My honest opinion

Postby lonewolfandfriends » Mon Oct 17, 2011 7:34 pm

im just gonna set srtaight what i think about polititcs please no one get mad at me.

politics is just a bunch of crap that promise stuff then 10 years later it hasnt happened. if all runners for office told the truth i mrealize that none would get elected but seriously, the diffrence between republic and democrat or whatever has gone passed me. its just that politics lie and ruin our goverment. i can see that we've had some greats but know a day they all lie.

just my opinion though

Re: My honest opinion

Postby mcsproot » Tue Oct 18, 2011 3:32 pm

Politics these days is about getting people to vote for you. It used to be about standing by your convictions and if the public happened to agree with you, they vote for you. These days it's more 'We think the public want X Y Z, not A B C. We want M N O but that would make us unelectable.' So they say they will to X Y and Z, do Y then do M N and O. Maybe B and C as well.

What's needed more is more straight talking politicians, they all talk with so much spin that they speak the 'truth' but bury it in clever wordplay. I was going to post something about my local politics, but that would be thread hijacking.

But to finish, what ruins governments is having no politics. Looks at Zimbabwe. One man, Robert Mugabe, has total control. He wants it, it is done. Prior to him, the country was known as Rhodesia, a British colony, and was one of the richest countries in Africa with a powerful agricultural industry. When Mugabe came to power, he ruined the country. He threw out the farmers (mostly white British) and installed 'war heroes' to their posts, because soldiers obviously make better farmers than farmers. Just one example of many as to why one word unopposed is not a good thing. Look at Zimbabwe now. For those who don't know, it has the highest inflation rate in the world bar none. A 50 billion (50,000,000,000) Zimbabwe dollar note is worth about 3 dollars US. Inflation is so high, your bus fare home from work will cost more than your bus fare TO work simply because your money is worth less than it was in the morning.

Another problem is the media. Unless you literally keep your finger on the political pulse, most things that happen will pass you by. The only things that will be reported are more likely to be 'politician X said something silly' or really radical things like 'NATO to send warplanes to enforce no fly zone in Libya'. So the good things tend not to be covered.

Politics is essential. If you are American, the War of Independence was fought so you could vote, not to be ruled by the British Monarchy. If you live in a country with free elections, look now to Northern Africa. People are dying, waging a civil war, for the right to place a X on a paper. To vote.

Politics is bull$h!t because people don't go out and cast their vote. I'd wager barely half of those eligible to vote do so, so politicians know they only have to appeal to a fraction of the voters anyway. Cast your vote, and the politicians will realise they need to impress more people, so they will try harder to get your vote.

That's the theory anyway. Sorry for the rant, I could go on all day.
23 year old guy from the UK.

Send me a private message on the board if you want to add me to your MSN, Yahoo, or anything else.

Re: My honest opinion

Postby sarobah » Tue Oct 18, 2011 4:42 pm

The problem is that government without politics is dictatorship. As bad as we think our politicians are, there is no alternative. You don’t trust an elected official? Try trusting one who wasn’t elected!
Here’s an interesting perspective on “lying politicians.”
The story goes that in 1970, Jimmy Carter ran for Governor of Georgia (the US state). This was a time of racial division and his opponent was the segregationist incumbent, Lester Maddox. The only way Carter could get elected was by telling lies – promising to enforce segregation. He was elected and the first thing he did was to eliminate racial discrimination in the state government. During his term, Georgia went from a racist backwater to one of the more enlightened states.
If Carter had been a truthful politician, Maddox would have won the election. What was the Maddox claim to fame? Handing out free pick handles for racist rednecks to beat civil rights protesters. But at least he was honest!
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

Re: My honest opinion

Postby Kyle » Tue Oct 18, 2011 5:57 pm

sarobah wrote:The problem is that government without politics is dictatorship. As bad as we think our politicians are, there is no alternative. You don’t trust an elected official? Try trusting one who wasn’t elected!
Here’s an interesting perspective on “lying politicians.”
The story goes that in 1970, Jimmy Carter ran for Governor of Georgia (the US state). This was a time of racial division and his opponent was the segregationist incumbent, Lester Maddox. The only way Carter could get elected was by telling lies – promising to enforce segregation. He was elected and the first thing he did was to eliminate racial discrimination in the state government. During his term, Georgia went from a racist backwater to one of the more enlightened states.
If Carter had been a truthful politician, Maddox would have won the election. What was the Maddox claim to fame? Handing out free pick handles for racist rednecks to beat civil rights protesters. But at least he was honest!


