then you simply are not paying attention.

it's as easy as that.

EVERY SINGLE nominee on the Republican side is running on the promise to undo my recent marriage.

FUCK them, each and every one of them.

If a Republican gets the Presidency?  At minimum 2 Supreme Court appointees are going to happen during the next Presidential term (more likely, 3-4), and a Republican President guarantees a right wing judge being nominated (they have made it clear).   meaning they are going to try to make Abortion illegal, try to take away civil and gay rights fought hard for over the past 20 years, and strip voting rights.

not to mention, these "show votes" that Congress is doing to repeal Obamacare?  Ryan and McConnell have flat out said, it's to show the public that if we had a Republican President, then the bills would not get Vetoed, and Obamacare would be repealed.

*without a replacement in place* -- 7 YEARS, and they've done nothing other than try to damage Obama.  No efforts to work with him to fix issues with the law, only to damage his Presidency.

These evil bastards want to strip the poor, and needy from Health Coverage they have gotten under this law.

I say again:

FUCK them, each and every one of them.

Here's some things to contemplate-

a democracy is where majority rules by definition

in the United States less than half of all eligible voters are registered to vote.

In most elections voter turnout is about 30% of all registered voters (in a presidential election it is slightly higher, mid-terms lower and in not Congressional election years abysmal)

So to win a majority of the votes in any given election you are looking at about 16-17% of the entire population of registered voters determining the outcome for everybody. Think about that. It takes getting less than 1 in 5 people eligible to vote to vote for you to win an election. How is that majority rule?

More often than not, those who are running for office benefit from the current status quo and work to protect that, so most elections result in more of the same because the candidates who protect the status quo can muster up enough support to get 17% of the vote.

Campaigns that promise change and can inspire voter registration and turn out can affect change. Voter turnout scares the piss out of most politicians and political machines. We have seen over and over again stories of attempts to make it harder for certain portions of the population to register to vote and participate in the process-usually the portions of the population least served by the current status quo.

As long as people continue to be apathetic and not participate the status quo will be maintained and the gaps between those society serves and those it doesn't will continue to widen. Choosing not to vote is choosing to vote for the status quo to perpetuate itself. You are adding your voice to the 17% who determine the outcome by not voicing your own choice. In not choosing, you are choosing to keep what is already in place.

If voter turnout scares the piss out of the established parties, I want to scare the piss out of them. I have missed 2 votes since I became eligible to vote-the first because the voting board in Massachusetts wouldn't let me register there in the '88 election because I had a campus address and not a permanent address (I hadn't registered in my home state before leaving for university that year) and the second because I was hospitalized unexpectedly on the day before election day and hadn't gotten an absentee ballot.

I'd like to see an election where even half the registered voters turn out to vote to see what would happen, but I doubt it will happen. Apathy reigns and people have swallowed the ideas that their vote doesn't matter-it only doesn't matter if you don't use it, but that's not what they want you to think.

Political parties for the first century of America's existence rose and fell based on how they responded to the issues people deemed were important. After the first century, the two party system became entrenched and people became complacent. The cart got put in front of the horse and no longer did people define the issues and the parties respond, now the parties defined the issues and the response and people just went along with it. In the early decades of the 20th century, the Republican Party went from a bastion of change to a champion of the status quo and big business to become entrenched, and the Democrats co-opted the progressive platform and then neutered it in the early 20th century securing their position seemingly in perpetuity. No third party or grass-roots movement has succeeded since and the status quo has been the winner. Even radical changes won by the Civil Rights movement haven't been able to topple the status quo of the political machine and fights for the right to vote become less meaningful when people do not use that right.

By saying what's the point and not voting or participating in the political process, you enable that status quo to perpetuate itself.

But part of the process of participating is informing yourself of what the issues are and deciding for yourself instead of relying on soundbites and pundits or other talking heads.



If you don't participate, you get what you deserve.

-M

You'd have to extend that F word to all the evangelical lobbyists and others (and there are many, including democrats) who at best, would support civil unions but not gay marriage, and at worst, not support either option at all. That's quite a lot of F words bert.

I'm concerned about the US national debt going to almost $19 trillion. Sure there are benefits, but if your economy cannot sustain a debt that size (and financial experts are terrified of it), how long will they last?

A huge debt is indeed a problem, but the premise that Republicans reduce the debt while Democrats increase it is erroneous. There is no correlation between the two. In recent history, the debt indeed grew under Obama; it grew as well under GWB, a Republican. It shrank under Clinton, a Democrat; he even managed to hand over a surplus to Bush Jr, a surplus that was quickly wasted by a slowing economy and by very ill-advised foreign wars. Before Clinton, the debt grew and grew and grew under the Republicans Reagan and Bush Sr, while it had grown smaller under Carter.


(From wikipedia; data collected from table 7-1, Office of management and budget, The White House).

The Republicans claim that they are the party of fiscal responsibility; the facts do not bear that out. They are a party sympathetic to big business, yes, but the two are not necessarily synonymous.

Not that the Democrats don't deserve a lot of criticism for their own handling of the economy; they can certainly do better overall despite their recent successes. But they're less likely to be in the pocket of corporate America or to start ruinous wars for ideological or electoral reasons.

Well here's a premise that isn't erroneous. At the end of dubya's term, the debt was around 10.63 trillion. At the end of the current democrat term, it will be around 20 trillion. That's the hugest increase in history.

Who's going to solve that? Hillary?

And yet, the Congress, which is who approves budgets, spending spending and appropriations, not the President, was controlled by Republicans for most of Obama's 8 year term. So ultimately who is responsible for that increase-the figurehead at the top or the people approving the spending of the money increasing the deficit? There's a lot of blame to go around, but let's not scapegoat one person, who isn't the one making all the decisions on the money, for the deficit.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have a good record where the deficit is concerned, but I am not sure how reducing revenue by cutting taxes on the wealthier while proposing policies that will require massive spending to enact makes the Republicans better suited to reduce the deficit. Less revenue and continued irresponsible spending (they won't spend less than the Dems, they just have different priorities where to spend it) is not going to reduce the deficit you are worried about.

Maybe they will just ask the Federal Reserve to wave it's magic wand* that turns paper into money without anything backing it except the Reserves say so to make more money to reduce the deficit...yeah that won't do any harm...

-M


*see Robert Anton Wilson's bit on the Fed for context

I was on a forum some years, ago, and got to be friends with someone who completely turned on me once the subject of politics came up. (And did it in that prick-ish, Victor Von Doom-esque way, ranting about 'no longer associating with your ilk'. I told him to go ilk himself. ) I tend to stay out of political and religious discussions...unless they're started by someone who isn't just looking to be insulting.
Like flatulence, we are all comfortable with our own views...but everybody else's stink.