

I do have some stronger objections to #9 - we just watched the head of a mining company with thousands of safety violations and a major disaster apparently caused by cutting costs on following regulations lecture us on how his anti-government ideology makes him the guy who should make all the choices on safety, and I support 'good' regulation, we need more of that more than we need less bad regulation (see Wall Street).

So, we can use a reduction in the money in politics. Good you support that.

For #9, I'm not saying we should not enforce code, I'm saying that we need to simplify the code. I'm saying that the rules need to be simpler and written in plain layman's English, not 15000 pages of layer speak.

Also, If a company has "thousands" of violations, they they need to be completely shut down and the leadership permanently barred from ever working in that particular industry again.

 

[cybrsage]

A play on words is not a useful position.

Your post, no offense, is ignorant and vapid. Try discussing what you are for.

If you do, you might come to realize how easy it is to manipulate simplistic 'centrists' by just moving the bar for right further right over and over.

Same thing can be done by moving the bar for left further left over and over.

 

[bfdd]

george washington warned of political parties. to bad so many have not even heard the words let alone know of their existence.

 

[cybrsage]

Well, politically, I see a lot eye to you with you to be honest. I believe ...

1. Americans should have a national Public Health Care system in place. Everybody gets the same access. Health care should be considered a "right" and not something that goes to the highest bidder. (something like the system Canada, the UK, or Norway have.)

I think each state should run their own. The UK has shown that centralizing healthcare causes it to fail...they are decentralizing now to great effect.

4. Gay marriage should obviously be legal nationwide. This is a open and shut human rights issue. People who have an opinion that gay people should not be legally permitted to get married simply have the wrong opinion. This should be settled by the supreme court if none of the politicians have the balls to push it through.

The government should get out of the marriage business altogether and only issue civil unions. While we are at it, we should remove the anti-polygamy laws since they obviously are just as unjust as the anti-gay laws. We should also remove the required genetic distance, provided the two are made infertile (to prevent the genetic disease problems).

Basically, civil union rules should only be:

1. Of legal age

Instead of the current:
1. Of legal age
2. Of far enough genetic distance
3. Not currently in a civil union
4. Of oppoiste sex

5. All political campaigns should be financed publicly, all valid campaigners should get the same level of funding.

Agreed

6. Money is not speech.

Agreed, and this includes union money.

7. Lobbyists should not be allowed to give gifts or donations or any sort of compensation to any government agency, official, or relative of any official. What lobbies do currently is legalized bribery, and it needs to stop.

Agreed

8. Corporations are not people

They are not now. They are US Persons.

9. Regulations...

Yep, smarter regs, not more.

10. I believe in the bill of rights. I think free speech is universal and should be unrestricted. (note, remember, money is not speech though.)

You need to limit speech to prevent someone shouting FIRE in a crowded theater.
I agree on the corporal punishment, but also find capital punishment to be the only punishment with a 100% rate of preventing repeat offenders. Even life in prison without parole does not mean that person will die in prison.

11. I belive that everybody should pay into tax system.

The only way to do this is via a consumption based tax. The Fair Tax actually works well. It does not burden the poor while taxing the drug dealer and prostitute.

 

[cybrsage]

george washington warned of political parties. to bad so many have not even heard the words let alone know of their existence.

He also warned that democrats want to destroy the US. No one bothers to listen to Washington. 🙁

 

[bfdd]

He also warned that democrats want to destroy the US. No one bothers to listen to Washington. 🙁

he didn't mean the current party as it didn't exist. the term democrat back in that time meant a supporter of direct democracy which the founding fathers were very much against.

also craig, I agree with his #9 we actually do need to pull back on some of our much overbearing regulations. The "not in my backyard" shit needs to go, we need to strip back any regulation that's causing small/medium business to have hard times entering markets or existing at all. You don't think this is happening, but it's happening all the time. Every time some stupid hippie champions regulation, you're champion regulation written by the people you're trying to stop screwing all of their competition at a time. It's not that regulation is bad, it's that in this current fucking environment it's terrible. Plus yea some regulation is bad if it's slowing down or stopping progress because we're to scared to get a little dirty. You do realize making a mess creates jobs as well right?

the only thing i would have much issue with burnitdown is the taxes thing. i don't believe in a "progressive tax structure" that doesn't make sense to me and they're completely regressive from a social perspective. you cannot treat others differently like that, you create classism and divide. everyone should be taxed exactly the same rate with no way of getting out of it. you say that's "regressive" i believe that's fair and equal. everyone pays and everyone plays, fairs fair. that doesn't mean social services cannot help these others cope with their lower income and help themselves. that's where i agree with his EBT statement as well, give them food and teach them to cook and feed themselves. do it right, none of this shopping at 7-11 shit.

imo more Americans should read Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People, I know hating on Chinese government and all is the big thing now, but i think he was on to something and many of the concepts could be adopted by us if we're willing to make sacrifices and stop bitching and WORK for progress.

 

[cybrsage]

he didn't mean the current party as it didn't exist. the term democrat back in that time meant a supporter of direct democracy which the founding fathers were very much against.

It meant the Republican-Democrat party, afaik. Which morphed into the Copperhead Democrats of the civil war (the northern democrats who called on Northern Troops to join the South and help the south win the war), and onto the modern dem party we have today.

Could be wrong, but that is what I have read about it.

 

[Ninjahedge]

He also warned that democrats want to destroy the US. No one bothers to listen to Washington. 🙁

That has nothing to do with todays politics.


Remember, the Republicans were once the liberal party.

 

[Ninjahedge]

bfdd.... your points would have more weight if you stopped insulting any contrary position.

"stupid hippie" is WAY to wrote and stereotypical an appellation. It almost instantly discredits any point that you want to make after it.....


NOT because the point (may) lack merit, but just because you are starting to play the name game. Relax on the name calling man!