QOTD

“The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy.” - Theodore H. White

For several generations now, Americans (and to some degree Canadians) have had a suspicion of "government" drilled into them, so deeply that many now think (without thinking) that government is the threat, somehow equivalent to pinko commie creepy-time, when in fact it just means democracy. Someone has been teaching them to fear democracy, actively fear it, and to believe that they're safer handing over both their money and their security to people who want to control them.

"Someone has been teaching them to fear democracy, actively fear it, and to believe that they're safer handing over both their money and their security to people who want to control them"

This is hilarious, thanks for giving me a laugh! Our founding fathers gave us that healthy skepticism of a powerful central Gov that even a Democracy could not prevent from abusing that power, all you do in that case is give 51% of the people the ability to bully 49% of the rest of the people!

The founders created a "Federal" system and not a "Central" system, you might want to familiarize yourself with it, it is called "states rights" and it is encompassed among those other 9 amendments in the constitution that we refer to as our civil rights but somehow that one escapes most on the left these days.

It says that ALL power not delegated to the Fed Gov by the constitution shall remain in the states and to the people, they even created the Senate so that state Gov would have a say in ALL laws that passed on the Fed level (they destroyed that a while back).

The founding fathers NEVER thought that an all out democracy was a good system of Gov, they believed in a Federal Gov of LIMITED powers where most powers shall remain to the states and local Gov where the citizens reside and have more influence than they can ever have with an all powerful central Gov even with a Democracy.

Take the health care debate, I see a Gov who wants to tell me that I have to buy insurance, I have to buy insurance that they deem fit. If you look at what they deem fit, their regulations say that I have to buy coverage for EVERYTHING under the sun and my insurer even has to cover people who chose not to buy until disaster strikes and when they no longer need care they can just drop their coverage, they don't even have to pay any more than me so I have to subsidize their choice not to buy and their lack of integrity when they choose to drop their coverage when they no longer need big medical costs to be covered anymore. All this will combine to make my policy unaffordable which will then force me on to the Gov subsidized plans.

This is on top of Medicare and SSI which are both headed to disaster ($60 Trillion unfunded liability or $175,000 for EVERY US Citizen) and costs me upwards of 20% of my lifetime income for 2 programs that I will not use till I retire. Making $50K I will put in over $400,000 by that time and owe $175,000 for SSI benefits that are laughable at best (I would have to live 30 something years past retirement to get back what I paid in and with the retirement age increasing that will never be possible) and with a Medicare system already paying out more than it brings in we are assured that it will be costing even more $$$$ or face severe rationing!

Oh, that doesn't include the fact that the $400,000 I pay in has been replaced with IOUs from uncle sam who has already spent it all so my children will be entirely responsible for actually funding my benefits!

If I could be free to keep MY earnings and save and invest it as well I could have millions by the day I retire using very conservative methods but instead I have 20% confiscated by my central Gov, then have to sit back and watch them spend every dime of it interest free until I retire at which time I have to hope the next Gen can still afford to keep this up just so I can keep a monthly benefit that would classify me as under the poverty level and if I still need to work, I will have to pay taxes at a rate as if I were rich!!!

Where has democracy gotten me????

These are the reasons that our founders feared a central Gov, because you are going to respond to my question by saying, deal with it, 51% like it!

I can't think of the last time I went to McDonald's and they told me, deal with it 51% like it, in that case I would laugh and go to In-N-Out! Or hell, I might even start my own McDonald's and take them suckers down!

I might even come up with an awesome investment vehicle which insures your investments against losses & provides a return Uncle Sam would never even think about dreaming of, oh wait, can't do that, my customers would go to jail if they didn't give uncle sam that 12.5% of their income interest free.

But you see, the Central Gov can & will put me in jail for not coughing up my $400,000 that they are going to borrow and spend interest free, McDonald's has to ASK me to buy their Hamburgers, so I am sorry if I am not too concerned about their control over me. Whatever it is, it is minimal at best and in the end, I do not even have to buy what they are selling! That's right, I can live without the vast majority of it!

BrianR:

I don't have time right now to answer all of the illogic and incoherence in that comment so I'll just tackle one piece of it right now. There is nothing in the Roosevelt quote or skdadl's comment that makes federal government and democracy synonymous. The last time I checked, your state and municipal governments are elected as well. It's all part of a democratic system of government. The issue being addressed here isn't the separation of powers between different levels of government, it's the control over all governments by monied interests like oil companies that make billions of dollars in profits every year. If an oil company can afford to buy itself a federal government, it can certainly afford a state government (not to mention a judge or two) so state's rights don't protect you from the concern we're discussing here. And that's about the first quarter of your rant out of the way. Now my dinner's ready.

