pOTUS

[Rich Z]

I agree with what Rich and others have said about it being expensive, and we have lots of people who need our help at home. That is why I was TOTALLY against Bush spending billions of dollars (not to mention lives) going to Iraq. I expected it to end up exactly the way it is now. Saddam was a horrible person, but from what I read, the average Iraqi was better off then, compared to now.

I think our priorities are wrong. We apparently CAN afford to spend billions to meddle in Iraq and other countries, but we can't spend far less to care for our vets, homeless, and refugees from the areas we love to meddle in. And Hillary and most of the GOP candidates would love us to go spend more money and lives in Iran or other middle eastern countries. It seems like our main accomplishment there has been to destabilize the region, and to make a few people rich from their investments in private contracting companies.

Why is the conversation always about helping refugees vs helping our own poor, instead of doing all of that vs the next military misadventure that is sure to come, and we will somehow find PLENTY of money to spend on it? Why is there always plenty of money for building private prisons, often to put away non violent drug abusers, and money for military invasions, but not enough to rebuild infrastructure here, and to help the people who need it? If there was a way for the few top investors in military and prisons to make lots of money by helping the poor and the refugees, then my guess is that we WOULD prioritize those things instead of what we are doing now with the billions that we can't afford.

I guess you have to wonder just WHAT are the priorities for this country in the eyes of the people in Washington D.C. It sure doesn't seem to be the welfare of "we the people", now does it? So who pulls the strings to make those people jump? Why exactly ARE we meddling in all those other countries in the first place? Is there anywhere in the US Constitution where this sort of authority has been granted to our federal government?

Problem is, just who in the world is going to bring the members of our government up on charges of gross malfeasance? Is it an actual crime for our "representatives" to engage in unconstitutional affairs? Where are the teeth needed to bite the people who knowingly and blatantly violate the boundaries set by the US Constitution? Well, if you have laws against speeding that are not enforced, will people have any real reason NOT to drive over the speed limit? If there is no way to enforce the restrictions of the Constitution over our federal government, is there any wonder that it is ignored? Personally, I don't see any realistic way to turn this around.

It's a pretty harsh and uncomfortable bed we have made for ourselves.... And highly unlikely to get better in the future.

 

[kathylove]

Supposedly, "we, the people" would vote those suckers out! But the system is now rigged to favor incumbents, who can be lifetime politicians (except for the Prez - he is the only one we know we will be rid of after 2 terms), all the while using their time and influence to form unholy alliances with those they are supposed to regulate. And by accepting the big bucks from the big sponsors, all of the big power and big money lines up with their interests opposed to our interests. And the rich and powerful are certainly not above using religion to sway people to their interests, if that will work for them. The longer these alliances are allowed to fester, the more complete the corruption will become.

If you have enough power and money, it is not that difficult to convince the masses to vote the way you want them to. Most of the voters are too busy with keeping their heads above water, raising their families, and generally living their lives to notice the shenanigans going on behind closed doors. Corrupt politicians can get their own districts / states to keep returning them to power by throwing them a few crumbs of a special project, often wasting taxpayer money on something that may not be good for the country as a whole, but makes local voters happy enough to keep voting the same way, over and over.

I used to be a "right leaning" Libertarian. Now I have become more left leaning, only because I see the right becoming more and more of what I don't like. When taxpayer resources are used to run amok in the Middle East (follow the money to see who becomes richer after those incursions), or to build private prisons that enrich a few on the backs of a failed Drug War, they call it a free market. When "farm subsidy" bills are enacted and enrich a few of the biggest food producers who then pollute our food with cheap, subsidized corn syrup and other unhealthy ingredients, they call it a free market. But when taxpayer resources go to help the poor, or kids in poverty, or vets returning from those failed Middle East misadventures, they call it socialism. And they call it religious freedom to be allowed to discriminate against whomever their religion says they should shun. They try to turn the middle class against the poor "moochers" in order to deflect attention from all of the taxpayer funds going towards the goals of the biggest corporate political sponsors, and the investors in the status quo who support those politicians.

And the Dems are not above this, either. Hillary has just as many corporate sponsors as the GOP candidates, and has already said she is ready to invade Iran, too. The only real difference is that the left doesn't demonize the poor to enrich the already rich - and they usually don't want to enshrine religious law for all of us to live by, whether we are of the dominant religion or not. But she will still have to answer to her corporate sponsors if she wins, too. Not much of an improvement.

Those who are significantly younger than I am should realize that this is NOT the same GOP that I was a registered voter with several decades ago. It has changed - and in response, so have I.

