Vote em all out!
I'm starting to change my political philosophy. Am I getting conservative? Never! No, I think I'm becoming A-political, politically neutered, disenchanted....basically fed up with all politicians . The only reason I stay with the democrats is the fact that the republicans have screwed things up so badly that democrats would have to do better. But then again, I wouldn't hold my breath. My new philosophy is this....Vote em all out! If they vote themselves a raise while failing to balance their own budgets....vote em out! If they fail to live up to most of their campaign promises....vote em out! If they borrow any more money from China or Saudi Arabia....vote em out! If they do nothing towards ending this damn war....vote em out! If they do nothing towards campaign finance reform, health care, or boarder control....vote em out! All of them....vote em all out! You can stay true to your party of choice, just give a new guy a chance. We need to send a message that we Americans are fed up with politicians feeding at the public trough. They are ruining this country, not us but them, the politicians we trust with our tax dollars and our war machine, they are screwing it all up and we are running out of time. The only power we have is the power of the vote. If all of the voters get on line with this and just vote new people in every time, they will straighten out fast.
Speaking of voters, why is it that this gerrymandering of districts works for the politicians? Why do people like Wally Herger and Jon Dolittle get re elected time after time regardless of their performances? It's because people tend to vote for their party regardless of what the person has done or stolen or not done. Quentin Colgan makes a very good point about this in today's letters to the editor. Isn't it really the voters fault that this redistricting thing works so well for politicians? I would appeal to republicans and democrats alike....if you don't like what your guy has done....vote em out!
I read the right wing blogs and listen to the right wing radio folks and watch Hannity and O'Rielly on Fox and the thing about these folks that is hard to respect is this blind loyalty they have to the republican party(with exception to Jack Lee of Post Scripts speaking out against Dolittle). If president Al Gore would have done in Iraq what George Bush has done, or if president John Kerry would have allowed torture or allowed the feds the access they have to our bank records and e-mails, or if a democrat congress had run the national debt up trillions of dollars in a few short years, this same group of blind followers would be up in arms! They often make good points about their conservative philosophies but to me, they discredit themselves by going along with a broken program just because it's their party. They discredit themselves by slamming Hillary before she has a chance to mess anything up. They take these very big republican blunders and minimize them while making a mountain out of a mole hill over small miss deeds that democrats make. You want democrats to take you serious? Then try getting a little more real. Start putting problems in better perspective i.e. having and lying about an affair is not the same as lying about going to war. And when you got a guy like Wally Herger, who is to congress what Clarence Thomas is to the Supreme Court, at least replace him with another republican. I am willing to bet that I could predict how Clarence Thomas and Wally Herger will vote on any given issue and be correct 100% of the time. You can't do anything about Clarence Thomas but when it comes to guys like Wally Herger, and I am saying the same about any democrat who votes strictly party lines or fails to make any progress on anything during their term....vote em all out! That's what I'm gonna do.
Comments
Vote For RON PAUl!!!
Posted by: James Baker | December 8, 2007 10:09 AM
Joe,
Welcome to the club. I'm one of those brain dead dudes with an R next to my name trying to vote all the bastards out. I havn't had much success thus far. In my humble opinion, our elected D's and R's are equally inept and deserve to have their welfare checks stopped.
Joe's reply....Allright Sean! Now if we can just get about 100 million more voters aboard maybe we can finally get something done.
Posted by: Sean Baber | December 8, 2007 01:28 PM
term limits is a prerequisite for cleaning up our political system. politician spend too much time and money trying to get re-elected instead of doing their job. the best bet is to vote them out of office. btw- it would take a lot less than 100 million voters to make a change.
Joe's reply....Thank you Patrick.
Posted by: patrick smith | December 10, 2007 09:24 AM
Joe,
A lot of people share your frustrations, you certainly are not alone. The argument to throw them all out is non-partisan and I've entertained the thought as well.
However I always stop myself because I've come to the conclusion that it's a politically lazy endeavor.
When I don't get the results I want from government, yes, I want government thrown out. Let's say I support plan X for health care. Let's also say that plan x failed in the Senate on a 30-70 vote. Throwing everyone out would obviously overlook the fact that 30 senators actually voted for my chosen plan. If they were replaced in the next election, the odds would not be good that each new senator would also support my plan.
But by advocating throwing them all out, I can absolve myself of any research into the actual positions and votes of the senators and just start fresh. Kind of like hitting reset in a video game, in my opinion.
Throwing everyone out, as shown with term limits, does nothing to guarantee a fix to the original problem. We have term limits in California now and very little has changed, with the exception being that Willie Brown no longer runs our state government.
When you and I say we want solutions, and we're willing to throw out the rascals if we don't get these solutions, I suspect that we both want very different solutions. Until this country strongly agrees on what it wants done in regards to health care, the war on terror, immigration, it will continue to get the status quo. I know where I stand and I choose to vote for those who agree with me, and frankly, I don't want those who agree with me thrown out of office. I wouldn't mind the other guys thrown out, however.
As for people blindly voting their party line, this is an easy accusation but hard to prove. Elections often come down to two candidates in an either/or scenario. You may not like either of them, but you choose the one who best matches your own political preference. Some voters find themselves stuck in this pattern. Others actually like their chosen candidates for a myriad of reasons. Regretfully some of them haven't got a clue and go for the guy with the better haircut. In a democracy we always get the government we deserve (ouch).
Your final paragraph on radio hosts gets into the topic of political hypocrisy. Politicians, as well as the voters who support them, are flat-out hypocrites and you should just accept this. Many of the people who support George Bush would be mad at Al Gore for doing what Bush does. Many of the people now mad at Bush would likewise have no problem with a President Gore doing the exact same thing.
I'm a hypocrite myself, I admit it. But I like to think I research some of my opinions. I objected to Clinton sending troops into Haiti, but I thought he did well sending them into Bosnia. If President Barrack made a case to me about why we should invade, say, Pakistan, I would like to think that I would weigh the evidence of his proposal and choose with a somewhat educated opinion. I certainly think I can do this more rationally than close-minded activists who object to any and all war or military actions.
If you've read my case and still resolve towards throwing out everyone in our current Congress, however, I do wish you luck. Perhaps the new blood will figure it out after all.
Joe's reply....When I say vote em all out, I must admit that I am 50% serious and 50% tongue in cheek. My frustration is not that there may be candidates that would vote issues I believe in that may be elected out as much as the fact that we seem to be politically imobolized these days i.e. there isn't anything getting done about anything. Maybe it's because the two sides cannot agree enough to compromise, I don't know. For instance, I would rather see something done about the boarder that I disagreed with than nothing at all because what we have is not working. Our health care system is broken. What is going to happen with social securit? What about Iraq? If we just keep on with business as usual in Iraq at a cost of hundreds of billions a year, we will have an economic collapse in the very near future.
Posted by: Dane Langston | December 10, 2007 01:36 PM