We're SUPPOSED to be a representative republic, but yet, if you ask them, the overwhelming majority of Americans will say they've never met their representative or senator--much less the president of the United States. If/as that is the case, HOW on EARTH can they possibly represent you? Unless you have the financial wherewithal (like those mentioned in the article cited below), you stand a worse chance of meeting them than a snowball has in surviving the fires of hell.
And yet we still dutifully pull the lever, just like our civics teacher told us to do, even though we KNOW, intuitively, that the people who aspire to rule/own us couldn't give two squats about us!
Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State
ROFL! OK, you're the exception.
And with that first paragraph I agree more or less 100 percent.
If the government DEMANDS your participation, elections are meaningless. In the odd event that voting is ever compulsory here, my new home will be jail. I will not willingly legitimize ANY form of theft or murder by proxy.
Andrew Jackson was spot on. More to the point, though, government of the rich (plutocracy) is unavoidable. As long as there's a government, the rich will buy it and use it to impose ownership over everyone else (Feudalism or neofeudalism).
And THAT is why I'm an anarcho-libertarian.
Wait...what? You're quoting RAND!? That's a ballsy move on this forum, my e-friend.
1) Precisely!! "In a democracy, 49 percent of the electorate will forever remain disenfranchised."-- me. :-)
2) Correct, although local governments are generally more responsive to the will of their constituents. The IDEA of representative democracy isn't bad, it just doesn't scale up.
3) Correct again! You're batting 1,000! Politics is the science of human ownership; the art of slavers. It's about who owns whom, who wants to own whom, and what the latter will do to wrest control from the former.
4) I call it conscientious abstention, and I couldn't agree more. The tree of liberty is starving for fertilizer.
@Nimitz..LOL.. She had some interesting views.
For the most part, no, America's Government does not represent it's citizens.
Government always represents the wishes of its citizens, at least enough of them to enforce the policies on the rest. If not so, the people will refuse to support the regime. You don't have to throw a government down, just stop holding it up. It is enough to stand in the streets and shout, as has happened in many countries recently.
Nope.
From what I've learned from the more intellectual and educated characters here,
based on the constitution and the way the system was designed
the majority of citizens have never had their best interests fairly represented developed supported or defended.
As an Australian I can say from experience that I agree with ozgirl.
Compulsory voting actually does work.
Democracy itself has quite a few problems - one being that it's nearly impossible to design one that is perfectly fairly representative - and it is slow and clumsy - but it beats the bloodshed of civil war - and if enough people insist on change it does happen.
Precisely!
I believe that God gives a country the leader it deserves.
I believe God is a Libertarian. :-) He doesn't force Himself or His Will on anyone. While I agree that a country gets the leader/government it deserves, God doesn't "'give it to them (another way of saying 'sock it to them')." People CHOOSE their own destinies by the actions they take, the words they use, etc. Like any good parent, God allows His children to rise or fall on their own merits or learn from their own mistakes.
And no matter how you slice it, there will be plenty of learning going on no matter who becomes our next president.
I've mixed emotions about Rand. On the one hand she was crazy as a chit-house rat (who wouldn't be given what she'd gone through with her family in Russia?) and had the scruples of an alley cat. On the other she was a great story teller--far better than anyone gives her credit. Her philosophy (Objectivism) wasn't exactly flawless--no human philosophy is--but it was pretty damned good for its day. Much of it applies even now.
How do you propose to fertilize it?
Are you serious? LOL! I don't propose anything. Please tell me you don't think this is still a free country where we can speak our piece without running into legal difficulties? :-)
I do know how it eventually will be fertilized, though. It'll be fertilized the way it's always been fertilized ever since the first human being tried to ride roughshod over another. If you're unfamiliar with that method, Google Thomas Jefferson quotes including the phrase 'tree of liberty.' He wasn't perfect by any means, but there was a man who understood the real cost of freedom. (I know, that's somewhat ironic considering the slob owned slaves.) By today's standards he'd be labeled a domestic terrorist by the regime in power.
Drop the qualifier and you'll be spot on. :-)
Our government represents the corporations, not the people.
How about you? WHo have you met?
How do they enforce mandatory voting? I'm curious
Is it a monetary penalty? You say it's not perfect. How do you feel it's not perfect from your perspective?
I guess I google it, but I'm being lazy
I don't believe so.
Who cares. I don't have to meet with anyone these days to connect with them. I know you already and we have never seen each other. Do you represent me? Hardly.
Precisely zero.
It's clear that I could never be an Australian citizen. No one will DEMAND that I take part in a system which I think is illegitimate. If the government DEMANDS your participation, elections are meaningless. The citizens of such a government are state property. I am opposed to slavery in ANY form.
And democracy? Two cannibals and one missionary voting on what's or supper.
IOW, 'our' government represents itself. Fitting.
I don't either. :-)
