Why do we let "stupid ideas/ people" rule the world? Obama was intelligent,but he has been "dumb-down",what happen?

@tayl44

When you surrender your freedoms by empowering government to make health care, retirement, energy, food, lifestyle, et el choices in your life -- you get what you pay for.

Essentially, government has become your daddy -- however, politicians simply uses this power as an excuse to reward themselves and their cronies in the private and public sector at the expense of the very people and causes they claim to represent.

You want to save the world, de-fund government, use the added windfall from reduced taxation and regulatory  inefficiencies to create your own civic organization that is managed by volunteers who really care about what they are doing instead of politicians and bureaucrats who only serve themselves.

Indeed, name one government agency, commission, or bureau that solved the problem it was created to address and close-up shop a success ?

in reality, these govt. scams always claim they need more funding because the problems they  were created to address 'mysteriously' get worse despite hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars.

case in point -- from today's washington post.

Enjoy and learn:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/capitol-assets-some-legi...

 

 

 

Jeez, P to T, you really are vapid.  In place of bad government you prattle about building our own what,  government?  You just have no belief in democracy and want to imagine something that works other than politics.  Stupid, stupid, stupid and very adolescent.

Have you ever worked with volunteers?  How do you fire them if they screw up?  Where is the accountability if they are giving from the heart, but get it all wrong?  The problem is not "politicians," it is a politics corrupted by the power of big money.  I know a number of politicians who admirably serve and do the best they can in this flawed system, and I want them there without term limits or a dumb anti-incumbant blind rejectionism.  Getting rid of the pimps for power requires political insight and discrimination.  It is not as emotionally satisfying as being a stupid radical with a simplistic emotional reaction.  You really need to learn to focus on power or give up your dumb handle.

It was a response to the tired Power to Truth stuff and to the notion that volunteerism was the answer.

The thread is about why we allow the brain dead to run things, and rather than treat that as a problem about the uneducated mob or powerless rubes, my point is that it is the dumbasses with too much money who have screwed us.  Dynasties produce Dubya's, and allowing the Cheneys anywhere near power with all that PNAC insanity is part of the problem of national myths and ideologies.  It is the bad ideas of people with power, not those without power, that need our informed rejection.

Running out the trolls and idiots can be an exercise in educating the vulnerable.  It is also part of learning what the insane really think.  I don't want to have to imagine it instead because I cannot come close and it makes me very mean spirited to cast these characters and plot their action myself.  God will see and judge, but surviving the apolcalypse takes some planning and preparation.  I am a cultural pathologist so you don't have to be.

Idiots. Defund government, huh? Like the world could exist without governments. Idiots. WTF?

Come on, don't you know that we are all too stupid to take care of ourselves and need the goverment to tell us how to spend our money, which doctors to go to, and what health insurance to buy?  You don't expect to make those decsions for yourself do you???

I also think we are smart enough to practice democray together and do things together that nobody can do by him or herself.  We benefit from a universal risk pool in the Single Payer model a lot more than we do 'on our own' with the health insurance pirates.  We are not told which doctors to go to, just that the doctors are qualified and they get paid collectively so we don't have to be held up and the good ones are not stiffed, or unable to serve those who cannot afford to pay.  This insures that we don't have a bunch of sick people infecting our communities, or would if we were not plagued by idiot Righties and dogmatic Libertarians.

Being smart enough to recognize the advantages of democracy and collective investments means we don't fall for this crap about how bad government is for us.

TTP:  Why do you insist on making the government a seperate entity not empowered by the people?  Our government is a representative democracy "of, by, and for the people.  If the government is doing the wrong thing it is because it has been corrupted by the rich and powerful who have a seperate agenda than a paticipatory democracy, and want to have more than the one person, one vote participation allowed by the constitution.  Citizen's united is an excellent example of how the rich seek to control the mantle of our democracy by claiming corporations are people and thus giving the rich more of a part in the running of the government.

Instead of throwing the baby out with the bahtwater, we need to clean up our government by demanding that the laws we as a people came together for are enforced and upheld.  Democracy is not static and neither is our government.  If we want to keep a free society, we must be ever vigilant in upholding its tennants.  When bad people or people with bad results prevail in our government, we must be aware and active and reclaim it.  Participate in your government, as it represents you.  Trying to create some libertarian "utopia" through volunteerism is not what this nation was founded upon.  

First of all, government doesn't tell us how to spend our money.  Second, it is the insurance companies that tell you which doctors to go to.  Third, there is no mandate of any kind that tells us what health insurance to buy.  You should not have to "buy" health insurance.  It is a right as a US citizen or any citizen for that matter to have access to health care and not a priviledge.

Well said!..........It will probably go right over his head though.

Obama wasn't "dumbed down". He was vetted as "safe" before Wall Street gave him a dime to promote his election,.

The people's candidate, Kucinich, was quietly removed from your TV screen. in favor of Wall Street's candidate.

Get how the corrupt U.S. political system works.

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"

 

The issue is democracy, so making the money the issue will not make us 'smarter.'  Of course Kucinich was too good to be allowed to compete by the money, but I do not think that makes Obama useless.  It just means that we ought not sit back and wait for the money to concede to elections they fund.  We need to appreciate that the light dawns slowly for the bright as well as for the dumb.  Developmentally disabled people understand love better than smart, rich people, in my experience.  Peasants appreciate why they need to be each other's keepers in a way the rich never will.

Americans are deep into narratives of exceptionalism and "the economy" making it hard to have critics get very far.  It is not the dumb ones who stand out as the problem, although the manipulators do run many of them by fear and projection.  Still, it is the economy believing Banksters far more than the drones who are the problem.  It is the educated and successful suburbs who elected Bush, not really the rednecks and rubes.  Be careful about rejecting those who do not agree with you on the basis of them being either uneducated or dumbass.  Appreciate that those who are invested in the system are not ready to indict it at the expense of their own identities or careers.

But, have hope that "they" can only fool "enough of the people, enough of the time," for a while.  The best response to the manipulators is to take the people they fool seriously and reach them as human beings.  These people are vulnerable when they think that "change" will destroy them.  Making it a good thing to propose change and a shift in paradigm instead of the end of the world as they know it is about building community instead of rejecting them.  They might be more open to it than we fear.  OWS did a lot to make being part of the 99 an invitation to bring one's own story and experience to the table instead of having to buy into somebody else's critical or radical analysis.

Therapists have to love their clients before they get 'cured.'  If they only love the ones who take their advice and do what they say must be done, bad things happen even to the ones who do get "cured."  Don't be that kind of agent of change.

OK, you take on the role of prophet, and don't expect to be popular or to avoid being jailed or killed for your radicalism.  Others have to do the taking care of people in the meantime, and in the pastoral roles it is better to care for the sick and hurt, including the manipulated, than to call them a bunch of sinners or fools alone.  We play different roles in the process of change.  Respect that, and do your thing.