I meant lobbyism where corporations and business entities can give money to politicians' campaigns. As far as I can see, the way lobbyism is handeled right now, I can't see how it's different than outright bribes.

Also that was the point I was trying to make, you need people who are indifferent, the people who don't go out and vote, the ones who just don't give a shit. They'd be the best ones for the job, of course they don't give a shit so they just don't bother trying.

Edit: Basically you should give the power to the people who don't want it, sort of a catch 22.

Well that is what often happened in rome.  Hence the intersting way their system worked.

as for campaigns.  I tend to agree.  I think it'd be better if they just did nothing but held 3 debates and made those days and the voting day a holiday.

However,activly passing laws to prevent ads like that Swiftboat stuff... would probably be a violation of free speach, being a problem.  Though granted we already have annoying free speach violations in television.

First few years for Obama, and I brought up Bush as a baseline.  You do know what the federal deficit what when the last administration left office right?  You also know that Obama happened to add the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to the deficit, unlike the last administration.  It is important to be accurate with the info:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/dont-blame-obama-for-bushs-2009-deficit/

What you have is individuals out of power complaining about deficits, and those who are in power saying there is a crisis.  We had a Bush crisis, and now there is an Obama one, regarding the deficit. 

delete... bad reply quote

I am going to take all this as signs we are doomed.  The BJ reference above and the bad spellings as stuff out of the movie Idiocracy.  If protestors don't care to get signs right, who else is going to care?  See how the world turned out in the movie I mentioned.

I've read that Cato piece before, and I can't entirely agree with it. Obviously, as he had veto power and the fiscal year began on his watch, Bush bears plenty of responsibility for 2009's deficit. However, spending originates in Congress, and Congress is and was Democrat controlled. Senator Obama voted with his party ~97% of the time, but despite that, he promised to do some sort of aboutface on deficit spending once he became president. Predictably, he's done no such thing. Quite the opposite, as we now have the status quo on steroids.

Maybe you have a point. Since Tea Party activists are on average more successful and better educated, and they're apparently this fucking dumb, I can only cringe to think how jaw-droppingly stupid the vaunted first time voters who swept Obama into office must be.

It is no longer about experience, or competency, but who makes you feel good.  You saw Hillary doing her thing and trying to spin and experience tale when she ran.  And you have Obama and "Change".  On the GOP side, you had people who LOVED Bush Jr. because he supposedly loves Jesus and talks to him (and you can drink a beer with him).  And then there is the whole Sarah Palin thing now.  The standards we call for for candidates drops lower and lower each time around.

If the Tea Party came out of the Ron Paul campaign folks, I seriously would expect far better from the signs they have up.  This is just plain stuck on stupid at this point.  The last election was getting stuck on stupid with air tire pressure made an issue, Joe the Plumber (spread the wealth around = socialist, as opposed to have wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer hands?) and who knows what else I forgot (Obama's presidential seal)?  And what do we get now?  People try to one up the level of stupid the other side is doing, in order to justify the level of stupid being seen.   And being single issue where all you bring up is tax cuts as an answer to everything is dumb (Democrats outflanked on that).

William F Buckley Jr. would be taking people to the back of the woodshed to get things straightened out considering how low the discourse has sunk.

I do so love it when someone brings up the conservatives of the past to point out how awful the conservatives of today are, and I especially love it when they choose William "Shut Your Mouth, You Fucking Queer, Or I'll Smash Your Face In" Buckley as the paragon of civil discourse.

What is your beef with Buckley?  I bring up Firing Line as an example of programming superior to the angry populism going around as "conservatism" today on the likes of Fox News.

By the way, is this the clip you refer to about "Smash Your Face In"?

http://streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/blog/obit-the-dust-william-f-buckley-1925-2008/

I watched it several times and Buckley had me laughing out loud.  That was wit the way he said it.