That was my point actually. If I implied that individuals should have it, I was misleading. My point was that some have it and others don't. Looking back on what I wrote, I agree that is totally unclear.
First off, people don't vote on issues, they vote for representatives. And second, in what way will education really help people choose who to vote for, if both options are horrible? Education is essential to pick your stance on the issues, but then when you go to vote for your senators, or president, that education becomes pretty much worthless. Bush or Kerry? I mean, come on. And that isn't a unique scenario. We aren't picking between two canidates anyway, we are picking between two parties. And both parties in my opinion are driving the country off a cliff (just a different cliff, and with them both fighting over the wheel, who *knows* what will happen). Something is seriously wrong with the party system, and it is keeping certain types of people in the high government, and perpetuating a culture in washington, that make the power of the vote almost useless in terms of addressing "issues."
The point: Out vote has very little ability to influence what the government does about issues. Most of that power lies with who has the money or polictical power to influence Washington.
Stop assuming that if you have A, you must have B. In my last post, I even mentioned political vs. economic class. People SHOULD HAVE PERSONAL WEALTH. But it should *not* enable them to have direct influence on government! That power needs to remain in the communities, as you said.
I know this is the traditional captialism reasoning. I think captalism trumps socialism any day of the week, but quite frankly, the system you just described STILL SUCKS. It could also be said like this: If you have a few very rich people, and huge population of poorer people who believe they could *become* rich if only they worked hard, then lots of those people devote a third of their lives as cogs in the machine. But you actually want only a very few of them to grab the prize, so you don't loose your working class and collapse the economy.
So, most of them spend their whole lives in 9-5 office jobs that they hate. Yeah, it keeps the economy booming, and people have some cool toys to play with on the smidgin of time they have left for themselves (which is becoming smaller and smaller and smaller), but they are miserable. This is a good system?
I'm not saying, "Government, fix it! Take all those rich peoples money and give it to all of us so we have no economy and starve!" I'm saying, "Come on, people, lets think outside the freaking box and try to come up with some real solutions!" To do that, we have to start by being honest about what is really happening in our economy, and not act like captailism is God's gift to mankind and we can't come up with anything better.
I can compare us to bananas if I can find a similiarity. (We are both physical objects). I can say, "Hey, look. There appears to be *one* similiarity between the lower/middle classes and the serfs of the middle ages." There are also a million differences, but the similiarity is still there and it is interesting to look at.
WTF?!?! Dude, have you even read my posts? I don't even think you are having a conversation with me. I think you are standing on the conservative soap box, touting a party line, and trying to wedge me and what I am saying into to liberal soap box directly across from you.
I happen to be extremely conservative (as I've already said in this thread). Hell, you can ask Brian about my politics. I only answered the poll the way I did, because after reading a number of those items from the link, I didn't find his views that outrageous, and thought he was being misrepresented by your implication that he was the uber-liberal.
I actually do know that conservatives give way more money to charities. That is one reason why I am against government programs to help individuals. That is one reason I believe in low taxes, and that the role of the federal government should be extremely limited to functions that *only* they can perform. Am I sounding conservative yet?
So, socialist liberals are not "my buddies." It makes me foam at the mouth to be lumped in such a fashion.
You, my friend, have actually demonstrated THE BIGGEST PROBLEM with the party system. Everyone takes sides, and stops having open-minded intelligent discussion, in which they are ACTUALLY LISTENING to the other person, and HEARING what they are saying for WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS, and not ASSUMING that it somehow fits into one of the two party contexts. You assume that simply because I have a problem with big business's current relationship to government, that I am somehow some green-peace socialist hippie communist. Dude! KNOCK IT OFF.
I was attempting to draw a comparison between our current economic system, and the fuedal system of the middle ages, in order to share an observation I had, that a particular trend keeps poping up through-out the history of world economy (that as a system of government progresses, the trend is for power and wealth to clump in the hands of a few wealthy and powerful), so that we might better understand the nature of economic social systems in general, and use such understanding to better our world. And I can do that and not have it conflict with my conservative beliefs. I'm sorry that doesn't neatly fit into your RED vs. BLUE world.
If you don't think my comparision have an validity. Fine! I am interested in (and have benifited from) your arguments against the comparision.
Just FREAKING stop assuming you can EVER understand people (or their arguments) by sticking them in a category. Why do you think our country is in a war with itself in the first place.
