Topic: U.S. Goverment

[JS550]

It's not un-American to ask that.  What I find un-American is to exaggerate way beyond common sense and say things that are not true.  The list posted at the beginning of this thread is a good example.

And our government, top to bottom is another good example.

[JS550]

And I like cake.

[Frankenkit]

[HavocTurbo]

As much as it pains me to say this..... I agree with Ed mostly.

The police are NEVER around when your home gets broken into!  They take the report and you submit it to your insurance company.  They almost NEVER catch the perpetrator, either.  In fact, the police are NEVER around when rapes, murders, muggings, burglaries, car thefts, and on, and on, and on, are committed.  For just one example, more than 98% of (reported) rapes are never solved, and the other 2% were committed by somebody the victim knew.  Probably even fewer car thefts, etc.

The police here are more interested in giving tickets to motorists for minor infractions (1 over and the like) than actually doing something about crime. And while I am not at all saddened by the recent shooting that brought Jesse Jackson here.... Not enough is being done in this area.

Roads are infrequently repaired, and when they are it is typically by corrupt government contractors who overcharge because they have signed contracts with the recipients of their campaign contributions, and many of those are paid for by TOLLS, which were NOT even on myhondas' list!!!

The roads here are a joke. I'd gladly pay more in taxes to hire more workers to fix them. Rockford declared a pothole emergency last year.... the roads are 10X worse this year. Our moronic mayor said he's happy with their condition and then LOANED $8 million to our loacl entertainment venue. A loan? My ass.

Fire department?  When's the last time your house caught on fire?  Did the fire department get there in time to save it or to save any of the occupants?  Most towns have all-volunteer fire departments anyway.  Thanks, but I'd rather keep the tax money and buy a fire extinguisher.  Oh, I actually already own several fire extinguishers.  EMS/ambulance?  That's gets charged back to the patient or their health insurance.

I have no problems with our FD. They are exceptional and are worth every penny in my opinion. Here's where you and I differ Ed.

Schools?  You kiddin' me?  My kids go to school and complain constantly that they are bored.  "Gifted and Talented" throws even more advanced stuff at them, and they are STILL bored.  All they learn in school is how their moron friends spend 12 hours a day playing on the Wii, so "why don't you let me, Daddy?"  Or "Suzy's got a boyfriend, and they got caught kissing in the girls' room, Daddy".  Or, "everybody else's parents let them watch R-rated movies, so why are you so un-cool, Daddy?"  Yeah, they need to be "socialized", so you've got to send them to school, otherwise they might grow up to sit on their porch in Ruby Ridge with a shot-gun and shoot the damned revenuers.

Rockford has probably the worst school system in the state. I didn't look it up I do NOT care. They complain about lack of funding yet find the million a year for the superintendent's salary.



I for one would like a copy of the national/state/county/city budgets. I think as tax payers we are entitled to one. Every person on a board of directors gets one.... why shouldn't we? Maybe then we could make some changes that do this country good. All in a vote of course.

But this is all wishful thinking. Elect me for president and there's be some serious firing's going on. I'd use industry leaders as heads of state to run this country like a business. Civil servitude should be a mandatory requirement for two years. You'd get to choose. Whether it's military, infrastructure, or whatever... people should take an interest in the running of their country and be willing to serve to help it prosper.

Let the facism, monarchy, communism remarks flow. I'm not ashamed.

[Frankenkit]

the way you say it, HT, I'd back that 100%.

I'm pissed about schools "back home"... We used text books 10+ years old.  I'm not kidding, you signed your name in the front of the book, and there'd always be at least 8 or 9+ signatures in ahead of yours.  My mom worked in the kindergarten class and occasionally I'd find the names of kindergarteners' parents in the front of my text books... it was sad. 

