I'd like your input on an article I found.

[Rapunzel]

Is there anyone on this site who thinks there would have been even an attempt to pass anything like Obamacare into law if we had stuck to the original design of our government prior to the 17th amendment?

Nope and this is why I keep trying to get our liberal friend here to understand this isn't what he thinks is the cause - it goes much deeper and he needs to learn to think deeper - especially if he wants to be a professor as he claims.... I am very grateful that I had teachers who made us think!  One being my economics teacher - another being my very first boss.

[Liberal_Spy]

Nope and this is why I keep trying to get our liberal friend here to understand this isn't what he thinks is the cause - it goes much deeper and he needs to learn to think deeper - especially if he wants to be a professor as he claims.... I am very grateful that I had teachers who made us think!  One being my economics teacher - another being my very first boss.

There are brilliant and educated minds on both sides of the fence. :)

[andy58-in-nh]

Is there anyone on this site who thinks there would have been even an attempt to pass anything like Obamacare into law if we had stuck to the original design of our government prior to the 17th amendment?

The idea that a government, one whose only valid power derives from the consent of its citizens, might compel them to purchase a good or service under penalty of law as a condition of mere citizenship  - would have driven our Founders to the streets in protest, if not instantly to their muskets.

[Liberal_Spy]

would have driven our Founders to the streets in protest, if not instantly to their muskets.

I'm ready when you guys are.

[massadvj]

Would you support removing the big funding from both political parties? Everybody keeps saying "Citizens United is okay because the left does it too. They have tons of money they get from special interests and rich members of the left wing", but what I propose is not letting ANY of these guys pump their millions into politics, regardless of their political affiliation.

So what you are basically saying is that no one except the media would have the right of free speech.

[ABX]

Is there anyone on this site who thinks there would have been even an attempt to pass anything like Obamacare into law if we had stuck to the original design of our government prior to the 17th amendment?

I do because I see it as a slow loss of our spirit, not in legal details on the separation of how the bodies represent. With the Senate as representatives of the State instead of another direct representation of the people (which is the role of the House) you may have had it in a different form and through a different mode, but it is the same loss of individualism that is growing in almost all first word, prosperous nations. Things come to easy, 'luxuries' can be voted on instead of earned. Heck, look at what Switzerland is on the verge of passing, a national 'dividend' which is basically a minimum salary every citizen gets for doing nothing except being a citizen. They don't need to earn it, it is not the result of a trade of goods or services, the sweat of one's brow or the challenge of the mind, nor the creation of anything new. No, it is the people simply realizing that assets can be gained if one simply demands in a large enough mass. This used to be done by cities and tribes raiding each other for property, now is done without breaking a sweat other than going to the ballot box.  Things have gotten to easy, we are becoming again like babies nursing, not having to chew meat.

Robert Heinlein foretold this in two novels- For Us, The Living and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The former predicting the almost exact economic structure that Switzerland is about to vote on (and not ironically enough, the socialist utopia that was the written goal of Cloward/Piven) and the latter being the natural result said utopia where there is the necessary slave type class (moon miners made up of 'anarchist' types who didn't want to conform) that has to support the luxury class back on earth.  We are on the verge of the first and we are told how wonderful all these free things will be, but the necessity of the second to support the first will come all too quickly.

[Bigun]

I do because I see it as a slow loss of our spirit, not in legal details on the separation of how the bodies represent. With the Senate as representatives of the State instead of another direct representation of the people (which is the role of the House) you may have had it in a different form and through a different mode, but it is the same loss of individualism that is growing in almost all first word, prosperous nations. Things come to easy, 'luxuries' can be voted on instead of earned. Heck, look at what Switzerland is on the verge of passing, a national 'dividend' which is basically a minimum salary every citizen gets for doing nothing except being a citizen. They don't need to earn it, it is not the result of a trade of goods or services, the sweat of one's brow or the challenge of the mind, nor the creation of anything new. No, it is the people simply realizing that assets can be gained if one simply demands in a large enough mass. This used to be done by cities and tribes raiding each other for property, now is done without breaking a sweat other than going to the ballot box.  Things have gotten to easy, we are becoming again like babies nursing, not having to chew meat.

Robert Heinlein foretold this in two novels- For Us, The Living and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The former predicting the almost exact economic structure that Switzerland is about to vote on (and not ironically enough, the socialist utopia that was the written goal of Cloward/Piven) and the latter being the natural result said utopia where there is the necessary slave type class (moon miners made up of 'anarchist' types who didn't want to conform) that has to support the luxury class back on earth.  We are on the verge of the first and we are told how wonderful all these free things will be, but the necessity of the second to support the first will come all too quickly.

I strongly but respectfully disagree! If the senate had remained the states house as originally intended I don't think the moral decay that you mention would have gotten anywhere near the point it currently is and we would have a very much smaller federal government as well.

I guess we will never know which of us is right.

[EC]

Like Andy said - it isn't the money that corrupts.  IMHO it is the lack of term limits for everyone that has corrupted the system. People like John McCain have no life outside of their jobs in DC and they will do everything short or murder to keep their jobs (and maybe even murder given this bunch of crooks).

I used to think that. Still do to a certain extent, but there is a problem with term limits which was actually explained to me by a very leftist Californian (Libby, may God rest her soul) where they do have term limits for the state legislature.

Lobbyists don't have term limits. They know how the system works and guide and mentor newly elected politicians in return for favors. I was dubious, but she did provide a lot of independently verifiable examples. Wish I had saved that conversation, it was both fascinating and informative.

Still - having someone in the senate or house for 40 years is not ideal. Having "royal" families in politics is even less ideal and is one of the stupid errors that should be dealt with.

[Bigun]

I used to think that. Still do to a certain extent, but there is a problem with term limits which was actually explained to me by a very leftist Californian (Libby, may God rest her soul) where they do have term limits for the state legislature.

Lobbyists don't have term limits. They know how the system works and guide and mentor newly elected politicians in return for favors. I was dubious, but she did provide a lot of independently verifiable examples. Wish I had saved that conversation, it was both fascinating and informative.

Still - having someone in the senate or house for 40 years is not ideal. Having "royal" families in politics is even less ideal and is one of the stupid errors that should be dealt with.

So what are the lobbyists doing there in the first place? They are buying the influence of our elected representatives in order to reward their friends and punish their enemies via the only real vehicle they have for doing that! The tax code! That is one of the main reasons we need to take the Marxist income tax away from them and throw it onto the ash heap of history - where it so properly belongs - and go back to the kind of taxation our founders UNIVERSALLY endorsed! Taxes on articles of consumption!