Haha. welcome to American politics. an overwhelming majority of the politicians, i think, care only for their seat of power, and the party that sponsers them...at least in the congress. if it's the president, then i would like to think that his own interests for power played a minimal role in his desicion making

and i think that "hate" is too strong of a word, or even the wrong word choice. when my friends talk about politicians they don't like, they usually just say that the person was just plain old stupid and didn't understand what he/she was doing.

Well, obviously a good majority of people is still generally moderate, but as always this is a pretty quiet majority, comparatively.

More often in media you hear screaming about socialists, evil Comunist plots, oil driven reactionaries, and devil-resembling Vice Presidents.

The last one has a point of course, ;) but still. :S

One of my friends has suggested a new system of voting in the US. In addition to using your vote to vote FOR a candidate, you could vote AGAINST a candindate. Still only one vote per person, but it can be +1 for a candidate or a -1. Raises the interesting possibility of candidates winning with a negative amount of votes. (Insert mischevious chortle here)

the media just wants headlines. stories that will sell and get them money. what would someone rather read? the good little politicians who are trying to work with people across the aisle, or the screaming and shouting and the bombings and security meltdowns?

i'm not saying that what the media is doing is wrong though (or right, for that matter), but they need to make money, just like any other business

@LJ..haha, that'd be funny. someone could get negative million votes. lol

Well, just because the actions of the media and the politicians can be explained does not necessarily make them morally or practically justified, right? ;)

But in the US system of two parties that almost always get pretty close to the same proportion of votes, wouldn't that mean the tallies would always be roughly close to zero? :P

there's always been vitriole in american politics, if you study american history, look at how jackson was vilified for being a barbarian, tyrant, etc... the president takes a lot of crap, can't please everyone, it's just how it works, probably the worst job in the world. it's not hate though as someone said already

I don't see how I could attack someone for being a barbaric tyrant and still simultanouesly manage to not hate them and respect thier ideas.

Either the vitriole is insincere, or it represents something stronger than disagreement.

political ploy to detract votes from the party in power and to thus gain support for the minor party... i don't think it's real hate, of course, that's hard to tell. saying hate is unhealthy for politics really doesn't mean much, same thing with some sports rivalries, doens't hurt anyone, usually. however you do have the extreme cases of violence, like in antebellum america with the bully brooks beating the shit out of charles sumner with a cane on the senate floor, now that is unhealthy i will agree, of course slavery as a political issue was also unhealthy but that's another story, so i guess i kinda see your point but at the same time, i think you're overreacting a bit

I think it's unhealthy because I think that bipartisanship, respect for the reasoned opinions of others, and constructive debate are necessary for a true, mob-free way of doing Democracy.

In a climate of ranting, raving, and hate (even if it is just feigned) public discourse is little more than directed yelling.

And obviously the extreme examples of violence and intimidation are unhealthy for truly representative Democracy, but I don't think (hope) anyone will disagree on that point.

I agree with Sir Richard, on that expressions of hate seem really unnecessary.
I remember a few years back when many people expressed their "hate" for Bush.
Couldn't you just express hate for their policies?
It seems a bit drastic to hate someone you've never met in person.

you're forgetting that the president is a symbol of said policies... violence and intimidation is how capitalist dominated democracy works, keep your eyes open and you'll see that's just how it is, i agree that is not healthy to the ideology of democracy, but i assume you actually mean representative democracy or republicanism, because democracy is essentially mob rule when we examine the historical example of the greeks... just saying

I think that contemptuous or hateful perception of candidates with opposing views has always existed in government, or any power struggle. There are definitely times in the past when it has been much worse, with far more violence. In democracy itself, the attitude of citizens against candidates with opposing views has definitely improved over recent centuries. I think that a worsening of this attitude in the last few years can be attributed to the decline of the United States economy. I think that a bigger issue than the effectiveness of the government or the popularity of the party in power in regard to this attitude is the state of the economy.

I wholeheartedly agree that politicians should not be held in contempt because no matter their actions or views in government, they are, to some extent, focused on providing a service to the nation and its citizens.

Our system is eroding because the fifth branch of government has turned into reality tv thanks to the emergence of Fox News and how it's changed how all the other stations operate. Fox won reporters the right, in court, to intentionally mislead or report false information for christ sake! (Fox appealed to an appellate court and won, after the court declared that the FCC policy against falsification that Fox violated was just a policy and not a "law, rule, or regulation")

If a reporter is interviewing a Republican or Democratic spokesperson they act as a wide receiver or a power forward for whatever shit they're spewing and refute none of it.

