While I admire your idealism, politics has never been like your example. In America, for example, we have the myth that the founding fathers all agreed with each other and got along smashingly and that the colonies just hung on their every word. In reality, most of the founding fathers despised one another and getting the basics of the Constitution penned down was like herding cats.Withall said:Disclaimer:
I know NOTHING of the bureaucracy behind nation-wide politics, so I might be talking crazy-talk here, but let me say the below.
End Disclaimer.
I have an issue with the four last words in the final sentence.
Politics is about finding out what the majority thinks about , not to make sure everyone is happy. I might be naive here, and I might open up a can of worms with my statement, but politics used to be:
"OK. THESE people wants THIS to happen. THESE people do NOT want THIS to happen. The people who want it to happen outnumber the people who do not want it. Thus, this will happen (this=)."
These days though, I get the impression that politics has become "We would like to do this, but we wanna be sure people are OK with this. We're cool, ja? Don't wanna offend anyone".
Any one else who might think the same way I do? Also, I don't support either styles of government. I'm a capitalist, with VERY strong socialist coloring. And, to make it obvious... I'm swedish. I think I have *some* idea how a country that can focus on taking care of the people that are genuinely welcome here.
If anyone disagrees, please, point it out.
Politics is never and has never been about pleasing the majority; rather, it is about pleasing your constituents. Since the dawn of time it has been like this for one main reason: the masses are generally stupid and don't know what they want.
On topic though, Obama may have socialist leanings. Hell, he may be a full blown Marxist. It doesn't matter though because compared to the Bush administration, he is about as authoritative as a house plant. The fact is that free range capitalism, much like the mythological "true" communism, is not a viable philosophy that will last forever. By definition, a capitalistic society needs unimpeded exponential growth, something that Reagan was determined to bring a halt to. Even his VP and successor, George HW Bush, called him a crackpot and considered Reaganomics to be "voodoo economics". But I digress...
As for the notion that Obama is bullying and effectively leading corporations to bankruptcy with taxes and regulation, consider the following: In 2009 GE brought in $10.3B in pretax profit and paid no taxes. Exxon brough in $45.2B in pretax profit and not a cent went to the IRS. Now let me ask you this: How much did YOU pay in federal and state income taxes last year? Odds are that it was more than Exxon and GE combined.