Problems with that - 1) Those "regular people" will never end up on the ballot due to the way the existing system works. 2) That contract won't hold up in court once they're in power (remember - the government makes the rules and can change them at any time without your consent).

No, it wouldn't end. Politicians LIE in order to get elected. Once they're in power, they don't give a damn about what you think. We've had countless politicians run on things like ending the wars and ending spying, yet do the exact opposite once they're in power.

How the hell is Fast & Furious not a scandal? They willingly supplied weapons to criminal organizations with the sole intention of using it as justification to place restrictions on the rights of Americans. Whether you're pro-Second Amendment or pro-Gun Control is irrelevant - they were willingly arming dangerous people and knew innocent people would die just so that they could push an agenda. No matter what your position is on guns, that's immoral and illegal.

Not really, when the political parties decide who you can vote for. Hell, even primaries they don't really give you any choice. When they control what choices you get, you don't really have a choice. That's not even counting the fact that most of the choices are nearly identical (like Romney and Obama). Thinking that you can change a broken system by using the broken system doesn't work. The American people need to make it loud and clear that they will literally throw the government out if they do not respect our rights and the Constitution. Sadly, the overwhelming majority of Americans lack the spine to do just that and we're stuck in an endless spiral of things getting worse and worse.

Well the land-owning aspect actually has valid reasoning behind it - those who own property have a stake in the outcome, whereas those who have nothing to lose don't care about negative outcomes. See how those who make poor choices today consistently vote for a larger and more oppressive government to absolve them of responsibility for their choices / actions.

It didn't say that people shouldn't do anything, I simply pointed out that voting doesn't accomplish anything - especially since incumbents almost always win. Writing letters and voting does nothing and never has - it takes making the government truly terrified of rebellion to inspire them to make changes...and the American people have lost the will to stand up for themselves.

I do vote and write to representatives - I'm just not foolish enough to think it actually makes a difference.

That's funny that you actually believe that voters get any say in these types of programs. The US government does whatever it wants without repercussions, regardless of which party is in power - and it's been that way for a long time. They only bother with elections to provide the illusion that you're in control in order to keep the populace pacified.

In other professions, you're expected to put in as much time as necessary to get the job done. Teachers do seven hours a day with usually 1 hour a day to "prep" and 30 minutes to an hour for lunch, so 5 to 5.5 hours per day of teaching, not to mention that they work 9 months out of the year. Factor in that an experienced teacher can re-use the majority of their materials from previous years and there's very little truth to the "teachers are overworked" claims.

$800 is the price for the most stripped down model. Most of the models are $1,200 - $1,500.

Honestly, my only issue with them is the price. When you're looking at over $1k, I would prefer to just use a Nexus 7 for $250 and buy a cheap ultrabook for $400-$500.

Assuming you live in the US, buy a gun. Unless you're lucky, even with a 3 minute response time a life-threatening incident will leave you dead. Contrary to what you see on TV shows, the police rarely stop violent crime in progress - they simply write a report after the fact. Even in incidents like the shooting at Sandy Hook, the police where on scene in 2-3 minutes, yet it was still far too late.

Also, SCOTUS has ruled that the police have no duty to protect you, thus they have no duty to show up in a timely manner or actually help once they arrive. I forget the name of the case where this was decided, but it's a truly sickening read where the laziness of officers lead to multiple women being raped and then the court told them "Too bad, police cannot be held accountable for their actions".

Not to mention that the district attorney, public defender, and judge are normally all best friends (not to mention they all are friends with the local police). Both of my brothers are cops and openly admit that our "justice" system is a racket and that being arrested almost always results in a guilty verdict, regardless of the facts. Sadly, most people never have any involvement with the court system / police and thus are completely ignorant to how it works. I took half a day off work a couple of years ago and sat in the county courthouse watching cases being tried - it was a very eye opening experience where. I saw one girl get convicted of theft based purely on the word of another girl and I saw a woman get convicted of theft because she was on a sidewalk about 50 yards away from an attempted theft and she shouted something (unknown words to an unknown person) -- so clearly (according to the judge, prosecutor, and arresting officers) she must be guilty of aiding in the theft (despite no proof that she even knew the man). I suggest everyone spend time watching your local judge go about his daily duties - you'll most likely reconsider voting for them next time.

The problem being that most departments (I said most, not all) are overstaffed for the amount of crime and as a result put a significant portion of their officers on road detail to generate revenue. If they actually had enough crime to justify that number of officers, they sure as hell wouldn't be sitting on the side of the road waiting for someone to go over an arbitrary number.

Why should a car that won't be committing traffic infractions pay a fee for traffic infractions? That doesn't even come close to making sense. That's like saying everyone who puts on a seat belt should pay an extra fee to make up for "lost revenue" from fewer tickets for not wearing a seat belt.

I'd love to see their books. I spent years working as a contractor for a government agency and know first hand how much governments piss away money.

That's a load of crap. I'd love to see a list of these "vital" things - I'm willing to bet most of them are far from vital.

And yet, I'm sure there's money being pissed away on "special projects", cushy retirement funds, expense accounts, etc that could easily be shifted to fix the roads.

Thanks for letting me know that you're just a troll and not willing to have a rational discussion. I'll pull turn your "Somalia" line around on you - "If you love government control over all financial actions, why don't you move to North Korea?"