The political elite class that had anything to do with making those decisions likely doesn't actively participate in this site. The most you're likely to find here are people in denial who are clinging to the idea that by voting within the two-party system, they are somehow exercising anything resembling real choice. That doesn't remotely fit your description of what you're looking for.

I agree that the personal insults are pathetic. A lot of people choose things which are (or should be) beneath them.

Well then, in the context of popular television shows, I do stand corrected.

Yes, Heaven forbid the man occupying the highest office of the land and charged with making important decisions be known as an intellectual. I mean, this IS America...

"Being held accountable" is supposed to mean something along the lines of "people might decide they don't like you, or at least don't agree with you". It's not supposed to mean things like "you mysteriously end up on the no-fly list", or "the IRS gives you lots of special attention", or any other methods by which your government -- that's nominally supposed to be serving you -- is going to find a way to screw with your life.

This is more generally known as refusing to be a coward.

Statists generally prefer one-to-many broadcast methods like the evening news to spread their (largely emotional, fear-based) propaganda. This way they know there will be no equal airtime given to someone who logically questions their proposals and looks at them with a critical view. They are too welcome in too many other, much more convenient forums to actually take up your challenge on anything like a level playing field.

Although, a favorite trick of some flavors of statist is to invite dissenters to call into the show. The host will mute the caller, talk over them, refuse to answer inconvenient questions, and usually entirely take over the asking of questions, respond to complex and nuanced issues by badgering the caller with a series of yes/no questions designed to lead to a predetermined conclusion (an abuse of the Socratic method), changing the subject ("We had no justification to be in Iraq." "Saddam was a dictator! Do you support dictators?!"), and use other propaganda techniques designed to appear legitimate. This will convince the naive that any debate is happening, and that no one can successfully get the host to admit fault because the host is always right.

In summary, you're not going to get an honest debate because these people are afraid of honest debate and go to great lengths to avoid it. With a mere five corporations controlling every major newspaper, broadcast TV news service, radio news service, cable news service, and online news outlets, there simply isn't enough diversity to allow for anything in the mainstream other than an echo chamber. It comes in two flavors: "left" and "right", which are two slightly different methods of reaching the same conclusion that the solution to our problems is to concentrate more wealth and power into fewer hands.

They try again and again to implement the same bad ideas, knowing that defeats don't matter, understanding that they only need to score a single victory and their maladaptive proposals will be forever enshrined in law, never to be repealed. These are people who play chess and as such they learned to take a long view of things, realizing that most Americans have incredibly short memories and are only considering the here and now.

Sorry for your experience.. could you share your jurisdiction so I can avoid living there?...

I have no idea why Uber would be so blatant/stupid - any legal advice or even common sense would have told them that this kind of behavior gets a lot of attention very fast - and not the good, loving kind of attention either.

Unless they are really trying to get governments to make it hard for smaller "ridesharing" companies to compete. Burning the bridge after you cross? Does that make any sense?

Not only that, but a gas station is future super-fund site waiting to happen. Why do you think gas companies don't own stations anymore? The EPA would put them out of business actually cleaning up their messes.

While I'm not sure why GM can't sell many of their Volts I think that'll change once their newer model can seat 5 and has higher EV range and total range. It seems like Prius++ - not sure why folks aren't buying it.

So essentially pulled out of your ass. Teachers aren't allowed to talk about funding figures with parents or students, you know... so how do you get any of your 3x figures?

Stealing it without paying for it would still be a crime. Fraud would still be a crime. It wouldn't be anarchy, no not nearly.

My way of looking at things: a crime is an act which has a victim.

I understand what you're saying but where is your citation? Does this apply across all states? I find it hard to believe.