congressman writes tell-all and slams 'nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep'

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: interupt42

Today EVERYONE 99% has a voice on the internet to question the propaganda on a national level on a moments notice . You didn't have that before the internet.

And Congress has become better over the past 20 years?

Depends on what you mean by better and for whom.

a reply to: interupt42

you should read about the petty politics of yesteryear. A good example is the Adams administration, and the way he was treated by the legisltors. Because he was kind of an asshole, they stonewalled him. Probably the most competent president we have ever had....but he was castrated by his own personality and its abrasiveness on Congress.

originally posted by: interupt42

originally posted by: Annee
Anonymous??????

Don't we need to evaluate what this person actually did, how he/she voted, etc - - - before he/she is given credibility?

Are we agreeing with this information just because we want to?

The article and op states that in maybe will disclose who he is.

That would help.

I contend that people, for the most part, are individuals - - even those who fall into a "sheep pattern".

I would have a problem in Congress today with a "there is no hope" feeling.

But, I believe, I would still keep fighting to make a difference. Even if I felt I was weighted down by the over all stagnation of a do nothing Congress.

a reply to: Annee

i'd likely become the king of trolls. if i can't make positive forward movement, i generally tend to resort to entertaining myself at the expense of the people who are impeding positive forward movement.

yeah, not really productive. but im being honest. lol

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Annee

i'd likely become the king of trolls. if i can't make positive forward movement, i generally tend to resort to entertaining myself at the expense of the people who are impeding positive forward movement.

yeah, not really productive. but im being honest. lol

LOL.

I'm a "get it done" person. If you want something organized, make people "snap to it" and get it done, you get me.

I have no patience for idiots. But, like you - - if I'm blocked by bureaucratic nonsense, I'm not gonna waste my energy. I'd be entertaining myself looking for an opening that will get results.

a reply to: Annee

Honestly I doubt that it will actually help.

From what I see, people are aware of the rampant corruption but they just ignore it and blinding overlook it as long as its THEIR political party that is doing it.

Its only the OTHER political party that does it mentality that is allowing them to get away with it.

Even if I felt I was weighted down by the over all stagnation of a do nothing Congress

IMO a do nothing congress is not a bad thing. Everytime they pass something it usually goes against the public’s best interest or wants.

Researchers concluded that U.S. government policies rarely align with the preferences of the majority of Americans, but do favour special interests and lobbying organizations

www.businessinsider.com...

edit on 12531America/ChicagoThu, 12 May 2016 14:12:25 -0500000000p3142 by interupt42 because: (no reason given)

originally posted by: interupt42
a reply to: Annee

Honestly I doubt that it will actually help.

From what I see, people are aware of the rampant corruption but they just ignore it and blinding overlook it as long as its THEIR political party that is doing it.

There needs to be "checkers".

People that have only one job, make sure people who have a job are actually doing it.

Of course, then there'd need to be "checkers for the checkers".

a reply to: Annee

People that have only one job, make sure people who have a job are actually doing it. Of course, then there'd need to be "checkers for the checkers"

LOL thats how safety worked at NASA. You had an engineer , tech, a qa engineer , then sometimes a safety engineer buy off on steps performed on critical system. It did work and prevented catastrophic mistakes.

However, the best and only thing we can do right now is to focus on the number 1 issue which is corruption,conflict of interest, and open revolving doors.

We need to stop focusing on the economy,jobs,social issues, taxes, healthcare,foreign matters and everything that we have been talking about for the last 5 decades and century which haven't been fixed.

Lets focus only on minimising corruption . Then lets talk about those other issues and bring them back to the forefront .

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Why go after us? We're "conspiracy theorists" remember. For most people, that means we're "crazy." For the government, it gives them a window into what people who don't necessarily buy the line see and think about it all. They have to leave some of it alone for the time being to get a look at what might be going on under the stupid lid.

a reply to: ketsuko

Conspiracy theorists have already been targeted as "domestic terrorists" (or, rather, potentially so).

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I know that. I meant target us as in shutting us down. That's the sort of move they wouldn't make until after they have made an obvious power move and feel in control. Until then, we are potential sources of intel and means of keeping an eye on us.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
Nothing he says in that paragraph is in the least bit untrue. At all. Anyone with a facebook account can tell you that the majority of the US is full of ill informed morons. And its been done on purpose.

The Deliberate Dumbing Down Of America

Were we ever not full of ill informed morons? Our whole system has been designed to limit the impact of the ill informed, but those same people have been given more and more political power lately. I've said here a few times that the various get out the vote campaigns are probably the single most self destructive thing we do as a nation, followed second by turning politics into entertainment.

The vast majority of us are lucky to be experts on a single subject, how can we possibly be knowledgeable enough to have an informed opinion on a wide array of subjects that we need to vote on? This is why I can't support the various direct democracy platforms, as a population we have an average level of intelligence on any subject, and the average isn't very high. People who know about a field are the ones who should be making decisions on it, of course that also lends itself to corruption such as when the insurance industry wrote Obamacare... but who better could have done so?

originally posted by: interupt42
Honestly I doubt that it will actually help.

From what I see, people are aware of the rampant corruption but they just ignore it and blinding overlook it as long as its THEIR political party that is doing it.

