No Matter Who You Are Tell Me When You Think Our Current Form of Government Became Dysfunctional?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Citizens United. Full stop. Money isn't speech, I don't care what SCOTUS says. It lets the Kock brothers spend tens of millions of dollars on sketchy PACs, and essentially buy congressmen and the President . Who are government officials going to listen to? Them and their multi-million donation or the 10,000 Americans who can donate $100 each? Citizens United gives a select few Americans enormous power in government.

Federal elections should be funded through our tax dollars, with no one able to donate more than a nominal amount.

Money isn't speech and in fact money suppresses speech. If money is speech it means the rich get more speech than the rest of us and drown the rest of us out.

Also, corporations are not people.

[Anonymous]

Health: Nixon pushing HMOs
Polarization: Bush running on a social campaign of fear
Privacy: Obama pushing boundaries
Corporate welfare: citizens united made it a "right"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Health: Nixon pushing HMOs
Polarization: Bush running on a social campaign of fear
Privacy: Obama pushing boundaries
Corporate welfare: citizens united made it a "right"

Dem here, I don't think Bush (either of them) ran on a campaign of fear, though the use of Willie Horton against Dukakis was brutal.
I think the Obama and privacy boundaries started with the Patriot Act. I am not sure what Obama did differently there.

[Anonymous]

The Southern stately and Fox News.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Southern stately and Fox News.

Strategy, thanks autocorrect.

[Anonymous]

This is a very good thread OP. It is asking people to reflect and analyze much more than other threads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I'm a democrat but feel like the lack of inherent respect for the office of President started with W.

That's when we started painting each other with extreme brushes. So honestly probably 9/11

LMFAO. You must not have been around during the Clinton administration.

I think he kind of deserved it. And I am the D pp. At minimum IMO he is someone who abused his position to have affairs with women who were vulnerable. And I voted for HRC exuberantly.

No, he didn't. Ken Starr was supposed to investigate the Clinton's investments into a failed business venture in the 1970s and 80s. Clinton ended up being impeached in 1998 over a lie about a blow job. I listened to the impeachment proceedings as they were going on. It was absurd.

And afterward, Ken Starr expressed regret and remorse for his role in the witch hunt on Bill Clinton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is a very good thread OP. It is asking people to reflect and analyze much more than other threads.

Thanks PP. The reason I put 'no matter who you are' in the thread title was to get everybody's opinion no matter their partisanship. I do think this situation can be fixed but I'm just no sure how. I don't think it's useful to say so and so doesn't care about this country but maybe if we get together and identify today's problems we can move toward fixing them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When they enacted the 17th amendment and made senators elected by the popular vote, rather than by the state legislatures as previously written into the U.S. Constitution.

At that point, senators became beholden to party first (D or R) like the House of Representatives, rather than representing their state specific matters before the federal government.

States vs Feds? Elaborate

Why must I elaborate? Senators should represent their state, not their party. The priority of a senator is now screwed up in favor of party first. Why have a house and senate if they're essentially the same?


Read it. It's a wonderful thing: https://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

Thanks for the read. So you feel that senators should support their constituents before their interests? How wonderful it must be when the two are the same.

Senators now support their party before their constituents and their states.

[Anonymous]

So many posters blaming the politicians.
Yes on this July 4th let's consider the problem is really "We the people.'
Consider the various rifts: north/south; east/west; rural/urban; young/old; rich/poor; conservative/liberal. I could go on.
Isn't it just possible the people in Congress are doing what they are supposed to do and representing their constituents?

[Anonymous]

^ just to add look at how many very conservative members of Congress have lost their seats to challenges from the right - because they weren't deemed conservative enough.
This is what happens when people are sent to Washington expressly to "give 'em hell."

[Anonymous]

But but butt buuuuutttt... We are the ones we've been waiting for??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ just to add look at how many very conservative members of Congress have lost their seats to challenges from the right - because they weren't deemed conservative enough.
This is what happens when people are sent to Washington expressly to "give 'em hell."

OP here and Obama was criticized for being to moderate. Get big money out of politics and start from scratch.

[Anonymous]

2008: Obama was THE most liberal senator in the senate. Don't try to rewrite history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ just to add look at how many very conservative members of Congress have lost their seats to challenges from the right - because they weren't deemed conservative enough.
This is what happens when people are sent to Washington expressly to "give 'em hell."

OP here and Obama was criticized for being to moderate. Get big money out of politics and start from scratch.

yeah, and while you're at it get the sun to stop coming up in the east.
Or get the wind to stop blowing.