ARE WE ENTITLED TO AN HONORABLE CONGRESS?

DNC or Biden campaign is not Government. Only Government back in 2020 was Trump Administration.

 

Are you saying that the manipulation of truth by primary political entities to gain political power is not political until they have succeeded in winning it?
Sadly, tactics in politics have become ugly, and truly despicable.

If you drug your horse and he wins the race, but the drugs are discovered, and you are punished and lose.
But if you drug all the other horses so they will lose the race- your horse wins and is drug-free. Doesn't have to excel or out-perform. Done that way, an ass can win the Kentucky Derby.

This is current political thinking. If your candidate is a piece of crap, make the opposition into a pile of crap.

That's one of the reasons congress and today's leadership is more like a shitshow than a government.

Any effort by people in government or working for those in government to manipulate or bury truth about candidates for positions in government belongs in the same discussion.

 

No we are not entitled to honesty, full transparency and trust, especially 200+ years after the government was formed.

As James Madison noted all those years ago "In truth, all men holding power ought to be mistrusted".

Utopia is never an option in human affairs.

 

Did you born yesterday ?

“Manipulation of truth by primary political entities to gain political power”. This tactic has been used since the down of American republic. Joe Biden didn’t invent “manipulation of truth”. This tactic has been going on for centuries in this country and around the world by politician.

It’s not illegal or unconstitutional. End of the story!

 

You offer an excellent thread. I think a perfect example of how government is capable of doing good but is soon corrupted by the humans that run it is the Glass Steagall Act of the last century. It worked by regulating the banking industry in a way that delivered a stable period of time and great prosperity.

Then along came Bill Clinton and others in the industry that repealed the law, and all that came after that was pain and suffering for the little guy.

A similar case could be made regarding the advertising of prescription drugs. For many long decades those drugs could be advertised ONLY in professional publications. They could not be advertised to the public.

Clinton changed that, and not only did Pharma profit nicely, the human tendency to hypochondria has blossomed into what we have today.

 

We are not entitled to receive those attributes in our Congress, if we are not willing to reward them with our vote over partisan considerations. When I started to vote, I was taught that you look for four things in a candidate. In no particular order they were:
1. Competence (capacity to do the job),
2. Character ( likelihood that they would do the job with integrety and honesty)
3. Platform ( what they want to do in the job/ their vision/ their ideology alligns with mine)
4. Electability (capacity to get the job over someone I don't want to have it)

Now those days are gone, because voters no longer care about half of that stuff anymore, at least not enough to vote against incompetent or low character candidates and for competent and honorable ones, regardless of platform and electability concerns. We deserve the kind of politicians that we voted into office, in the last few elections.

 

Most things that are evil and detrimental to the success of a people are old. The question of their success however, depends on the tolerance of it today.
The success of a nation does not depend on laws alone- it depends on social values and standards, on the morality of it's people- and how high they are willing to set the bar; the expectations of the society for itself. . .
The question you have to ask yourself is if you are willing to settle for being the prey of the parasites, or you are going to refuse to tolerate them. You don't need a law to do that.
You need morals, character and courage.

 

I agree; much of that is true. Most laws are some kind of trade-offs that benefit one cause at the expense of others. Often, which we support depends on the mood of the people- and what you see
today is a concentrated effort to bring about deeply flawed legislation by manipulating people's perceptions and values. I believe that is perhaps the lowest tactic of political strategy possible, it is an attack on the people's right to be and think independently by twisting, destroying truth.

Only two nations allow the advertising of prescription drugs- America and New Zealand. We have a second policy that has done a great deal of damage, and that is advertising legal services. I don't mean the general statement of a firm being available- but the recruitment of plaintiffs for tort litigation with the promise of money, telling people they are entitled, that justice is due them, etc. That has turned the legal system into an army of mercenaries hunting targets- with the only parameter needed to qualify being they have deep pockets. They have focused especially on the health care industry and pharmaceuticals, driving the costs of insurance for the industry to excess, which then drives the cost of care to excess, which then causes the rates for health care insurance off the charts too.

With consistency- when government "fixes" one complaint, it creates a great number of injurious conditions and problems for others.
I keep thinking back to that old advice that says "If it ain't broke, don't fix it..."

 

I tell you what , next time Republican brings a “Honest , morals, character and courage” candidate, we will evaluate and see if we can vote for that candidate. But when the choice is between Biden vs Trump then it is not hard to chose which candidate has better moral standing , and Biden hands down win without any question.

 

Really, nobody is entitled to anything.

We really need to learn that as a country.

 

And that's why the old saw runs, 'in a dicietybin which anything goes everything eventually does.

