71–80 of 321 posts
Total information awareness is their goal, and they will succeed.
"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up,…
George Carlin is (was) a right fool. The whole problem is that people don't have enough control over the government. Not voting only allows those who would have control over you to have more power. Even a protest vote or a third party vote is worth more than no vote.
Actually, it's not. The US election process operates under the Electoral College[1], so a state majority vote changes all votes to that majority vote (eg: Democrats win majority in Illinois, so all votes in that state end up voting for Democrats in the presidential election).
The disparity between the electoral vote and the popular vote is usually not wide enough to cause controversy, however it's still offensive to realize that your vote changes without your consent.
Gerrymandering[2] is a whole different topic, however it is just as galling.
Did anyone really believe him?
Apparently more than half of the voting population of the US. And most of the media. A ton of bloggers. Maybe Europe.
The biggest problem in the US, maybe the world, is that we don't have instant run-off voting to allow competition in federal gov't. We're trapped by this one oversight of the Founding Fathers.
Chhi... Compare it with the words and deeds of Abraham Lincoln 250 years ago: "If slavery isn't wrong, then nothing is wrong." [1][2] There is a stark change in quality of leaders available today. There is so little correlation between words spoken and execution. [1] http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trt027.html [2] http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/ltoh1.jpg
Here is the rub, if government does nothing and we get attacked people will complain. If government steps up and works to prevent an attack, people complain. Where is the balance?
Foreign policy is the real issue here.
"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up,…
"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up,…