A good recent example from CNN
In saying that Obama was bad for our country this was evidence given: Mr. 9-11, 9-11, 911 Rudy Giuliani said. "We had no domestic attacks under Bush, we’ve had one under Obama."

The host just moved on through the discussion without even a whimper of protest. No Fact checking, even in obscene examples like this.

Republicans and Democrats can just say whatever they want and the media gobbles all information up and regurgitates it all as equal regardless of the quality or accuracy under the guise of not appearing biased.

fourth* ugh.

"focused on providing a service to the nation and its citizens. " not always true, sometimes they're just in power to gain more power/advance the interests of their party, this is the problem with FACTION as Madison pointed out in Federalist # 10... political parties have this effect on things, good point hibiskiss, btw

Sir Richard, you are proceeding from the assumption that the political class acts in good faith ("these are people doing a job and trying to provide a service to you..."). I think this is why you cannot understand the anger and hatred of many of us who do not have such a rosy picture of our representatives. While doing a good and honest job is a consideration for all politicians who aren't psychopaths (and they're out there - trust me!), it is always weighed against other considerations (re-election, personal financial enrichment, desire for social prestige, hunger for power, getting sex from interns and lobbyists, free vacations, etc., etc., etc...) and almost always comes up short (although the exceptions - like the psychopaths - are out there).

Honest well-intentioned people generally do not last long in politics for many of the same reasons they lose in Diplomacy. Consequently, the end result is that all the people who are willing to sell out on good moral behavior and principles rise to the top the fastest - particularly in places like California where electoral districts are so large that the only way to win an election is to raise an obscene amount of money (which is always going to come primarily from people like government workers who expect their favor will be returned).

The anger and hatred is born when people look around and see how all the graft and corruption affects them and their standard of living. Nearly everyone nowadays has been negatively affected by government in some way, sometimes quite seriously. As government becomes larger, more powerful, more expensive, more intrusive, and kills more defenseless third-worlders every year, the number of people who have been seriously affected increases and they are almost always very angry; when they can trace their pain to a particular party or politician, that's when the anger becomes strong enough to be distressing to people who don't 'get it'.

Americans hate and distrust politicians by instinct. Always have. Always will. Lets hope anyway.

Other countries think Barack obama should really be called obama bin laden lol.

He's pathetic and has done NOTHING to ensure world peace... god knows who he sucked off to get that Nobel peace prize... for what?????

Interfering in Afghanistan?
Threatening N Korea and Iran, even Syria and Yemen now????
PLS- He's a TOTAL waste of space.

My advice to America- GO BACK TO THE ISOLATIONIST policy and you'll alleviate all your terror fears.
Interfering deserves terror.
Think of how many lives have been lost(innocents) and coompare that with 9/11...

TENS of thousands of poos civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc compared to around 3000 lives in 9/11.... and even then, a lot of Foreigners suffered as a result...

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

of poor civilians, i meant in that last paragraph;)

Tho the US saying he deserves that peace prize DOES smell of poo, lol!!!

It seems that US politics has had cycles of extreme rhetoric even violence. As long as the cycle returns to moderation as it has in the past, no need to be overly concerned.

"......even violence...." - who are you kidding? The list of agressive wars, invasions, undermining of other countries' legitimate governments, all perpetrated by the United States ever since its founding and right through today, is as long as your arm and numbers into the many hundreds. Don't believe me? Just look it up. Canada alone was invaded 3 times, the Domunican Republic about half a dozen, Mexico, Cuba, the list is endless.....
".....even violence...." indeed - DAHHHHHHHH!

The worst part is that Obama is the moderate one.

The guy who sent more troops to Afghanistan, hasn't kept his promise to stop Guantanamo Bay, and is so many other ways so disappointing to those of us who thought "with this guy, the US foreign policies are going to change for good!", is the moderate one.

So much so, that he was given a Nobel Prize just for not being Bush.

@Pantalone - irrefutable evidence please. The United States never invaded Canada. The last time they invaded the region currently known as the country of Canada was in the War of 1812 when Canada was actually called British North America and not an independent country at all.

