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Is American Democracy For Sale?

Is the USA a Democracy For Sale?


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TheDemSocialist

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Is American "democracy" for sale?
To get elected to this country it seems like you have to be rich and get on hands a knees to beg the rich for some cash if you want to win in this country. Nearly half of our member of congress are millionaires and they spend anywhere from 30-70% of their job just fundraising. In 2008 the presidential candidates spent over $1.3 billion which is a new record. The election cycle in 2008 cost more than $5 billion! We spent $17 per capita for our last big elections. Now we have SUPER PAC that can basically do whatever they want as long as they "have no connection to the candidate" where they can spend unlimited amount of money.

My question is, "Is the USA basically a democracy for sale"?
 
I have pondered this problem for quite some time. Campaign finance reform is a no go, since it limits free speach and/or gives the incumbent a HUGE advantage. I have come to see only one option as viable; to include by law "NONE OF THEM", as a required ballot choice for all federal public offiices, especially in the primaries. It is better than a write in, since it actually has a decent chance to force a run-off, or at worst allow the state legislature to appoint a temporary DC moron, until a decent candidate is made available to the voters.
 
American Democracy is always for sale as long as people liquidate social values and surrender to the consumer, debt, service economy.

Blaming corporations only deals with the supply, not the demand, of decadence.

I mean it really cracks me up how people want to regulate business, and legalize drugs. Corporations are addicting you, but you want to risk more addiction?

Herp a derp.
 
Since our recent wars are on OIL properties/countries, then OIL must be the driving force for the war. Wars run on OIL/energy, then they secure the ground the OIL is under, and then the OIL/energy companies can make a nickel a gallon getting it into the distribution network. Is this rocket science. Buy a few Congressman and get your war on!
 
Is American "democracy" for sale?
To get elected to this country it seems like you have to be rich and get on hands a knees to beg the rich for some cash if you want to win in this country. Nearly half of our member of congress are millionaires and they spend anywhere from 30-70% of their job just fundraising. In 2008 the presidential candidates spent over $1.3 billion which is a new record. The election cycle in 2008 cost more than $5 billion! We spent $17 per capita for our last big elections. Now we have SUPER PAC that can basically do whatever they want as long as they "have no connection to the candidate" where they can spend unlimited amount of money.

My question is, "Is the USA basically a democracy for sale"?

It's worse than that. Most of the time, the rich business guys and the political candidates (and quite frequently the people in appointed positions) are the same people. I guess we haven't come as far from the aristocracy we rebelled against in 1776 as we thought.
 
Yes, but it's not cheap.
 
Is American "democracy" for sale?
To get elected to this country it seems like you have to be rich and get on hands a knees to beg the rich for some cash if you want to win in this country. Nearly half of our member of congress are millionaires and they spend anywhere from 30-70% of their job just fundraising. In 2008 the presidential candidates spent over $1.3 billion which is a new record. The election cycle in 2008 cost more than $5 billion! We spent $17 per capita for our last big elections. Now we have SUPER PAC that can basically do whatever they want as long as they "have no connection to the candidate" where they can spend unlimited amount of money.

My question is, "Is the USA basically a democracy for sale"?

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. -- P.J. O'Rourke

Seriously, when one person has the power to use force to coerce hundreds of millions of others, you think that people will not seek to purchase a slice of that power?
 
Is American "democracy" for sale?
To get elected to this country it seems like you have to be rich and get on hands a knees to beg the rich for some cash if you want to win in this country. Nearly half of our member of congress are millionaires and they spend anywhere from 30-70% of their job just fundraising. In 2008 the presidential candidates spent over $1.3 billion which is a new record. The election cycle in 2008 cost more than $5 billion! We spent $17 per capita for our last big elections. Now we have SUPER PAC that can basically do whatever they want as long as they "have no connection to the candidate" where they can spend unlimited amount of money.

My question is, "Is the USA basically a democracy for sale"?


No American democracy is not for sale. You have the wrong idea. Who ever is president is determined by the media in general.It doesn't matter who is rich or not. It matters who the media picks and their enablers. The media picks the candiates they want to win in order to maintain their two party monopoly. They do this by blatantly ignoring 3rd party candidates and even some democrat and republican primary candidates.The candidates they want to win will get to do talk shows, have only those candidates participate in debates, will do positive stories about and any dirty laundry they will try to air early so that voter outrage will be over by the time elections come around. The enablers are the die hard my party can do not wrong party-tards and the politically ignorant.
 
