This morning after watching Sports Center for 1.5 hours i changed stations to "BIO" ( William Shatner's show ) He was interviewing "The Mayflower Madam" a story i was unfamiliar with. As i was watching i realized something that applies to this discussion on a number of levels and in a few ways.
I started this post in an Android forum which is mostly about HB's ( Human Beings ) interest and love for their cell phones. Clearly most if not all of us here love their device. To open up the forum to other topics to talk about one of the creators of the forum created a place for HB's who love their androids to talk about "Politics and Current Affairs". I have been amused ( not sure that that is the extent of my interest in the notion that the president can create jobs so I asked here what people thought about the subject ) Well you see how that turned out.
What does this have to do with The Mayflower Madam? What we call things, how we identify things not always best defines what we are doing and or wanting to say. So in the case of "creating jobs" being related to what the prez of the us can do actually winds up being something that the masses of HB's who vote for these people, wind up voting for them not based on what they can do but on what they think they can do whether it is true or not true, real or not real. And when pressed to explain what they mean, to save face they get creative in their explanation but as soon as they start fumbling around you can tell that they are protecting something...not sure what it is and or why this happens but what popped into my mind was the word "euphemism".
When HB's start calling things by cute names that kinda sorta tell a story that is not 100% accurate we dilute the truth. Then we discuss and even argue about aspects of what is or what might be real.
Forget about the jobs thing. Think about how absurd it is to call one party "conservative" and one "liberal" vilifying one or the other with some sound bite that we heard someone else say makes an already crazy sense of politics and what is good or not good for the majority is as close to insane as we HB's can get as a group.
How can we ever agree on anything if we live in a world of euphemisms?
If we can agree that we do need a government how can we know how much is too much, not enough or just right?
I honestly think that the Dems think that left to their own devices people can't manage their lives. You don't have to look too far to see lots of examples that supports this notion. On the other side of the isle we have the Reps who keep calling for less government but where and how do "we" know what to cut or enact?
As simple as this may sound I would love to see a list of things that the government governed that we all could agree on was a good thing. I'd bet that we can not agree on one thing. Just guessing.
Care to try interpreting my rambling?
lol, sure I'll attempt to interpret since you put effort into interpreting my "babble"...
I'd say that you're correct in your assessment that people tend to muddy the water in order to hide a truth. Some people/parties, IMO do it more sinister than others.
Take things that I consider non-factors in my immediate life but that many people are very passionate about like gay marriage, gays serving in the military, abortion, and other causes that are highly championed by the religious right. My feeling on gay rights is similar to my feelings about human rights in general.
Sure I don't agree with their lifestyle as a heterosexual male, but because I don't walk in their shoes I can't believe that what works for me will work for them. Thus, I think it's a slippery slope to start enacting laws to dictate their lifestyle. What then would stop the government from enacting laws such as, "The iPhone has been deemed by the government to be the best device for our economy and the most "American" device, thus we are making it illegal to own any other device". Granted this is an extreme argument, but stop and look at someone like Newt Gingrich. He wants to "preserve" the sanctity of Marriage (or at least that's what he claims). But who is he to judge at what level that preservation takes place? Divorcing 2 women while they're in "sickness" hardly seems like he's practicing what he preaches. What if then, a candidate who had been married only once ran on the platform that the sanctity of marriage should involve being married only once to one woman, thus outlawing divorce? What authority does our government have then to set the bar?
What I find most fascinating about the way some people vote is that they can vote about these types of issues that don't even affect their personal lives and give these politicians a free pass when they vote on the things that directly affect the quality of their life. Again, it goes back to what you stated about muddying the water and not being exactly forthcoming with specific answers.
My solution (or at least my suggestion) to attempting to get at the truth of the matter would be relatively simple. Campaign reform and complete transparency. We know that politicians are getting obscene amounts of money from special interest groups. Most of those dealings are behind closed doors and mostly secret. If America wants to take back its place in the world then it needs to shine a light on all these secret dealings. When BP's oil spill took place, our media actually woke up for a moment and did their job. They reported that BP donated large amounts of money to both Obama and McCain during the Presidential election of 2008. Yes they donated more money to Obama, but Obama also had more popular vote. To me that speaks volumes about our political system. It seemed like BP wasn't so much concerned with one candidate's view over another, but wanted to have an influence in government regardless of who won. It sounded like the housing crisis all over again, companies placing bets on both sides.
Take the past few candidates and look at where their loyalties lie and then try to convince me that ANY candidate has America's best interest at heart. Clinton, he had the housing market in his corner, and the housing market took off under his administration only to collapse later. Bush II, he had big oil as his backer and look at how the oil and gas markets went nuts under his watch. I'm not 100% sure who has Obama in his pocket. Some people think it's construction unions and that may be the case when you consider how much he's pushing infrastructure investment. My point is that it's never about what's best for the most Americans, it's what's best for the financial backers of these candidates while attempting to appease the most Americans. One of the reasons I think Ron Paul would make an interesting candidate, even though I think he's a little on the nuts side is that he doesn't seem to have one big industry trying to back him. It seems like his lack of a really large outside influence (big oil, housing market etc) would mean that he'd try to implement (try since as your original question still stands, I don't think Presidents really make policy, but rather just influence it) policy that would do the most people the most good. Thus, special interest groups hate that and I think that's one of the reasons that Ron Paul doesn't really get the traction that he should.
(Hopefully my ramblings didn't get too strayed trying to come out, although I will admit that I've had the urge to go to the bathroom for the past 10 minutes....)
