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Election results (Senate 2014)


daveinspain

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The Koch brothers can now destroy the EPA, and corporate America is free to twist our culture, start more wars, and take more money out of the economy; all while keeping wages down, moving jobs out of the country, watching infrastructure crumble, shipping out immigrants, disenfranchising minorities, rejecting science, and advancing the old, white, male agenda. I, for one, am rejoicing!

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I am wondering why the American people fail to realize how wonderful they have it with the current state of things.

 

Right on. You won't hear me complaining. I kinda like the fact that neither party is that drastically different from the other and that neither can or will actually accomplish anything. It could be A LOT worse.

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I realize you like to stay optimistic, Searcy, and that is a good thing. To have your perspective would require that I close my eyes to the realities outside of my own little world. As Edward R. Murrow said, "Anyone who isn't confused doesn't really understand the situation."

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I'm not gloating. My party didn't win anything last night. I am wondering why the American people fail to realize how wonderful they have it with the current state of things.

 

It's probably because they don't all live on your street, which is apparently doing fabulous, which is great!

 

But it isn't that way for everyone. It is for me and mine, we are just fine, been at it a long time and are on our way to retire soon hopefully. But you don't have to walk far from my door to see people, lots of people, not having a good time of it, and they see a future of just more of the same.

 

rct

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I'm not actually all that optimistic. I just refuse to give a damn for the most part. We have reached the point where Ithe candidates on both sides are pretty much required to be nothing more than stuff shirts. They have no qualifications. They have no deep convictions. They explain their policy concepts in soundbites. People turn up the vote who haven't got any understanding of the system in which they're voting. They're motivated by slogans like "Hope and change" or "there's a war on Christmas" or " there's a war on women". The rabble-rouser's are on TV and the radio and the Internet telling everyone "see those people over there if they get their way they're going to kill you!"

 

Now most of the population doesn't buy this crap. Those are the ones that generally stay home and don't vote. Of the ones that do show up to vote most of them are one issue voters who don't understand anything else on their ballot or they are party line hacks who just vote for people with the same letter after their name that their daddy had..

 

So rather than optimistic I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone more cynical about American politics than me. I must say that I do enjoy watching everyone run around like their hairs on fire every four years because their guy didn't win. It makes for a good show :-)

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I agree, I think it makes for a good show, but only for so long. Voting, which we have done together since 1980 and did yesterday, is the same as not voting. People hate when I say that, but I truly believe it.

 

rct

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I realize you like to stay optimistic, Searcy, and that is a good thing. To have your perspective would require that I close my eyes to the realities outside of my own little world. As Edward R. Murrow said, "Anyone who isn't confused doesn't really understand the situation."

 

Oh no he DIH INT

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No employee of the government wants to see anymore of that.

 

We provide an awful lot of our salaries to the areas we live in.

 

The two shutdowns we've had here took more than 3 thousand salaries out of the economy for a month each time, and quite a few businesses couldn't survive that.

 

It's a serious matter when they take it out on us. Like any other group of people just trying to do their jobs, we don't deserve it, no matter what some saliva dribbling Vietnam war hero that thinks Laverne and Shirley is on tonight tells anyone.

 

rct

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RTC.. I was talking about a do nothing congress. Not a government shutdown. But we take what we can.

 

Sure, a do nothing congress. Anyone that isn't a federal employee doesn't see the true meaning of "do nothing". We do. It's our budgets that they do nothing with. It's our livelihoods that they do nothing with. They use us against each other. It's deplorable, shameful, a horrible way to run a government. Is it any wonder we can't win a war to save our asses?

 

rct

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Seems to me that the government shutdown happened because congress refused to appropriate funds for the 2014 budget or failed to enact a continuing resolution to fund the government. Inactivity also has consequences. All politics are not just local and the acts (and inactivity) of our governments, state and federal, do affect us all. Disillusionment and apathy are normal, but nonproductive. The voices of the people do need to be heard and not necessarily on a guitar forum. Even if you don't like your representative, you still need to let him/her know how you feel. Casting a ballot is only the first step.

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Sure, a do nothing congress. Anyone that isn't a federal employee doesn't see the true meaning of "do nothing". We do. It's our budgets that they do nothing with. It's our livelihoods that they do nothing with. They use us against each other. It's deplorable, shameful, a horrible way to run a government. Is it any wonder we can't win a war to save our asses?

 

rct

 

Okay, for clarification. A do-nothing Congress typically is a phrase that refers to a Congress doesn't pass many laws. I'm all for that. Government shutdowns are incredibly rare and just are not anything I'm gonna worry myself with.

