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Congress; how low can it go?

Cicero

Mayor
Thanks to Ϣάηḁgi I was clued in on a Gallup poll rating the U.S. Legislature and their body politics parasites, the lobbyist, in the viewpoint of the voting public. It's low people. It's lower than a snake's belly. It's lower than whale feces . . . and that stuff sinks. It's even lower than -- gasp! -- that of a used car salesman. Shudder!

Oh and here is the link to that site.

So what's it mean? You gotta ask that because everything means more than one thing. In this case, aside from the obvious, it means that our legislators are living in a dream world where they can blithely carry on business as usual just as if the entire nation and the world [that part of it with internet connections anyway] wasn't capable of following the news 24/7 at will.

Members of the U.S. Congress now live in a information fishbowl whether they are consciously aware of it or not; and most of them don't seem to be.

Their attitude seems to be 'safety in anonymity'. That is, if their name is not being splashed across the news in a negative way then nobody but their constituents even know that they exist, and therefore they are safe. It hasn't yet dawned on them that the entire legislative branch is on political trial in the voting public's viewpoint and so none of them are safe.

The voting public? Think of mob rule. Yeah, democracy; but not in a good way. Democracy with pitchforks and burning torch ends. Think of frustrated Wallmart shoppers on Black Friday after waiting forever in the cold and wind for the damn doors to open. Yeah, that sort of mob; and its ire is directed at the legislative branch . . . and frustration is growing because those dumb bastards are still playing what they have come to think of as safe and traditional political games while the nation is gradually burning down to its fiscal and economic stubble.

U.S. legislators live in a different world from average citizens. For one thing I don't think it is possible to find a second term senator who's not technically wealthy. Getting rich comes with the position and almost seems to be necessary before you can even get the very nearly lifetime sinecure position.

I am not putting down the pursuit of personal wealth and the accumulation of the same; but I am pointing out that a wealthy public servant tends not to think of him or herself as . . . any form of servant at all. Oh my!

As for the House -- well -- perhaps not so very much, but I suspect that most of them [magically] also find interesting and perhaps not so very ethical ways of somehow going from economically average to comfortable to wealthy after they have been beebopping around the halls of Congress for only a few years.

Sweet, eh? Not to people frustrated because they have watched their comfortable life saving's nest eggs vanish due to inflation and Wall Street crapola.

What Congress men and women do not grasp is that not only is the public very angry at them for doing nothing of a meaningful manner regarding the growing plight of the average citizen but that this frustration and rage could easily explode in the nation's face.

Meanwhile our legislators continue to play their traditional political games.

It's not beyond the realm of possibilities that in the not so very distant future our U.S. legislators might just get forcefully reminded that when you are perceived to be doing nothing but piddle on citizens from a very great height while patting one another on the back and laughing at the ongoing plight of the peasant class . . . people decide to start snipping off tender bits of dangling political anatomy in retaliation.

We have entered a presidential election season -- projected to become one of the most acrimonious in nature and dirty to boot -- and many, many voters are going to be anxiety ridden about that, and so also lots of heretofore safe House and Senate spots are going to be up for voter's scrutiny in the process. The scrutiny of angry, frustrated, and just generally fed-up-to-the-gills voters.

Consider how shocked those long time politicos will be if what they thought was slated to be just another essentially predetermined defense of their lifetime sinecure position turns out instead to be the political fight of their lives.

Do you think that finally our legislative branch as a whole will 'get' the message that it's time to cease business as usual?

I can't wait to see.
 

Citizen

Council Member
If only we WOULD get rid of all Republicans & all Democrats, then we would probably have a government of the people by the people again.

Its the Republicans & the Democrats that have torn America down. Its both of them that we the people should be angry at.
 

Cicero

Mayor
My wife suggested that we simply switch over to a group grope [many parties] parliamentary system. I pointed out to her that most countries going that way are just as screwed up. It was two days before she would speak to me again.

Silliness momentarily aside, I think that we are going to have to break our legislative branch system before we can fix it, because they are stuck on stupid and operating as if this were still a slowly moving agrarian society.
 

Citizen

Council Member
We have to get people that won't take the bribes. A good start would be to fire all Dems & Repubs, that certianly would send a clear message that we the people are fed up.
 

