US Politics
 

What the hell is up with it these days?


With the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, her aide and a federal judge along with other members of the public (including a 9 year old girl), there seems to be a huge amount of anger and vitriole flying about. Almost as if its violence on a political scale.

Whats the score with these uber conservative loonies Ive been hearing about, The Tea Party?

Also, is anyone else getting a serious The Dead Zone vibe about Sarah Palin?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereport...iffords_s.html

Aren't the teabaggers loads of fun?

With the tea party gaining popularity and the Republicans gaining control of Congress once again, I think it's time to consider moving to Canada.:mad:

not a big fan of politics, but that shooter was just a fucking nut-job...he was gonna blow sooner or later.

As far as Sarah Palin....meh....she's already turning into a caricature....don't think she'll have a serious run at office.

but who knows

society is turning into shit

I blame Reality TV

I really have to get back working on my flux capacitor....just hope I can get the mini-van up to 88

To make themselves look better and win elections, politicians demonize their opposition to the point that every so often, some unstable fucktard takes things too literally, snaps and takes a shot at one of them. Both parties do it. It's not exclusive to Republicans, they're just the ones with the guns. There's plenty of liberal fucktards too.

Aside from pushing people on the edge over the brink, it creates a pretty hostile climate when elected officials are supposed to be working together to make the country better. How can someone sit down and compromise to solve problems with a person they were comparing to Hitler a few weeks earlier during the elections without pissing off the people who bought in to their bullshit and got them elected in the first place?

Our whole political system is completely fucked.

Well put.

I gave up on "Rocking The Vote" or giving a fuck years ago. Our whole system is rigged. I'm not exactly sure who but its not the people who choose the politicians anymore. Sometimes I think "big oil" calls the shots and the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it may be something bigger.

Agreed. As much as I dislike Sarah Palin, I don't think she or the conservatives can be blamed for this incident. The shooter could have just as easily targeted someone else.

That's exactly what "they" want you to do.;)

Honestly scouse-is it really that big of a surprise?
Can anything that happens here be shocking at this point?
We are AMERICANS after all...

The lobbyists have WAY too much influence in Washington, but I suspect Goldman Sachs is actually running the country.

There's no way to fix our fucked system without kicking everyone out of office and starting over from scratch. (Which will never happen.)

There are 3 fundamental problems I see.

1 is career politicians. Politicians are supposed to be people like you or me, sent to Washington for a few years to represent our neighbors' interests. Our founding fathers were farmers, lawyers, doctors, etc... Not politicians. Now we've got people that have been there for 40 years. They are so out of touch with reality that they can't possibly have a clue what's in the best interest of the "real" people. A lot of them have the best intentions the first time they get elected. Then they get to Washington and realize they were being naive to think they could change anything on their own and join the club (for lack of a better term.)

The 2nd fundamental problem is that we're stuck with a 2 party system. While Republicans & Democrats don't agree on much, they certainly agree that it's in their mutual best interest to keep things limited to 2 parties. And then we're screwed. We're constantly given the choice between 2 candidates that both suck for different reasons. I think we should have a choice between 5-10 candidates in every major election. They should all get equal tv time, press coverage and debate time... In short, they should all have a legit shot to win. But they don't, and that's why a vote for Nader or Perot is just considered a wasted vote. (The only way those guys got in there at all was because they put up tons of their own cash to do so. They bought their ways into the elections, but even then couldn't buy themselves a legit chance at winning it.)

The 3rd is the Lobbyists. They give so much money to these people to get them elected that it's only natural to assume the politician will return some favors once they get in office (and they do.) How can you vote for a bill that's gonna regulate the banks or oil industry when they provided 80% of your campaign funds and got you elected in the first place?


Yes, I'm jaded. I fucking hate our corrupt system. It's beyond repair.

Yes, I'm jaded. I fucking hate our corrupt system. It's beyond repair.


Amen brother:cool:

Apathy: the #1 reason why the U.S.A. is in the state it's in.

Yes, exactly, that is totally the whole and only fucking reason...yeeper

Being a bartender im reluctant to speak on Religion or Politics.......but Bwind put it better than i think ive ever heard.

Couldnt agree more and have always been very curious as to what percent of the country actually feels the same way. Damn the man.....save the empire!!!!

The thing that has surprised me is the level genuine anger and how vicious the politicking has gotten.

It probably takes something as extreme as this shooting to make people take a step back and try to reign back the insanity a little.

As for fixing the 'system', for as long as money talks their is no way things will change. What they need is to ban completely all outside funding for political campaigns and make them regulated and funded by the state (which of course means jon q taxpayer coughing up for the tab).

Don't say 'regulated'!! The Tea Party might hear you!:rolleyes:

Why should we pay for people to campaign? It all comes down to power, and the people who shouldn't have power are the ones that want it the most. Things will change, they always do, maybe for a while we'll get a big behemoth of a government and the dems will be monitoring our lovely HDC for us. Wouldn't that be nice Wicker?

Republicans and Democrats, in general, are very black and white in their views. Unfortunately, the majority of real people live in the gray area in between.

I am pro-guns, anti-censorship, anti-tax, pro-responsible government spending, pro-socialized healthcare, pro-gay marriage, pro-death penalty, pro-legalized prostitution, pro-decriminalized marijuana laws, anti-abortion (in most cases), etc... Half of those are republican platforms, the other half democratic. Since we're stuck with just 2 black and white parties, I will probably never see a candidate that I agree with on everything and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It's highly discouraging.

