8 ms·

There is no 'my side' in government. Both the Democrats and Republicans are frauds, hucksters, and criminals. Government sucks, period. Maybe most people are

There is no 'my side' in government. Both the Democrats and Republicans are frauds, hucksters, and criminals. Government sucks, period. Maybe most people are not paying enough attention, but election results have no substantial effect on the policies or actions of the USA Federal government.

oculusthrift 10y ago
how can people be spouting this nonsense on a very article wherrr one side is standing in the way of science and the other would never do that. nonetheless the day that keystone and dakota pipeline are approved and an anti net neutrality fcc head is chosen. this seems like a way to dispel all conversation without requiring much thought.
- filoeleven 10y ago
  Being anti-science isn't the only way to suck. Just before leaving office, Obama expanded domestic mass surveillance, for one example of many. The US is an oligarchy. EDIT: Just realized you may be talking about "no substantial effect", in which case I agree with you that there are substantial differences. Neither party is of, for, or by the people though.
  - openasocket 10y ago
    > The US is an oligarchy. OK, I see this statement all the time and I just don't understand it. How can you say that when Trump, a man with exactly zero political experience, beat out a lifelong politician and wife of a President, not to mention the half dozen qualified candidates in the primary. Obama beat Clinton in the primary and McCain in the general when his only political experience he had was in the state senate.
    - oculusthrift 10y ago
      i mean hes still a billionaire funded by billionaires. youd have a point of bernie won...
    - yarou 10y ago
      You don't see how a supposedly "anti-establishment" candidate who happens to be a billionaire (and is surrounded in his cabinet by other billionaires) doesn't reek of a system of crony capitalism and oligarchy? If so, I have a few butt coins and a blockchain to sell you.
      - battlebot 10y ago
        America's forefathers were all wealthy men, it did not mean they were oligarchs. Was George Washington an oligarch? Jefferson? Madison?
        cmrdporcupine 10y ago
        Yes.
        battlebot 10y ago
        Then why did they give the country to the people, then? Why did they make it democratic when they had the golden opportunity to create a monarchy or some other form of totalitarianism.
        cmrdporcupine 10y ago
        It would be a stretch to say they gave it to the people. They 'gave' it to their own class of people. White, male, land owners and the emergent bourgeoisie/industrialists. Universal suffrage was a _long_ way off, and arguably never fully arrived in the U.S. due to ongoing racial politics.
      - openasocket 10y ago
        yeah, I almost didn't include that, but I think he still counts because he ran in on a wave of rampant populism, bowling over the entire Republican establishment in the process. He's absolutely an example of crony capitalism, but not necessarily an oligarchy. At the very least, not the same oligarchy as the political establishment.
      - 10y ago
    - sien 10y ago
      Obama was US Senator for Illinois from 2005-2008. He was an Illinois Senator from 1997-2004.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  It's a strategy to delegitimize governance in general. I get pissed off with the government all the time, for a wide variety of reasons. But I am not pissed off with the idea of government, because I agree with thomas Jefferson's claim in the Declaration of Independence that 'governments are instituted among men' to secure inalienable rights through a process of mutual cooperation.
  - battlebot 10y ago
    I'd be fine with government doing as you describe. For my entire life, we have lived under a system that is not that. The overreach of government is immense and it has the effect of crushing the individual and their spirit. I'm not suggesting I want total anarchy, but government as an arbiter and source of redress is like an 18th or 19th century concept it would seem. I also think our government has been co-opted by Marxists, but I know I'll get shit for that.
    - battlebot 10y ago
      Why the hate? Why do people want government to own their lives? Why do they (you) believe government contains solutions when we have observed with our own eyes it failing time and time again to produce worthwhile solutions to problems? And why stand in the way of commerce via onerous regulation and diktat? Is that not a Soviet style vs. an American style? I think the downvoters are simply scared and that's all.
      - anigbrowl 10y ago
        Nobody is hating on you, just expressing disagreement with a sloppy argument. I understand without fully sharing your view of government as seriously antiquated, but then you blew any credibility you had by throwing in 'marxists' as an insult. This is no more credible than a bunch of leftists trying to shut down an argument by making an umbrella insult of 'capitalists'. Marxism strikes me as an incomplete and therefore flawed socioeconomic theory, but all other economic theories have glaring deficiencies of their own. Capitalism works very well within limited parameters, but has glaring faults of its own, and market fundamentalists are capable of being just as blind and pigheaded as any Marxist I've ever encountered. We don't beat up on Adam Smith or David Ricardo despite the incomplete nature of their economic insights. Serious economists, including conservative ones, take Marx seriously without necessarily buying into all his ideas.
