Countdown to the end of Obama's presidency.

Many people could do a better job than Barack Hussein Obama.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

Fido, I just want to be sure I understand your response to me, so a few questions more, if I may.

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In this day and age, there is no reason we should not be electing the cabinate, or the Supreme Court…

We are electing our representatives, senators, and president…and you think we are doing a lousy job of that. Now you are suggesting that we elect the members of the Supreme Court…and the cabinet of the president.

What is your reasoning there? Why do you think that would help? Why do you think we would do a better job with our power of election there?

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I must say initially, that “inviting more to the trough” is not something I’ve ever considered before, and I want to give it true consideration, if that is what you are proposing.

It was the house itself in order to make the house more manageable that voted on the last occasion of several to fix its number at the present level... This was done under the power of the parties, and it has empowered no one so much as the parties... Consider what it means to be in the minority in a safe district year after year...The majority of our districts are considered safe, and this is the equal of England's Rotten Bouroughs... How is democracy served by quelling the voices of so many??? It is hard to divide people, and in large states with dispersed populations you might have to gerrymand many zip codes... To have three safe seats you might have to make one seat safe for a minorty by a 40% margin and in the process consistently deny to forty five percent any representation reflecting their concerns or demands...The House was the sole branch of government given freely to the people, and its members should not be able to limit their number because to do so raises their price above the value of their virtue... If we sent thousands of representatives the price of one would never exceed his honor, and yet the price of buying a whole majority of them would be staggering...No one alive could manage the hurt feelings and slights likely from such a mass transaction... When people say it is not the money, but the principal, they mean it is the money, but what it would take to influence such a group against its principals or the will of its electors would likely remind more people of their virtue then cause them to look away from them...

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There is no reason we should not have a vastly more numerous House of Representatives…

How can having more feeders at the trough possibly help with the problems you are suggesting exist?

One of the major problems we have right now is the great divide between factions. How can (in effect) creating more factions possibly help rather than hurt?

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I appreciate your comments on Barack Obama. I agree completely with the statement:

Injustice breeds factions... There were never parties in England until the royalists who were beaten on the battlefield became victorious in the house of commons and went about establishing a state religion which drove many from their pulpets and out of their parishes...

What happened when the house fixed its number so that it did not grow with the population is that each individual representative grew more strong at the expense of the institution and the people who together grew less strong... We do not send those people to Washington to do their business, but to do ours; but since they are able to contrive districts which are divided, it is they who are freed from obediance to our will... If less people sent more, each would hear a clear voice, and then do as he is told, or be ehld accountable... Now, the only clear voice any rep hears is that of party and/or money...In most districts it is only one like them, or more so, more liberal or more reactionary who can push them out in the primary stage of elections so that division grows out of parties which are themselves extra constitutional in nature... It is often difficult enough to draw districts that successfully divide a population into minority and majority groups that will hold till the next drawing of districts...It would be next to impossible to divide groups as small a thirty thousand in any significant fashion...What does it matter if there were twice as many, orten times the number??? It is not the lack of voices and new ideas that government suffers from... The object of money and party, and divided districts is to limit new ideas and voices in government... It is for want of new ideas that the government so often throws to the people sops they do not need and do not ask for... No one can know let alone communicate with 250K people... It might be possible easily to know and vote the concerns of 30K people.... And there is no reason Washington would require a full time effort let alone a staff...There is no reason the states could not be governed as well by their national representatives in double duty, and it would make them more aware of the problems they must solve... It would save money because the corruption of our government, made possible because so few control so much power, and draw so much money- actually costs us billions and billions...Today they are pigs... We could make them men, and then what does it matter if the government is unmanaged??? What would it matter if they make mistakes so long as mistakes can be undone??? Government should be unmanaged and free, able to respond to problems and threats, not so bound up with party and principals that it cannot act for the best....

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No one would likely do better than Mr. Obama and many would do worse..