Carter actually never was an outright segregationist, although he did oppose things like busing, which segregationists opposed as well. He walked a thin line trying not to antagonize the segregationists but also never really joined them, and in fact had his business boycotted by them before the election for not joining a segregationist political group. From all I know it really should've been pretty obvious to the people of Georgia.

Lester Maddox wasn't even allowed to run in the '70 election under Georgia law, so I don't know what to make of any of that. He did become Lieutenant Governor, which is roughly equivalent to vice president at the federal level. Carter's opponent was Hal Suit.

Re: My honest opinion

Postby sarobah » Wed Oct 19, 2011 5:55 am

Kyle wrote:Lester Maddox wasn't even allowed to run in the '70 election under Georgia law...

Okay, you got me on that :o)
Still, Carter was running against the Maddox legacy.
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

Re: My honest opinion

Postby dreadnaught3200 » Sat Oct 22, 2011 9:37 am

I leave it to two of my favorite orators to sum up the situation.

Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Winston Churchill

It's a fine line when you're trying to define the finer points of politics, politics being a latin word. Poly- Being many. Tics- Being blood sucking butt lumps.
Shane Koyczan
There's a permanent tension in music isn't there? On one hand you have three chords, you know, four four and three chords. Then there's the people like me, who say "Well, why don't we add a fourth chord and put it in five four?" - Bill Bruford

Re: My honest opinion

Postby Games_Bond » Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:00 am

A social experiment is called for.
Somebody needs to start a new party, based on the assumption that politicians need to lie to get elected. The rule of joining the party is that you can have whatever beliefs you want, but you must tell the truth 100% of the time. If you can't/won't do something, say you can't/won't do it.
The public would need to be informed that this is the law of the party - the party might not always say what they want to hear, but at least they know what they are voting for. Then see how many people put their x in the box just because they know what the party promise and it isn't too bad (or they might actually agree). Then, if they don't get a decent percentage of the votes, they can report the results of the experiment: people should stop complaining that they are fed up of politicians lying, because they won't vote for the ones they know are telling the truth.
C'mon; who's with me? :)

Re: My honest opinion

Postby Chase Ricks » Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:05 am

You can sign me up for this new party.
From whence I came and whence I went heaven said I was too evil and sent me to hell. Demons and devils succeeded in breaking my soul.

Image

Re: My honest opinion

Postby sarobah » Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:35 pm

You can call me a cynic but...
Lies and politics are inextricably intertwined.

In 1988, Bush the Elder promised: “Read my lips... No new taxes.”
He lied. He got elected.
In 1990, Bush raised taxes. He explained to the public that higher taxes were necessary to bring the budget deficit under control.
He told the truth. He was defeated in 1992.
So was his defeat due to the broken promise or to the raised taxes? If he had told the truth in 1988, would he have won the election? If he had stuck with his promise, would he have won re-election? Would the deficit have then spun more out of control? Who knows?

BTW, I am not picking on the US. We in Australia invented the most brilliant political spin-term of all: “core promises” and “non-core promises” – i.e. “promises we intend to keep and promises we intend to break”.
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

Re: My honest opinion

Postby OGgrl93 » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:00 pm

Washington was affraid this was going to happen. That's why he was the only president that wasn't in a political party. He was right. There was a reason they wanted to make him king.

Re: My honest opinion

Postby Vukk » Thu Dec 15, 2011 2:53 am

OGgrl93 wrote:Washington was affraid this was going to happen. That's why he was the only president that wasn't in a political party. He was right. There was a reason they wanted to make him king.


That is why in my opinion when you rank world leaders, you have to put Washington near the top. How many people who are offered ultimate power refused it. Just imagine if you were given the choice to become an absolute monarch, would you be able to refuse it?

Re: My honest opinion

Postby Chris12 » Thu Dec 15, 2011 8:41 am

No offense but i somewhat dissagree. Refusing power isn't always a good thing, especially if you have the skills to actually use that power. For all we know
Washington would have made a great king as he would be able to be a leader longer then he was allowed as President.

Still refusing such power is a very noble thing to do.

