The incestuous relationship between the financial sector and our government is ruining our country and staining our democracy. I'd like to open a discussion on a) What causes public officials to become corrupted/what causes corrupt people to run for public office, and b) What can be done to restore our democracy and make politicians more accountable to the people.
Were effed. Few people have visions for a working society. Genghis khan being one. Dead serious, he was intelligent in administrations, he even helped trades possible in Asia by making laws against pirating traders. His system broke when his sons took over.
I dont have a real answer to number 1, but number 2 is real easy. Public Executions. Politicians who are found to violate their oath of office through purgery, embezzlement, or murder, (Ted Kennedy may you rot in hell) should be hanged, decapitated, burned, and pissed on by the crowd. Maybe then our officials will take their oath seriously.
Power hungry individuals run for office, that's nature. Take away their power and there isn't much to lobby for...
1.Greed, in opinion its human nature to want more for you and/or certain people 2.That one is hard as long as there is money/wealth there will always be people screwing other people, again human nature plays a big rule in politics
A. Money/power B. Nothing short of a full scale political "cleansing" will help this country and thats the damned truth. We've gone way to far, Extremism and an outright blatant disregard for anything but monetary and political gains has ruined this country.
We need open, fair, transparent voting. All voting should take place on the internet using an open source secure voting program. All users of the internet will vote on relevant issues. Anyone over 18 can vote. I will not get into discussion into how such a program would be implemented except to say that it IS possible but only if it is open source and not under the control of any group. It must be created by the people of the internet. We created bitcoin and it is secure enough to handle our money to create the first online currency. We can use similar methodologies to create an open secure voting system. Under this system, everyone has equal power. No one can manipulate the votes. No one can game the system. All votes are accounted for. All votes count. At the end of an election, a recount can be issued if desired and all votes can be traced back to the users who cast it. This system eliminates the need for representatives. This system is true democracy. The only thing that can ever disrupt such a system is direct mind control on the populace through media. But once you take away the corrupt representatives, the corrupt media will soon fall. We can take back our country. We can take back our freedom. We can show the world how to get it done. Please, if anything is to change we need to spread the idea of a transparent voting system in which all voters count. No delegates, no representatives, no bullshit! All we need to do is get our population's programmers to start thinking about how we could implement such a program. So, spread the word. Get this idea out there so we can spend our time working on the solution instead of looking for one.
When you put a large sum of money, trust, force, and distance between you and someone and allow that someone control, there will inevitably be corruption. I do not believe it is possible to get money out of politics. When you allow for violence (or threat of violence for resistance) against non-violent people, it will inevitably be against things you are for or for things you are against, because there will be a multitude of ideas that the politicians will have to please. The only way to fix government would be for a majority of individual people to pay attention to their politicians, but it would be much more efficient for individuals to manage their own money; band together if they wish but not enact violent force.
stop career politicians, stop passing/get rid of laws against stupid shit that isnt anybodys business but your own, and stop making rich people our fucking leaders
haha yeah or they'll make sure they have so much power over the people that they can fuck around all they want without any consequences..
It's the fault of the people. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." We have failed as a people. There is no one else to blame. Also democracy is a horrible system for those of you who want every vote to count. That will change nothing. People will still elect horrible people into power like they do now.
I agree, mob rule sucks, especially for the minority's. I am not to fond of Democracy but my buddy did point out that if we had a true democracy George W Bush would never have been elected. So I guess Democracy does have some good to it.
Secure internet voting. Vote on the issues, if the government denies the voting system we overthrow the government. Problem solved.
Oh man, George carlin would also have great ways to keep corrupt cretins out of politics with public executions
Depends on whether you think Gore would have been any better than Bush. I doubt that would have been the case. Democracy sucks. Any benefits it may have are outweighed by its negatives. Even Marx knew what democracy leads to. "Democracy is the road to socialism." - Marx While I generally disagree with Marx, he is correct in that statement. Mob rule results in the majority taking from the minority. It's inevitable. That's why it's a bad system. It doesn't protect the rights of all. The majority have rights in a democracy, the minority are slaves.
I reject the idea that society is heading down an unalterable path. If individuals have the capacity to change their minds, then we can also do so collectively. Give yourself a little more credit. I don't understand this stubborn pessimism that my fellow citizens seem to have. Is life really so hard that we've lost hope for a better future? No doubt, we face incredible challenges. But we're humans. We adapt. That's inherent in our nature as well. So too is compassion. I've seen people do some amazing things for each other that had nothing to do with material gain or amassing more power. So don't tell me that we just have to lie down and accept all the shittiness on this planet. I'm not saying that we're going to create paradise. But we can make this world better. If we separate the political world from the financial world, then the politicians will be more reliant on the people to stay in office. If we limit the amount of campaign contributions people can give, then politicians will have no need to solicit millions of dollars from plutocrats. We can't change human nature, but we can change the rules. Let's change them to prevent corruption and encourage the betterment of society.