Most of truly heinous things done to the Country have been done on a bipartisan nature. For example, all of the changes to the banking laws that people point to as harbingers of the financial crisis were passed with huge bipartisan majorities. Heck the Glass-Steagal repeal passed the Senate on a voice vote.
Well, at least I got credit for a few points. That's better than I am doing in other threads! (-:
How does Canada avoid what seems to be the inevitable total polarization of a two party system? I believe the two party system works better than some governments I've seen with a whole menagerie of different parties and governments that seem to dissolve every other month. As you might have seen, adding a third party (Tea) to the mix here in the US hasn't seemed to calm the waters at all.
Conflict doesn't HAVE to be the only output of a two party system. Once upon a time, we were able forge compromises and maintain some forward motion.
-- Bobby G.
My theory (seriously) is that the demise of the patronage system at the local level. At the time you had people active in the party for their own enlightened self interest (a job). They tended to be less ideological and more pragmatic since their very jobs depended on the party staying in power. They also provided workers, etc. They also worked at a leavening influence by disipating much of the power of the ideologues. Now, the more fanatical people have a much more important influence, especially at the party nominating level, and thus at all levels.
It goes a bit beyond profit. A strong local party has a vested interest in promoting the best candidates - or at least discouraging marginal ones. A poor candidate (i.e., caught with an under-age girl or any boy) will drag down the rest of the ticket.
People engage in politics for one of three reasons: Pride, Power, or Profit.
Most of the Tea Party types and all of the progressives are in the game out of pride and concern for society.
Profit is not all bad: There are people who print bumper stickers and yard signs, produce TV spots, rent office space, install telephones, design web-sites, and so on, that make a reasonable profit from political campaigns.
And power? If your city councilman knows you by name because you worked in his campaign or donated money and you also have a pot-hole in front of your house, you have the power to get the pothole repaired.
It's American greed,the "American dream" and aquisitvness. Also Canadians have the Queen.
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Compromise in principle, not on principles.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Actually, he was.
Hear, Hear! ;-)
You're blind, deaf, AND dumb. ...especially dumb.
Actually that coincides what I learned in one of my Criminology classes. It was very important for early immigrants to have someone to "bat" for them in the many dealings they would have with local government. Tammany Hall offered one avenue and despite all its negatives, got people jobs, out of jail, found them homes, got streetlights installed, etc. A vote was worth something and politicians were willing to act on behalf of the voters because corporate America had not yet begun appearing with dump truck loads of campaign cash.
I hate to say it but in the 20's through the 50's the Mafia took over a lot of the functions that had been performed under the old patronage system and then they unfortunately got entwined with many of the unions as a way to gain and project power and extort money from business to pay bribes on behalf of people unfortunate enough to be in business with them.
What surprises me is that people of foreign ancestry, like Italians, can complete forget their time in the immigrant "box" and beat down on the next wave of immigration. My Italian uncle Salvatore was told after graduating in the late thirties with an AeroE degree: "Try South American if you want to get an engineering job with such an Italian-sounding name.
Well, I think you've found at least one demarcation line when things really started to change in American politics. It was also at the same time corporations were getting more and more "people rights" so it would be difficult to truly tease out which force changed things more, not at least without a lot more analysis.
No matter what the driving force was, the vote saw a real depersonalization and devaluation. When I had a problem, my elected officials performed a great service. I moved out of DC because its residents don't get representation. Even though it doesn't mean what it did in the 1900's, have a Congressman or Senator to intercede for me in some potential government problem is worth enough to move.
I've read that we are being nibbled to death by the interests of 1,000 of special interest groups that can raise a ruckus so out of proportion to their actual voting strength that government can't make any hard choices anymore unless the sky is not just falling, but someone's already been squashed. Look at SSA. Everyone knows what it's going to take. Barney Frank said it best. "Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die." As the boomers age, SSA will become a more and more sacred cow. Means testing could buy us years and years of coverage, but what politician is willing to commit political suicide to get it done?
We might still be OK if we accounted for every *real* vote as carefully as Las Vegas casinos track their chips. Electronic ballots with no paper trail is like building six reactors on the ocean in a quake and tsunami zone. It's asking for trouble. I am glad to see some jurisdictions realizing that fact. I recently saw a film that claimed college kids cloned what turned out to be the Diebold "master" ballot box key from a close up photo Diebold had on their site. Whether it's true or not, from all I've read there's reason to worry about us facing a seriously stolen election in the not-to-distant future and being well into a Presidential term before it's discovered. At least 20 posters from both parties will assure us that's already happened. (-: Is it like when a cop's found out to be working for drug dealers and all his arrests face being voided? What do you do if you find President Palin's well-meaning campaign workers created or changed votes that brought her in as the winner in 2012, but it's not discovered until 2015? Do over? Asterisk in the history books? Does the loser finish out her term?
-- Bobby G.
The worst thing to come out of the research for this statement is respect for Barney Frank. Whilst Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and others currently flapping their gums were voting for most of these bills, Barney voted against them consistently and every chance he got. Damn him. (g).
I don't know. From my reading it seems like dumping on the next group was sorta right of passage from being the last group.
Can you put a date or time frame on that corporate thing? I have done some research on that and I am interested if your perception of the timing is close to when it started popping up. Just curious, if you don't mind.
I have argued against that if only because of the possibility of a badly timed blue screen of death. The other considerations are important, but this one alone would seem to argue for a paper trail.
Legally she finishes out her term. Under the constitution, once the electors meet and vote, the Pres is the Pres. Period. The only option (and in the final analysis this is a political decision) would be impeachment. A person could resign, but I don't think that would be too likely.
Hell yes, they're benefiting. First, there's the relative benefit. I suggest that paying $299 for something that would otherwise cost $495 is a benefit. Second, consider what would happen if your kid had to do without the latest-style sneaker because the $295/pair model was not available:
He (or she) would become a social outcasts, derided and scorned by contemporaries. This would inevitably lead to severe lack of esteem and end up with the child committing suicide or, possibly worse, becoming a reclusive computer geek.
Third, in a desperate, last-ditch, effort to conform, your child may have to resort to robbery or theft to obtain those necessary shoes. If this happens, some innocent person suffers and your child goes to jail.
No, everybody benefits from cheap sneakers.
It's for the children.
BS. My kids don't buy "high" brand name clothing as a matter of principal. Never have. One is more diligent about it than the other. Neither are outcasts or low in self esteem (hey, they are MY kids, after all) nor are they reclusive.
Long before Hollywood, a learned sage said: "Were it not for greed, no man would build a home, marry, father children, or engage in commerce."
The religious person would say: "Greed is a normal human emotion, given to us by God. God does not make junk."
Lastly, consider Jonas Salk peering through his microscope through the long, dark night. Many of the motives driving him on were altruistic - saving children from the ravages of Infantile Paralysis. Yet some of his motivations probably came from those attributes that unthinking people class as evil: ENVY of his contemporary, Louis Sabin, getting all the publicity, PRIDE in that people will pat him on the back if he can lick this problem, and more.
One of these "evil inclinations" was probably GREED. He perhaps said to himself "If I can solve this, I'll make enough money to do the kind of research I want to do without having to suck up to the grant dispensers and bureaucrats!"
So, for many reasons - some classed as "good" and some erroneously classed as "bad" (greed among them) - Polio has been eradicated in my lifetime and yours.
Point is, it is not the emotion itself that is to be suppressed, it is the (sometimes) bad action that can stem from it.
Is it possible to even try to be more clueless?
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