Re: My honest opinion

Postby OGgrl93 » Sun Dec 18, 2011 7:35 am

Okay, that does make sense. But what if your afraid that you could let it get tou your head and abuse it? The idea of ultimate power probably scared him a little. Maybe it didn't.

Re: My honest opinion

Postby drawscore » Thu Mar 08, 2012 7:14 am

Politics is the art of being able to tell the most outrageous lies, and make the most unbelievable promises, and have a majority of gullible voters believe them. See "Obama, Barack Hussein." The truth was out there in Obama's books, but the press all had liplocks on Obama's ass, and never reported it.

Drawscore

Re: My honest opinion

Postby Jason Toddman » Thu Mar 08, 2012 7:46 pm

Chris12 wrote:No offense but i somewhat dissagree. Refusing power isn't always a good thing, especially if you have the skills to actually use that power. For all we know
Washington would have made a great king as he would be able to be a leader longer then he was allowed as President.

Still refusing such power is a very noble thing to do.


Yes it was, especially when you consider that there was no such thing as a two-term limit then. Washington could have (and was even urged to by many people) to run for a third term, and would have been certain to get it too, but he refused to do this in order to make way for others to run for the office and initiate a true democratic process. Just as well I suppose, since he died well before he could have finished a third term, but he prtobably didn't know that'd be the case. In fact, he probably only did the second one (and even the first) because he knew it was necessary (no one else at the time could have had the popular support he'd had for one thing), whereas by the time a third one would have begun others - such as Jefferson and Adams (both of whom he knew well) - were capable of handling the job themselves. As for the idea of his being king, he was offered that title but adamantly refused it. Not because he felt he couldn't handle it, but because it was against everything he felt he had fought for (and for which many men under his command as general died opposing) during the American revolution. He felt that to accept the title of king would have been the blackest betrayal of everything the Revolution stood for... and I think he was right.
BTW IMHO the reason that so little gets done in American Government these days is because the two parties have become such polar opposites that the two-party system no longer works. Most people I know are Moderates (and in fact it is said my state is the most moderate one of the 50), yet almost no politician is (especially now that Maine's senator Olympia Snow, the only moderate Republican senator in Congress, is refusing to run for another term). Republicans these days are so conservative they're the next best thing to facists, and Democrats are now so liberal they're practically Socialists, with no one with the sense or balance to be in between. The art of compromise has thus become a lost art, and nothing gets done. In fact, both parties now look on Moderates and Moderation with distain (at best as fence straddlers or unable to have the courage of their convictions) whereas IMHO being Moderate is the ONLY sensible position to take in politics! There used to be many moderates in federal government, but they're now becoming as extrinct as the do-do (the REAL do-do that is, not the ones now running Congress!). the current extremism of both political parties in American is what's strangling the United States, I say.
(Okay, I'll get off my soap-box now).
Last edited by Jason Toddman on Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

Re: My honest opinion

Postby xtc » Fri Mar 09, 2012 4:03 am

"against everything he felt he had fought against" Did you really mean that?
Boxer shorts are cool,
but little speedos rule!

More by the same author: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=22729

Re: My honest opinion

Postby Jason Toddman » Fri Mar 09, 2012 7:37 am

xtc wrote:"against everything he felt he had fought against" Did you really mean that?

Why wouldn't I?
Of course he probably had personal reasons for refusing to be king too; he loved his own homestead and wanted to go back there to retire in peace and quiet. He was only human, and didn't enjoy the limelight. But you sound like you have some other reason to disagree with me.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

Re: My honest opinion

Postby xtc » Fri Mar 09, 2012 8:56 am

Not what I meant. Surely it is illogical? If something is against everything I fought against, we are surely on the same side?
Boxer shorts are cool,
but little speedos rule!

More by the same author: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=22729

Re: My honest opinion

Postby Jason Toddman » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:06 am

Ah. I see. I must have had a Mind Fart. Had the word 'against' on my mind and inadvertently used it twice. Right. Okay. :big:
I meant: "To let himself become king would have been against everything George Washington fought for."
Thought you were dissing one of my favorite heroes of all time there! Sorry. :oops:
Last edited by Jason Toddman on Sat Mar 10, 2012 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

Re: My honest opinion

Postby xtc » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:47 am

No, just trying to help!
Boxer shorts are cool,
but little speedos rule!

More by the same author: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=22729