They complain about funding and as students we'd work our rears off fundraising to buy every little thing.  We had to rally parents together to even get any kind of classes for advanced students, but as Ed said, it's just 'more' and 'more difficult'.  As a kid who's eager to learn, one still wants some kind of sense of direction and meaning in the extra work, instead of the sense that the district was punishing you for sticking out.  Eventually we all 'gave up' and went back into the regular classes, aside from the eventual "Advanced Placement" high school classes (more homework that was graded more harshly, for the "promise" of some kind of college credit at the end, whether or not it really counted)

We were always told that art classes were going to be cut because they needed to spare the funding for athletics, even though we had to buy all of our own supplies ourselves.    Boys' uniforms were bought every year for the team... the Softball team's uniforms were 5 years old and getting worn out, but no one watches Girls' sports anyway.

It was a terrible double standard compounded by the fact that the superintendent makes a massive salary AND every bastard on the school board either homeschooled their kids or sent them to the parochial school in another town.

[gregimotis]

Should have known Ed would pop in on this one. 

It's an open political thread on which others are posting... Why is Ed singled out?

[TwoTired]

I'd use industry leaders as heads of state to run this country like a business.

It's already run like a business.

The business is to extract the maximum possible from the populace toward whatever purpose the oligarchy deems appropriate.
Having any given segment of the populace willing to pay more for what they (the populace) want, plays right into their hands.  That's a tax increase.  You are not asking them to spend what they have wisely, you are giving them more and accepting their incompetence at channeling money away from populace needs.

Oh, they'll see that some of that tax money will go to populace "benefit".  But, most will be used to grow government (another agency with no accountability).  The ROI doesn't need to be 100%.  The deficit can be made up with future tax increases (much of which will go to pay off loan interest).

"The people" of any government has always been their greatest asset.  Any successful businessman will tell you that you must maximize gains on your primary assets.

[TwoTired]

Should have known Ed would pop in on this one. 

It's an open political thread on which others are posting... Why is Ed singled out?

My guess would be that 333 disagrees with Ed's views.  So, any denigration, implied or actual, is a "reasonable" argument.  It is not the first time this "marginalization" argument has been used.

But, might I say " I should have known 333 would respond this way?"

[edbikerii]

Thanks for pointing that out, Greg.  I'm used to it, though.    I've said it in another thread, "if I don't have any enemies, I'm doing something wrong".

Besides, comments like that reflect more on the person making them than they do on me.

Should have known Ed would pop in on this one. 

It's an open political thread on which others are posting... Why is Ed singled out?

[Frankenkit]

here... let me play this for you.

[MickeyX]

Should have known Ed would pop in on this one. 

It's an open political thread on which others are posting... Why is Ed singled out?

Well, if I had to guess, if you look back through Eds recent posts,(which I just did because I was curious) you will find that he only averages around 25% that aren't in a political thread. I think that was all he was saying. But I could be wrong on 333's meaning. But, there you have it anyway. whether or not you agree with Ed, and I do find that sometimes I do actually agree with some of his thoughts, he does tend to talk politics on here more than anything. I makes for some interesting conversation, anyway.  

[TwoTired]

here... let me play this for you.

Just what we need, more squeaking from Kit.





   It's a joke.... really.   

[edbikerii]

Haha Kit!

Sorry if I sounded like I was whining.  I sure didn't mean to.  I actually LIKE it that my viewpoints really piss of people like 333.  I disagree with most of what he says, and the fact that he would like the government to impose these things on me.  That is eroding my freedom, and I will certainly exercise my right to be vocal about it.

I've gone back and read his comment, and in fairness, he makes valid points.  His two experiences were good, but they were very contrary to all of my experiences.

I've had two apartment burglaries in NYC and the police were utterly incompetent despite their extreme level of expensive police academy training.  All the police seem to be good for is giving out tickets for stupid traffic infractions.

I've been "on a bus" to the hospital after an accident, and my private health insurance was billed by NYFD-EMS.  Not only that, but because my bike had been involved in an accident, the police TOWED my bike to a contracted impound yard, several miles away in Queens, where I had to pay for the towing and the STORAGE even though I had parked my bike LEGALLY after the accident and there were no outstanding tickets.  I had to chase down the ass-clown that caused the accident in order to get re-imbursed.  Total police incompetence.

