I saw it somewhere in the threads below...the term Quadrennial circle jerk....as far as I can see it fits the reality of our political system all too well.

I suppose the founding fathers realized that not having term limits was something that could lead to an elected king of sorts but then again FDR almost made it there.

I wonder, does the current electoral system keep the issue of leadership constantly on our minds or does it obfuscate the real issues? It seems like so much wasted effort when a New Executive takes office....redecorates, trashes all of the legislation he can that belonged to the former chief, writes new legislation that fits his own ideas...leaves things half finished that the last President started and so forth...all of this activity is obscenely expensive and wasteful.

It would seem to require the majority of the first four year term just to do house cleaning, a structural catharsis if you will before the new guy in charge can begin to effect policies the way he wants to and then it's off to the races again for another round of heinously costly political battles leading to another election season.

I dunno. We seem to be programmed to endlessly chase our own tails in this system that never settles away from conflict and change....no, change is not the right word...chaos is the right word.

jo

It depends of what those policies are.

For a president who wants to pass tax cuts that give away 1.7 trillion dollars to the wealthiest Americans, start an unecessary war that gives away another (est) 3 trillion dollars to defense contractors, gut the Constitution, gut the EPA, replace career civil servants with political cronies, commit wholesale firing of federal judges who disagree with him, ignore the Geneva Conventions turning the civilized world against us.........

well then, this current system is plenty effective.

z

(gotta do coffee before a rational reply)

And then there are things like this which got announced by Rumsfield on Sept 10th the day before 9/11 <link>

down inside the gears of a complex Swiss watch.

Makes discussion about 'elected' officials seem superficial, as always.

z

Fabulous link...

Peace!

May the Lord Be With You!

NAMO Padmasambhava!

Out Constitution is under great duress and could easily be changed or rewritten in the next 50 years!

Those who have seen what over 1000 years of European culture, standards, humanity and society has evolved into so that today, because of immigration from those other undeveloped lands and other "muslim" countries who can't provide superior economics for their own peoples, those who are part and parcel of Islam are making the great european continent and even the standards originating from the great "Magna Carta"...become slowly a state of dhimmitude.

We are seeing this same slow shifting into a nothingness here in this country.

Time for a major Event Horizon Happening to change the course of life on this planet.

Maybe the North American continent might eventually sink, as did Atlantis and Lemuria long ago.

Time for a major change to happen.

:)

Not much, regardless of who wins.

Jack

Typically, there's not much I'd want the President to do, and even less that I'd expect him to do. I'd also be quite happy if Congress met for a couple of weeks a year, spending the rest of their terms back home. There are few problems that Congress can't exacerbate.

As for this year, the best of all possible results is that a McCain victory scares Dems so badly that we actually start DRILLING SOME DAMNED OIL. Jeez!

not that wishes are ever granted . . .

10 - a balanced federal budget

9 - keeping federal lands in trust for the good of the people. if mining or timber interests want them, let them propose to purchase them on the free market for full value

8 - an end to farm crop subsidies (as well as the aforementioned mineral, oil, and timber subsidies)

7 - no shooting wars or trade wars

6 - no mexican wall; simply enforce the laws we already have on the books

5 - states that don't permit nuclear energy plant construction inside their borders will have to pay a premium for puchasing nuclear energy from out of state

4 - no redecoration of the white house by the new first lady

3 - all citizens' medical and educational expenses should be fully tax deductable

2 - eliminate tax deductability for the following: vacation home mortgage interest; yatchs used as 2nd/vacation homes; charitable giving to churches or other organizations which restrict leadership roles to only one gender; no deductabilty of federal flood insurance if you live in a hurricane zone or levee area and are too ornery to move someplace safer

1 - none of the following: a national "sales tax" to suppress consumption; no increased tax on gasoline; no internet sales tax; no excise tax on health care insurance premiums; no tax rebates on hybrid cars, whether the manufacturer is japanese OR american (buy them on their merits, not as a government handout strategy); no tax rebates home windmills or solar panels (this simply socializes the cost among poor people who are renters, and can't even afford homes, plus it acts as a disincentive to innovation to reduce alternative energy costs); no continuation of the ethanol price supports; no continuation on the ban on importation of foreign ethanol, either

there are probably others, but these came to mind right off the bat . ..

with a reality-based complaint, but...well, yes, to intrude. Flood insurance is, as best I can tell, specifically not deductible by IRS forms I've read.

is that what you are describing is exactly what the founders of the country had in mind. It's the point of governing via several decentralized and competing power bases - to ensure that any change is incremental in nature, and that drastic "housecleaning" requires the acceptance by a large majority in order to work. It helps to keep in mind that the founders' distrust for central government was considerably stronger than is currently the case today; they wanted decisive governmental action to be possible only under the most evidently necessitative, widely-galvanizing of circumstances.

That said, I'd say we've had some fairly decisive negative action over the past decade or so. I think you can trace most of it to an opposition party and branch of government that haven't done their constitutional job.