Ok I see your point.  but truth is I didn't feel the need to rant on about that because it's moot when you come to the realization that (much to the bewilderment of most non-thinking Americans) this country is NOT a democracy, it is a Republic.  Sometimes it can be described as a democratic republic because of our voting system (which makes me laugh), but it is "to the REPUBLIC for which it stands".   So yeah we have a Republic,  not a democracy. 

If you want me to add more I guess I'll do so ... Monarchy is largely open to fault and corruption, but I really haven't seen many examples of a better working functioning government.  I tend to side with Darth Vader on the idea of someone needs to make decisions rather than squabling and wasting time dealing with a senate.  If the Monarch is good, than the society can be great, but going back to Dave's First Philosophy of Life : People Suck! that doesn't tend to happen.

In college I actually wrote a numerous page essay describing exactly how democracy can not work, I'd love to post it for your alls reading enjoyment but alas I lost the save file some years ago.  I got an A on it.  Reluctantly, but the professor gave me that grade because she admitted that she could find no way to refute it.  One of my personal victories.

ummm.. other than that, a viable alternative?  hmmmm.  Socialism seems to look nice to me, I'd like some of that

Oh and as far as Fascism goes, I believe we are already a Fascist Society, even if our government isn't labeled as such.  The term does have a definitive property and is destinct, however in practice it tends to be something of a secondary property of one kind of government or another.  I dunno, do you agree or disagree with that statement?

first off, i said that democracy is the best of what we have yet.  i didn't say it necessarily works well.  the difference is huge.

all former systems we have tested, as time have shown, are hugely unstable.  you might have 100 years of working really well, and then something really bad happens, you can have like 10 years of utter pain.

democracy is commonly considered to have a low risk profile. so, many consider, by and large, what kind of risk/reward ratio do you find acceptable?  by and large, most consider democracy to be the one that strikes the best balance.

your perspective is accepted by many to be another form of acceptable government by some.  indeed, an beneficial dictatorship, where the dictatorship is defined to be anywhere from a single individual to some more efficient bureacracy, is consider by many to be an excellent substitute.  however, almost anybody who accepts this viewpoint also concedes that the when it doesn't work, it's catastrophic.  what they mean by catastrophic, of course, is measured in terms of human pain and suffering--if you disagree with that, which is a perfectly legitimate viewpoint to take, and isn't nearly as drastic as it sounds since lots of social ideas we have are not based on miminizing pain and suffering--then you can easily decide that such a system would be optimal. 

my perspective is a simple one.  society hasn't evolved for very long, a few thousand years max.  democracy is the winner, so far.  so i'd simply argue that democracy is probably what people want the most--after all, a government is about what people want. also, by the "smart people argument", if anybody could logically conceive something better, we would have found it by now.  so, we just have to yield to the natural selection process.  doesn't mean there aren't innovations, but just that any one solution any one individual comes up with is highly unlikely to be optimal.  just as an example, Marx, undoubtedly one of the greatest thinker of all time, had his thought exercise carefully laid out but nobody could get it to work in real life (glossing over some details).

so back to my rant.  now you should be able to see where i'm coming from.  it is not that i happily accept democracy, but as the de facto "best" government, i understand one needs to operate within the rules of the game.  thus, i'm happy that we appear to have an intelligent president who is willing to listen to intelligent people.  i'm happy that he understands the system and is extracting as much as he can out of it.  and that is the reason why i'm happy he has an above 50% approval rate--since in our system, that's about's as good of an indicator of whether one person's idea can be forced down everybody's throat, for better or for worse.

virtually everybody would, of course, hope that it's for better.  because otherwise we're in for a lot more pain economically.

hmmm. I see your saying, that in your opinion, democracy is the best we got, and all I'm saying is I think socialist government is the best we got. we just disagree.

I can see where when Monarchy goes wrong it goes really wrong, but I hope that doesn't give you the idea that things can't be just as bad in a democracy or in our case a republic. Right now things aren't looking very unrisky at all, but then again I don't want to cross messages, you were speaking about democracy, and our grim situation is a republic's problem not a democracy's.

I agree with you that Marx's ideals were not implemented properly.

Obama does appear intelligent, Bush didn't appear inteligent, but I believe he actually is, he is just a stooge in front of the camera. JFK also, like Obama, was young charismatic and most Americans believed he wassuch a great guy, because he was a great orator. Well, JFK wrecked this country, and he was dirty, thats why shot him in the middle of the street. So just cause Obama has enchanted a bunch of people, (and I again wonder what is this aproval rating, and what does it REALLY mean, I think one could argue Bill Gates has a 50% aproval rating, whopdie freakin doo) doesn't mean he isn't gonna make so profoundly bad descisions, and even if he personally is sound, look at the D next to his name. He's alligned, he has to play ball with the team. He can't do whatever he wants. If he tried theres something called VETO My friend (whered McCain come from LOL). Basically what I'm saying is here is where we again just simply (no problem with it) disagree. In the 25 years I've been alive virtually everything in and about this country does nothing but gets worse. Taxes have gone up, Inflation has risen, quality of our goodds and services have sharply declined, where cost of living certanly has increased. This country blows man. Totally and I don't think a product of the system RepubliCrat will change it, no matter what he says. All poloticians lie.

