ParanoiA

No. They still don't compare to your multi-generational lefty elitist crybabies stuck on their teen angst and emotional logic gates. I've been watching that shit since I was a child, growing up in NASCAR country, no less. The righty version is pathetically tame but I'm enjoying your intellectual cartwheels trying to pretend it's comparable. Wrong. The right-leaning commentators we have call the leftists the pointy-headed geeks. I would be flattered if I were you. Rush Limbaugh actually tries to make fun of smart people - actually attempts to argue that smart people should be ignored. Go figure.

Hey thanks. That means a lot coming from someone that's not related to me.

Really? She got just under half the delegates. I'm actually starting to kind of like her. Embarassing, really.

I play guitar, bass, drums and piano and attempt to ruin them with my vocals. I've got about 3 projects completed, all on my site (which is kind of embarassing, since I obviously suck at HTML....) A metal root augmented with acoustics, I'm heavily influenced by Floyd, Radiohead, Tool, Rush, old Metallica, Beatles... I had no idea you guys were musicians, except for Snail. Snail's got some great stuff on his myspace site, last time I listened.

I'll take your word for it, since I don't listen to country music. But to pretend as if that even compares to the arrogance and ignorance displayed by the predominantly left pop culture is disingenuous, at best. Spoiled brat lefty artists are the worst. That's an admitted bias on my part, so take it with a grain of salt. We are not taught that here though. I've never been told that experts were pointy headed geeks. I've been told that everyone is an expert by virtue they have the right to run their mouths. Incidentally, this is a shortcoming of the 'republic', in my view. A government by the people has a tendency to pander to the people, and not necessarily do what's smart, but rather what the public thinks is smart - which ends up being watered down intellect.

But the difference is I actually believe McCain. Incidentally, I've noticed several people mention his inept speaking skills, but I didn't really get that. I don't know, maybe I'm easy when I think I'm hearing the truth, but he sounded fine to me. I know I've been calling Obama to win, but I am starting to wonder whether or not he's going to look like a child compared to McCain when this really gets rolling. McCain has tons of experience and his message is similar to Obama's in terms of crossing party lines, and all that touchy-feely love stuff - only he has the republican resentment to prove it, and he certainly will come off as the wiser, older gentleman.

Agreed, much agreed. Precisely. And I believe that has to do with not taking the office seriously enough, nor the constitution. Which is what you're actually advocating - to continue to hold the office to a gutter level reverence. That's why we get gutter level office holders. Just my opinion, of course. A prayer is not a political statement, but the spirit of your point is noted. It does qualify as a presumption on their part to think everyone should be subject to a prayer. Remember, my point was about the pop culture left, in non-political formats, spouting out anti-republican rhetoric as if it's a foregone conclusion that they're wrong - arrogantly ignorant about half of their audience being republicans. Not saying it's wrong, I'm just pointing out their blissful ignorance. And talk radio is a political format, so I have no idea why you brought that one up.

This is freaking priceless. I think it only fair to inform you I stole this from you as my sig in another forum. I gave you proper credit, although I'm not sure if they're going to understand who exactly "yourdadonapogos" is...

I can't believe she'd really accept a VP job. What is she holding out for 2016? She'd be like...90 something wouldn't she?

Fair enough. So, perhaps "we the people", operating in the capacity as citizens of our sovereign states, should lobby our respective local governments to respect our community rights (recognizing our balance of individual rights in the House) and repeal the 17th through our Senators? Beautifully put.

Yeah, I certainly agree with doG's take on it being the state's responsibility to fix their representation issues, but I'm not sure "we the people" are out of line to repeal the 17th through our reps. It's certainly in our interests, particularly with 6,000 + reps. But then of course, we still have to make them fix the previous issues to make it work. And I'd love to break up the parties. I know I don't say it much, but it's damn near the top of my favorite things I'd like to see happen in my lifetime.

Yeah, that certainly sounds about right to me. Probably not. I think it would have been a large chunk, like the base, but yeah, probably not half the population. I choose option two. I hope others do too. When Obama becomes president, and he will, I will criticize him as fairly as I have Bush, good or bad. I try to separate my ideological differences from what I perceive as failure. Because I'll always have crap things to say about each candidate ideologically - there ain't many libertarian leaning fellas running for the office. But those, technically anyway, aren't failures, but rather philosophical differences. So, philosophically speaking, Bush and Obama both stink. Any of each lot stinks, except for my man Paul, whom I'm likely going to write in on election day.

I don't necessarily disagree with that sentiment, but I'm never going to fall into the trap of one-way malicious inference. You're never as good as they say you're good, and you're never as bad as they say you're bad. It's a fact of life. Not everything Bush does is some greedy, nefarious business deal for the folks that bought him. I believe he genuinely believes in some of this stuff - particularly with security. Instead, I'd rather deal with that reality. A large portion of the american public, like half of them, are completely into this "keep us safe" mentallity. Happily sacrificing liberty for "perceived" security. We need to deal with that. That's a dangerous pretense to govern from, particularly after Bush's precedents.

I think I like that answer. Certainly would seem to be much cleaner than the way business is done today. So what about the senatorial election battles within state legislators, like throughout the late 1800's? I don't know much history on the matter, other than it happened, so how do we avoid them? Or were they really all that bad to begin with?

I agree. The only exception I would make is to point out that it's just as possible the "spin meisters" are actually afraid and speaking from their heart. I don't think Bush qualifies so much as "speaking from his heart", but I do believe he is genuinely afraid, and believes his policies are good for security. Him and the neocons are certainly heavily invested in the whole "keep us safe" bit.