 

Of course, those values are or should be common ones. But consider another perspective. Even if you could vote for a person who scored high in those things- how would that work in an environment that respected none of them?

You can't change the character of people, that's not in you power. You can however change the parameters of a relationship, so that if a person will not respect the rules of honor loses the right to be in that relationship. That is with in the power of the people, if they were to realize it, and that is the point here. Put an honest person in a game where cheating is tolerated, he will have to learn to cheat better to survive.
Change the game so that cheating is not tolerated and the prospect change totally.

What if we sent honorable candidates to work in an honorable congress? One where the only way to accomplish anything was to follow the rules?
And believe me- there are adequate rules right now.... but the line of followers is zero.

It's not just the people we elect- it's the environment they must work in that controls what will get done, and how.

 

What is one thing that seems to be the root of all corruption or misdealings?

I say money,. our election process has got so expensive and run by large donors(bribes IMO), that the people really don't have a choice.
Money chooses for us, as has been said, we the people, get to choose the lesser of 2 evils. The evils that large monetary donations have moved to the front.

Many argue that money is speech, not true IMO, money is a tool to buy things.
Money also has been said to be the root of all evil.

 

And does that mean you would settle for nothing, allow other to use you and take from you as they see fit?
Entitlement is a concept that a society defines. Our society's entitlements starts with Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Note happiness is not the entitlement- but the right to pursue it is.
There is no granted right to be a fraud, a cheat, a sleazebag or crooked politician either. That hardly means we have to embrace such things, because they are usually violations of the things that are our rights.

 

Who gets to change the game?
The voters?
The congress critters themselves? They make the laws/rules.

So, how do we get the rule makers to change the rules to make them more honest? How can voters change the parameters? The voters need to be united in their quest.
Which is why the 2 party system works so well for the ruling elite.

They push buttons and state words that keep the voters continuously pointing fingers. The 2 parties have spread the word so well, that the other party is evil and never to be trusted. So many people only vote for a party, never an individual. And that works well for the 2 party elite. They are never held responsible because the evil other party is the problem.

My signature below I've had since I logged on here 12 yrs ago.
We are a divided Nation, where do divided nations end up?
We don't fight for Americans, all Americans, we fight for a party. At least those that are registered to a party. Of which I am not. Parties IMO, should be disbanded.

 

What would be wrong with the voters voting against every incumbent they can, until the establishment has no power left.
Which means voting for a person over a party. Just vote a non incumbent.

 

I believe the OP is talking about "igniting a fire" to cause the voters to do just that. I just don't believe that, absent some sort of catalyst, partisan voters will vote against their party, no matter how bad their candidate turns out to be. On the news yesterday, a voter was asked why he supported Walker. His answer was "Walker was the last republican standing, so I had no choice."

Let me ask: If you were in Georgia, would you have voted against the incumbent in the runoff?

 

Partisan voters won't.
But the independent voters grow larger it seems with each passing election cycle.

Maybe some day partisans will heed the old saying,

United We Stand, Divided We Fall.
But, the 2 party, large money, parties have a stronghold on getting sheeple to point fingers.

 

You pose a good question. The answer- is that the change we will be proposing is totally non-partisan. There will be no "voting against your party" side to it. No condemnations of any member or party in the process.

 

Which was consistently being sand bagged by the people who were supposed to be working for it.

 

Again “ it’s everyone’s fault except Trump” . If Trump is so incapable to run the country then he should have resigned. I didn’t hear Obama says “ deep state is against me, FBI is working against my administration”. I didn’t hear Bush administration says “ CIA lied to me about WMD”, I didn’t hear Carter said “ Air force screed me over”. But when it comes to Trump , it’s FBI is against him, CIA is against him, deep state is against him”. If you can’t take the heat then get out of kitchen. It’s no one’s fault but the guy in charge.

 

That's because they weren't.

Obama was the daring of the media and the government bureaucrats.

Bush WANTED to go into Iraq and lied about it. He was mad about what happened to daddy.

Carter was so bewildered he got lost in the forest. He was letting the country go to hell because he didn't know what he was doing. Voting for him in 1976 was the biggest mistake I made at the ballot box.

Clowns like Adam Schiff peddled lies for the entire Trump presidency. That, combined with Trump's thin skin, made the situation worse.

 

Money is a good answer. You could also say power. Power to control not only your life, but the power to control the lives of other people. Gaining power is also your ticket to gaining wealth.

 

The FBI becomes "American KBG" when is suppresses a story or gives false information to suppress a story. That is government suppression of "free Speech"!

 

I do think I understand. You will not be focused on having voters replace incumbents, as @dairyair suggests... your focus is instead on leaving them no other path but honor, or the door.