Does the U.S. public get a say in government?

Who cares?

 

Do you care there are things missing from the shelves of stores in the US due to fuel shortages caused by America's. for example, undeclared war to support Ukraine?
Do you care most of the people of Ukraine are still w/o electricity due to America's, for example, undeclared war to support Ukraine?
Do you care that the world inches closer to a nuclear war due to America's, for example, undeclared war to support Ukraine?
Do you care that America is spending money it never will have to support the undeclared war in Ukraine?
Do you care Ukrainians in the eastern sections of Ukraine, in Donetsk and Minsk, aren't being represented in Ukraine? Er, that Ukraine isn't a democracy?
Do you care the government of Ukraine has never honored the Minsk Treaty; a treaty Ukraine willfully signed with Russia?

Why is America supporting the neo-fascist thugs in Ukraine, anyhow?

It appears all the people in the Senate aren't all that smart.

 

Nobody does or should care about anything other than Jan 6th it appears. Nobody even cares how the conflict in Ukraine started. F***ing idiots.

 

Not particularly.

 

We don't have much say in anything. The ruling class in Washington, which includes Republicans and Democrats, take care of themselves while they do a lousy job of running the government.

Look at the current budget mess. Congress has had all year to address these issues and now, in a couple days, these bozos will be voting on a $1.7 trillion dollar bill that all of them have had no chance to read because it is impossibly long, something like 4,000 pages.

The argument is we should vote them out, but what choice do you have? If I kick out my Republican Senators and Representative, the seats will go to a big spending Democrats who will only vote the way Schumer and the communist representative from New York tells them to vote. I'll learn what his name is next month. It doesn't make much difference. He will be as bad or worse than Pelosi. They will do nothing about the mess.

In the mean time, the Republicans have Mitch "the turtle" McConnel who may as well be a Democrat. He's up to elbows in Washington BS. He's also 80 years old and beyond retirement age.

So there it is. If a corporation were run like this, it would be bankrupt. But since the government can create money from nothing, it never changes.

Term limits might be one way to flush out the crap, but it will never pass. Both of the parties leadership are against it because they would be out.

 

Term limits are the cowards way out. It would quite probably make things even worse It takes time (years) to learn how things are done in Washington With term limits you would basically (even more than now) be turning running the government over to congressional aides and other unelected people.

 

Then, what is your solution? If voting them out is the way, forget it. Incumbents in competitive districts have huge advantages. One party districts have their seats for as long as they want them.

My term limits would be very liberal. Six therms, 12 years in the House; Two terms, 12 years in the Senate. If someone could cross over and get 24 years, I’d let them. At least some of the dead wood, and crooked deal makers would gone.

The President is limited to eight years. I think that has worked well.

 

Term limits are the cowards way out. It would quite probably make things even worse It takes time (years) to learn how things are done in Washington With term limits you would basically (even more than now) be turning running the government over to congressional aides and other unelected people.

1) Not every problem has a solution.

2) The two term limit on presidents has NOT worked well. Since it became part of the constitution no president has had as successful a second term as their first.

 

Please explain. Did you want Obama again? Did you want Clinton again? Probably.

I strongly disliked Obama and Clinton was morally compromised.

Eisenhower, the first president to effected by the amendment, was too old and really too fragile to run again.

Reagan was the next one, and he was not qualified to run again for the same reasons.

George W. Bush was at the end of his rope at the end of his second term. No way did I want him again.

So how have term limits failed for the presidency? For most Presidents, it has been a high pressure, killer job.

 

of course not! Why would you think that?

 

You said the term limits for the presidency has not worked. I gave two solid examples with Eisenhower and Reagan where it did work. They would have been foolish to have run for another term, but they probably would have won if they had run.

If you want go further back in history, Franklin Roosevelt's second full term was the weakest of his presidency. His plan to pack the Supreme Court was denied by his own party, and the country suffered a second big dip in the economy in 1937. By rights he had nothing to run on in 1940, but World War II gave him a chance to save his reputation. He had no business running in 1944 because he was terminally ill. But he did.



A second example was U.S. Grant who was over his head as President. He served two scandal ridden terms. He left office in 1877, but came back to run again in 1880 to run for a third term. The Republican convention was deadlocked between him and James G. Blaine for the presidential nomination. Finally they nominated dark horse candidate, James Garfield.