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“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

it's not just the rich who buys democracy.. it's everybody who demands largess from the treasury, directly or indirectly, in return for their support.
 
No American democracy is not for sale. You have the wrong idea. Who ever is president is determined by the media in general.
Who owns the media?
Corporations. Who throws money at candidates? Corporations.
The media is corporate owned and corporate ran.
 
Who owns the media?
Corporations. Who throws money at candidates? Corporations.
The media is corporate owned and corporate ran.
And what has that money bought them? When a story becomes popular the media picks it up regardless if that story will hurt the rich people that supposedly control the media.
 
Is American "democracy" for sale?
To get elected to this country it seems like you have to be rich and get on hands a knees to beg the rich for some cash if you want to win in this country. Nearly half of our member of congress are millionaires and they spend anywhere from 30-70% of their job just fundraising. In 2008 the presidential candidates spent over $1.3 billion which is a new record. The election cycle in 2008 cost more than $5 billion! We spent $17 per capita for our last big elections. Now we have SUPER PAC that can basically do whatever they want as long as they "have no connection to the candidate" where they can spend unlimited amount of money.

My question is, "Is the USA basically a democracy for sale"?

I would agree with your assertion. I think that the problems of this country have been out of the hands of Washington for some time now.
 
And what has that money bought them? When a story becomes popular the media picks it up regardless if that story will hurt the rich people that supposedly control the media.

Rich people? Its not like every"rich person" owns the media. Its corporate owned and corporate bought. EX: Rupert Murdoch scandal, every other news station was all over this scandal but one news station was very very silent for some reason, what was that station?? FOX.
 
I would agree with your assertion. I think that the problems of this country have been out of the hands of Washington for some time now.

I agree. But a huge problem is that the institutions are put in place to give the wealth an advantage. Lobbying has become basically legal bribery.
 
Is American "democracy" for sale?
To get elected to this country it seems like you have to be rich and get on hands a knees to beg the rich for some cash if you want to win in this country. Nearly half of our member of congress are millionaires and they spend anywhere from 30-70% of their job just fundraising. In 2008 the presidential candidates spent over $1.3 billion which is a new record. The election cycle in 2008 cost more than $5 billion! We spent $17 per capita for our last big elections. Now we have SUPER PAC that can basically do whatever they want as long as they "have no connection to the candidate" where they can spend unlimited amount of money.

My question is, "Is the USA basically a democracy for sale"?

For sale? No. It was sold a long time ago. Our country believes in both democracy and capitalism. Unfortunately, Capitalism overtook democracy a long time ago. And what resulted was a practical Aristocracy. Think about it. The idea of democracy is that anyone can become leader as long as they are chosen by the people. However, in our modern society, getting known by these people requires money. The type of money only the elite in our society have. Then we have poll tax and other fees that could discourage or prevent some of our poorer citizens from voting in the first place. Not only that, but lobbyist groups and corporations tend to buy off many politicians, who then speak for the corporation/group that paid them rather than the people that elected them.

I rest my case.
 
I agree. But a huge problem is that the institutions are put in place to give the wealth an advantage. Lobbying has become basically legal bribery.

Oh yeah! You're right. A given politician is no longer in charge of their own vision for the country or state. That's been gone in my view since Ronald Reagan. It's all been purchased by factions.

I really think we're gonna come to blows much sooner than people think over all of this.
 
For sale? No. It was sold a long time ago. Our country believes in both democracy and capitalism. Unfortunately, Capitalism overtook democracy a long time ago. And what resulted was a practical Aristocracy. Think about it. The idea of democracy is that anyone can become leader as long as they are chosen by the people. However, in our modern society, getting known by these people requires money. The type of money only the elite in our society have. Then we have poll tax and other fees that could discourage or prevent some of our poorer citizens from voting in the first place. Not only that, but lobbyist groups and corporations tend to buy off many politicians, who then speak for the corporation/group that paid them rather than the people that elected them.

I rest my case.

That's not the fault of democracy. The problem is that we are trying to operate a democratic republic on a scale that is completely unworkable. A republic has a natural size, and our republic ought to have undergone mitosis many, many times in order to keeps its republican character. You can't govern hundreds of millions of people with a republican form of government, well not and have any meaningful representative democracy. Right now a congressman represents about 700,000 people. If we had had this sort of representation a the founding of the country, congress would have had 5 representatives. That is not a republican government, it is an empire ruled by an aristocracy, which is what we have now.
 
