Who rules America? The rich and elite, average American's are insignificant

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moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
10,734
3,454
136
In other news, pilots fly airplanes and captains steer the ship, not the passengers. The reason the strong lead this country is because the rest of us are too stupid and weak to do any good.
 

irishScott

Lifer
Oct 10, 2006
21,562
3
0
Ordinary citizens in recent decades have largely abandoned their participation in grassroots movements. Politicians respond to the mass mobilization of everyday Americans as proven by the civil rights and women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s. But no comparable movements exist today.

Because no comparable cause exists today. We bitch about our nation's problems all day long but we've still got it great by comparison to many previous generations.

We bitch about net neutrality and overpriced, badly run internet. True, but most of us have fairly reliable internet that we can afford, even if it should be cheaper and even more reliable.

We bitch about fighting foreign wars and the ethical and financial issues involved, yet no American civilians are under attack and have no real reason to fear a forthcoming attack. There is also no draft and no foreseeable reason to have one.

We bitch about the NSA and privacy, despite the fact that virtually no one has been directly negatively affected by these programs. Instead we debate the principle and potential problem and abuses.

We bitch about corporate rulers and big business, despite the fact that all of us use their products to some extent, usually on a daily, hourly or even sub-hourly basis and often enjoy using said products.

Our Declaration of Independence rightfully states:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."


Right now, our nation's evils are so sufferable it's downright cushy. :p
 

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
424
126
Because...

STOP speaking sense, man. That's out of style.

EMO-RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!!!!!! You have it worse than anyone, ever, you poor, pitful thing.



Now, do the logical thing: go back to using the products of big corporations to:

EMO-RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!!!!!!!!

...about big corporations and people who have money, even as you encourage an out of control government to debt-spend itself into complete and total dependency on people with money... and send you the bill for it.
 

Attic

Diamond Member
Jan 9, 2010
4,282
2
76
There's more distractions today. If you can get laid through tinder, video chat, whatever else is going on, who cares about politics? So the clever theft of you and yours will continue while your liberties are stripped away to serve the state. Folks weigh this and decide their current state is fine.

Some systems are better than others, some are worse than others. Our system is what it is. I see little impetus for any real change. Everybody kinda knows the system only really represents entrenched interests and wealth right? Folks care, but not enough to be really bothered by it. They wouldn't go hungry for it, they certainly wouldn't give up any blood for it. Folks take what they can from the system, and put up with it.
 
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Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
424
126
Please do, your side would lose.
And the biggest irony- the government he worships would be the very entity using its jackboot to stomp his face into the pavement protecting its benefactors that's he's spent his life whining for government to become more and more indebted to.

Dimshits are always their own worst enemies.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
People won't vote third party because they can't win. Third parties can't win because people won't vote for them.

Ds and Rs will continue to give us more of the same. Why wouldn't they? They have the votes locked in.
Sometimes voting for someone who can't win is the best one can do. As an example, look at illegal immigration; an astounding 3/4 of Americans want the border locked down. Yet the Democrats are firmly on the side of unrestrained illegal immigration (except for Cubans), the Pubbies therefore know they only have to sound a little better than the Dems, and the Dems know the Pubbies aren't going to actually do anything, belonging to the same elite, so the Dems don't actually suffer either. People are largely irrelevant in politics, just bribe enough to win and ignore them until next election cycle.

And it's not like the third parties offer much anyhow. The Libertarians seem to be increasingly moving toward libertarianism for corporations but good old fashioned government control for the masses, and the Greens are simply the Reds. I don't know I could vote for either if they stood an actual chance of gaining power.

Luckily I can vote Libertarian without having to worry about that for the foreseeable future.
 

trenchfoot

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
16,138
8,731
136
I can just see how the very rich and the politicians they've managed to corrupt are busily scratching their heads and pinching their chins and plucking their eyebrows out trying to figure out a way to get rid of that bothersome chore of campaigning, pandering, baby cheek pinching, snagging photo ops and having to get elected over and over again.

Once they solve that problem we can have the plutocracy/oligarchy they all constantly dream about and then we can have the resultant rebellion that everyone else is waiting for "to make up for the wrongs perpetrated by the arrogant elite class".

Wash, rinse, repeat.