The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, 21st Century American Government - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

xepherys · 08-07-2006, 11:34 AM

So, this has been on my mind a lot lately, and an article linked to me by Scottkuma has prompted me to post this diatribe about our branches of government. Without further adieu:

The Good - Judicial: This branch seems, to me, to be the last vestige of the government truly concerned with the American citizen. Sure, there are still rulings that I do not agree with, and there is still politicking involved in the judiciary. However, I really do believe that, in the end, the judicial system works in our favor. Some additional links that support this theory: Link 1 - Link 2 - Link 3 - Link 4 (towards the end)

These are all rather recent. While some may appear obvious, you'll see info in the next two sections about how even the most obvious infractions of laws and rights are disregarded in the legislative brand, and particularly in the executive.

The Bad - Legistlative: The fine folks that brought you the USA PATRIOT Act (HR 3162) but also tried impressively to pass legislation for stem-cell research (this is why they are bad, but not ugly) are quite a mixed bag. There seem to be a lot of players in both parties that are on both sides of the fence regarding Americans. Almost every session brings to light a ping-pong game of civil rights, forward progress and government allowances. Abortion, stem-cell research, USA PATRIOT, minimum wage, black voting rights (no, seriously)... all important things, some good, some bad, all looked at very closely. The gang on the hill, however, seems like they're all starting to get tired of beaing beat up by the Prez. Even his cherished fellow GOP members appear to be awed and amazed at the "what's next?" situations that have arisen lately.

The Ugly - Executive: Record numbers of Presidential Signing Statements alone are reason for concern by many. A veto of the stem-cell research bill against the polled desires of the public-at-large and even a majority (though sadly not a super-majority) of congress calls into question W's use of his personal ethics over the people's wishes. Yes, I agree, a president should use good judgement, and even ethical views when making tough decisions. However, what happend to "... of the people, by the people, for the people ..."? When did the will of the people become second (or third or furhter) to the will of those in power?

There are plenty more examples for all three branches. When did Americans become so lazy, so apathetic, as to allow such blatent violations of our country's founding wisdom to carry on? I pity the future of our country if the course of things is not changed sharply and soon. Our Executive Branch has become a rabid dog that needs a new (or two) stronger leash. Why can't the other branches reign in the happenings at the highest level of government? Why can't the peopel get worked up enough to really try to change things anymore? Hell, people were OUTRAGED over Watergate. Are the People okay with this now because it's not secretive and hidden? Is it okay to be hoodwinked as long as you know what you're getting into? Where HAVE all the patriots gone to, anyway?

host · 08-08-2006, 12:22 AM

xepherys,

I predict that it will be difficult to attract much participation in a discussion on this topic....I'm not really sure whether you want a discussion concerning today's "status quo"....the result of a power "imbalance" that has taken place because of interpretation of congressional election results, beginning in 1994,
as well as the results of the 2000 and 2004, presidential races.

Confining it's subject matter to examining why Kansans overwhelmingly vote republican, the 2004 book "What's the Matter With Kansas?", pondered the question of how and why "have nots", support candidates financed by wealthy conservatives and corporations:

Quote:

Downwardly mobile and picking up speed
Once-radical flyover country now votes against its own interests, Frank says

Reviewed by Paul Buhle

Sunday, June 20, 2004
What's the Matter With Kansas?

How Conservatives Won the Heart of America

......Today's Mr. and Mrs. Block are downwardly mobile but eager to enshrine the very right-wingers who are ruining their public institutions, their environment and their children's futures.

Why do they do it? Frank spends a great deal of time in close observation of repackaged reality, from congressional offices to public displays to the private lives of the faithful. In the inner ring of suburbs and fading factory towns where the American Dream grows steadily out of reach, he pinpoints the "plent-T-plaint." This "curious amassing of petty, unrelated beefs with the world" neatly combines assorted gripes about the obscenity, disrespect and immorality of a supposed liberalism run rampant. No combination of enhanced tax benefits for the wealthy, no increase in military weaponry, no assault on abortion rights or local victory against Darwinism can calm this orchestrated road rage. ......

