- #1
turbo
Gold Member
- 3,165
- 56
Our government is supposed to be a representative body - that is, we citizens are not given the right to participate in a true democracy, but we are allowed to elect representatives who we expect to vote on our behalf. This system has been broken for a very long time. It seems like no matter who we send to Washington, they listen to special-interest groups, lobbyists, and party hacks instead of the voters. When I send letters to my representatives (and I do) any answer that I might receive will be a general form letter, meanwhile, "my" representatives speak to special interest groups at dinners and breakfasts and get squired around on junkets. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that businesses have the right to vote or the right to congressional representation, but businesses now pretty much control the operation of our government, while the rights of individuals (from whom government's authority and legitimacy flow) are being trampled. We have a corrupt Congress, and a corrupt and very secretive Administration, and a Supreme Court that is packed with conservative justices who don't seem to understand the irony in allowing corporations to function as if they were individual citizens with super-rights instead of money-making enterprises that have no guaranteed constitutional rights.
Note: this is not a statement about party politics. Apart from the choices of who they want to give my money to, the differences between the Democrats and Republicans don't amount to a bucket of warm spit. They all play party politics, please the special-interest groups that gave them money in the past, and with the constant flow of cash, they are re-elected time and time again, despite their poor performance. The 2-party system has been painfully effective in limiting our choice of candidates to "bad" and "maybe not as bad". The attempts to reduce the influence of special interest groups have been woefully inadequate and don't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing in Congress, where the people doing the voting are the ones who benefit from all the free money.
Does anybody see a way out of this situation?
Note: this is not a statement about party politics. Apart from the choices of who they want to give my money to, the differences between the Democrats and Republicans don't amount to a bucket of warm spit. They all play party politics, please the special-interest groups that gave them money in the past, and with the constant flow of cash, they are re-elected time and time again, despite their poor performance. The 2-party system has been painfully effective in limiting our choice of candidates to "bad" and "maybe not as bad". The attempts to reduce the influence of special interest groups have been woefully inadequate and don't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing in Congress, where the people doing the voting are the ones who benefit from all the free money.
Does anybody see a way out of this situation?
Last edited: