Do they care????

"Safety nets" are a necessity in any civilized society and I truly believe one would be hard pressed to find more than a handful of boorish oafs who would advocate their elimination.

Two things that I and many others do find irksome is the parlaying of the "safety net" into a hammock, and the blind support of certain individuals and groups to advocate the perpetuation of such nonsense.

I am a conservative that firmly believes (despite my previous flippant comment) in the golden rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

(Of course, I also believed in it when I considered myself a "progressive/liberal" as well.)

It is difficult to stay in line with the politcians today. They morph into something you'd can't believe as they feel the influence of their cronies and the polls. The more they say they don't follow polls, the more they sneak into the closet with one light bulb where they pour over every poll that's been taken for the last twenty years.

Well spoken, Lightwizard.

I posit this:

Who is more to blame, the politicians or those of us who continue to support and elect the chameleons?

Difficult to point fingers -- not enough of us get out and vote, not enough of us write our congressmen and senators, not enough of us really give a ****. It's not a silent majority, it's an ambivalent majority. The candidates come out of law firms by-and-large and I haven't as much trouble with attorneys interpreting and mediating the laws as I do when they are the majority who write the laws. Seems to me the fairness of a law should be determined by those who have to obey those laws instead of those who are adept at manipulating the law. Beyond that, it is still the drug of having power that seems to warp human nature -- maybe they should all go to Tony Sopranos's psychiatrist!

Slightly off topic and not what you intended but this very sentiment is something that has struck me hard over the last 2 years at the local level.

I'd go to town meetings and watch local laws get passed. People always mumbled about how the zoning and municiple ordinance proposals stunk and such but they vote for them anyway. I cornered a few neighbors and asked them why in the hell they were voting to approve this stuff if they knew the ordinances were bad.

The answer was the same every time - they had found a way to skirt the ordinance. They either "knew" someone or had gotten themselves grandfathered so the ordinance wasn't going to affect them in the slightest. They were more than happy to vote for more laws as long as the laws only limited someone else.

Good example, fishin' It does start with municipal government even in the smallest township. Seems like county governments are the least scrutinized by the media, at least in my area.

max - Dave Barry on the two parties (also relavent to the subject):

The Democrats seem to be basicaly nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the managements skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisanart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for the Ugly Pants Night at the country club.

Thanks for having a reasonable discussion everyone.

Wilso, is it true that people 'have' to vote in Australia?


Someone told me this a while ago, and I thought it was a great idea.

Voting is compulsory for enrolled voters in Australia. Failure to vote without a reasonable explanation results in a fine .

I just tried to look it up through google and got the most puzzling results - they say there is mandatory/compulsory voting, but then go on to talk about increased voter turnout. if it's compulsory, shouldn't turn-out be close to 100% ?

ummm, yeah, that confuses me somewhat.