I see things continuing along the lines they are now. The last few decades have seen a huge increase in the divide between the richest and the poorest here. Even worse is our sliding down the scales in the developed countries in all of the categories that matter - education, infant mortality, health, "happiness / satisfaction polls", income equality / inequality - all kinds of things we USED to be #1, or near the top. Now we often rank closer to 3rd world countries. But we ARE #1 in percentage of population incarcerated - even worse than most or all 3rd world dictatorships. This is not the country I grew up in. Those who feel that European type "socialism" is so bad should Google US rankings vs the rest of the developed countries for yourself and see what the past several decades has wrought for us vs the rest of the world.

 

[kathylove]

...Problem is, just who in the world is going to bring the members of our government up on charges of gross malfeasance? Is it an actual crime for our "representatives" to engage in unconstitutional affairs? Where are the teeth needed to bite the people who knowingly and blatantly violate the boundaries set by the US Constitution? Well, if you have laws against speeding that are not enforced, will people have any real reason NOT to drive over the speed limit? If there is no way to enforce the restrictions of the Constitution over our federal government, is there any wonder that it is ignored? Personally, I don't see any realistic way to turn this around..."

Without term limits and TRUE campaign limits and reforms, I don't see any possible way to do anything to stop the corruption. And doing those things would go against the interests of all of the politicians and their sponsors. It is like asking the fox to make regulations regarding the henhouse. Who do you think will win?

 

[Rich Z]

...Problem is, just who in the world is going to bring the members of our government up on charges of gross malfeasance? Is it an actual crime for our "representatives" to engage in unconstitutional affairs? Where are the teeth needed to bite the people who knowingly and blatantly violate the boundaries set by the US Constitution? Well, if you have laws against speeding that are not enforced, will people have any real reason NOT to drive over the speed limit? If there is no way to enforce the restrictions of the Constitution over our federal government, is there any wonder that it is ignored? Personally, I don't see any realistic way to turn this around..."

Without term limits and TRUE campaign limits and reforms, I don't see any possible way to do anything to stop the corruption. And doing those things would go against the interests of all of the politicians and their sponsors. It is like asking the fox to make regulations regarding the henhouse. Who do you think will win?

Yeah. Unfortunately the limits to government HAVE to come from this very same government. Why in the world would they want to vote in their own term limits? Yeah, they may create a bill here and there and make a big showing of a vote that narrowly fails, but we all know we are just watching a play put on for our entertainment.

Of course, there is talk of a constitutional convention being called, but that really should scare the hell out of everyone. Who do you think is going to be calling the shots to change the Constitution? Me and you? Not on your life. The goal for changes will quite likely be just to officially legitimize everything they are already getting away with unconstitutionally. And then some.

The scary thing to contemplate, however, is that even though we know things are bad here in this country, people are STILL sneaking across the borders in order to come here. So what does that tell you about much of the rest of the world.

It just appears that most members of the human race just cannot handle power over others except for their own benefit and increased enrichment. Too bad the media is now pretty much completely tamed and controlled by the powers that be, otherwise an accounting of how the personal fortunes of people who have spent time in public office have changed might be pretty illuminating. How much has Bill and Hillary Clinton become worth since Bill's presidency? And how did that come to be?

 

[kathylove]

You posed great questions. I only wish I had answers. If we had a truly free and responsive press, they would be following the money from each political activity, such as wars (or war - like "military adventures"), the failed Drug War, building of private prisons, each major Act that is passed by Congress, the lack of Congress passing a reasonable and logical immigration reform (take a look at Canada's immigration point system - actually logical!) - and they would report on who actually benefits financially - and who loses. Only then could voters be truly informed when they vote. But that doesn't happen - and I doubt it will. And nobody seems to notice or care.

As it is, we (Congress) passes bills that will hold companies like Monsanto harmless if it ever comes to pass that GMOs actually DO cause some harm. Yet if you are a small family dairy with customers who want to buy raw milk - watch out - a government raid is in your future! And there are countless other examples (which we know all too well in the well funded Animal Rights vs animal keepers and breeders wars) of government protecting giant biz (if it is big enough to fund election campaigns and / or buy enough lobbyists to prevail) but complicating the lives of potential competition by small or start up businesses.

Out of all of the major candidates, as far as I know, only Trump and Sanders are not PRIMARILY funded by big biz sponsors. Trump says he is self funded, but over half comes from others, mostly small and med "investors", but indirectly from at least one PAC. However, his pedigree is from the "rich and famous", so I am not sure that he will remember to represent the "little guys," either. I personally find him to be rather mean spirited and abrasive, but at least he doesn't seem to be a religious extremist like most of the GOP candidates.