Paul Buhle teaches at Brown University, and his latest book is "From the Lower East Side to Hollywood: Jews in American Popular Culture."

The U.S. has experienced political shifts, beginning with the the "great depression" in the 1932 elections, that transferred the presidency to a democrat.......and democrats dominated in the executive and legislative branches, with the exception of the 8 year Eisenhower presidency, for the next 36 years. Compared to later republican presidents, Eisenhower could be described as a "centrist".

Today on a webpage at the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation site, (Milton was the late younger brother of republican president Dwight Eisenhower,) the following is displayed:

Quote:

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache...s&ct=clnk&cd=5

.......With an eye to Thomas Jefferson's warning against the antidemocratic "aristocracy of our moneyed corporations," the United States needs to return corporate taxes to the levels in force during the Eisenhower administration. We also need to increase the top marginal tax rate for the super-rich to about 50 percent. This would still be far below the top marginal income tax rate of 91 percent during the Eisenhower administration.

Repealing the tax cuts given to the super-rich would return more than $85 bilomglion per year from the richest 5 percent of the population. Returning to corporate tax rates in force during the Eisenhower administration could increase tax revenues by roughly $110 billion more per year. Returning to a 50 percent top marginal inomgcome tax rate far below the top rate in the Eisenhower administration could capture as much as $90 billion more per year from the richest 2 percent of the population.

At the same time, we should provide tax cuts to the 150 million hard-working workers who are struggling because they can't afford to buy all they need. Millionomgaires don't need additional spending money. Workers, middle-class Americans, and the poor do. Their spending will stimulate the economy more effectively, help busiomgnesses, and be more fair to the Americans who need fairness the most. There is amomgple economic evidence that putting money in the pockets of average Americans stimulates the economy much more than further lining the pockets of the rich........

In 1964, republican candidate Barry Goldwater suffered a lopsided defeat in his bid for the presidency against Lyndon Johnson. Republican fortunes changed in 1968 when republican Nixon made his second bid for the presidency, after losing to JFK by a small margin (if he even legitimately lost, at all, in that contested 1960 election.)

IMO, the shift to eventual republican control of the entire federal government, came about because of the "Southern Stratedy" that first saw results with Nixon's election, and because of the decline of unionism; the financial fuel for democratic candidates. Falling contributions to democrats was a result of a decline in unionized manufacturing jobs, and because republican strategists used the courts to obtain favorable rulings that ended the power of union leaders to direct revenue that was sourced from the proceeds of union dues, to almost exclusively democratic party candidates.

Republican strategists also observed that democrats depended on contributions from trial lawyers, and thus, a successful strategy of "tort reform" was launched by republicans to "lighten" the financial resources of trial lawyers, as well as their incentive to contribute to democrats. Once tort reform was passed into law, democrats could not attract contributions with promises to the lawyers that they could prevent tort "reform" from happening.

Elections are won on the margins, and the republican, "Southern Stratedy", was so successful in persudaing white southerners to change from voting for democratic party candidates, to republicans, that in 1980:

Quote:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...A90994DD404482
or.... http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NatNew...6?viscount=100
Impossible, Ridiculous, Repugnant
October 6, 2005, Thursday
By BOB HERBERT (NYT); Editorial Desk

......Ronald Reagan, the G.O.P.'s biggest hero, opposed both the Civil Rights Act
and the Voting Rights Act of the mid-1960's. And he began his general
election campaign in 1980 with a powerfully symbolic appearance in
Philadelphia, Miss., where three young civil rights workers were murdered
in the summer of 1964. He drove the crowd wild when he declared: "I believe
in states' rights.".........
http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...399921,00.html

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater
.......Atwater on the Southern Strategy

As a member of the Reagan administration in 1981, Atwater gave an anonymous interview to historian Alexander P. Lamis. Part of this interview was printed in Lamis' book The Two-Party South, then reprinted in Southern Politics in the 1990s with Atwater's name revealed. Bob Herbert reported on the interview in the October 6, 2005 edition of the New York Times. Atwater talked about the GOP's Southern Strategy and Ronald Reagan's version of it:

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. <b>All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964… and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster…</b>

Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps…?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'N-word, N-word, N-word.' By 1968 you can't say 'N-word' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'N-word, n-word.'

