A Conversation About the Control of Political Power by the R

[Whiteagle]

I also agree with you Whiteagle, but there comes a time when people not only become aware of the fact that they are being used but also when they realize that they could have better than what they have now. That too is human nature: the desire to have more for yourself. Take modern America as an example. Sure its still a great place to live, and the majority of the population has that place to sleep and something to eat. BUt the way our corrupted government has been using us and pretty much taking our money for themselves and their campaign supporters means that we could have a lot more. Sure we have those things, but who's to say they won't be here tomorrow (just like the jobs)?

...

Hence my prior statement. This has come to be in America, but the only people who truly get what they want are the government and their funders because they simply don't care about anyone else, they just want more money, and so the funders of the politicians get their way because they basically pay the congressmen and representatives to get what they want done. Of course no government has ever been perfect but its pretty obvious that America's (and a few of the rest of the world's) governments are running rampant with corruption and egotistical politicians.

Ah, but you see this is the beauty of a Democratic Republic like the United States of America!
It is the primary duty of a Representative to make sure their constituents are content with the job they are doing, else they will be voted out of office and thus be worthless to the lobbyist trying to use them.
Hence there is a metaphorical tightrope they must walk, a crucial balancing act one must perform between the interests of themselves, their lobbyist, and their constituents.

And what is the "R"?

I would like to know as well.

EDIT: okay, what's the T?

Well the "t" is the first letter of "the", it's just the subject line takes the last few letters off when it adds the "Re:" bit.

[Natalya]

@Ross:
I wasn't saying absolutely every single person, so don't think I was trying to tell you how you are living your life or spending your time

[Ross_Varn]

Well, yeah, but I tend to take it that way. Apologies. I'll just go muck around with something else...

[Keldoclock]

It was written to offend, intentionally or otherwise.

Seriously, reading that made me want to punch you in the face. Civility has it's place, and there is no reason to be that douchey.|


People are going to exploit any machine that anyone creates. Ever. There will always be someone who has found a way to get more out of *any* system for their own benefit, and often to the detriment of other. Even an organically formed, volatile and informal system like the ones we use to interact with each other on a daily basic can easily be gamed and broken! Don't try to fight it. People run things into the shitter. That is what they do- why do difficult things when you can sit on your ass and watch tv?


I, personally, just find much more satisfaction in other things, particularly when I am part of some sort of creative process. I don't watch TV, unless it is Futurama, South Park, or Mythbusters, and even then only if I haven't seen that episode before. I think I might watch about an hour a week. Even when I did watch it often, I never felt anything detrimental to my mood or general energy level.

[stubby]

Ah, but you see this is the beauty of a Democratic Republic like the United States of America!
It is the primary duty of a Representative to make sure their constituents are content with the job they are doing, else they will be voted out of office and thus be worthless to the lobbyist trying to use them.
Hence there is a metaphorical tightrope they must walk, a crucial balancing act one must perform between the interests of themselves, their lobbyist, and their constituents.

That was the beauty of the US system. Now all the meaningful competition is between two roughly identical parties, both leveraging their mutual monopoly to exclude any meaningful alternate option. Now, instead of voting them out of office when we're discontent, we only have the option of voting them out when we think the other party's identical candidate would somehow do a less terrible job, and we're ready to sacrifice the advantages to our own district that come from incumbent seniority.

It's not much of a choice when we're limited to going back and forth between RepOwned By The Industrial Complexbicans and the DemOwned By The Financial Complexocrats. Neither of those groups are interested in funneling even the tiniest amount of rights, power, or support to those of us at the bottom of the corporate food chain.

[stubby]

I know I post this link every couple of months, but here it is again: http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html

@Ross: I wasn't saying absolutely every single person, so don't think I was trying to tell you how you are living your life or spending your time

Although Natalya is pussying out, I'll go as far as to say it really does apply to every single person. Including that critical 18-24 demographic like Natalya and Piltogg who make a big deal about being in the know and having a deeper analytical perspective on the situation than everyone else, but are really mostly just parroting talking points from their consensus group of choice. Everybody hits that phase, especially the ones who get suckered in by the college atmosphere; most of them outgrow it sometime in their mid-twenties.

[Ben-Jammin]

That was the beauty of the US system. Now all the meaningful competition is between two roughly identical parties, both leveraging their mutual monopoly to exclude any meaningful alternate option. Now, instead of voting them out of office when we're discontent, we only have the option of voting them out when we think the other party's identical candidate would somehow do a less terrible job, and we're ready to sacrifice the advantages to our own district that come from incumbent seniority.

It's not much of a choice when we're limited to going back and forth between RepOwned By The Industrial Complexbicans and the DemOwned By The Financial Complexocrats. Neither of those groups are interested in funneling even the tiniest amount of rights, power, or support to those of us at the bottom of the corporate food chain.

This.

[Arkbrik]

I tried to write something long and clever but I have to go buy Lego. Here's a TL;DR.

-The consumer lifestyle is a result of the capitalist system, as the economy must constantly grow, when basic needs are fulfilled new ones must be invented or the economy will crash

-It is your duty to consume, or else invent a new society

-Individualism is the new mainstream

-Everyone is an attention whore

-I hate the word "sheeple"

[IX_Legion]

Somehow, I think this post started on education, then morphed to politics. I have a few points:

I agree with most of what you say on education. Some of the teachers try to make kids actually learn, rather than memorize. But you know what killed that? Standardized tests. I don't know about anyone else, but VA's SOLs "teach" you to memorize a fact, spit it back out word for freaking word, and then forget it to make room for next year's memorization.