Is American "democracy" for sale?
To get elected to this country it seems like you have to be rich and get on hands a knees to beg the rich for some cash if you want to win in this country. Nearly half of our member of congress are millionaires and they spend anywhere from 30-70% of their job just fundraising. In 2008 the presidential candidates spent over $1.3 billion which is a new record. The election cycle in 2008 cost more than $5 billion! We spent $17 per capita for our last big elections. Now we have SUPER PAC that can basically do whatever they want as long as they "have no connection to the candidate" where they can spend unlimited amount of money.

My question is, "Is the USA basically a democracy for sale"?

Not 100%, but it'd getting there.
 
For sale? No. It was sold a long time ago. Our country believes in both democracy and capitalism. Unfortunately, Capitalism overtook democracy a long time ago. And what resulted was a practical Aristocracy. Think about it. The idea of democracy is that anyone can become leader as long as they are chosen by the people. However, in our modern society, getting known by these people requires money. The type of money only the elite in our society have. Then we have poll tax and other fees that could discourage or prevent some of our poorer citizens from voting in the first place. Not only that, but lobbyist groups and corporations tend to buy off many politicians, who then speak for the corporation/group that paid them rather than the people that elected them.

I rest my case.

Very well said. But, aren't you sort of siding against you own political philospohy here? It's about liberty right? Anybody should have the liberty to do what you've just said, so it's really not about what's goood for the country; that's "collectivism" as some are wont to say. It's about whatever one person can do for for himself; right?
 
And what has that money bought them? When a story becomes popular the media picks it up regardless if that story will hurt the rich people that supposedly control the media.

Does it ever hurt the....what 4 or 5 people who own all the media? Look at that Murdoch thing in the US. You'd think that everyone but Fox would have a field day and never let it go. HA! Forgotten ASAP.
 
I agree. But a huge problem is that the institutions are put in place to give the wealth an advantage. Lobbying has become basically legal bribery.

Exactly. Those in DC get voting instructions along with campaign cash. Should there votes so enrage their state/district that they get the boot in the next election, then the powers that control them offer them a back-up "after office" job that keeps them "in the game", just in a different (perhaps lobbying) position. Example: Newt Gingrich.
 
it is for sale almost everywhere including turkey.....but that is not democracy which is for sale ,people's honor.in a democracy it cant be sold.
 
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That's not the fault of democracy. The problem is that we are trying to operate a democratic republic on a scale that is completely unworkable. A republic has a natural size, and our republic ought to have undergone mitosis many, many times in order to keeps its republican character. You can't govern hundreds of millions of people with a republican form of government, well not and have any meaningful representative democracy. Right now a congressman represents about 700,000 people. If we had had this sort of representation a the founding of the country, congress would have had 5 representatives. That is not a republican government, it is an empire ruled by an aristocracy, which is what we have now.

I disagree with you 150%: democracy has failed. Democracy as a social contstruct has allowed itself to be put up to the highest bidder. This has ended in disaster for this country every time. What has happened is that the aristocracy has purchased the suppression of the democratic process in this country, and such supression has been molded to fit into The Constitution (by the lawyers hired to do it), and then the Supreme Court rubber stamps it.

And there ya' go.
 
Very well said. But, aren't you sort of siding against you own political philospohy here? It's about liberty right? Anybody should have the liberty to do what you've just said, so it's really not about what's goood for the country; that's "collectivism" as some are wont to say. It's about whatever one person can do for for himself; right?

Never said I agree or disagree with it, I'm just simply stating what it is.

Now if you're asking about my political beliefs, I believe in small government. I do not believe in heavy regulations, or laws that prevent a person from living their life as they see fit. I believe in the constitutional freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness guaranteed to us by our forefathers. Those freedoms cannot be attained with large government like we have today.
 
it is for sale almost everywhere including turkey.....but that is not democracy which is for sale ,people's honor.in a democracy it cant be sold.

It can be bought though. The voting patterns of one getting 100% gov't support and the voting patterns of one paying 33% of their hard earned pay to provide that gov't support are likey to be far different indeed. We are fast approaching more gov't benefit getters that gov't benefit givers (taxpayers). Once that happens the game of democracy is over, for sure.
 
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