Oh yes, it's the Democrats that have a history of monitoring what people say about their government.:rolleyes: With the notable exception of Wikileaks, I think the Republicans have been, by far, the biggest culprits in trying to control what we can say about the President and other high ranking politicians (I remember vividly, during the early post 9/11 days, people getting visits from the feds because someone overheard them say something negative about the way George W. Bush was handling the situation).

Getting back to our looney, I see a resemblance:http://ll-media.tmz.com/2011/01/10/0...-bn-credit.jpg

http://img.geocaching.com/cache/336a...347b60ddc0.jpg

The survey was conducted shortly after the FCC decided on a party line vote to impose so-called “net neutrality” regulations on the Internet world. Republicans and unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly oppose FCC regulation of the Internet, while Democrats are more evenly divided. Those who use the Internet most are most opposed to FCC regulations.
By a 52% to 27% margin, voters believe that more free market competition is better than more regulation for protecting Internet users. Republicans and unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly share this view, but a plurality of Democrats (46%) think more regulation is the better approach.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters believe that the FCC would use its regulatory authority to promote a political agenda. Half that number (28%) disagree and believe the commission would regulate in an unbiased manner. The partisan divide is the same on this question as the others. A plurality of Democrats sees an unbiased regulatory approach, while most Republicans and unaffiliated voters fear a political agenda.



Also, does anybody else think it's funny that a UFC joked about wanting to fight Obama and had a visit from the secret service?

Anyway, if you're honest with yourself Wicker, you'll agree that be you Dem or Rep the people representing you have fallen away from the ideals of the party you're a part of.

Amen to that.

I am honest with myself; I wasn't one of the people who thought the country was going to be fixed overnight once Barack Obama took office, but I shudder to think what would have happened if John McCain had won. And when it comes to FCC regulations, it's that extremely vocal minority (Tea Party, religious fanatics etc.) who always get their way; what I would accuse both parties of is completely caving to these little groups and not taking the repercussions this will cause into account.


I think the bartender was right; we should probably avoid the subjects of politics and religion.

The democrats want internet regulation the most though... that's what I was showing you.

I don't think we should avoid conversations... just fights.

I thought we were initially talking about censorship, not net neutrality. I'm not sure how much net neutrality would effect HDC.

I don't mind debating with you.:)

NN regulation would lead to censorship, even before that it would lead to providers having control of websites. Say a Comcast user is searching for a horror site, what would prevent Comcast from directing traffic to Fear.net or some channel they're affiliated with? Anyway, while Republicans are blamed for censorship all the time Democrats consistently push for governmental control over things like movies, videogames, and music (I can even pull former second lady Tipper into that one).

Despare - I think you have your argument backwards. Net neutrality would prevent service providers from blocking sites. Companies like Comcast would like to be able to force consumers to use apps from companies who pay them the most rather than ones from companies that don't - net neutrality regulations would mean they couldn't block/censor. Just because it is a government regulation doesn't necessarily mean more government control. I'm not advocating NN. There is a strong argument and precedent that if companies like Google want to pay more to have their content delivered faster they should be allowed to do so. Personally I am suspicious of big business and suspect that if tiered services come into play it will end up costing the end consumer (me) more. But then again, if I want to watch streaming video all day long (I do) perhaps I should pay more than my grandmother who only checks her email and the weather channel.

Right, read my post again and look what the Dems are voting for.

" but a plurality of Democrats (46%) think more regulation is the better approach."

My argument isn't backward, I just mistyped in the beginning of my last post so I see what you mean. I'll fix it. :)

That's how I interpreted it as well.

There does seem to be a lot of prejudice against government regulation. While too much isn't a good idea (I think Soviet Russia was proof enough that it doesn't work) too little can be equally disastrous (our current economic slump for example). I trust big business a lot less than I trust the government.

Ah but there you have the issue, you trust citizens who are embracing capitalism less then you trust government officials who fight for power every year. CEOs may be corrupt but the only real power they hold is within their own company.

Another quick thing, how many times have any of you seen temporary regulation or small amounts of regulation either stay temporary or not increase?

But that's not true. That's why when the banks failed, they took everyone else with them. And I think big business holds a lot of politicians in their pockets, so they can gain a foothold in the government as well.

Government regulation is the only thing keeping large businesses in check. I think the deregulation of the banks was what caused this current mess we're in, and proves that they do not have the public's interest at heart.

And there you go.



Another thing, I think business should fail or achieve greatness by themselves. As a Michigander I'm still upset with the auto bailout. I'm sorry, I'm just an anti-government guy I suppose, I personally don't need my hand held or need to be protected by big brother.

I agree with you on that; I'll never be sure the bailouts were a good idea.
I guess we'll never know for certain.

(Threads like this die when people agree on stuff! What are you doing!?)

too many damn guns - let's be honest about it. it isn't that Americans are violent - it is that we have so many damn guns laying around that we can just kill people instantly

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q.../porter6sm.jpg

Guns don't kill people.

Monkeys kill people.

Exactly!!!
Lets go back to killing each other with swords and stuff

At least it's an honorable death and ....it looks really cool:cool:

Sorry about that.:(

Why blame Palin? There is no evidence he visited her website. There is no evidence he listened to talk back radio. What the police know is he hated both sides of politics. What they also know is he was a heavy user of marijuana. They do know he supported the legalization of it. The congresswoman who he shot, said she would never support the legalization of it. Seems to me he did it over the legalization of marijuana. And not because of anything Palin said. People need to widen their ways of how they get their news. Most of the post here can almost be taken word for word off of any left winged web/news site.

Who blamed Sarah Palin?:confused:

I never said anyone here did. But the msm is. This is clearly the actions of the pro marijuana movement.