Frankly, after the new administration, I do. I also agree with all of what manaman posted. You hit the nail right on the head dude.manaman said:
Ever get the feeling that your country is run by idiots?
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Its not about government, but the people.bushwhacker2k said:
Big chunk of population (in every country) is made of idiots. And the majority doesn't have a clue about how country runs and how the "System" works. These people vote, and pick who they want. Usually who promised them more things, depends if their bait is Populism or Demagogy it may be "I give you cash and super awesome free-healthcare" or "Ill get rid of immigrants and whatnot".
Thats why democracy is doomed to fail in long run.
In other words, the question of the topic is: "Ever get the feeling that your country is run by idiots?" and the answer would be "Yes, because they have been chosen by idiots as well". Harsh but true, in my opinion.
Actually, in Vietnam we supported a dictator rather than creating a democratically elected government. Big difference. But I generally agree- we didn't do the Iraq War competently. A disturbingly large part of our military were acting as if killing our enemies was a higher priority than protecting the human rights of the people of Iraq, despite the fact that the war was callled Operation Iraqi Freedom. Considering the name I would have thought it would be hard to miss the point so thoroughly.Wicky_42 said:
Switzerland is one of the closest countries to Utopia on the planet, and they allow their people more democratic control than most countries do. Countries that give their citizens very little control are pretty much universally hell holes. Generally, the more control the people have, the better a country is.Dana22 said:
The persistent problem is that we only have a large amount of data on politicians chosen by major parties, and major parties are almost always corrupt. We could end this problem overnight if we had a reliable, large, fast search engine like google, but which could seperate serious journalistic research on a candidate from propaganda and comedic threads/blogs.
As it stands, you would have to plow through roughly 100 pages of google to find good, balanced journalitic coverage on candidates. 70% of the URL's you would find would be comedic blogs/threads, 27% would be propaganda, and 2% would be an attempt at serious coverage that fails miserably, either from failing to site sources, or leaving out crucial details.
Sooo... I live in Norway and they now want to execute two dogs. Not because they are aggressive or have done anything wrong, but as of a 2004 law they are an illegal race. That is, they LOOK as if they are a crossing between amstaff and something else, and amstaff is illegal. The owners cannot disprove this, they recieved the dogs in a replacement program seven years ago.
I see several things wrong with that story, all pointing to morons running my country.
I see several things wrong with that story, all pointing to morons running my country.
first off the housing crisis was started by carter which started the whole well poor folks need homes to so we are going to make it federal law that banks have to give loans to high risk people. that program lasted and the % of loans increased under every president up and until now it ballooned to 55% of all loans under bush 2, and the banking chairman a democrat said the economy was fine. just before the whole thing exploded. i think the program started at 35 or 40% under carter.manaman said:
what really got me about the banking scandal and still makes me so angry i could have a heart attack. is that every politician in washington was screaming about fat cat bankers and predatory loans, they hauled the bankers up in front of them for public hearings and made a gdamn dog and pony show out of it while the professional asshats in washington blamed them for the collapse of the economy and berated them over and over.
and what really pissed me off is the bankers sat there and took it right up the ass from congress, not one of them had the balls to stand up and say you know what guys if the federal government had not been telling us to give out loans to high risk people in the first place, and increased the percent of loans to 55% in the midst of a gigantic housing bubble which houses were grossly overvalued in almost every market in the united states and with drastically low interest rates that could not last, of course people were going to run out and buy overpriced houses and banks were going to give them the loans even if they could not afford it cause the federal government told them they had to.
that pissed me off more than the actual fact that the government collapsed our economy and triggered a global economic meltdown. oh and for the record that was the 2nd major fuck up congree and the presidents made in the 8 years bush was in, the first was mandating ethanol requirement so that corn and most everything we eat and drink is based off corn in some way shape or form which lead to all food prices skyrocketing across the globe.
then we had the gas crisis that happened at the same time, i am willign to led the fed slide on that one noone really could explain to any degree of satisfaction why gasoline went up overnight to 3 and 4 dollars a gallon on top of most of our food costs going up 20 to 30% at the same time.
and obama ran on the line that big government is the answer, he said spread the wealth around, he had communist and terrorist friends and a pastor. i mean if you did not know where the guy was coming from you fail at basic reasoning and seeing lies and bullshit that tried to cover up or back away from all the questionable associates and statements he made when he was not reading off a teleprompter.
