reply to post by Afterthought
Au contraire, if you can expose someone's fallacious thinking using their own words it only shows how weak the argument was to begin with. But I'm not
saying I'm completely innocent of trolling either, I've taken my fair share of cheap shots.
Another misconception is that I don't "like" them. If there is a group of protesters I actually don't like, its the ones here in Seattle and the ones
we hear about that are taking part in illegal activities and generally being a nuisance to other, average people that might be in the same boat as
them for all they know.
But to start, we have a few options. None of which involve direct action on wall street, but would end up affecting wall street for the better.
We could start with term limits on the house, senate, and president. My vote would be for one term each, but I'm not sold on how many yet. So much
time and money is wasted on politicians campaigning when we could be focusing that attention on actual issues and problems. This way the only people
we have campaigning for election one time, and they'll have to stand on their record instead of their celebrity status.
This alone wouldn't stop the funneling of money from big business into politics. So in the same vein as term limits, we should limit the amount of
money each candidate can receive. Level the playing field. A minor plus that we'd get from this is that we would be able to see which candidates are
responsible enough to run a successful campaign with the money they
do get, which can't hurt when trying to decide who you should elect to take
over some of the biggest responsibilities in the country.
After that, we still aren't completely safeguarded, and probably never will be, against an inefficient or corrupt government. So at least on a local
level, i think there should be a way to vote on which issues should take precedent over others. An example would be; Should we hold a special session
to try and solve the problem of HGH in professional baseball, or would that time be better spent on balancing the budget, or demanding accountability
from business' with unethical practices, and investigating/punishing ones that are flat out breaking the law. Admittedly, I don't know how logistics
would work for this idea, but I think its worth discussing.
We could disallow congress to give themselves raises, and scale back the pay from the hundred thousand or so a year it is currently. Any petty cash
they get, or comps, perks, etc should go out the window too. Holding office shouldn't be a sign that you've "made it", but that you are here to try
and make things better.
Of course none of these can happen overnight, which is why I advocate protesting in DC, in state capitals, on courthouse steps. This is why I advocate
attacking the source of the problem. I, and many like me, have been fighting for these types of things for years. This is why if a movement as big as
OWS targeted these problems I would be right there alongside them. Until then I'll have to keep writing my representatives, going to my town halls,
voting for more than once every four years.
edit on 3-11-2011 by GringoViejo because: (no reason given)