Woodrow Wilson suffered a major stroke in October 1919. His aids and his wife shielded him from the public for months. In modern times, he would have been replaced under the 25th amendment. Despite his physical and mental impairments, he wanted to run for a third term. Thank goodness he didn't or more accurately couldn't. Despite the fact that we ended up with Harding, Wilson, in his mental state, would have been worse.

Two terms is enough for any President.

 

OK. Fine. But don't you think if a president could serve more than two terms that it would encourage the parties to nominate younger candidates?

A different issue but still a relevant one.

 

Better to change the president's term to one for six years like the senators. Without re-election, an important motivation for corruption is reduced.

 

No. We are stuck on the old folks, and that's a big problem. I have long advocated that Biden, Trump, Sanders and Hillary Clinton are not suitable for the 2024 nomination. And I'm 73 years old, so don't come back at me with the "You're against old folks" claim. Once one reaches 80, it's time to retire from high pressure demanding positions.

In addition the theory that you have that younger presidents are better has its flaws. Franklin Pierce was 47 when he was elected in 1852. He was the youngest president up until that time. Yet he was one of the worst ever, next to James Buchanan in the opinion of many. Fortunately he was so bad, the Democrats refused to nominate him for re-election. He was an alcoholic, and upon losing his comment was, "Well I guess there not much to do other than get drunk."

Another problem with young, incompetent presidents, is that incumbents are hard to defeat. A bad, young president could elected time and time again. You don't realize how many voters keep up with none of the current events. That's why name recognition is so crucial to winning elections. Many voters have no idea who is running, or what their positions are. When they see a familiar name, they tend to vote for it. Believe or not when Gene McCarthy embarrassed Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, and forced him not seek a second term, some of those who voted for McCarthy thought he was Joe McCarthy, the direct opposite of Gene from the political point of view.

No, I am all for two terms is enough. And remember this. If you can go down the line of Presidents who served two terms, their second term was always weaker than the first. That even applied to George Washington who was concerned that he was losing his mental abilities. Part of reason is that they did lose some clout since it was assumed that they would not run again and become "lame ducks." Another big reason is that people burn out, which includes the members of the President's cabinet. Many of the best appointees have left the administration by the second term and what's left are less capable.

Even Theodore Roosevelt, who really served two terms, was weaker during his second term. Most of the other presidents were much worse, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, as I mentioned earlier.

 

Believe it or not, the Confederate States of America had that in their constitution.

 

What makes you think that would reduced corruption? Wouldn't it be just as likely to cause corruption as aga president would know he never had to face the voters again?

 

Maybe. But one term of corruption is better than a career filled with it.

 

I didn't know it. The authors were prescient people.

 

If they had been that good at predicting the future, they should have known that slavery had become completely unacceptable.

 

Though it isn't discussed much, research will tell you that the support among southerners for slavery was largely based on sex.

 

The public or voters are a necessary evil in our election system. Those who have a say are corporations, wall street firms, lobbyist, special interest groups, super, mega individual donors, etc. They pay for their say in the form of tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. A Prime example is George Soros who donated over 128 million to the democrats for this midterm election. Here’s the list of the top 10.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/10-biggest-donors-midterm-elections-154657192.html


You can bet whatever Soros says, he’ll be listened to and taken care of. All this proves is we have the best government money can buy. The voter just gets to chose which bought party they want in charge.

 

Maybe no president has had a successful second term because everyone knows they're a lame duck?

 

exactly the point.

 

All of that is false. Neither side wants to constantly be at war and sometimes they agree, sometimes they disagree, on specific wars. Republicans believe in the free market for healthcare, and that results in what we have. The other things aren't really valued at all, just kind of happen.

Superficially similar, but vietnam was more of a civil war and the side we wanted to support was clearly the weaker side in terms of will. Should not have intervened as it was not the will of the people. Ukraine is fighting its own war against a foreign power that wants to re-capture it for their empire. It's not really the same. The problem with Ukraine is we don't really know what eastern Ukrainians wanted, as Russia's assertions cannot be trusted. I saw some attempts at polling but the people gave different answers depending upon whether they thought the pollsters were Russian or Ukrainian.

 

We weren't interested in Vietnam because of our deep and abiding love of the Vietnamese people and our concern with their self determination; it was a domino in the cold war, and it was about countering communism.

We don't have any such excuse this time. The cold war is over. There isn't any sort of ideological struggle or national security interest in this case.