only thing big government gets you is bigger government and more regulation and less freedom and less money cause they need your money to grow and get bigger.
the problem with politics today is that when this little experiment of democracy was kicked off there was no money in politics, the federal government was not even allowed to collect taxes, so politicans were not making far more than the average person is making, nm what all they can make after they leave politiics on speech tours, books and the grandest of all washington traditions going to work for lobbying firms that pay out the wazoo for people that have the inside contacts those guys have.
so no money in politics you get people there that really want to serve their countries. there were no professional politicians that we got today that all they live for is get elected to something or other. that can lie with the ease of a trial lawyer and smile like a movie star on cue.
the founders invisioned, john q public going to washington to do their time for a few years then go home, they wanted farmers and teachers and firemen and factory workers and you know normal people to run the country. now days a pretty large chunk of our major politicians are lawyers, bill clinton, hillary, obama and on and on, the majority of top politicians are not average people they are harvard or yale or something or other elitists that look down on us common people like pond scum.
then we got the great triangle scheme of pork spending or whatever pc term they want to use now days, but you sell your vote for some money for your state which goes to build something that generally ends up in a district where that politician needs votes so that creates some jobs a few photo ops for the congressman and garners them a few extra votes here and there. in the real world us common people wanted to pull something along those lines that would be known as bribes and kickbacks and we could goto jail, yet this is common practice in congress these days.
term limits we need them now and we needed them 60 years ago when all this mess really started. we need to get systems in place where you or i or your milkman could run for congrees serve out a few years then go home to live their lives again. we do not need 90 year old senators that were former kkk clan leaders that suck up enough pork projects to build a small island because he has been in congress since lincoln was president. get term limits in and get the money out and maybe we would get some sanity in our governments.
Well, it's a bit more complicated than that I believe. First of all, like you hinted at it, there's what the parties say and what you trust the parties will do. Several parties have cuddled with the idea of minimum wages, but you only trust the Left, maybe other people don't even trust them. They didn't have much of a chance to prove whether they would stick to what they say if given the chance, but they've fucked up a few times in Berlin already, if "Berliner Polizeigesetze" rings a bell. It's hard to find objective reports about the party tho, the amount of prejudice about it due to its roots is incredible.AxCx said:
That aside, you can't just say they're all voting for the "wrong" parties because they don't vote for the Left despite most of them wanting the minimum wages the Left proposes. If we ignore trust issues, maybe people agree with this part of the Left's program, but they don't agree with the rest and rather vote for a different party because they have more common interests.
Furthermore, while it's a stupid reason, but a reason that's out there, many people don't vote for small parties because they don't believe they have a chance to get into government and thus their vote will have been wasted. Which, in my opinion, is both BS and a vicious cycle, but it's why people who oppose the Union vote for their biggest rival, the SPD, although they don't agree with everything the SPD says either - it's the lesser evil for them.
Tho this sorta decision only makes me facepalm seeing as the SPD is very... quick to change their opinion based on what's best for their position. In government they eventually agreed with most of the things their coalition partner, the Union, their quarrels were just slowing down things at best, close to the re-elections they said stuff like "We will vote against the internet censorship law, yo!" but then they voted in favor of it anyway and now they're in the opposition again and don't hesitate to criticize EVERYTHING the new government coalition has to say, even old plans they agreed on like project Stuttgart21. Bunch of opportunists...
In the words of Neil Gaiman: I believe all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative.
I've found that the Australian government has some shows of competence every now and then, and that the voters need to pay attention to what each party actually stands for (thankfully this year we had less people voting for Family First because of the name)
I've found that the Australian government has some shows of competence every now and then, and that the voters need to pay attention to what each party actually stands for (thankfully this year we had less people voting for Family First because of the name)
How good I have it compared to others is completely irrelevant. When I (or anyone else) votes, it's for their own benefit. I vote for the party that will provide me with the things I appreciate most in life and who also agrees with my views on society and law.Gorumgol said:
You can also feel guilty every time you eat a cheese sandwich when you think about all the starving people in third world countries. Do you? I didn't think so.
Am I complaining about my country and the things it has provided me with? No, I am blessed to live in the Netherlands, which is in my opinion one of the best countries in the world. But that won't stop me from asking (and getting) more out of life.
