I'm afraid in both parties legislation is based on what big corporations and big banks want. Both parties are for undeclared, pre-emptive wars. Both parties are for the continuation of the drug war and keeping our prison population as high as possible. Both parties are for socializing losses for big corporations/banks while keeping the profits privatized. Both parties are for warrantless wire tapping/constant surveillance of US citizens. Both parties are pro NDAA section 1021 which gives the President the power to arrest an American and hold them without trial indefinitely. Both parties are pro HR347 making peaceful protest where the secret service is a crime. Both parties are against whistle blowers. Both parties are against transparency. Both parties are for using the Fed to spend more than they take in. Both parties are for handing out massive foreign aid while our country is broke. So in my eyes the Libertarian party IS the second party, the other two are actually one party with a few social differences that they use to distract the two sides while dismantling our Bill of Rights. The people we elect to Congress are not being held accountable for their voting record, and until we start voting these people out nothing will change, no matter who is elected as President. This video is from earlier in the year but I agree with what the Judge is saying. [ame=]Judge Andrew Napolitano: What if Both Parties are the Same? - YouTube
Sorry guys, but I don't buy the big conspiracy theory. I can tell you that if only the corporate world controlled things we wouldn't have such slanted labor laws that give the unions the right to stomp all over the little guy. The banks wouldn't have gotten their hands slapped over the meltdown which was the fault of the government to begin with. Look what happened to the Tea Party movement. It started out well, but the media went out and painted the entire movement as a bunch of red neck clowns while they painted the Occupy Wall Street people as some sort of wonderful movement. The Tea Party had no choice but to embrace the more mainstream Republican Party. Any election right now takes massive amounts of money. We have created a situation of government for sale to the highest bidder. Part of it is caused by the purchase of votes by big government, but most of it is caused by American apathy. We have gotten too lazy to root out the facts from the fiction. It is too easy to just believe whatever we read or hear without bothering to find out the real story. Most people do not believe that we have a serious problem with the deficit. If they did, we could just finish the election today. One point that I will agree with about the two parties is that they both have been in power on one side or the other and they all talk about deficits and problems but yet the same deficits and problems are still around. It would be nice to actually have people in office who would do what they say. Again I don't think the American people can handle the truth.
That is your best post ever. You seemed unbiased for once, and gave in to the fact that the whole system is the problem, not just 1 guy. No matter who that 1 guy is, he will have to sell his soul to some degree to get anything done.
I don't see anything conspiratorial about pointing out the similarities of both parties. Unless you are trying to say that the big banks and big corporations influence on legislation is a conspiracy theory. If you believe that is false, fine, but I believe, and I'm sure much of America believes, that those two entities have too much power in our government. To dismiss that post as simple conspiracy theory instead of asking yourself if we need a different stance on those stated similarities, and need a fundamental change in how and why legislation is drafted is a bit small minded. But that's just my opinion on the matter, we all have our own views. I don't believe throwing your hands up and saying "Well this is just how it is" is going to lead to the changes we need. We will continue down the road of endless debt, endless wars, and destruction of civil liberties. I know I won't change the minds of anyone that is already committed to one or the other candidate. I just hope that there are some open minded people that stumble across this thread and maybe they will start to embrace the idea of Liberty. Maybe they will see that without it, our country will not be the same for our children. Maybe they will see that the things I listed won't change with either candidate in front of us. Maybe they will say enough is enough. Maybe they will get involved in the Liberty movement for their party (I assume their are Liberty candidates in the Dem party also?). That is my dream, and it is attainable if enough people will start to care. For anyone looking for Liberty candidates of the future, check out Justin Amash, Tom Davis, and Rand Paul. We need more elected officials like these men. Thanks for the discussion ~Bobby
Bobby if I thought for a minute that a vote for any other candidate would actually change things then I would vote that way. I voted for Perot and what was the result? He showed well, but it handed the election to "Slick Willy." I'm not sure how to change things in this country other than finding a source of funding for all candidates or an end to the current method of campaign funding. Personally I'd like to see all elections be done like the basketball playoffs. Start at the local level and keep on eliminating candidates until you got to two left. Yep, we'd have to vote a lot more often, but maybe, just maybe, it would result in people making better choices. The current two party system doesn't work and on that point we can both agree. Even George Washington warned about political parties over 200 years ago and we still haven't gotten the message. I would love to see term limits for all elected officials. Politics should not be career. There used to be a term called public service, but now that public service has become self service. How does one go about amending the Constitution? Can a grass root movement work to start to get things changed in our own Constitution? There has to be a better way. Voting for a third party candidate in this election will just insure that we get four more years of Obama. I really don't think we can afford four more years of big spending.
