gbaji wrote:
nonwto wrote:
Right, if there's one thing we can take from history, it's that you can depend on career politicians to look out for the interests of the common people.
That's an oddly relevant point. Barring straight up corruption of some sort, politicians usually want to represent the interests and ideology of those who elected them. That's the whole point of a representative democracy. How exactly they do that can vary based on the specific position they've been elected to, but in this context, it's pretty reasonable to assume that the Dems in congress are going to try to do what liberal voters want, and the GOP is going to try to do what conservative voters want.
Right, but there are some problems with that.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111702807.html
You should find a copy of that ^ and read it. We have serious problems with corruption, and they're not even very concealed. Besides the lobbyists, the nature of our elections and campaigns essentially compels politicians to be corrupt. You almost can't raise the funds necessary to have a chance at winning without taking massive amounts from corporations.
Quite a bit of the fundamental structure of our government is horribly outdated. It doesn't really work well with a country of 300 million people, especially when so many of them are poorly educated. Because of this, the politicians aren't really held accountable for their actions and there's nothing really forcing to be the voice of the voters. Their first priority, almost universally, is their own personal interests. They pass a few pieces of token legislation a year and hold it up as some great victory for the people. There's no impetus for them to solve problems efficiently, as it would essentially be working themselves out of their cushy, overpaid career.
This system does not work, it can not work, it may even be beyond reform due to the entrenched nature of special interests and so on. Personally, I hope we default and balkanize.
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Conservatives tend to believe that smaller government is better, that we've increased our spending too much, that this is preventing our economy from recovering and causing a debt crisis, and that the solution is therefore to cut spending down to pre-crash levels (as much as possible), while not raising taxes. So that's what the GOP is going to try to do.
Ostensibly, sure. However, take a careful look at all the money they funnel to the military industrial complex, corporations and the top few richest percent of the populace.
Once more, I implore you to stop looking at this as a "democrats and republicans" issue. It's much more complex than that, and relative to the politics of Europe and so on, democrats and republicans are essentially the same party. All you're doing with this false dichotomy is limiting your vision.
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Liberals tend to believe that big government provides needed social services and are willing to pay more (or to make others pay more) to provide them.
Quick note on this, we pay more per capita for health care than any other country. I think it's around double what the UK spends. Social safety nets benefit everyone if they're done well, mate. And it's not really a democrat issue. Everyone from the ***** to the soviets supported forms of socialized medicine and so on.