- 13years 10y ago
  Because both parties have been nearly identical on the very things that impact your life and liberties more than anything else. Foreign wars, drug wars, domestic spying, debt, military industrial complex, militarization of police state and the like. On these things, they are the same. The parties differ on topics that we are instead the most strongly emotionally attached. That being religion and social issues. However, even on these, in reality the differences are often in rhetoric only. When the votes are cast, they often align.
  - oculusthrift 10y ago
    its easy to say that as a rich white guy but when you're a young woman who needs access to family planning birth control, a kid who can't afford school lunches, or someone with a pre-existing condition, or any minority really, it really does matter. funny you mention stuff like drug wars, when most likely the incoming administration will crack down on states with legal marijuana when the other party would never do that. not to mentioon, you will see the police state militarized like never before. remember, the current guy is going to reinstate torture as well as stop and frisk and talking about sending the 'feds' into chicago already. but yes, if you're a privileged white male the only things that affect your life are the ones that affect your pocketbook.
    - 13years 10y ago
      >but when you're a young woman who needs access to family planning birth control... I don't think a lot of poor minorities would agree your issues are more important than having spending your life in prison, your life possessions taken by the state by an unjust drug war and police state. Nor the millions of lives completely and utterly destroyed by our foreign wars. None of these people have any kind of privilege. The progression of government power increases in the same direction with each administration. It was the other side who massively increased drug related incarcerations during Clinton's administration. How quickly we forget how alike the sides are: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-war-on-pot-20120216 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-war-on-pot-... You can't see that trillions spent on all these wars, domestic and foreign, leave you with less support for the exact things you mention. The privileged class is the government class. They exempt themselves from the laws we have to follow and will they continue to accumulate wealth and power.
woofyman 10y ago
If you're an LGBT person, it makes a huge difference. Or if you're a women who has to make the agonizing decision to abort a pregnancy it makes a big difference. You'll see what will happen with Republicans in charge now.
wvenable 10y ago
The idea that "government sucks" is part of the problem. If you just assume that the system will never work, it becomes pretty easy to just accept it.
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  Because government's only tool is the use of force, it will always suck for whoever disagrees with the present regime in any given time and place. This is not a politically-biased value judgement, just a simple, irrefutable statement of fact. The only way to minimize the net suckage is to minimize the power we give our government. Notice that I didn't say "eliminate it" or "drown it in the bathtub" or anything like that -- just constrain it within Constitutional boundaries. Neither of the two major parties is even remotely interested in permitting that to happen. So, yes: they both suck.
  - devonkim 10y ago
    One party is portrayed as increasing the scope and power of government while the other advocates for smaller, but we know that this is absolutely not true in terms of government spending and headcount. There is no party that has advocated explicitly for more government for no reason. The issue is around what we as a society consider a minimum viable government and how we can go back after a new agency had been created. It just sounds like rotting code and a bunch of microservices written by different generations of teams instead of just a single team picking a vision and sticking with it. In my view, going back and forth from one ideology to another as different parties rotate has resulted in an effective system that has the worst of both liberal and conservative ideologies implemented.
opsiprogram 10y ago
Okay so I completely disagree with this, so try harder to convince me! Let me bring to the front, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Gillibrand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Gillibrand. She's a democrat, but of course a good republican would work here too. SO you painted with a tremendously broad brush, but of course Kirsten isn't a criminal. You're suggesting she is though? Is John McCain is a criminal? Who specifically are the criminals..?? Lets start with that... but I think maybe you're trying to make a point that everyone is twisted and greedy and these are such profoundly human traits that believing in a political party is a foolish choice because off course humans are evil, and the party leaders will automatically be "frauds, hucksters, and criminals" and a good person in politics is a myth. Maybe you should just come out and say that instead? Is that what you really meant? You don't really care about politics, you just think people are bad yea?