Sanders is funded 100% by small donors, and has turned down big money, as far as I have read. But he wants to turn us into those "nasty socialists" like much of western Europe - the places that have overtaken us in rankings of all of the good stuff, like health and education. We wouldn't want that, lol! But since he is not beholden to big money, the powers that be will be sure he is not a choice, anyway.

Hillary and all of the other GOP candidates will all have corporate masters. So whomever we are allowed to vote for probably won't be much of a choice - as usual. Yet, most of the shrinking middle class and growing poor class will scramble against each other for the leavings of the elite class, as their part of the pie grows and ours shrinks. They tell us that it is the poor who are grabbing too much, so that is where our ire points, rather than towards those who make and enforce the lopsided rules. Strange, but true!

If I wasn't so close to retirement age - or if I had kids - I would be even more scared for the future than I am now.

 

[Rich Z]

The problem is that anyone who is required to have any sort of permit or license issued by the government is basically OWNED by that entity. Pretty much if you want to stay in business, you HAVE to do what they say, or else. All they need to do is come up with some sort of trumped up reason for denying the permit or license, and you are done. Sure, you can file appeals, file lawsuits, file petitions, etc., etc., but your source of income is dead, your head is under water, and how long can you hold your breath?

Which leads me to another question: Just how "free" is the free press with the above in mind?

Heck government is owned, lock stock and barrel, by industry. Anyone paying any attention at all to the BP oil "spill" in the Gulf of Mexico should have seen this as glaringly obvious. How long will it take for the actual damages done there to surface and come to light? Well gee, the government passed a law setting a statute of limitations for oil spills of a mere three years. Fancy that..... And you just know that our legislators created that bill all on their own and no one's fortunes changed at all after it became law, don't you? No, me neither....

I'm probably not going to pay much attention to the candidates for POTUS until the powers that be weed out all of the potentially good candidates. What's the point? When was the last time we really had anyone worth the air they breath get into a position where they might actually become President? I'm just not going to vote for the "lesser evil" any longer. I either see someone worth voting FOR, or I decline the wonderful feeling of feeling dirty after I vote. I voted for Ron Paul last time as a write-in. Then come to find out that all write-ins have to be "approved" before votes will count for them. So much for us thinking that we really had the RIGHT to vote for whoever we want to on the ballot.

Yeah, I probably jumped the gun on retirement a little earlier than I should have, but the income from my websites is helping to pick up the slack. I will likely be going on social security next year when I turn 67. But honestly, one of the primary incentives for rushing into retirement was that I was just damned tired of Connie and I working our buns off to pay taxes. I have NEVER had anyone in the government come by here to lend a helping hand, so why the heck did I want to work so hard to help pay their salaries and give them pocket change to waste? Screw that. I just decided to work a LOT less with the websites, but make a lot less, and be happy with that. I never had any illusions about getting wealthy from anything I felt like doing, so I am OK with the way things are now.

Hopefully our retirement won't get ruined by the government's unlimited appetite for our money before I cross the finish line......... Sooner or later the government is going to blame their out of control spending on us and punish us for it.... Count on it.

 

[kathylove]

I would hit the "LIKE" button a couple of times if you had one, lol!

 

[tsst]

I guess I am the heartless one.

- Obama's own admin states we can't vet these folks


- one of the few things our fedgov IS suppose to do is protect the nation and we the people against invasion

Allowing un-vetted potential terrorists, amongst the needy created by our fedgov(another topic), into the country resulting in the death of Americans would seem counter to their constitutional mandate.

If I remember correctly the Boston bombers came here under political asylum. :shrugs:

- I think we should help when we can safely do so, but bringing in refugees does not even equate to a bandaid. If our goal was to help the needy and oppressed why haven't we invaded North Korea and China to free the 100s of millions so oppressed that they can't even become refugees?!
In my heartless opinion we need to help them, as much as we can, where they live. Remember the same fedgov that now says we must help these folks, by bringing them here, caused the crisis that displaced them.

- in the end I simply don't trust the demicans or republicrats to do anything other than what is best for them. When they cause a humanitarian crisis and then want to fix said crisis I become uber skeptical. What better way to crush liberty than to get we the people to ask them to do it?!?! Causing small terrorist incidents benefits DC. They get the crisis they wanted.


- and as far as making a difference goes ... if we are being intellectually honest we can't ... (I realize this is geared more toward immigrants than refugees)



I will apologize to my kids today for being apart of a generation that willing gave away their future in an attempt to be PC.

 

[Nova_C]

It's not PC to want to help people.

And what happened to America The Brave when you'll abandon hundreds of thousands because you're afraid one of them might be dangerous?

 

[Rich Z]

Lots of "good intention" bricks being offered to pave that road to Hell.....