Its only the OTHER political party that does it mentality that is allowing them to get away with it.

I think the answer is that no one knows how to fix it, so that's why they ignore it. I'm a huge proponent of transparency, but I have to admit that I just don't think any government can operate with full transparency, there's just too much money that has to be thrown around, and the very nature of certain operations requires a certain level of secrecy.

The real question to me isn't how do we remove the corruption? That's an easy question to answer, and honestly not even all that hard to implement. It would result in a paralyzed government though. The question is how do we direct corruption to serve the people?

a reply to: Aazadan

The real question to me isn't how do we remove the corruption? That's an easy question to answer, and honestly not even all that hard to implement.

Not so sure if thats easy to remove completely, but certainly possible to minimize to a manageable point unlike today.

It would result in a paralyzed government though.

There definitely would be consequences and a hard felt transition period no doubt.

The question is how do we direct corruption to serve the people?

I agree fully , but we can't do any of it because the people are not focused on corruption whatsoever.

Greed and self interest are human traits and sometimes its better to acknowledge it and design a system that embraces rather than fight an uphill losing battle in trying to prevent it .

I would love to see those same greedy selfish politicians and CEO of the military industrial complex become trillionares as long as they acquired that money by implementing world peace . Unfortunately in our current system it appears that there is more money to be made by causing chaos than by implementing peace.

I agree our incentive model to feed that greed and self interest is out of whack and should be looked into. I have posted in the past about it.

a reply to: interupt42

Internet ID cards.
Banning people from the internet.
Passive censorship via "internet hate laws" or "internet anti-extremism laws"
Chinese style national firewalls.
Warrantless ISP-Gov spying.
Spy IC's and hard-taps built into modems,routers,NIC,fiber optic switches,hotspots

Congressman X:

"Voters are incredibly ignorant and know little about our form of government and how it works", he writes. "It's far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification."

I'd say he is absolutely bang-on-the-money. He states the ultimate disease that is the cause of all the detriment in the modern world. It is we the people who are to blame, because we simply will not react as we should to all the obvious obscenities going on globally. Each of us are so self-absorbed in firstly maintaining the status that we have, at whatever level it is, and so wishful of wanting to better that status, even if it hurts, harms, or oppresses others, that we have all habituated ourselves into acceptance of a politicised global agenda that on its completion will have removed all the cherished moral and noble ideologies that bond us to live peaceably together. Our inaction allows the bad in the world. If there really is such a thing as sin, our inaction is its greatest example.

No matter how nice and congenial anyone of us is, there is not a single exception among us who is not a party to the sin. We are no longer bonded by noble concepts such as 'be unto others as you would have them be unto you'. The only common denominator between us all, is the struggle to have an economic life affording comfort and stability. We ourselves won't fight for it, we expect others to do that for us, we expect others to put their lives on the line first, which is why no one has fought against the dilution of social and individual rights. Many alarmists warned us, but we remained inert and unmoved.

The only way we the people, whatever country you abide in, can reverse this situation, which will become more intolerable over time, is to literally tear down society as it stands today, it is no longer fit for purpose, we have to reset and rebuild, and before we can do that, we all have to start saying 'no' and be un-accepting of the way things are, and the way things are being run. None of us are 'Oliver Twists', needing to go to our politicians and so-called captains of industry pleading with our hands clasped in prayer...'please sir, can we have more freedoms, more liberties, and more happiness?' These are virtues we once believed in, what many of our ancestors fought and died for, yet we have not done so ourselves, even as we fully understand what is being taken from us...none of us do and did nothing to safeguard them.

We are all living in toxic illusory societies. Congressman X has obviously seen and had enough, and is publicly stating what we all, each of us, already know. We are not just sheep, we are informed sheep, and that makes us cowards of indifference and inaction. Fact is, most of us would rather accept slavery (hidden by the illusion of choice), than to go through the inconvenience and strife of putting our societies right, and maintaining their foundations on the noble concepts that bond us together in the correct way.

a reply to: Aazadan

Look back 100 years at what was known by people. The basic skills that people had, the basic knowledge.

Now look back at what we were teaching in the 70's. Just that recently.

THroughout the 80's the focus became less and less on HOW to think and more and more on WHAT to think. The advent of Standardized Testing Hell has reinforced this, as students are now just made to memorize for testing, with ample practice tests taking up the time that education should be taking.

Yes, idiots may have always been the norm. But the scale is skewed much further down the scale now. And its been obvious, and on purpose. I thin the Gifted programs had something to do with it, actually. Take your best/brightest nd put them in magnet programs where they don't learn science and math, but instead learn more about the arts.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Annee

i'd likely become the king of trolls. if i can't make positive forward movement, i generally tend to resort to entertaining myself at the expense of the people who are impeding positive forward movement.

yeah, not really productive. but im being honest. lol

In essence, becoming a modern-day cynic.

a reply to: Liquesence

I guess so.

I should clarify...."forward movement" is not progress. I just mean, "put this baby to bed and move on to the next issue of the day".



But to end up as a "grumpy old man", i guess i have to pass through the stage of "cynic" first. So i guess that's "forward movement"?

last week tonight killed this issue. these guys make phone calls every day to raise money to get re-elected so they can make calls to raise money

its so discouraging