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10-15-2014, 11:41 PM

To be fair to the legislators. They have to gain the support of corporations in their district because they donate big money. Also they have to support corporations in their district because many of their constituency works for those big corporations in their district. To me is only seems fair that those are the only corporate donations they can take when running. If there is not a pharmaceutical or insurance corporation headquarters in their district, then they can't take money from them.

On the issue of pay raises. Yes they can raise their pay, but it only takes effect after the next term. This is to ensure that they just don't raise their pay again and again. They have to make sure they get re-elected to get that raise. It was a recent amendment that did this. It was actually put forth by Madison in the Bill of Rights but not enough people liked it so it was dropped.

10-16-2014, 01:59 AM

It's not just money from reps districts. They get money from all over the US from PACS and Corps getting in for whatever the rep will promise them when he votes in Congress. What do you think all the fundraisers the prez flies all over doing are about? He's not running again but he was in Hollywood with Gwen Paltrow last week. Hillary isn't running yet and she's going out there next week for one to pay for the NEXT bunch of Senate races in 2016. That's just 2 I know from watching TV in the hospital today.

10-16-2014, 02:13 AM

Easiest way to change government: Get Elected. Or at least get out there and be an activist FOR, rather than against a political party.

When you become part of government, then government has changed (or at least your perception of government has).

What pisses me off the most about politics is that every elected member does NOT realize that they are part of THE government.. Whether they are in the 'governing' or 'opposing' side they are all part of THE government.

My greatest wish for change in government is for ALL elected officials, regardless of political affiliation, to work together FOR a better country, rather than work against each other.

Its fucking pathetic when all they do is point fingers at what the others did wrong, rather than reach across the floor and hold hands to create a solution. Bastards.

This may sound yank-centric, but as a Canadian I type in Americanese for my southern neighbors. The comments above apply equally to almost every government on the planet.

10-16-2014, 02:17 AM

MikeW Wrote:I've been suggesting we bring back this:

for years.

Mike, two problems with your suggestion:
1. Its too slow. You can only do 1 at a time and you have to catch the rats first.
2. Eventually one of them would be smart enough to finally figure out not to put their head inside of it. You could probably get 200 or 300 before you found a smart but, but still.....

And you are right, nothing will change for THEY are in power. That is why I suggest, one must become part of the THEY. Its sort of like the Borg, but you are doing it willingly (kinda like straight guys watching gay porn).

10-16-2014, 02:37 AM

I'm already appointed to our town's Zoning and Planning Board after I nearly caused a riot about some shit they were trying to pull over on everyone. I think about running for town council and have people telling me I should. They were going to GIVE 11 acres to a guy to build a Ace Hardware Store. I found out he's brother in law to a guy who owns grocery stores that just happen to be right next to Ace Hardware Stores. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see where that extra land was going and another grocery store would compete with the one thats been in business here since this place became a town. When I told people in town over 300 showed up for the Zoning meeting. The Ace Hardware guy left the meeting once we demanded he move into the nice big empty store in our shopping center with our own grocery store.

IF I do ever try to get elected I won't be in it to make friends. I have enough friends and they'd be the ones voting for me. I wouldn't be in it to make deals or scratch backs to get mine scratched. The only people I'd be obligated to is the people who live in the town and I wouldn't favor one over the other.

10-16-2014, 10:01 AM

StingRay Wrote:The only thing that's been said here that I think would really backfire real bad is the free political campaigns. All that would do is open the doors up for every type of whacko like the ones who showed up for the Idaho Governors Debate a few months ago except there would be more of them.

I'm going to vote for what some guys on armed forces and veterans forums are saying.
Politicians and anyone who is a public leader or employee should be held to a higher standard of honesty than gas station cashiers who can be fired just for lying about what time they came to work or left. Keep the law real simple. Any one of the them who gets caught doing anything that even looks shifty is out of a job. Any of them caught telling the public anything but the truth, underhanded deals or funny money deals gets hauled off shot in the head and their body dumped at sea to feed sharks.

It wouldnt take but 2 or 3 of them converted to shark food to scare some honesty into the rest of them.

Simply having a law saying this should happen wouldn't be enough. It would have to be followed up with a lot of public support / demand for enforcement.

The reason Japan can hardly keep a prime minister for a full year is because of the overwhelming cultural expectation in Japan that someone who has made a serious mistake or is involved in a scandal while in leadership should take responsibility and resign, immediately. It's the attitude of the public and the culture that demands this... if a law simply required it, there's plenty of money and corruption in any first world democracy to get around those. Not to mention teams of lawyers and spin doctors.

A lot of the problem with America is that people want to come up with a big idea, slap it on a bumper sticker and then expect it to happen. This is why they do things like turn up to vote for Presidents and then sit home on Congressional votes or local ballot initiatives which are actually extremely important. Then it's "well, what the hell? I voted for so and so, why isn't stuff getting done?" When people don't make their politicians pretty desperately afraid that they're being watched and will lose their seat, they will default to doing what is friendliest to the people who financed their campaigns and will finance their re-election campaigns. And when the actual people putting them into office don't hold them to anything higher than that, we can't even blame the politicians imo.

10-16-2014, 11:47 AM

Virge Wrote:snip....

IF I do ever try to get elected I won't be in it to make friends. I have enough friends and they'd be the ones voting for me. I wouldn't be in it to make deals or scratch backs to get mine scratched. The only people I'd be obligated to is the people who live in the town and I wouldn't favor one over the other.

This should be a pledge that every politician takes with both hands on their heart (so that we can see they aren't crossing their fingers)