But then you go on to claim his is not doing some things that you would have preferred to have seen done.l But, Fido, at that point you seem to have completely abandoned the notion that many of those things you wanted done (many of us wanted done) NOBODY could have gotten done.

The obstruction was too great and the obstructionists too determined to ever allow those things to come to fruition.

What a pragmatist must do…is to see what is possible out of the wish list…and obtain as much of that as possible. I think that is exactly what Obama has done.

And that is one of the reasons I want to see him re-elected.

It's absolutely true.

From the gutter to Obama is not up.

It was the house itself in order to make the house more manageable that voted on the last occasion of several to fix its number at the present level... This was done under the power of the parties, and it has empowered no one so much as the parties... Consider what it means to be in the minority in a safe district year after year...The majority of our districts are considered safe, and this is the equal of England's Rotten Bouroughs... How is democracy served by quelling the voices of so many??? It is hard to divide people, and in large states with dispersed populations you might have to gerrymand many zip codes... To have three safe seats you might have to make one seat safe for a minorty by a 40% margin and in the process consistently deny to forty five percent any representation reflecting their concerns or demands...The House was the sole branch of government given freely to the people, and its members should not be able to limit their number because to do so raises their price above the value of their virtue... If we sent thousands of representatives the price of one would never exceed his honor, and yet the price of buying a whole majority of them would be staggering...No one alive could manage the hurt feelings and slights likely from such a mass transaction... When people say it is not the money, but the principal, they mean it is the money, but what it would take to influence such a group against its principals or the will of its electors would likely remind more people of their virtue then cause them to look away from them...

What happened when the house fixed its number so that it did not grow with the population is that each individual representative grew more strong at the expense of the institution and the people who together grew less strong... We do not send those people to Washington to do their business, but to do ours; but since they are able to contrive districts which are divided, it is they who are freed from obediance to our will... If less people sent more, each would hear a clear voice, and then do as he is told, or be ehld accountable... Now, the only clear voice any rep hears is that of party and/or money...In most districts it is only one like them, or more so, more liberal or more reactionary who can push them out in the primary stage of elections so that division grows out of parties which are themselves extra constitutional in nature... It is often difficult enough to draw districts that successfully divide a population into minority and majority groups that will hold till the next drawing of districts...It would be next to impossible to divide groups as small a thirty thousand in any significant fashion...What does it matter if there were twice as many, orten times the number??? It is not the lack of voices and new ideas that government suffers from... The object of money and party, and divided districts is to limit new ideas and voices in government... It is for want of new ideas that the government so often throws to the people sops they do not need and do not ask for... No one can know let alone communicate with 250K people... It might be possible easily to know and vote the concerns of 30K people.... And there is no reason Washington would require a full time effort let alone a staff...There is no reason the states could not be governed as well by their national representatives in double duty, and it would make them more aware of the problems they must solve... It would save money because the corruption of our government, made possible because so few control so much power, and draw so much money- actually costs us billions and billions...Today they are pigs... We could make them men, and then what does it matter if the government is unmanaged??? What would it matter if they make mistakes so long as mistakes can be undone??? Government should be unmanaged and free, able to respond to problems and threats, not so bound up with party and principals that it cannot act for the best....

You are welcome to re-elect him... It would be better if democrats showed some spine... The Iraq war would not have been possible, for example if the Democrats had asked: What is really in this for those who elected me??? They knew that to go against the tide, and to really ask hard questions, and to demand reasonable proof that we should attack the whole people of Iraq because they were powerless to rid themselves of a tyrant would have killed their carreers... It would have been easier to make the democrats look unpatriotic than loyal... But, in caring for their own carreers so that Iraqis and our young men could go and die, and so that trillions could be spent in futility was treason, and it is always treason to put yourself before your country's interest...
You see how the republicans can vote to a man against certain Democratic proposals... It is their economy, but they think it will mend itself, and if it will be mended, they will not help the Democrats to mend it... There are times when every person should be willing to put their lives and futures on the line for their country...The problem with Mr. Obama is not the he is a socialist, or too revolutionary; but that he did not go far enough be any means... Why should anyone get a second term for not giving everything to a first term... That is the big mistake they all make, or playing one term for re-election when they will never have a better opportunity than when fresh to do what they see needs to be done...

