The main problem with politics in this nation is the fact that competence is not a requirement for our political leaders. Any popular moron can get himself elected to any elected position, even President. Intelligent people don't often get very popular. People tend to dislike somebody who makes them feel inferior, and that is an unforgivable sin to the vast majority. The worst thing you can do to a moron is question his intelligence...

Another thing is that most people seem to think that only their candidate is good, and all other candidates aren't. To be a good politician, you have to belong to the right party, care about all the bullsh!t issues that every one issue wonder within the party promotes, and be against all the things your party tells you to be against, whether you feel that way or not. But people should always remember that there are no good politicians. There are only bad politicians. It's just that some are on different sides. Therefore, no matter who wins any election, the people lose. We now have a procession of one bad politician following another, and every mistake ever made gets compounded year by year...

Also, it takes an informed electorate (that's the people who vote, for the uninitiated) to make an informed decision on which candidate is best for our needs. But few people have a clue about any of the issues, except for their pet issue of the day, which is the one that their candidates are making people fear to distract them from the REAL issues. Every candidate will do his utmost to keep people from understanding the REAL issues, because they haven't a clue as to the solution to those issues. But they can get the people who support them to allow their emotions to sway them against the other guy. After all, it's easy to get people AGAINST things. But persuading people to be FOR things is another matter. Few indeed are able to do that, and almost nobody is able to do that when everyone else is working to persuade the people against the very same thing...

It's a losing proposition these days, and is only going to get worse, since our educational system seems to be turning out dumber and dumber people every year. Unless something changes drastically in the near future, the nation is going to continue to decline. And nothing will stop it, unless we suddenly wake up and realize the truth. I don't see any possibility of that happening...

smart man...

It comes from years of observing people. All you have to do is open your eyes and look around...

well you been here long enough.

Ain't that the truth...

Also, having my brains scrambled a few times gives me a somewhat unique perspective...

Bit gave us a full plate, and maybe I'll respond to all of it later on. But just for right now, this point caught my attention:

(07-25-2010 07:50 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  To be a good politician, you have to belong to the right party, care about all the bullsh!t issues that every one issue wonder within the party promotes, and be against all the things your party tells you to be against, whether you feel that way or not.

(emphasis added)

That is so true.

In recent years, I have gotten the chance to personally know a man who actually served as Governor of a large state for about 8 years (no longer in office; he was already retired when I met him). Publicly, he uttered all the "correct" opinions that his party requires its members to "believe" in, but in private reality he either didn't care about those issues at all (which was most of the time), or actually disagreed with "his" party about those issue (some of the time). Now in retirement, he is more than a little bitter about all the pressure that his party brought to bear on him throughout his career, and I am sure he also is angry at himself for going along with all the little hypocrisies (and some not-so-little hypocrisies) that a political career involves. Publicly, he never did "break" with his party the way Zell Miller or Linc Chafee did, although I am sure some people have noticed the way he has stopped showing up at party events (others just figure he is old and done with politics).

Governors are (obviously) well-known people within their own states, and this guy was probably better-known than most. But it is so funny/sad how he spent all those years spouting his party's "line" and inwardly despising the majority of the people who really did believe in it.

Politics -- What a strange business!

Politics is a big reason why the military always takes some time to get things worked out at the start of a war. The best way to get a promotion is to politic your way along. When war time comes along the way to get ahead is competence, and people who are good at politics are usually incompetent in the field...