Where my opinion differs is that I don't think a vote for Obama or Romney will change much. To me, eight years of Romney could be as bad as four years of Obama. Our foreign policy of pre-emptive wars and occupation of other countries will continue, our increasing debt will continue, the expanding 24 hour surveillance of US citizens will continue, the un-winable war on drugs will continue, etc. The best chance for the future of Liberty might be for Obama to be re-elected, but for the Republicans to gain both the House and the Senate. Then in 2016 the Republicans can actually give Americans a Liberty minded Presidential candidate to vote for. I do think Romney will help the economy and do a better job of appointing upcoming Supreme Court Justices, but I don't think he will help the Liberty movement at all, I actually think he would hurt it. The Republicans made it clear all year that they didn't want Liberty minded people involved in electing "their" candidate. I saw it first hand at our 10 hour caucus. The positive is we accomplished some small wins in local elections in my county, I attribute that to the way we were treated by the establishment party at the caucus. It gave us energy to get out and make it happen. I'm not saying you should vote for Johnson, I'm hoping you and everyone else starts supporting Liberty Republicans in local and state elections in the future. I don't think the two parties represent the bulk of Americans now, we need to change that by getting involved. The best way I see to do that is from the ground up, through local elections, state elections, and then to D.C.. We CAN make a difference this way. The Liberty movement has doubled in the past four years, if it doubles again the next four there may be hope in 2016.
A lot of people point fingers at the people abusing social services. Those getting capable of work but chose not to. I think that is one of the worst kinds of theft. They are literally stealing from people who truly need help. I think that abuse is a small part of the overall problem, however. The much larger portion of government spending is on medicare, military and social engineering and regulations, etc. I'm sure there are excessive costs involved in medicare and benefits and procedures that are over the top. The US spends 80 times more on military than China. Government has, over the years, set up a huge number departments involved in everything from wild life management to dietary practices to space exploration to regulations administration. Anyone can look at these and say this one or that one is unnecessary and that it should be eliminated. The trouble is all these areas employees hundreds of thousands of people either directly or in supporting industries. Any major cuts will result in massive layoffs which of course has a snowball effect. Those people end up on social services and are unable to buy the goods and services they once could so local businesses suffer. It’s fine to say we can cut military spending in half but the impact on the arms industry and supporting industries would be devastating. It seems to me that spending cuts need to be done gradually, as painful as that is because it continues to increase the debt. The alternative would have too great an impact on an already weak recovery.
Bruce, I agree with you completely. Any sort of huge upheaval of services or government hand outs has to be done in a gradual basis. The waste and abuse within the government is huge. For a while an e-mail had been circulating that wanted a Constitutional amendment that Congress could not pass any laws that they themselves were subjected to. They did that with Obamacare. They basically said, "Hey we have this wonderful program that you, the citizens and taxpayers, HAVE to take and use and pay for, but we don't have to abide by it." That needs to stop. What I would like to see is just a very simple approach. How about a 1% cut in spending and a corresponding 1% increase in taxes? The family making $100,000 a year and paying $15,000 in taxes would only see a $150 increase in taxes which would hardly change their lifestyle and some of the fat and waste could be eliminated from government. I understand the Desire for many of the anti government movements out there and I agree with many of them, but the bludgeon approach to government just isn't going to work. It would be a disaster to the economy and to the well being of the US.
I disagree that it really doesn't make any difference between Obama and Romney. We are getting close to half of the population being on some form of government dole in one fashion or another. Once we exceed that 50% number you will no longer have a vote that matters. Once we exceed that number those that receive the goodies will continue to vote for those that give the goodies. Let me give you a very good example. Much has been made about the GM bailout in the Ohio campaigning. When GM got the bailout much of the stock was given to the UAW. In addition the pensions of the salaried employees got cut but the UAW pensions remained intact. Now do you really think those good card carrying UAW folks are going to vote for anyone other than Obama? He bought those votes with your tax dollars. Second good example is Obamacare. Due to the provisions of Obamacare many national restaurant chains are looking at eliminating most of their full time employees to escape the requirements of Obamacare. Once those people no longer have access to healthcare from their employers they will have to rely on the government form of health insurance, Bingo, we just got some more Obama voters. You also mentioned several undeclared wars. Just remember back to the rise of the Iranian clerics to take over that country. Good old Jimmy Carter refused to do anything about the Islamists and look at the mess we have today from Carter's inaction. Sometimes action becomes necessay. I think this election is the most important one of my lifetime. We have someone who has a history of massive vote buying and placing more and more people on the govenment take or someone who has a history of turning companies around and is opposed to more governmnet handouts. If Obama can turn the corner and get over half the population on the government take, then any movement other than the Democratic Party won't matter.