Cicero

Mayor
Yes it would be a start. I recently had to do a bit of research on Congress, and I discovered that an overwhelming percentage of representative and senators are attorneys. So let's pass an amendment that no attorney can run for public office -- ever.

It would never pass, of course. But the effort alone would be satisfying. That's really the problem, though. Aside from voting or rioting in the streets citizens have no power to do anything in this nation. This is the greatest reason that our legislators have dared to grow arrogant. None of them honestly believe that they are servants of the people.
 

connieb

Senator
Thanks to Ϣάηḁgi I was clued in on a Gallup poll rating the U.S. Legislature and their body politics parasites, the lobbyist, in the viewpoint of the voting public. It's low people. It's lower than a snake's belly. It's lower than whale feces . . . and that stuff sinks. It's even lower than -- gasp! -- that of a used car salesman. Shudder!

Oh and here is the link to that site.

So what's it mean? You gotta ask that because everything means more than one thing. In this case, aside from the obvious, it means that our legislators are living in a dream world where they can blithely carry on business as usual just as if the entire nation and the world [that part of it with internet connections anyway] wasn't capable of following the news 24/7 at will.

Members of the U.S. Congress now live in a information fishbowl whether they are consciously aware of it or not; and most of them don't seem to be.

Their attitude seems to be 'safety in anonymity'. That is, if their name is not being splashed across the news in a negative way then nobody but their constituents even know that they exist, and therefore they are safe. It hasn't yet dawned on them that the entire legislative branch is on political trial in the voting public's viewpoint and so none of them are safe.

The voting public? Think of mob rule. Yeah, democracy; but not in a good way. Democracy with pitchforks and burning torch ends. Think of frustrated Wallmart shoppers on Black Friday after waiting forever in the cold and wind for the damn doors to open. Yeah, that sort of mob; and its ire is directed at the legislative branch . . . and frustration is growing because those dumb bastards are still playing what they have come to think of as safe and traditional political games while the nation is gradually burning down to its fiscal and economic stubble.

U.S. legislators live in a different world from average citizens. For one thing I don't think it is possible to find a second term senator who's not technically wealthy. Getting rich comes with the position and almost seems to be necessary before you can even get the very nearly lifetime sinecure position.

I am not putting down the pursuit of personal wealth and the accumulation of the same; but I am pointing out that a wealthy public servant tends not to think of him or herself as . . . any form of servant at all. Oh my!

As for the House -- well -- perhaps not so very much, but I suspect that most of them [magically] also find interesting and perhaps not so very ethical ways of somehow going from economically average to comfortable to wealthy after they have been beebopping around the halls of Congress for only a few years.

Sweet, eh? Not to people frustrated because they have watched their comfortable life saving's nest eggs vanish due to inflation and Wall Street crapola.

What Congress men and women do not grasp is that not only is the public very angry at them for doing nothing of a meaningful manner regarding the growing plight of the average citizen but that this frustration and rage could easily explode in the nation's face.

Meanwhile our legislators continue to play their traditional political games.

It's not beyond the realm of possibilities that in the not so very distant future our U.S. legislators might just get forcefully reminded that when you are perceived to be doing nothing but piddle on citizens from a very great height while patting one another on the back and laughing at the ongoing plight of the peasant class . . . people decide to start snipping off tender bits of dangling political anatomy in retaliation.

We have entered a presidential election season -- projected to become one of the most acrimonious in nature and dirty to boot -- and many, many voters are going to be anxiety ridden about that, and so also lots of heretofore safe House and Senate spots are going to be up for voter's scrutiny in the process. The scrutiny of angry, frustrated, and just generally fed-up-to-the-gills voters.

Consider how shocked those long time politicos will be if what they thought was slated to be just another essentially predetermined defense of their lifetime sinecure position turns out instead to be the political fight of their lives.

Do you think that finally our legislative branch as a whole will 'get' the message that it's time to cease business as usual?

I can't wait to see.

You know there was a huge article in our local paper how to fit with our State's ethics rules our local government and school board activities had to change. One of those things was, that there was a lifetime prohibition of a State Employee going from being a State employee, to going and working for any company that does business with the State.

I would LOVE to see the federal government institute such an ethics rule. Personally, I think lifetime is a little too long. But, seriously, if you work for the federal government - you can't take your federal government insider knowledge and use it working for someone who does business with the federal gov't. And, I would like to see it be extended to lobbyists as well.