Bon appetit, pogge!

@BrianR - you are referring to the USA, I gather. Canadian system is somewhat different. Principles are the same, though - democracy and all that.

What pogge said.

Brian, thank you for your response, and I empathize with a lot of what you've written there.

It bothers me that a lot of people think that democracy = voting, full stop, which, as you say, means tyranny of the majority. It seems to me that that is precisely what your Bill of Rights was intended to prevent -- the tyranny of the majority -- and there is a long shared history behind those safeguards, alive now as well, eg, in our Charter, the French Declaration, etc. I don't actually see how the federal system is a better safeguard against tyranny, since mere voting also occurs at state and municipal levels. What matters is the underlying structures and principles that we have agreed at the outset never to vote on. That's what makes democracy.

I'll come back to read your thoughts about the healthcare bill over again in more detail, but a lot of us do understand why you're angry. What we don't understand is why you would put so much trust in clearly corrupt private corporations who are, so far as I know, the only people ever to have set up actual "death panels," something unknown in this country until we started to hear Americans talking about them.

I'm an Alzheimer's widow, Brian. You know how much my husband's basic medical care cost us over most of a decade? $0.00. (Those are Canadian-dollar zeroes, too.) Nicolas Kristof tells me in the NYT that American women like me are forced to divorce the husbands they love in order to avoid bankruptcy. You guys gotta think again.

I have to buy coverage for EVERYTHING under the sun and my insurer even has to cover people who chose not to buy until disaster strikes and when they no longer need care they can just drop their coverage,

Do you see the contradiction here, which was one of the reasons for the snark in my first response? If you're legally forced to buy insurance, so is the individual you think can predict getting clobbered in an accident and put off buying insurance until just before that bus puts him in the hospital. If it's the law, he can't put it off.

What you're complaining about is the individual mandate in the health insurance reform bill that's been reported out of the Senate. That individual mandate was pushed by the insurance industry -- that's who's intent on having the government force you to become their customer. And that's who opposes the public option which would have increased competition and lowered premiums. But the public option was dropped as were a number of other cost-cutting measures because of legislators who rake in massive donations from the insurance companies

One of the reasons Medicare is so expensive is that the program's administrators are forbidden by law from using volume purchasing to negotiate lower drug prices. That provision is in there because of pharmaceutical industry lobbyists, not because someone in the government thought it was a good idea.

The reason some of the programs you're complaining about cost so much and work so badly is because corporations already have too much influence on public policy. They spend millions buying themselves congresscritters and Senators. This week your Supreme Court struck down campaign finance laws and now corporations will be able to spend even more money to corrupt your government. That's why massacio wrote that post I linked to and quoted Roosevelt. That's what we're concerned about here.

As for McDonald's, enjoy the fact that they can't force you to buy their hamburgers while it lasts. If they can figure out how to do it, it's only a matter of time before they get it written into law.

The United States of America is dying, and the process just became irreversable. This court ruling will make the changes that are necessary to save the US from itself impossible.
Within the next 5-10 years, as the government in Washington descends further into corprate corruption, seccesionist movements will pop up. Those states with the resources to go it alone will be the first, and then the whole union will go down like a stack of cards - a capitalist mirror of the disintigration of the communist USSR.
Alaska and Texas already have fringe seccesionist movements - Palin's husband belonged to the Alaskan version. With oil and gas wealth to support it, Alaska may well be the first to go. A massive rejection of Sarah's presidential bid in 2012 may well be a kick-off point for Alaskan indepedence.
Some states will go in groups, and some will go alone. None will honour the debts the federal government owes, especially to foriegn debt holders (china). I forsee bad times ahead.

Maybe it's just the January blahs.

Brendan DeMelle at DeSmogBlog discusses this:

"...Fossil fuel interests, rejoice. Working American families, not so much. Efforts to create good-paying green jobs, transition to a clean energy future and ambitiously address global warming just got a lot harder..."

He does note that Obama recognizes the danger and says he will work on it...

http://www.desmogblog.com/when-corporations-rule-world-thanks-supreme-court#new