I am interested to know how many other people out there believe that there is something wrong with the current United States government. I’m not necessarily looking for positions on specific issues, but rather would just like to know roughly what proportion of the people think something is wrong.
Sadly, my guess is that most people don’t care. So long as people can live their daily lives where much more important (or rather immediate) things reign; like spouses, children, family, work, health, etc.; it seems to me that there is not nearly enough concern for the welfare of the nation as a whole, nor for the future of the nation or the world.
When people do care, it seems to manifest itself as a very cautious, very uninformed political involvement that results mostly in keeping the status quo. This is just a common sense self-preservation mechanism: do as little as possible to keep things the way that is working (or so they think). The problem with this approach is that future problems are rarely addressed by the constituency, but rather they are left for the politicians in office to tackle.
When you get to this point, many people subscribe to the “it’s their job” claim, which simply shifts the burden off of the average person; after all, they have a busy life already. Some might go further to try to justify it with something like, “we elect these officials based on their views and plans, so they will take the best course of action for us”.
The problem with leaving important future decisions to politicians, in my view, is precisely the fact that it is their job. They make careers out of convincing the people to elect them to an office and then once in office, they use their power as they see fit. Now there are certainly politicians who choose to use their power to represent their constituency as best as possible, but for each of them there is at least one who uses the power in another manner. Inside this there exists another problem for the altruistic and scrupulous politician in that the people don’t really know what they want. The majority of the people are too busy with their own lives to even understand the issues that face the nation, much less tell the representative what the best course of action is.
Now the other representatives that take matters into their own hands and simply placate their constituents around reelection time almost seem more appealing than the ones with scruples. The problem with these free-willed politicians is that not all of them are altruistic and want to further the people’s interests; and moreover the ones that are altruistic are often misguided. One of these politicians might think he or she is helping the nation at large by spearheading an anti-terrorist campaign or ensuring democracy’s saturation throughout the world or subsidizing the local farming industry, but in reality these actions have far-reaching implications and side effects that simply cannot be realized at any single time by any single ordinary person.
The trend here is that the burden of driving the nation into the next century is being put on a very small relative number of shoulders, leaving a severe imbalance of power. Even if we were to assume the best possible intentions of all government officials (which most would agree is far from the truth), there is still a gross imbalance of power and a top-heavy nation that’s bound to blunder along with its (decidedly human) drivers.
This is not democracy and it is no way to run a large nation.
The point of this commentary is to point out the current state of affairs and ask the people if they see anything wrong. In other words, it is to evoke enough concern to ask for an honest evaluation and receive a confirmation of the necessity of change.
Satanism tells us: fuck ‘em! As long as I get to have fun until I die, I don’t give a damn. It simply doesn’t matter.
Well, in short, my response is “yes” we do need change. Just because there is a need to change doesn’t mean change is possible or practical. America has grown to be such a beast of a nation (big and hairy in certain places, and simple and cute in others). Our judicial system and the unique complex organization of our country makes such change seem like a fairy tale. The outcome of this presidential election is a simple but telling example of how naive the midwest is. Much of the states in the midwest voted for bush, but it is these poor rednecks that suffer the most from the actions of the large corporations that the republicans support.
As for the “leaders” of this nation, no doubt that there are exceptions- representatives with good intentions who are smart yet cunning in the political arena. It is my impression, however, that the greatest minds of this country are not the politicians. Those who continue their education past college often pursue degrees in the sciences, math, engineering, medicine, law, and business. If a change were to happen under the leadership of real intellectuals, like the founding fathers of this country who were more educated than the average population, these scientists and doctors and lawyers would have to put aside their more lucrative and satisfying profession. Um…I don’t think so.
In closing- we better colonize Mars or the Moon or Anakin Skywalker’s home of Tatooine soon and start our own country there before this one crumbles.
~Jeff
Agreed. There’s obviously something wrong with our government; the only problem is that there will always be someone who believes there is “something wrong” with every type or system of government we can come up with, or any supposedly beneficial changes we make to the current government. Changing it in the first place requires enough people to band together to demand a change, and that hurdle is so high these days that very few attempt it, and those who attempt it rarely accomplish anything. Sad.
Democracy or a Republic in it’s true, unbastardized state is a wonderful form of government, however what the United States has seen since around 1850 is neither a Republic nor a Democracy. We have seen the rise of politicians with no interest except their own personal gain since then, to deny this would be absurd. Career politicians are the unfortunate side effect of any government, like wise they are also the death of them.
One big problem I see right now is that only the Republicans and Democrats have any chance of winning most elections, so I feel forced to vote for the lesser of two “evils”, which at the moment is the Republicans, even though I don’t agree 100% with their platform and I especially don’t like how much they get paid off by big powerful corporations and interest groups who don’t have ordinary people’s interests in mind.
I’d prefer there were no parties or party platforms at all, but I doubt that will happen any time soon. If some Democrats were to come along that I liked, who actually had some original constructive ideas of their own instead of simply trying to block the Republicans from getting anything useful done, then I would certainly vote for them. But currently most politicians in either party don’t seem to do much independent thinking of their own, they are sheep who simply vote the same way as everyone else in their party. The only real exceptions I can think of at the moment are Kay Bailey Hutchison and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Arnold Shwarznegger as an example? What a joke, claims to be republican yet wants to hold a special election this November with an estimated cost of $45 Million in a state that’s strapped for cash.
Now I see your philosphy on voting for the “lesser of two evils”, why would you even do that? Just because the canidate you support can’t win, you’re going to sell your vote to keep ther person you dislike the most from winning. While I can see some validity to this act, the fact of the matter is you’re completely going against your views. This past election I voted for Badnarik, I knew he didn’t have a chance in hell of winning, but I’m not going to vote for someone I don’t support. Keeping with my beliefs in the long run is much more important to me than keeping someone out of office.
Now for independent thinkers for their party, there are tons of these people. Let’s take Ron Paul of Texas for example. Registered and Voted into the House of Representatives as a Republican, has fought for individual rights and liberties countless times. The only thing that seperated Democrats and Republicans now a days are their moral and societal stances. For example, Republicans claim to be conservative, however only thing they are conservative about is the moral values. They spend as wastefully as any Democrat or Socialist does. Same goes for the Democrats, they preach how they are so “open minded”, yet all they care about is their progress in their careers.
[...] I previously discussed the necessity of change and now I’d like to move on to the more pertinent and controversial question: the plausibility of change. [...]
I’ve always though the system is badly broken, but it seems “good enough” to enough people to remain in place.
Hell, that just might be the most change-worthy thing about it.