oculusthrift 10y ago

how can people be spouting this nonsense on a very article wherrr one side is standing in the way of science and the other would never do that. nonetheless the day that keystone and dakota pipeline are approved and an anti net neutrality fcc head is chosen. this seems like a way to dispel all conversation without requiring much thought.

filoeleven 10y ago
Being anti-science isn't the only way to suck. Just before leaving office, Obama expanded domestic mass surveillance, for one example of many. The US is an oligarchy. EDIT: Just realized you may be talking about "no substantial effect", in which case I agree with you that there are substantial differences. Neither party is of, for, or by the people though.
- openasocket 10y ago
  > The US is an oligarchy. OK, I see this statement all the time and I just don't understand it. How can you say that when Trump, a man with exactly zero political experience, beat out a lifelong politician and wife of a President, not to mention the half dozen qualified candidates in the primary. Obama beat Clinton in the primary and McCain in the general when his only political experience he had was in the state senate.
  - oculusthrift 10y ago
    i mean hes still a billionaire funded by billionaires. youd have a point of bernie won...
  - yarou 10y ago
    You don't see how a supposedly "anti-establishment" candidate who happens to be a billionaire (and is surrounded in his cabinet by other billionaires) doesn't reek of a system of crony capitalism and oligarchy? If so, I have a few butt coins and a blockchain to sell you.
    - battlebot 10y ago
      America's forefathers were all wealthy men, it did not mean they were oligarchs. Was George Washington an oligarch? Jefferson? Madison?
      - cmrdporcupine 10y ago
        Yes.
        battlebot 10y ago
        Then why did they give the country to the people, then? Why did they make it democratic when they had the golden opportunity to create a monarchy or some other form of totalitarianism.
        cmrdporcupine 10y ago
        It would be a stretch to say they gave it to the people. They 'gave' it to their own class of people. White, male, land owners and the emergent bourgeoisie/industrialists. Universal suffrage was a _long_ way off, and arguably never fully arrived in the U.S. due to ongoing racial politics.
    - openasocket 10y ago
      yeah, I almost didn't include that, but I think he still counts because he ran in on a wave of rampant populism, bowling over the entire Republican establishment in the process. He's absolutely an example of crony capitalism, but not necessarily an oligarchy. At the very least, not the same oligarchy as the political establishment.
    - 10y ago
  - sien 10y ago
    Obama was US Senator for Illinois from 2005-2008. He was an Illinois Senator from 1997-2004.
anigbrowl 10y ago
It's a strategy to delegitimize governance in general. I get pissed off with the government all the time, for a wide variety of reasons. But I am not pissed off with the idea of government, because I agree with thomas Jefferson's claim in the Declaration of Independence that 'governments are instituted among men' to secure inalienable rights through a process of mutual cooperation.
- battlebot 10y ago
  I'd be fine with government doing as you describe. For my entire life, we have lived under a system that is not that. The overreach of government is immense and it has the effect of crushing the individual and their spirit. I'm not suggesting I want total anarchy, but government as an arbiter and source of redress is like an 18th or 19th century concept it would seem. I also think our government has been co-opted by Marxists, but I know I'll get shit for that.
  - battlebot 10y ago
    Why the hate? Why do people want government to own their lives? Why do they (you) believe government contains solutions when we have observed with our own eyes it failing time and time again to produce worthwhile solutions to problems? And why stand in the way of commerce via onerous regulation and diktat? Is that not a Soviet style vs. an American style? I think the downvoters are simply scared and that's all.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      Nobody is hating on you, just expressing disagreement with a sloppy argument. I understand without fully sharing your view of government as seriously antiquated, but then you blew any credibility you had by throwing in 'marxists' as an insult. This is no more credible than a bunch of leftists trying to shut down an argument by making an umbrella insult of 'capitalists'. Marxism strikes me as an incomplete and therefore flawed socioeconomic theory, but all other economic theories have glaring deficiencies of their own. Capitalism works very well within limited parameters, but has glaring faults of its own, and market fundamentalists are capable of being just as blind and pigheaded as any Marxist I've ever encountered. We don't beat up on Adam Smith or David Ricardo despite the incomplete nature of their economic insights. Serious economists, including conservative ones, take Marx seriously without necessarily buying into all his ideas.
13years 10y ago
Because both parties have been nearly identical on the very things that impact your life and liberties more than anything else. Foreign wars, drug wars, domestic spying, debt, military industrial complex, militarization of police state and the like. On these things, they are the same. The parties differ on topics that we are instead the most strongly emotionally attached. That being religion and social issues. However, even on these, in reality the differences are often in rhetoric only. When the votes are cast, they often align.
- oculusthrift 10y ago
  its easy to say that as a rich white guy but when you're a young woman who needs access to family planning birth control, a kid who can't afford school lunches, or someone with a pre-existing condition, or any minority really, it really does matter. funny you mention stuff like drug wars, when most likely the incoming administration will crack down on states with legal marijuana when the other party would never do that. not to mentioon, you will see the police state militarized like never before. remember, the current guy is going to reinstate torture as well as stop and frisk and talking about sending the 'feds' into chicago already. but yes, if you're a privileged white male the only things that affect your life are the ones that affect your pocketbook.
  - 13years 10y ago
    >but when you're a young woman who needs access to family planning birth control... I don't think a lot of poor minorities would agree your issues are more important than having spending your life in prison, your life possessions taken by the state by an unjust drug war and police state. Nor the millions of lives completely and utterly destroyed by our foreign wars. None of these people have any kind of privilege. The progression of government power increases in the same direction with each administration. It was the other side who massively increased drug related incarcerations during Clinton's administration. How quickly we forget how alike the sides are: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-war-on-pot-20120216 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-war-on-pot-... You can't see that trillions spent on all these wars, domestic and foreign, leave you with less support for the exact things you mention. The privileged class is the government class. They exempt themselves from the laws we have to follow and will they continue to accumulate wealth and power.