Political correctness makes me sick too. It seems some want our education system to make kids "feel good" about themselves rather than actually knowing anything. Now, I don't mean if you don't get a concept we should call you an idiot and ignore you (and no, by "you" I don't mean any of the oversensitive people who seem to get offended by everything on this thread), but if you are doing something wrong THEN ITS WRONG! It ends up that kids think they can do whatever and they'll just be patted on the back no matter how bad it is. The real world doesn't work that way.

As far as politics, things have gone way downhill. Representatives were supposed to be in touch with their constituents, seeing what they thought on issues, etc. How did yours vote on the last few bills that passed through Congress? If you know, great, because I sure don't. Even with the internet and television, representatives do not keep the people informed, which is a failing on their part. Now, I'm not saying we should be spoon-fed everthing by whoever happens to be in Congress, but there is no feedback whatsoever. They pack themselves off to DC and we don't hear from them again until the next election. Also, the parties used to be able to compromise. They had differing views, but they respected each other and wouldtry to prevent something like the disgrace we had over the budget where we barely kept the country running.

It was written to offend, intentionally or otherwise.

This statement does not make sense. If Natalya did not intentionally mean to offend, how could it be "written to offend"?

Also, this is the last forum I expected to find a serious discussion like this on.

[Ross_Varn]

Also, this is the last forum I expected to find a serious discussion like this on.

We've been practicing. http://www.brikwars.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=18

[Whiteagle]

Ah, but you see this is the beauty of a Democratic Republic like the United States of America!
It is the primary duty of a Representative to make sure their constituents are content with the job they are doing, else they will be voted out of office and thus be worthless to the lobbyist trying to use them.
Hence there is a metaphorical tightrope they must walk, a crucial balancing act one must perform between the interests of themselves, their lobbyist, and their constituents.

That was the beauty of the US system. Now all the meaningful competition is between two roughly identical parties, both leveraging their mutual monopoly to exclude any meaningful alternate option. Now, instead of voting them out of office when we're discontent, we only have the option of voting them out when we think the other party's identical candidate would somehow do a less terrible job, and we're ready to sacrifice the advantages to our own district that come from incumbent seniority.

It's not much of a choice when we're limited to going back and forth between RepOwned By The Industrial Complexbicans and the DemOwned By The Financial Complexocrats. Neither of those groups are interested in funneling even the tiniest amount of rights, power, or support to those of us at the bottom of the corporate food chain.

Well then, I guess we are only left with one option...

BLOW IT ALL UP!!!

Seriously though Stubby, what is your suggested solution to this problem?
You can gnash and whine and bitch and moan all day about the lobbyist owning Washington, but in the end your still not doing anything.

Personally, I think it's just best to wait.
If the recent years have shown us anything, it's that the dystopia Mega-corp owned future of the 80's never came to pass due to the Corporations own incompetence, and it's only a matter of time before the next paradigm shift puts them in their place.

I agree with most of what you say on education. Some of the teachers try to make kids actually learn, rather than memorize. But you know what killed that? Standardized tests. I don't know about anyone else, but VA's SOLs "teach" you to memorize a fact, spit it back out word for freaking word, and then forget it to make room for next year's memorization.

As an Iowan (and thus a citizen of the state that writes most standardized test) I have to contend with you on this Legion.
The problem is not the test themselves, after all they are merely an assessment of academic ability, but policies like "No Child Left Behind" that judged the worth of schools and teachers based on the scores their students received.
This created a mindset amongst some educators that the only thing they needed to worry about were their students getting high scores, hence they began to only use teaching methods they thought would give results.

[Silent-sigfig]

Hey Natalya, would society work if everyone was as smart as you?

[Whiteagle]

Hey Natalya, would society work if everyone was as smart as you?

Of course it wouldn't, haven't you ever read Girl Genius?

[Ross_Varn]

Hey Natalya, would society work if everyone was as smart as you?

This. This is the core of every argument of this type.

[stubby]

Although Natalya is pussying out,

I'm disappointed that Natalya hasn't shown up yet to rise to this bait, so carefully phrased to offend gender studies majors. I feel like such an amateur baiter now.

-The consumer lifestyle is a result of the capitalist system, as the economy must constantly grow, when basic needs are fulfilled new ones must be invented or the economy will crash

Consumerism isn't a necessary result of capitalism. We had perfectly successful capitalism for centuries, while consumerism didn't show up in any meaningful way until about a hundred years ago. Consumerism is an effect of making the national economy serve industrialism rather than vice versa.

Seriously though Stubby, what is your suggested solution to this problem?
You can gnash and whine and bitch and moan all day about the lobbyist owning Washington, but in the end your still not doing anything.

You're right, if I don't know how to set a bone I shouldn't be allowed to complain that my arm is broken.

Really I think the solution is solutioning itself just fine in this regard. You look at populist movements like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Wikileaks, Arab Spring... whether or not you agree with any, all, or none of them, citizens are starting to remember that they outnumber government and corporate officers by a fair margin. Anonymous and its descendants are getting more sophisticated and more willing to trading lulz for moralfaggotry with each passing year.