Basically, what I'm saying is that government provides inadequate service for the money that we pay, if they actually provide any service at all.  Lately all they do is take money from the productive members of society and promise to give it to the less productive in exchange for their votes.  Turns out that the "less productive" class is growing as a natural consequence of these government entitlement programs.

here... let me play this for you.

[MickeyX]

Sorry to hear that you got screwed over like that Ed but to be fair about all of this, those were people who did that to you. They had the option of being dicks or not. They chose to be dicks. I didn't see one politician mentioned in your experience you just related.

Do I think our politicians are asses? You bet I do and I have no problem telling them so to their faces. I've do so in the past. I feel better not being a part of any political group per se, like Democrat or Republican. Voting for a "party" is throwing your vote away, IMO. You vote in a "political machine" instead of a person when you do that. Crying about the corrupt politicians is a mute point when, by voting all one party, you are essentially enabling them to be that way. I vote both parties and independents. If I don't like what they've done with my vote of confidence, I don't vote for them again. Where I'm from, people pull one big lever that drops all of the levers for that party. What bull#$%*.

[edbikerii]

Sorry Mickey, I don't mean to bicker on minor points, but the people were just doing their jobs the way they were trained.  They didn't choose to screw me over, they were just following the idiotic policies and poor training like all bureaucrats do.

I agree, if you just vote blindly for a particular party without considering the relative strengths of the candidates, then the whole thing is moot.  Both sets of candidates will eventually be equally incompetent.

Sorry to hear that you got screwed over like that Ed but to be fair about all of this, those were people who did that to you. They had the option of being dicks or not. They chose to be dicks. I didn't see one politician mentioned in your experience you just related.

Do I think our politicians are asses? You bet I do and I have no problem telling them so to their faces. I've do so in the past. I feel better not being a part of any political group per se, like Democrat or Republican. Voting for a "party" is throwing your vote away, IMO. You vote in a "political machine" instead of a person when you do that. Crying about the corrupt politicians is a mute point when, by voting all one party, you are essentially enabling them to be that way. I vote both parties and independents. If I don't like what they've done with my vote of confidence, I don't vote for them again. Where I'm from, people pull one big lever that drops all of the levers for that party. What bull#$%*.

[edbikerii]

Excellent way to put the situation into words, TT.  Thanks.

I sure hope that I am not guilty of "marginalization" as a rhetorical tactic.  It really doesn't have any place in logical discussion.

Should have known Ed would pop in on this one. 

It's an open political thread on which others are posting... Why is Ed singled out?

My guess would be that 333 disagrees with Ed's views.  So, any denigration, implied or actual, is a "reasonable" argument.  It is not the first time this "marginalization" argument has been used.

But, might I say " I should have known 333 would respond this way?"

[Retro Rocket]

Its good to see that no matter which side of politics you choose to lean towards,  that the majority of us see politicians as incompetent and completely out of touch with reality. I think these days there is a trend towards "career politicians" that don't really care if they make a valuable contribution to anything because of the wages and benefits they will receive for life, this needs to be changed or nothing will ever get any better. We are all treated like idiots, i am definitely no doomsayer but i will predict revolution in the near future as we get more and more restricted and more power and choice removed from our daily lives...

Mick

[Rocking-M]

I agree with Ed's assessment of
(1) Police do not protect, that is up to us to do for ourselves.
(2)Road repair is a joke. The State DOT should be a skeleton crew at best and contractor's should be
watch like dogs but do the work.
(3) FD, well here they never make it till it's to late, that's the price in the country, and yes we're all
volunteer so that parts okay.
(4) School's. We home schooled our sons. And they still got hung up on the worldly crap. As to Schools and their
sports budgets fund by taxes. I played sports back in my public school days but given the mega
bucks spent on the playing of games in schools today I think it's high time that funding was denied. Let that
be on a "volunteer" basis also. Booster clubs and what not raising the money if the kids must have sports.

"Yeah, they need to be "socialized", so you've got to send them to school, otherwise they might grow up to sit on their porch in Ruby Ridge with a shot-gun and shoot the damned revenuers."