The terms "sun belt", and "Southern strategy", were coined, in 1969, by a 27 year old Harvard law grad and Nixon politcal advisor, Kevin Phillips. Phillips wrote the 1969 classic, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870000586/sr=1-1/qid=1155024748/ref=sr_1_1/104-1219604-5159909?ie=UTF8&s=books">The emerging Republican majority,</a> and correctly predicted then, that the southern states would dominate American politics, and if California is included, no one has been elected POTUS since 1964, who was not born or residing in a southern state. Kevin Phillips later renounced the "new republican party" that he had advised so successfully. Here is an excerpt from comments by convicted Nixon watergate co-conspirator, Chuck Colson, who "found God" while serving jail time for his watergate crime conviction. Colson is trying to run "damage control" against the perceived impact of Kevin Phillips' new book,
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067003486X/sr=1-1/qid=1155024479/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1219604-5159909?ie=UTF8&s=books">American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury</a>

Quote:

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20060805/23511.htm
The 'Threat' of Theocracy

Somebody Take a Chill Pill
By Chuck Colson
Christian Post Guest Columnist
Sat, Aug. 05 2006 10:04 AM ET

.....Whatever the exact terminology, the “threat” they describe is basically the same. Like my old White House colleague, the somewhat erratic Kevin Phillips, they fear an end to the separation of church and state and its replacement by a government directly based on biblical laws.

In Phillips’s account, biblical laws will not only decide social issues like abortion and same-sex “marriage” but also matters like economics, the environment, and foreign policy. His most lurid fear is that the United States, under the sway of “theocrats,” will take actions in the Middle East to hasten the second coming of Christ.

As I said, Phillips is hardly alone in his fears. In a new book Kingdom Coming, journalist Michelle Goldberg writes about what she calls “Christian nationalism.” This “nationalism,” which Goldberg characterizes as “quasi-fascist,” believes that “godly men have the responsibility to take over every aspect of society.”....

It is amusing to read Colson's description of a political prodigy, accomplished and prolific author, and noted historian, as <b>"my old White House colleague, the somewhat erratic Kevin Phillips"</b>, when Colson is a convicted felon who "found Jesus", and now wants to persuade us that:

Quote:

.....And there are some Christians who do talk about a Christian takeover of America. The real question, as Ross Douthat asks in the latest issue of First Things, is whether they are representative of Christians as a whole.

The answer is a resounding “no!”—maybe one percent.....

....anybody who has read the documentation that I've provided in other threads on this forum, or who keeps up on current events and has not been
"taken in" by their pastor's political directives, knows that Colson is full of shit, with his "one percent" description......

xepherys · 08-08-2006, 08:16 AM

host,

While I don't disagree with many of the "issues" brought up in your links, I'm not sure the problem is purely partisan. A lot of the issue seems to be due to a growing apathy on the part of the common man, which allows the power granted to politicians (of any affiliation) to be abused that much more easily and to that much greater an extent. In another thread, we talked about changes in America over the past few decades. It seems telling to me how angry the public was when Nixon was caught duping the public. When Clinton was caught with his pants down (more or less literally) it was an issue, but not a major one (He's just a regular guy underneath it all I heard someone say... actually, I think it was me...). With W, he lies with a great regularity and strives to help create and pass legislation that robs us of our freedoms, but nobody even bats an eye. Okay, maybe not "nobody", but not enough people to DO anything about it. W has blatently violated US Law and the US Constitution. How is it this is acceptable, but people wanted Clinton impeached for getting his extramarital freak on? South or not, GOP or not, it just scared the hell out of me.