Ok, sorry if this has been covered, but I was talking about this with a co-worker and he brought up the point that the Senate still has just two seats per state, so consolidated power is there for lobbying, special interest and etc. So, it would seem that while we get rid of a large portion of the lobbying and special interest corruption game in the house of reps, it could increase the stakes of corruption in the Senate. Perhaps all of their energies would be spent there instead. So, how does that effect the quality of legislation? Would this help or hurt with our fight against corruption?

That had nothing to do with "the office". That has to do with exactly what they said - uniting under a leader. That leader could be a despot, a PM, or a president. Humans following humans by natural group behavior. Nothing specific about the office itself. This still doesn't give a reason why the "office" stopped them from questioning him. I'm not buying it. It doesn't check out. That ours survived is a testament to the framers, not the founding fathers - two different sets of people. Perhaps the romance provided by the founding fathers helped with stabilizing the principles the framers used (of course, that's an example of holding offices in esteem, and seems to have worked nicely). The offices created are a crucial piece of the constitution. You have not supported your point by logic or reason that these offices should NOT be held in the esteem afforded in that document, or how exactly you split hairs to hold the document in esteem yet not its contents. I could understand issues with particulars, but not with something so central to our balance of powers. The office should be filled with good people, experts that deserve to be there, on merit, just like the guys that created them. This seems to be the crux of our disagreement. I don't see how criticizing the office holder criticizes the office. I can insult president Bush all day long, and many of us do, but that doesn't insult the office in the least. This is about demanding the best to fill these offices that we acknowledge are important as they are the exercise of the republican government. That's where legislation begins. That's were legislation gets executed. That's where legislation is screened for its adherence to the constitution. And the point you keep missing, which explains much of the impotence of congress, is that he has flaunted domestic and international law with the blessing of the american people. It's almost comedic watching the left's manifestations in pop culture. You get musicians at rock concerts shouting out against Bush and the GOP. You see comedians investing in it. You get actors and actresses making their statements. You see the pop culture left lash out against Bush and "the republicans", with their snarl, as if no one in their audience supports Bush and the republicans. You seem to be making the same mistake. In your oversimplification charge, you failed to recognize the support for ALL of his decisions by the arguable majority of americans. Impeachment, domestic issues, international issues - our country is split on these ideas right now. Split - not "Bush forces his opinion on the american people, yet they re-elect him anyway...so he can force his stupidity on everyone". Our country needs to find itself, and that's what its doing right now. We're re-learning, re-arguing age old dynamics of guns and butter. The two party seige doesn't help matters any because it exploits the Us vs. Them mentallity, which in turn does a disservice to honest discussion on where we want to go as a country. I know where I want us to go, but it has to start with good office holders that can measure up to the office.

How so? I don't know of any press not doing their job in the run-up to the war in Iraq because the office of the president is so in "awe". These are people, not furniture or abstract philosophical concepts. The press has no issue raking the dude over the coals - especially if he's president.

But doesn't it essentially function as an upper house? I mean, it's not as if the house of representatives can pass a law without them. They still become the veto check.

Why do they have to be held in any "esteem"? Every person makes good and bad decisions, that's the whole point in not being polarized one direction or the other as a precondition to analysis. Your job may require this approach, but I have no readership or constituency to please with my assessment, so I'm going to do my best to judge each dude fairly. We're just not going to agree. I can't stand the shiny shoe opportunists running for office nowadays, as that's my conclusion when considered as a lot. But individually, everybody's got a fair shot in my book. As fair as I can offer anyway. I hold the office in awe in reverence to its history and importance to a government I'm very fond of. I'm proud of our constitution and the principles it establishes and I'm proud of Jefferson's message concerning liberties, and I'm proud of Adams, and the rest of the great thinkers that so bravely insisted on this republican experiment - no doubt in the face of their hypocrisy and crimes against humanity. That's the human experience. Good people do bad things, and vice versa. The office is important to the value of the constitution. I think I understand where you're coming from though, it's just I have no problem partitioning the office from the man serving it. I have no more or less internal censorship on my critical voice concerning anyone's performance in that office as I would of any other human being. They earn no status by the office itself.

I think it's a great thread. So far, it seems to solve more important problems than it creates. I'm usually not for an exchange of problems, but in this case the principles involved are too important not to fix. The more I think about though, the more I don't like the two teir Senior/Junior rep angle. Just seems like it leaves a potential hole for the Senior rep to become the corruptable influence over Junior reps in some way. While the expense seems daunting, I'm thinking they all need to be of equal status, officially. There's no reason why certain reps wouldn't take lead roles and produce the legislative particulars, it would certainly seem to keep them popular with their constituency. But as soon as we class them hi (few) low (most), it would seem to create a consolidated pool of power for corruption to focus on. (Perhaps the special interests will focus on corrupting the language of the bills, rather than on votes, which gets as back, essentially, to 435 targets for influence rather than the 6,000). Same here.

Yeah, after rereading the responsibilities of the executive branch, I'm not sure why I had so much trouble making the partition. The Executive branch executes the legislature created by congress. It's just that I don't witness this execution by their authority - to me it just gets executed "somehow". I guess I haven't been considering the source of execution, when it should have been obvious all along. While I feel stupid admiting that, I'm glad I understand it better now.

Well, that does make sense, considering it is the executive branch. I'm going to have to chew on that a while to truly grasp the consequences between representation and executing the will as prescribed by Congress. Since the president is often at odds with Congress, it's not obvious to me how exactly the executive branch is executing their will. I guess I need to refamiliarize myself with my government. These fundamentals are important.

Then why do the "people" even vote? Not contesting your explanation, I trust your historical review, I'm just confused as to why the people would even be consulted if the president is merely the executor over the states. Apparently the states have all agreed at this point anyway, that the president should represent the people, since they all seem poll the people. I guess my next question is, how should it be? Personally, I prefer the president represent the people, by popular vote. Is there perhaps a good reason why that shouldn't be so?