No more ex congressmen being allowed to work for lobbyists. No more people working for the SEC then taking lucrative positions with the very companies they used to regulate. No more people working for the FDA and then taking positions with Big Pharma working to get their drugs through the FDA. I could go on and on.

I know it would never happen. These bunch of greedy pigs have to be shamed every now and then for voting for their own pay increases.
 

Sodak

Council Member
Term limits.

1 term of 6 years for all of them.

No lifetime pension.

Perhaps we could actually get politicians whose only purpose is to serve his constituents.
 

connieb

Senator
I absolutely support term limits. I would maybe say two because I would like someone who is eventually elected to be President to have significant experience in governance as well as foreign affairs, etc. But, beyond that - I absolutly think that we should get rid of people being able to be career politicians.
 

Cicero

Mayor
The problem [or one portion thereof] as I see it is that the very people who make laws regarding ethics and behavior are usually the very people that have been eagerly abusing those very principles behind the scenes. It's a huge flaw in our system. So people are going to continue getting more angry and disgusted with each passing year until they finally explode; and who knows where that's going to lead?
 

Cicero

Mayor
That would be a start, and yet the very people who would have to vote on such a thing are the very people currently taking advantage of the system and do not want it to end.
 

Sodak

Council Member
Wouldn't it be interesting if the states could do it thru a ballot initiative?

Our reps and senators will serve no more than 6 years and cannot serve more than 1 term.

Hmmmm..................
 

fairsheet

Senator
Polling - between election days and ON election days, suggests that in general, people are satisfied with their own Congressional representation. They just don't like the representation the other people choose for themselves. All the hand-wringery above and all the various schemes to "fix the problem", focus on trying to control who the OTHER guy might choose to represent himself.

Fortunately though, the sky ISN'T falling. Some iteration of this same complaint, has existed within our politic, since its founding. EVERY era has suffered its cohort that tore its hair and rended its garments around how if we didn't "fix" this problem, we were headed straight to hell in a handbasket.

In the current era, we need only look back as far as '94 and Newt's "Contract with America". The GOP spewed that if only we had term limits, all would be right with the world. Yet, virtually the instant after the GOP won the Congressional majorities in '94, they forgot all about how critical term limits were. Imagine that. Back then, the "problem" to be solved by terms limits and/or "throwin' the bums out", was too many entrenched Democrats. Now...the "problem" has morphed a tad, into "too many entrenched OTHERS". Still...the more things change, the more they stay the same.
 

Lapcat

Governor
I've been saying that, as well, for quite some time, Cicero. Somehow, ethics, honesty and integrity seem to be antonyms of the word attorney. Especally in DC. And we can ill-afford such lack of ethics and honesty from here on. It's almost destroyed us, as it is.


Yes it would be a start. I recently had to do a bit of research on Congress, and I discovered that an overwhelming percentage of representative and senators are attorneys. So let's pass an amendment that no attorney can run for public office -- ever.

It would never pass, of course. But the effort alone would be satisfying. That's really the problem, though. Aside from voting or rioting in the streets citizens have no power to do anything in this nation. This is the greatest reason that our legislators have dared to grow arrogant. None of them honestly believe that they are servants of the people.
 

fairsheet

Senator
Congress operates under umpteen times more ethics rules and oversight, than it did 50 years ago. 50 years ago, it operated under umpteen times more than it had 50 years prior.

It's not just illogical to "feel" that Congress is less ethical than it once was, it's historically oblivious. Nowadays, when we hear the (exceedingly rare) story of an elected taking a "pay off", we rise up in indignation and some of us like to feel that it's the sorta thing that wouldn't have happened 100 years ago. That feeling would come from our historical obliviousness. This sorta thing actually happened routinely 100 years ago. The only difference was that back then, it wasn't illegal!
 

Huskyoverlord

Council Member
Yes it would be a start. I recently had to do a bit of research on Congress, and I discovered that an overwhelming percentage of representative and senators are attorneys. So let's pass an amendment that no attorney can run for public office -- ever.

It would never pass, of course. But the effort alone would be satisfying. That's really the problem, though. Aside from voting or rioting in the streets citizens have no power to do anything in this nation. This is the greatest reason that our legislators have dared to grow arrogant. None of them honestly believe that they are servants of the people.
Because lawyers sole purpose is to agrue and the truth is of very low importance to lawyers.
 
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