 

As for apathy, trust me I vote every single election. But I refused to throw my vote away on Republicans or Democrats and pretend there's some sort of major difference between the two.

 

Now.. Lemon or cocanut?

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Well, politics have changed a lot from when I started being involved a bit over 50 years ago.

 

Assuming this thread doesn't vanish, here are some things to consider since a culture is a "system, operated by humans" not a utopia.

 

Our population has virtually doubled the past 50 years and our bureaucracies, governmental and corporate alike, also have doubled which carries a lot of overhead baggage that benefits the bureaucrats rather than the mission.

 

More people think they deserve to be taken care of by others - the old Marxist "take from those most able to contribute to care for those least able." That may work in a small commune, but has been proven not to work when operated by bureaucrats in larger and more technological environments.

 

"We" increasingly are incapable of doing for ourselves. That's not laziness or politics. Given time and manual hand tools, and hopefully a blueprint, I could build a small steam engine. No way could I make a computer chip.

 

The world is tied closer and closer and the logistics and economics involved in feeding, clothing and sheltering us is expensive, and it's a new politic. Add expectations of a "first world" life in places like China and India, let alone South America and Africa, and there's an entirely new dynamic.

 

And don't forget the folks who would prefer for religious reasons to be living in roughly 900 A.D., and are willing to butcher others to achieve it.

 

Honestly, I think the world is going to Hades in a handbasket, but I blame population trends far more than politics. I tend to blame the left more than the right, but the right does its share of spitting into the wind as well - just not as "political" conversation goes.

 

Utopians had best wise up as Plato hadda wise up after his experiences in Syracuse. Politics is a system, always has been a system, and it's not "partisan" in the current sense as much as whether it gets things done for the welfare and security of the folks in a given culture. We're in a horrid time of change today that requires a different perspective - and "politics" than folks who seem to me to be living still in a 1960s environment. But we're not seeing that anywhere in the world except... just maybe... in China. Oddly I'm not at all a collectivist as the Chinese, but their bureaucracy seems to be working a bit better right now than others...

 

Ah well.. off to a Railroad Commission meeting.

 

m

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What happened last night is the inevitable result of a danger that exists across the entire country:

 

Republican ignorance + Democratic apathy.

 

Add the "Citizens United" ruling to the mix—the allowing of millions of dollars to flow-in from outside of states to influence their elections—and the outcome last night is really no surprise.

 

Special props to Iowa and Kansas! Nice goin', folks!

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This Congress won't be entirely "do nothing." The one thing they will do for sure is the same thing they have done every new session. [sneaky]

 

They will approve for themselves pay raises while everyone from middle income on down has to scratch harder than ever to make ends meet. :huh:

 

Outlawing this unjustified behavior should be amended to the Constitution, but our legislators will never allow the failed economy to affect their own pockets. <_<

 

After elections with total contributions of approximately $4 BILLION! [cursing]

 

That's my two cents and I apologize in advance if this thread now disappears. [thumbdn]

 

Σß

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This Congress won't be entirely "do nothing." The one thing they will do for sure is the same thing they have done every new session. [sneaky]

 

They will approve for themselves pay raises while everyone from middle income on down has to scratch harder than ever to make ends meet. :huh:

 

Outlawing this unjustified behavior should be amended to the Constitution, but our legislators will never allow the failed economy to affect their own pockets. <_<

 

After elections with total contributions of approximately $4 BILLION! [cursing]

 

That's my two cents and I apologize in advance if this thread now disappears. [thumbdn]

 

Σß

 

Unfortunately they are never really a do-nothing congress despite the over used label. The money these guy pay themselves isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things. The highest paid member of congress is the majority leader who makes less than $250,000 a year. Hillary Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger can make that much in the privet sector with one speaking engagement. I'm much more concerned with tax dollars congress spends on welfare entitlements and special interest defence contracts to buy votes or the endless spawning of redundant and even competing bureaucracies such as the Federal Department of Education of the Department of Homeland Security that forever after will need constantly expanding budgets to keep them afloat.

 

Milod, Your comment on the chip reminded me of one of my favorite lectures from Milton Friedman. One of my favorite thinkers.

 

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Honestly, I think the world is going to Hades in a handbasket, but I blame population trends far more than politics. I tend to blame the left more than the right, but the right does its share of spitting into the wind as well - just not as "political" conversation goes.

 

m

 

The one problem that nobody will discuss. And if you study population growth demographics ... just a little bit ...

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