woofyman 10y ago

If you're an LGBT person, it makes a huge difference. Or if you're a women who has to make the agonizing decision to abort a pregnancy it makes a big difference. You'll see what will happen with Republicans in charge now.

wvenable 10y ago

The idea that "government sucks" is part of the problem. If you just assume that the system will never work, it becomes pretty easy to just accept it.

CamperBob2 10y ago
Because government's only tool is the use of force, it will always suck for whoever disagrees with the present regime in any given time and place. This is not a politically-biased value judgement, just a simple, irrefutable statement of fact. The only way to minimize the net suckage is to minimize the power we give our government. Notice that I didn't say "eliminate it" or "drown it in the bathtub" or anything like that -- just constrain it within Constitutional boundaries. Neither of the two major parties is even remotely interested in permitting that to happen. So, yes: they both suck.
- devonkim 10y ago
  One party is portrayed as increasing the scope and power of government while the other advocates for smaller, but we know that this is absolutely not true in terms of government spending and headcount. There is no party that has advocated explicitly for more government for no reason. The issue is around what we as a society consider a minimum viable government and how we can go back after a new agency had been created. It just sounds like rotting code and a bunch of microservices written by different generations of teams instead of just a single team picking a vision and sticking with it. In my view, going back and forth from one ideology to another as different parties rotate has resulted in an effective system that has the worst of both liberal and conservative ideologies implemented.

opsiprogram 10y ago

Okay so I completely disagree with this, so try harder to convince me! Let me bring to the front, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Gillibrand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Gillibrand. She's a democrat, but of course a good republican would work here too. SO you painted with a tremendously broad brush, but of course Kirsten isn't a criminal. You're suggesting she is though? Is John McCain is a criminal? Who specifically are the criminals..?? Lets start with that... but I think maybe you're trying to make a point that everyone is twisted and greedy and these are such profoundly human traits that believing in a political party is a foolish choice because off course humans are evil, and the party leaders will automatically be "frauds, hucksters, and criminals" and a good person in politics is a myth. Maybe you should just come out and say that instead? Is that what you really meant? You don't really care about politics, you just think people are bad yea?