@Draugnar:

The United States invaded the area's of modern Ontario and Quebec that were then part of the British colony of Quebec during the late stages of the revolutionary war.

Then the American Government invaded the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada in 1812.

FInally, during the late1800s there were plenty of armed former soldiers launching raids across into Canada. It's true that these guys (called feniens) weren't actually under orders from the American Government, but they were allowed free passage. I would consider this pseudo-invasion.


:D

For the purposes of this discussion, anything that happened before 1960 should be off limits.

Draugnar - the point is hardly how independent Canada was in 1812 - for that matter it still is a Dominion of Great Britain today, with the Queen of England as head of state.
The point of course is that the USA is and always has been a highly aggressive country, when measured by the number of times it has attacked other countries. Simple as that.

Gunmaster - even since 1960 the list will be many dozens of countries and instances long - Grenada, Panama, Iraq (lest we forget...), Afghanistan, and many many more.

My point being that anyone who claims the USA is intrinsically a peace-loving country is seriously deluding him-/her-self.

Look at poor Haiti, now suffering a major earthquake disaster - some years ago it had a progressive President, Arastide - he wanted to introduce some much-needed labour reforms, such as minimum wages and worker protection legislation, to try and promote some way out of grinding poverty for his nation.

What happened next? Major US interests, with huge labour-intentive branch operations in Haiti protested and then went to Washington, which caused the CIA to arm anti-Aristide insurgents in Haiti. Nett result: Exit Aristide.

Another example....... and again this list is astonishingly long! Funny that no free democratic media ever (dare to....?) publish such a listing of US manipulations/armed activity. Would make sobering reading - guess that could be the reason why it's never been published (or has it...?).

Of course the USA has on occasion done the right thing too (before 1960 though, Gunmaster) and e.g. participated in the liberation of my parents' homeland from German occupation.

But would they ever have come across the Atlantic without Pearl Harbour and Hitler's subsequent declaration of war against the USA? Even Churchill tried for years to move heaven and earth and admitted that Pearl Harbour was a godsent (not in itself but because of what it meant as the end of US WWII isolationism).

Canada is not a dominion of Great Britain anymore.

And Draugnar, Canadians view 1812 British North America as Canada in the same way that Americans view the colonies in 1750 as American. Plus, unlike in America, Canada's change was gradual, so the name change isn't really a big deal.

Plus, if you count the Fenian raids, then American did invade Canada after confederation.

Just a thought about all the anti US aggression. At least they always step up with aid for countries when they need help.

Check out http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tMozJlQiN8ftSj0s8tLx31g&gid=1

For all their faults and aggression I'd rather have them as the worlds dominant superpower than most of the other options.

"One of my friends has suggested a new system of voting in the US. In addition to using your vote to vote FOR a candidate, you could vote AGAINST a candindate. Still only one vote per person, but it can be +1 for a candidate or a -1. Raises the interesting possibility of candidates winning with a negative amount of votes. (Insert mischevious chortle here)"

This would just counter the front runner's votes. If he was at 45% in popularity for the presidency then 55% would vote agaisnt him. This leaves him at -10%. Let's say his candidate was at 40%. The remaining 45% goes to him leaving him at -5%. The lesser candidate wins.

Even though it wouldn't work exactly like that because negative votes would definitely have less say, it still is messed up.

Pantalone get off your high horse. The US is no more aggressive than any other major power and less so than many. Border incursions have allways been a fact of life thoughout history in areas of lower population density. If you want to talk about aggression look at Russian, British, Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, Arab, Turkish, Mogal, and the list goes on and on and on. The US is just the new kid on block and by comparsion is not so bad.

What I don't understand about the USA is why it has such short-term goals. Think about the Regan administration, they trained and armed the people of Iran to what end? To fight the Ruskies of course but what they failed to realize is that those same arms and training would be used to bite us in the ass. When your short-term goals outweigh your long-term you turn into a failing nation and crumble. Just ask the Brits what happened to them.

Isn't the short-term goal thing american history at it's most basic, though? Nearly every country the U.S. helped out at one point, turned on them with that very same training and equipment.

As to the matter of this bipartisan system, I came up with a form of protest I would like to encourage. Next election, put 'this asshole' as a write-in ballot. Let them try to figure out who it's meant for. We get enough 'this asshole' votes, and maybe something might change. If not, it's still pretty funny.

