On 7/26/2014 11:40 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> The thing that's particularly disturbing, though, is that in our
> "representative democracy," when you disagree with your elected official
> on something and take the time to write them, they generally *don't* say
> "thank you for sending me your thoughts - there were things you said that
> I hadn't considered, and I will take your feedback and incorporate it
> into my thinking."  They might not change their mind, but you might feel
> that they were actually listening.
>

Yeah, been there, done that, told them when one of their pushers (i.e., 
telephone BS spreaders) called up later the same week that there was no 
way in hell I would listen to, never mind support, liars and never to 
call me again. But, you nailed the real issue straight on. The only time 
they change their opinions, only, not really, is if they think it might 
somehow damage their chances of being reelected. Ironically, the right, 
at the moment, seem to have either convinced themselves, or are trying 
really hard to do so, that **we** the voters just need to see their side 
of things, and stop listening to bad advice, and its thus entirely our 
confusion and misunderstanding about how much more reasonable they are, 
which is hurting their chances to get votes.

In other words, not only are they 100% right, we 100% wrong, but this is 
solvable only by making us all, somehow, change our minds, not by them 
getting their heads out of their asses and recognizing that its 2014, 
not like.. 1714 (or, in their case.. maybe 1614).

But, the fact is that the differences are not enough any more imho. The 
Democrats have let the right drag the overton window so far at this 
point that if we where discussing the best thing to have for breakfast, 
for example, they would both be stuck on whether or not Bran Flakes, or 
Coco Puffs where the best selection, while most of the damn public was 
busy either crying about the artificial colorings in both (the crazy 
left), or asking why the hell we can't just go to Ihop and forget the 
damn cereal. The arguments have, in short, devolved into a state where 
actual progress is nearly impossible, because every discussion is, 
almost always, about how to either return us to some imaginary state, 
which never existed, or to preserve some prior state that wasn't 
working, instead of actually bloody fixing anything. I would, for 
example, give Obama much greater credit, if the only damn thing he did 
manage to do, i.e. health care, wasn't a) a Faustian deal and b) 
something that both parties have been saying we need, since the bloody 
Nixon administration (or around there). We are supposed to praise the 
Democrats for, on one hand, managing to finally do one thing, which 
people have talked about, but never gotten done, for decades, while 
shrugging at stupidity like the internet de-neutrality disaster, extra 
domestic spying, and a dozen other things, which they didn't just not 
appose, but actually, in many cases, helped along, all of them things 
that it would have, in the past being "Republican" ideas?

How far do they have to drag the terms "liberal" and "progressive" up 
onto the rocks, before we call them on the claim that they are 
**either** of those things?

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

Post a reply to this message