mistress2metal wrote:All in all, politics in the US are in a bad position these days. Politics in the WORLD are f'd up. Too many people in power positions that shouldn't be. It's not a democrat/republican issue, it's the entire system and the human race in general.
Unless some honest politician who actually cares about us comes along and decides to rewrite the entire system, we have to decide based on the information we get, the procedures that are written and the candidates that are in front of us.
The whole country isn't going to rise up against the government all of a sudden, when none of us has enough information to truly know the whole story yet. Why do you think our country is 50/50 over who to vote for? Every bit of information we get is contradicted by some other bit of information. How the hell should any of us know what source is reliable and what source isn't?
So this "stupid american" garbage needs to stop here unless you have scientifically documented proof that our brains are smaller and less functional than the rest of yours.
And incidentally, there are evil people in every aspect of this life. Priests, parents, presidents... I'm not saying I'm a Bush supporter but you have no right to categorize me or anyone else because of your opinion on whether someone or a particular group is "evil". That's prejudice right there and it makes you no better than the people you claim to hate.
And btw, I have cracked some jokes about my fellow americans too so if I offended anyone, I'm sorry. I often take for granted my laid back nature and assume that if it makes me laugh, it makes everyone laugh. I tend to forget how twisted I can be, at times. There was no malicious intent and I love all you guys.
The problem with politicians these days is that no one goes into it for the right reasons. Everyone that wants to pursue altruism and honesty in their life goes into other professions. People who thrive off of cheating, lying and deceit go into politics. Perhaps that's too broad a generalization since I'm sure there are a select few that rise above that, but for the most part politics is a job. It's not a life-calling for those who seek a higher good and are motivated to correct injustice, it's more of a cushy job that pays well and gives them the power to avoid the law's watch-eyes. This is especially true when it comes to being a president. Too much bipartisanship and bickering lead to people devoting their time and effort in support the member of their party. The president should be a pillar that exemplifies the virtues and diversity of our nation. However, it seems that more and more there is a definite mold that a President has to be formed from. White, middle aged, christian, affluent, male. Not to mention the ability to be coached to say exactly the right things and whatever the surveys and the demographic charts tell them to say.
Whenever I think about politics today, I think back on what George Washington wrote in his farewell address as he left office:
George Washington wrote:In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Not just a scholar, general and president, he was perhaps also a prophet. His description of the effects of bipartisanship are chillingly accurate. It is also interesting to note that as he grew older he talked about the division between the North and the South and his growing hatred for slavery. Even though he considered himself a Southern gentleman, he mentioned that in the future the country would be divided because of slavery and that he would have sided with North because of his beliefs.