Inflation has risen? Are you kidding me? The inflation rate has gone WAY down from what it was in the 80's. Inflation is also a normal part of an economy. Economists are worried now that the dollar isn't inflating.

Quality of our goods and services have declined? What are you basing this off of? And even if this is true its because we import so many things these days.

Taxes are higher? Since the 80's taxes have significantly dropped.

Maybe when you grow older you just realize how many things were always wrong with the world that you never noticed when you were younger. The world has always sucked, its not like that is something new.

Politicians are only as bad as the people who vote for them. People love to criticize politicians, but what about the people who put them into office? We freak out anytime a politician combs his hair the wrong way and expect these people to deal with the fickleness that is public opinion. If one of their dead grandfather's did something the least bit questionable we have a hissy fit.

The American public can concentrate on any one problem for a month at the most and jumps on hot button issues like crack/cocaine. Then they completely forget about it.

Our government is in debt because it is a reflection of our flagrant lifestyle. The government in many ways is a perfect embodiment of the American people. I don't really see how you can complain when they do the exact same things that we do. If you want to change the government, you should change the society that elects that government every year.

1983
8 11
2,100
50
106,000

1984
8 11
2,100
50
159,000

1985
8 11
2,180
50
165,480

1986
8 11
2,270
50
171,580

1987
8 11
3,000
38.5
90,000

1988
8 15
29,750
1028
29,750

1989
8 15
30,950
1028
30,950

1990
8 15
32,450
1028
32,450

1991
8 15
34,000
31
82,150

1992
8 15
35,800
31
86,500

1993
8 15
36,900
39.6
250,000

1994
8 15
38,000
39.6
250,000

1995
8 15
39,000
39.6
256,500

1996
8 15
40,100
39.6
263,750

1997
8 15
41,200
39.6
271,050

1998
8 15
42,350
39.6
278,450

1999
8 15
43,050
39.6
283,150

2000
8 15
43,850
39.6
288,350


sorry this didn't post linearly. but you can see the numbers Going up
heres a Link http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=19

Like I have said, now I pay about 30% in taxes. The amount I am taxed (middle class) has certainly gone up.

Reading your post makes me wonder if we live in the same world, much less the same country.

Are you nuts!!! You ever go into a store and see those novelty, "In the year you were born Houses costed x and a gallon of Milk y" and so on and so forth. The only number that is pretty close on that card and now is THE AVERAGE SALARY!!!

Anything made with steel ... f'n McDonalds and Pizza Hut even.... whatever I'm not wasting my time typing, its SIMPLE OBNSERVANCE to see the decline. If you don't see it your blind.

Have your taxes really lowered over the years? If so your the only one, and I'll call up IRS and complain.

I keep hearing we are in a recession. I thought a couple weeks ago I thought I heard that economic indicators show that we are actually in a 'depression' by this point. I wasn't trying to blame a group as much as the consumer mentality, and the shift in our economic structure, that demanded more and more, without the money to buy more and more.

Honestly, I think unemployment will reach 10% (I'm sure it's actually close to that since they don't count 'discouraged' workers).

Did anyone notice that Walmart just cut some employees at their HQ? Why was that ? I was under the impression that their profits were increasing?

I think (-- key word. that Companies will cut jobs before an expected drop to cushion the blow so to speak. They might still be pulling profits now, but their Financial Analysts are probably predicting a spending slowdown, once peoples severences run out.

Thats my guess anyway.

cutting jobs is really, really simple to understand. it's just about the anticipation of a slowing economy.

i mean, you and i, as consumers, do it all the time. let's say you have gotten a raise because your performance has been good, but you also realize that the risk of you losing your job is getting higher because your company isn't doing so well, so naturally you start saving more and spending less, especially on unnecessary items.

another reason, less obvious, but well-recognized by many, is that companies tend to have too much pork when the economy is doing well, like in the middle of 2000s. in lean times, they're forced to streamline operations. it's really not much different from you and i really.

a long time back when i was in high school, few economists predicted a long-term equilibrium unemployment rate (if such a notion makes sense, to which i have alternative perspectives) in the US to be 4%. few developed nations, japan being a notable one, had such a low unemployment. we've had essentially 4% unemployment for a while now, and perhaps this low unemployment is the number that's unsustainable. perhaps the equilibrium rate is 7%, which we just passed, and of course, overshooting. or perhaps the figure is 10%. who knows. nobody understands the economy, and economists will be the first to tell you that.

don't get me wrong, i'm not saying a higher employment is good. people are suffering, that's the bottom line.