Isn't that really called "indoctrination" cause I think some of the damn revenuers at Ruby Ridge definitely needed shooting.
(BTW. I have a lawyer friend who worked on the defense there and Waco.)



"Although the central ("federal") government’s oppression is increasingly pervasive and poisonous, most of us still deal more often with local or state authorities. Most of us also have a favorable opinion of a great school teacher, a fireman who brought down a child’s cat from a tree, or a cop who helped change a flat tire on a car. And most of us have local government workers as our neighbors and friends. Government is so big now, it’s hard not to.

But in just the past three decades, government has far outstripped any rational limit on its size. As Greenhut reports, as recently as the 1970s (and I can confirm this from memory), government workers usually were paid a salary slightly less than private-sector counterparts. But they got great benefits, a decent pension, and sterling job security. " John Seiler

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/seiler8.1.1.html

a good read that points out some serious flaws in local/state government. Perhaps that is where we're going to have to institute the change. Just today I was thinking that here in our county it would not be hard to establish a viable third party. Libertarian of course.   I know it would be easy because about 10 years ago there was a state wide issue I became involved in. I'd never been an activist but went out and got all kind of signatures granting me proxy vote in the local republican mass meeting. I went in with enough votes to
cause the nomination votes from our county to be split. I am sure since that time the Republican party has disallowed proxy votes.
The thing that is perhaps unique here is that I did not have to be a registered republican. Just a citizen of the county and then I could take part in the republican mass meeting.

What I'm getting at is that here it would probably be easy to start a viable third party that could in fact make real changes
in the local government. It may not be liked by those who swell the local government ranks due to the lay offs and what not
that I envision should follow. It's going to have to be one of those "Grass Roots" movements before the bunch in Washington can
be tossed out. They have a strangle hold on the power right now. And the only good man I've heard of there is Ron Paul. Grass roots
from the county to State, then a re-establishment of States Rights and on to cleaning up the federal mess.

[syth82]

 

I really should just stay out of the political threads, but.........

A BIG part of the reason we have all these little crap taxes on everything now that we didn't 100 years ago: in the past the wealthy have paid up to 94% income tax, now, thanks to Reagan and others, they pay 35% (373k and up). The money has to come from somewhere, before the people who could afford it payed. Now I do. And I'd rather pay taxes and have roads, schools, police, medicaid, etc, etc.

And really, shouldn't Bill Gates pay a higher tax rate than somebody who makes $400,000 a year?

[edbikerii]

Check your facts, syth82.  We didn't even have an income tax at all until 1861, in order to pay for the Civil War (uh oh -- let's not go there again).  Even then the tax was only 3%.  The insanely high taxes that we pay today (which are "progressive" meaning that higher earning wage earners pay higher tax rates) were absolutely unheard of until the 1916 Revenue Act, which raised the TOP tax rate to 15% for people who earned over $1.5 Million per year.

Still, that is less than half of the top tax rates we have now, and the top tax rates kick in at less than $100,000 for individuals now.

Government has grown out of control as a result.

I really should just stay out of the political threads, but.........

A BIG part of the reason we have all these little crap taxes on everything now that we didn't 100 years ago: in the past the wealthy have paid up to 94% income tax, now, thanks to Reagan and others, they pay 35% (373k and up). The money has to come from somewhere, before the people who could afford it payed. Now I do. And I'd rather pay taxes and have roads, schools, police, medicaid, etc, etc.

And really, shouldn't Bill Gates pay a higher tax rate than somebody who makes $400,000 a year?

[mlinder]

So... who's with me on the cake issue?

[syth82]

See, tricky thing is: I DID!!!!


http://www.moneychimp.com/features/tax_brackets.htm


http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

Please note we didn't have many of the services we do now before taxes started going up, bring up my last point, I'D RATHER PAY TAXES!

[syth82]

 

[edbikerii]

http://www.ustreas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/ustax.shtml

And again, WHAT SERVICES?

[syth82]

Well, okay. I'd rather not pay for war or bailing out trillion dollar industries. I'd sure love it if i could pay for some heath care instead. And I suppose that was a big part of the OP, we pay more than we get.