Onar, I don't know what area you live in, but in most of the country, this would be a complete waste of time. No one else would think it's funny, because no one else would notice if you wrote in a candidate. Most ballots (yes, even paper ballots) in the US are counted by machines that don't even bother looking for write-ins.

Join the motherfucking club! Except I would reverse the "really".

Bush, while doing an excellent job defending America and counterattacking al-Queda, completely abandoned the conservative core belief of fiscal conservatism. He also signed NCLB, one of the worst pieces of legislation to cross his desk.

Obama's much worse. Him and his lieberal buddies have spent, spent, and continue to spend. They obviously do not understand the concept of hyperinflation or how being in debt to a communist nation is very, very, very bad. Now, they're trying to piece together a complex, dysfunctional socialized health care system that changes by the hour and is hated by both the left and the right. And they're going to pay for it by turning the American military into the French military. Which is bad because there are these assholes on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. And these guys are called ragheads. And these ragheads happen to have AKs and RPGs. And these ragheads who happen to be armed to the teeth and funded by opium money also hate America. And these motherfuckers are pretty bored. And they spend every waking moment plotting how to destroy America.

I'd like to see the French military go in there and try to beat the damn ragheads. If they tried, the French would have to take out two body bags for every troop they brought in.

@Iceray check your history the Shaw was gone before Reagon. The revolt in Iran happened when Carter was in. The Brits and later the US supported the Shaw's father during WW2 and later during the Cold War. Hardly short term.

@ Iceray If your talking about Afganhistan that's a different story. It was the during the Carter period not Reagon that support started first. Second as is more often than not Congress's short attention span, lack of long term goals, and paying heed to latest political wind that has derailed many efforts. This is done by cutting funding after a short term goals are completed and ignoring the long term effects.

@Sir Richard Draugner said last time was during the 1812 war so that includes the Revolutionary War. :D Since Canada was part of British Empire it was a legitament target, and during the Revoultionary War there was no distiction between the 13 colonies and what is now Canada. :D Raids by a bunch of Irish terrorist is not an invasion particulary since the US did not support them, and they were active in other areas of the Empire. That's why it's called the "Irish Invasion of Canada". :D Go complain to the IRA about the raids. :D

Centurian - You're in error. If Canada is not a Dominion of Great Britain any more, as you say, then what do you think it is? A republic? A kingdom?
Look it up: It's called "The Dominion of Canada" and its head of state is Lizzy II of England (Britain). Always was - still is.

"But would they ever have come across the Atlantic without Pearl Harbour and Hitler's subsequent declaration of war against the USA? Even Churchill tried for years to move heaven and earth and admitted that Pearl Harbour was a godsent (not in itself but because of what it meant as the end of US WWII isolationism). "

I thought you were against American agression?


As far as the differences between Obama, Bush and every other President of the US since Kennedy are concerned there are none really. There is a world economic agenda that doesn't worry itself with political ideologies. Those are just used to keep us all distracted over little petty things that really mean nothing while the economic takeover of the world continues. This is why Presidents, whether Dem or Rep continually sign legislation and initiate actions that appear to geo against their political beliefs. If you investigate their financial backers, personal affiliations and the affiliations of their staff you will find that both the Rep and Dem parties are saturated with money and membership from the same 3 financial groups. Stop wasting your time arguing about liberal or conservative ideals people. These things don't matter anymore. It's a myth. There aren't 2 parties anymore. There's only 1 pretending to be 2. We don't even vote for the real powers in Washington. They are the ones behind the money. That is where we should be focused.

As far as Obama being a "Moderate" or a "Liberal", are you serious? Just like Bush was a conservative? Obama has voted for maintaining every piece of legislation that Bush passed and is even adding to it. All Americans will soon be forced to devote 3 months to service of their country. Now this may sound like a good thing but it is really an indoctrination into the new Police state that is coming. We will all be made to feel part of something bigger and encouraged to monitor our neighbors in the interest of "Security". Obama is building concentration camps throughout the US and a "Civil Military" in preperation for revolts to the upcoming policies and economic turmoil that is yet to come. He has said all of this and more but no one was listening.

Lol @ C-K

And Pantalone, I don't need to look up the name of my own country. Before telling someone to research maybe you should? Canada's official name is "Canada". Its original name was "The Dominion of Canada" but this is no longer the case. It is a Constitutional Monarchy, but there is no subservience to any other country, we just have the same head of state.