I'm not sure if it's eaither "status quo" or "power imbalance" that I'd like to see discussed here. Maybe neither, maybe both. Maybe more about why you (or I) don't do more to stop it. Personally, I just don't know WHAT to do. I regularly write (both written and electronic) letters to my state and federal representatvies about issues. I try to stay involved in that way. My "participation" in the military is, with all hopefulness, coming to an end soon. I will certainly NOT be reenlisting... ever. I consider myself to be very patriotic and as such cannot stand to sit idly by while the very things I believe so deeply in are destroyed or irreversibly altered for the worse.

Two things I firmly believe to be true:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benjamin Franklin

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"

Quote:

Originally Posted by US Army Oath of Enlistment

I, ___________________________________, do solemly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed overme, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Unfortunately the latter now contradicts. In my eyes, the POTUS is a direct threat to the COnstitution of the United States, and therefore an enemy (domestic) that I have sworn to protect it against. The UCMJ adds another level of problem regarding me doing much of anything.

Those things said, I offer several options for additional conversation. The above mentioned by host, your thoughts on the situation at large, what you personally do or do not do to solve the issues at hand (and why), or your own commentary on the issue as you see fit. See? Plenty to discuss!

08-07-2006, 11:34 AM	#1 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, 21st Century American Government So, this has been on my mind a lot lately, and an article linked to me by Scottkuma has prompted me to post this diatribe about our branches of government. Without further adieu: The Good - Judicial: This branch seems, to me, to be the last vestige of the government truly concerned with the American citizen. Sure, there are still rulings that I do not agree with, and there is still politicking involved in the judiciary. However, I really do believe that, in the end, the judicial system works in our favor. Some additional links that support this theory: Link 1 - Link 2 - Link 3 - Link 4 (towards the end) These are all rather recent. While some may appear obvious, you'll see info in the next two sections about how even the most obvious infractions of laws and rights are disregarded in the legislative brand, and particularly in the executive. The Bad - Legistlative: The fine folks that brought you the USA PATRIOT Act (HR 3162) but also tried impressively to pass legislation for stem-cell research (this is why they are bad, but not ugly) are quite a mixed bag. There seem to be a lot of players in both parties that are on both sides of the fence regarding Americans. Almost every session brings to light a ping-pong game of civil rights, forward progress and government allowances. Abortion, stem-cell research, USA PATRIOT, minimum wage, black voting rights (no, seriously)... all important things, some good, some bad, all looked at very closely. The gang on the hill, however, seems like they're all starting to get tired of beaing beat up by the Prez. Even his cherished fellow GOP members appear to be awed and amazed at the "what's next?" situations that have arisen lately. The Ugly - Executive: Record numbers of Presidential Signing Statements alone are reason for concern by many. A veto of the stem-cell research bill against the polled desires of the public-at-large and even a majority (though sadly not a super-majority) of congress calls into question W's use of his personal ethics over the people's wishes. Yes, I agree, a president should use good judgement, and even ethical views when making tough decisions. However, what happend to "... of the people, by the people, for the people ..."? When did the will of the people become second (or third or furhter) to the will of those in power? There are plenty more examples for all three branches. When did Americans become so lazy, so apathetic, as to allow such blatent violations of our country's founding wisdom to carry on? I pity the future of our country if the course of things is not changed sharply and soon. Our Executive Branch has become a rabid dog that needs a new (or two) stronger leash. Why can't the other branches reign in the happenings at the highest level of government? Why can't the peopel get worked up enough to really try to change things anymore? Hell, people were OUTRAGED over Watergate. Are the People okay with this now because it's not secretive and hidden? Is it okay to be hoodwinked as long as you know what you're getting into? Where HAVE all the patriots gone to, anyway?