The politics of hoodie wearing

@Lash,

I hear where you're coming from. For me there is a racial component to this situation but it has more to do with what I consider a sort of natural racial bias inherent in law enforcement in Florida. Zimmerman was acting as cop, even if he wasn't one, so adopted cop prejudices that had little to do with his own views. A professional bias of sorts.

My bigger concern is one of justice and the need to take back the writing of our nations laws from lobbyists.

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@FreeDuck,

FreeDuck wrote:

My bigger concern is one of justice and the need to take
back the writing of our nations laws from lobbyists.

That remark is very anti-democratic.

David

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Lobbyists are undemocratic. It doesn't really matter, though, as the constitution does not guarantee a democracy.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Lobbyists are undemocratic.

That is oxymoronic.

Setanta wrote:

It doesn't really matter, though, as the constitution does not guarantee a democracy.

Obviously; America was never a democracy,
tho a few towns were, in colonial times.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

No, it's not "oxymoronic," although certainly your claim is moronic. Professional lobbyists are not attempting to promote democracy, they are promoting the special interests of their clients.

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@Setanta,

A democratic republic is impossible
in the absence of special interest groups.
The citizens need them to spy upon
the politicians at all times, federal,
state, and local, executive and legislative.

In the absence of that,
the government woud take over the country.

David

1 Reply

David, as usual, has it completely backwards. As it stands now, Republicans are enabling the special interest groups to take over the country, the government, and all us citizens. The big money special interest groups buy politicians every day--look at the way Newt Gingrich invited the megacorporations in to write the legislation that would affect them. Look at the way the oil industry has bought and paid for Jim Inhofe. Look at the way the multimillion dollar PAC principals are buying the Republican primary contenders. Look at the way the Koch brothers buy politicians like Scott Walker to give them huge tax breaks, which created a state financial crisis where none existed before, which was paid for on the backs of working people who saw their earnings taken away from them to make up the shortfall.Look at the way more and more corporations are demanding people's passwords to their social network pages before they even consider hiring you, and then check and see everything you've ever written there in what was supposed to be private. Is that promoting personal liberty, David? Those special interests don't watchdog the government, David, they want to control it, and you, in THEIR OWN interests, not mine, not yours. And all your guns won't do a damn thing to stop them.

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I will admit that, as special interests go, the Opulent Mensan Special Interest Group is probably relatively benign, tho it's hard to tell for sure because they cloak their activities in such secrecy. And there is the possibility that their seeming emphasis on Beef Wellington may be part of a larger plan to further the spread of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, BSE, but since that would decrease their own brain power we can probably discount it. On balance, they're probably not too destructive to the good order of the Republic.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Leaving aside that you are completely delusional about the role of government, you are also delusional about the goals of professional lobbyists. Lobbyists are not "spying" on government, they are attempting to use any means, fair or foul, legal or illegal, to sway legislators to promote the special interests they represent, and only the special interests which they represent. They don't represent any kind of democratic institution, because they are predicated on swaying legislators without reference to the wishes of any particular legislator's constituency.

You live in some kind of fantasy world, apparently

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Leaving aside that you are completely delusional about the role of government, you are also delusional about the goals of professional lobbyists. Lobbyists are not "spying" on government, they are attempting to use any means, fair or foul, legal or illegal, to sway legislators to promote the special interests they represent, and only the special interests which they represent. They don't represent any kind of democratic institution, because they are predicated on swaying legislators without reference to the wishes of any particular legislator's constituency.

Democracy, in this republic, finds its expression in the citizens threatening holders of public office with loss
of their jobs at election time. In order to do that, the citizens need spies
to watch the politicians at federal, state n local levels of government,
in legislative & executive roles. The citizens r too busy
to do the spying themselves and then to analyse the information
that thay glean insofar as it affects that special interest, be it
small business, labor unions, the Sierra Club, the NRA, the AMA,
the National Association of Mfgrs., the NEA, PBA, NAACP ad infinitum.
Thay TELL their members (voters) about what the politicians r doing.
That is the reason that Congress tried to SHUT THEM UP B4 elections, until its too late.
Most pointedly, that was how Hillary 's health care package was killed,
during the Clinton Administration, freaking out n frustrating liberals.
The voters sent Congress tons of negative mail.
Democracy squashed liberalism.

David

1 Reply

Do we really need to point to youAGAIN, David, that had Hilarycare passed, or if Obamacare is proved constitutional, as the USSC should clearly do based on past precedent and unbiased reading of the Constitution, and if the special interests, the insurance industry, the for-profit health care providers, the medical associations one of whose primary goals is to restrict the supply of doctors to keep their own profits high (in blatant restriction of free enterprise), could be somehow prevented from buying off legislators, the nation would be (and would have been) considerably better off. The statistics are rather telling: the US is the ONLY developed country without some sort of single-payer health system. The US is #1 in cost per capita for health care (and not by a trivial margin--we cost close to double what ALL other developed countries pay per capita for health care.) The US is #37 in quality of health care. We pay twice as much, we get shafted on what we get for the bucks. Those results have been consistent, through many many evaluations of world health care, from many different sources, over several decades. The special interests won, we got screwed. As usual, David, you're flat out wrong.

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I really think we've highjacked this thread enough.

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Did anyone read Paul Krugman's column about ALEC yesterday?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/opinion/krugman-lobbyists-guns-and-money.html

Quote:

Specifically, language virtually identical to Florida’s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of ALEC’s activities emerged). And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin’s killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to our society — and our democracy.

I've been paying attention to ALEC for a while since things about them show up on so many education sites and blogs.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

Did anyone read Paul Krugman's column about ALEC yesterday?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/opinion/krugman-lobbyists-guns-and-money.html

Quote:
Specifically, language virtually identical to Florida’s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of ALEC’s activities emerged). And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin’s killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to our society — and our democracy.

I've been paying attention to ALEC for a while since things about them show up on so many education sites and blogs.

Yep, I did, and I read a lot of investigative stuff about them before as well. All these personhood and ultrasound laws come from them, as did the stand your ground law. It really bothers me and I want to ask the legislators who introduce them (some of them forgetting to take ALEC's name off of them) what problems they are solving with these bills. Their constituents are not clamoring to make women have ultrasounds or to be able shoot people in the street, they have to be brought along after the fact. So what's the point of these laws? How will they know if the laws are affective? IMO they are solutions without problems.

1 Reply

@FreeDuck,

Quote:

So what's the point of these laws?

I think the point is to make people afraid.

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@boomerang,

That's very interesting, to say the least, Boomer.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Yup, you're delusional.

1 Reply

@parados,

I think a look at a person tells you more about their experiences in the racial realm than decisions made in offices at the Census Bureau.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Yup, you're delusional.

I accept that such is the fact
in the demented universe of your hallucinations.
( Is it just U, or is EVERYONE uncivil
in the private world of your dreams?? )

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

You wrote:

Quote:

In order to do that, the citizens need spies to watch the politicians at federal, state n local levels of government, in legislative & executive roles.

We were talking about lobbyists. Lobbyists are not spies, and their role is to press the agenda of their clients, not to "watch" members of government. Therefore, you are cherishing a delusion about the role and activities of lobbyists. It is not incivility to point out that you are delusional, when, in fact you are cherishing a delusion. That is all without canvassing your hilariously idiotic comments about liberals.

If one sees a spade and says "That's a spade," one is not being uncivil.

1 Reply

The politics of hoodie wearing

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