Those people in government are nice to each other and cruel to the country...The democrats in particular still try to play nice when the republicans win because they do not paly at all... They throw mud till it sticks... They twist every word.. They know everything Karl Rove taught them... It is not about government... It is about having power one way or the other... As John C. Calhoun said: Irresponsible power is inconsistent with liberty, and must corrupt those who exercise it...Who elects people like Rove, and why was he so involved in the office, and in making policy??? Having not enough people in the house elected means that more unelected people will actually be writing the laws, and holding the power... Money gives people the power to explain away their own deeds, and to twist the deeds of others... Money makes government irresponsible...Does anyone think the rich would permit the wars they support and profit from it if they had to fight them and pay for them??? Laying the price of supporting capital on those who know no profit is irresponsible...

I am certain that the people thought of a highly representative body as a given in the constitution, and the fact that for a time the house held to the ratio of representatives to citizens... As far as chaos goes, I think two things will happen... People will follow their leaders as far as they can, and those with charisma will manage those without, and ultimately, if the rep wants the job, he will represent the needs of his electors with fidelity... Today, because districts are divided they are also ruled, and only the representative is free, because , wheter he votes right or left, he can say he is representing, and even when he goes against all he is free to say he voted on principal... Representatives are there to represent, and they are not entitled to principal, and if they disagree with their districts they should first try to bring their districts to reason, and educate them, and then, either vote as told, or resign... There is no place for principals... They are errand boys... And they should be numerous, but there should be no person working for them... There are too many with great power without accountability working in the house... Everyone there ought to be there for a purpose and with portfolio... Agreement is not the problem, after all... Whole stadiums of people can agree on who won or lost the game... The point is to decide what must be done based upon facts rather than upon precidence...It is no place for idealism, or principals... It is a gd job...

I'll assist in your suicide per your request.

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I am certain that the people thought of a highly representative body as a given in the constitution, and the fact that for a time the house held to the ratio of representatives to citizens... As far as chaos goes, I think two things will happen... People will follow their leaders as far as they can, and those with charisma will manage those without, and ultimately, if the rep wants the job, he will represent the needs of his electors with fidelity... Today, because districts are divided they are also ruled, and only the representative is free, because , wheter he votes right or left, he can say he is representing, and even when he goes against all he is free to say he voted on principal... Representatives are there to represent, and they are not entitled to principal, and if they disagree with their districts they should first try to bring their districts to reason, and educate them, and then, either vote as told, or resign... There is no place for principals... They are errand boys... And they should be numerous, but there should be no person working for them... There are too many with great power without accountability working in the house... Everyone there ought to be there for a purpose and with portfolio... Agreement is not the problem, after all... Whole stadiums of people can agree on who won or lost the game... The point is to decide what must be done based upon facts rather than upon precidence...It is no place for idealism, or principals... It is a gd job...

Fido, I admire your tenacity, but I think you are being grossly unrealistic. I work with 20 other men and women. My guess is to properly “represent” those individuals, it would require close to 20 representatives. I know of no community…or easily defined district in New Jersey whose desires and wants could adequately be represented by less than several dozen individuals…and even if we were to require that individuals focus their wants into one of two camps…geography would require district populations of 10 or less in order to insure reasonable representation of all the people rather than just a bare majority.

True democracy, which is where you are heading…is one of the worst forms of government imaginable. It stinks; it doesn’t work for populations of more than several hundred or less.

We disagree here completely. I think we should have fewer representatives…not more. And even with fewer, a few natural leaders will rise to the top and set the agenda. Most of the others will simply vote for or against proposals of the few leaders.

'democracy' has no place in the US.