btlzu2's Journal: wow, i just figured something out about politics for me

now i realize one of the reasons why i can't stand politics and intelligently debate it. i'm skeptical. it's that i haven't been able to resolve the dissonance in my mind about it like i have with religion. i worked hard on the religion stuff to come to a logical understanding of it.

politics is inherently very noisy and illogical. it's about pandering to powerful lobbies and usually not necessarily doing the right thing, but the thing that will get you re-elected, make you look good, or get some cash in your wallet from lobbyists.

politics, to me, is incapable of logical participation because there is no way to trust anyone. in politics you need to have faith in some politician, but i don't have faith in *any* politicians. i know i have sets of values and that one politician can't perfectly match them; however, it goes beyond that...

the system is broken and falling apart. it's becoming more and more impossible to believe in anyone who "represents" you. the government has become the opposite of what the founding fathers intended--a lifetime profession. the government was intended to be run by common, but presumably intelligent, people who weren't in it for the power and the opportunities of wealth, but to serve their country.

man, i am really, really disillusioned.

right-o

[stoolpigeon]

that's why i tend to think (didn't come up with this on my own of course) that a nice form of government would be one that takes this proclivity for corruption into account. this is what the libertarians are on about much of the time. government tends to get very corrupt very quickly -- so really limit what it can do.

Re:

[SolemnDragon]

originally, they were farmers, and most of them had to go back and tend crops, so they COULDN'T be full time politicians on a local level.

Frankly, i'd like to see:

-Enforced term limits

-enforced income restrictions and conflict of interest restrictions (Own an oil company? Sorry, you must recuse yourself from this vote)

-Did i mention ENFORCED term limits?

-Strict legislation limits (o, wait, this is an unrelated item tacked on, we're not going to be able to do that, so off it goes)

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[dubiousdave]

... but if we don't build bridges to empty Alaskan islands the terrorists win, and it's not as if we can *openly* ask for mountains of money to benefit 5 people, so clearly, the Globar War on Tara [wikipedia.org] depends on sliding pork into unrelated legislation. I mean, duh!

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[stoolpigeon]

i like heinleins ideas - like you need close to a unanimous vote of the legislature to pass anything and then you have a president with the singular job of vetoing and repealing laws.
 
i think term limits are good just because most politicians are against them-- so there must be something to it.

killing professional politicians

[eglamkowski]

Figuratively, of course. Just limit compensation, say to $1,000 per month. If that's the most they can get while sitting in office, most of them won't want to spend much time in DC legislating - they'll want to get quickly back to their regular jobs to make enough money to live on.

The compensation of congress critters was NEVER intended to be enough to make a living off of.

call me naive

[janeowit]

But I do believe in some politicians. I think we have and have had some really great ones. Men and women who are devoting their lives to trying to make things better for our country. And when they stop doing that, they stop getting reelected.

And no one politician is going to match my specific beliefs, but that's why we have different people looking out for us in the different levels and branches of government.
 

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[btlzu2]

i would say the law of probabilities says they're out there, but, i've never seen one and i probably wouldn't trust them anyway because of being burned so often.

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[janeowit]

Paul Wellstone was one. He always stood up for his beliefs. I trusted him.

Russ Feingold does. He stands up to his party too. And he was the only senator to vote against the patriot act. I trust him implicitly.

Yeah, we've all been burned, but the difference between you and me is that I have a little something called faith. Maybe an honest politician is just another fairy tale, like that whole Jesus thing, but that doesn't stop me from believing in either one.

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[btlzu2]

i absolutely have faith, but it takes a lot to place my faith in someone. my wife being one, some close friends are another. people i don't know well don't get it. :)

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[janeowit]

Of course you have faith in people. I'm sorry for saying you didn't.

I'm just saying I put my faith in complete strangers, probably more often than I should.

And I was worried that you might be thinking, "dude, she can't ever have been burned by a lying politician, she's only been a registered voter for six years." Probably without the dude, but that's how I stereotype all males. Anyways, I thought I'd mention that I worked on my first campaign at the tender age of 14. I made phone calls, canvassed the neighb

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[btlzu2]

heh, i wasn't thinking that at all, so there goes another strike against stereotypes! ;)

i was really thinking "what the hell is wrong with me?" i can't help it though--i just can't find that belief in people who haven't proved themselves to me and politicians have an amazing knack of keeping their masks on for all occasions--IMHO.

i know in retrospect he's a bit of a nutcase, but i really liked ross perot at the time he was running around. he really just didn't seem like a politician, but was obviously fai