Is the United States Political System Broken Beyond Repair?

Here is some insight on how the system really works. Its an hour long but really worth it to hear it from a former top lobbyist.


The gov't has become a weapon for the lobbyist.

Around the 31 minute mark he discusses reform that would help give control back to the people.

Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig interviewed Jack Abramoff

I like the idealistic tone this post has taken - Unfortunately it has nothing to do with reality - like the 'Dawning of the Age of Aquarius' back in the 1960s that was supposed to happen and didn't - Same old Hell, with new players and new generations.

BUT one thing good has not changed and still gives the democratic republican form of government some credibility - Politicians often have to answer to the electorate - especially when they lie or grossly misrepresent what they say. For example do any of you remember [if your old enough] when the first George Bush [Sr.] was President? And he made the statement before winning the election "Read my lips - No more taxes" said it several times - And guess what? He gets into office and they pass new taxes! He lost in his second bid for office to Clinton. And remember Barack Obama when he was touting the ACA [Obamacare] and he said and said it often - 'Under this plan if you like your doctor you wll be able to keep him' - And 'if like your health insurance you will be able to keep it'. This often turned out to be not true - And guess what? The senate is now ruled by Republicans and in the House they have the biggest majority since WWII. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE BEING LIED TO

But I doubt that corruption and rule by special interests can ever be stopped but agree we should try.........

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
-Abraham Lincoln

I also see it like this... in regards to term limits , and income restrictions... and I'm gonna pick on Buster, because he is usually a good sport. And, for once, we actually seem to agree...

Let's say Buster has a neighbor named Bob... dentist with a local practice that runs for Congress. Bob runs on a liberal platform and Buster and all of his liberal friends love him... and vote him into office. Bob is suddenly making a lot more money... got a swank office... a car service... etc...

Bob also knows that he cannot profit in any way at all... AND, because of term and income limits, he has to go home and be a dentist again.

If Bob started voting against the liberal agenda while in office, do you think Buster and his neighbors would be very welcoming? Probably not.

And vice-versa in a conservative district.

THAT is accountability... returning to normal life after their service... not the whole damned lot of them, chillin on Martha's Vineyard...

Another problem is representatives voting in the interest of the stocks they hold. Some might not see it as bad, but essentially it's no different than insider trading. Just that you're manipulating the market in order to profiteer from the other end.

There should be some kind of restriction or means of oversight to deal with that, otherwise you're going to have representatives that are biased towards by their own personal financial motives which often aren't in the public interest.

Other than that, other parties and independents aren't getting a fair shot at things. Until that gets resolved, then yes, it's broken as I see it.

a reply to: pauljs75

Other than that, other parties and independents aren't getting a fair shot at things. Until that gets resolved, then yes, it's broken as I see it.

What would be interesting is if someone or some group tried to bring a case wtih the Justice Department on the grounds that the two major political parties are operating a government monopoly - independent candidates and smaller political parties stand almost no chance of winning in elections. Essentially we have 'free' elections [if you have enough money to run] but unless you are supported by one of these parties you stand no chance of winning - a political monopoly - I wonder if anti-trust laws would apply?

a reply to: madmac5150

You just summed up the entire problem of regulators that get appointed for a term from a pool of industry professionals. They have to go back to the industry when that term is up.

Personally, I don't think any political system is truly designed to be fixed, eg: right or correct.

They are designed to be a constantly broken system that needs endless work by the ever changing elite and powermad meglomaniacs, eg: perpetually needing a fix that only really benefits and supports the parasites.

Is the United States Political System Broken Beyond Repair?

Is a frogs ass watertight?

a reply to: AlienView

Its really not dysfunction but rather the shifting sands of political and cultural winds. We have a lot of powerful interests in this country wrestling for the wheel and they are deeply opposed to one another. That is to include the power of the people.

Our focus must shift to true economic success rather than mere political theorizing.

There is no such thing as a free market; it's as utopian as communism.

Every successful national economy has been a mixed economy with a balance of market freedom and government involvement.

This country needs to refocus on making money and improving everyone's lives, not just those at the top. This is not to say that those at the top must be brought down, that their wealth must be 'redistributed' or any fool thing like that. There are always going to be winners and losers. BUT,

When income and wealth disparity reaches the levels they have in the United States, this is an indication of something wrong. The economic engine does not run on a society's wealth being held by 1% of 1%.

YES...ABSOLUTELY...BEEN SAYING IT FOR YEARS. It is broken and beyond repair. Don't waste your time. Tear it down, burn it down and start over. Then...pass a law that every ten years...do it again. THAT is the ONLY way to have a government without it getting out of control.

originally posted by: sirlancelot
Id also have to vote for no outside money for elections. No lobbyist.

Id really like HR 4138 to pass and was even considering a grassroot campaign via fax to every Senator to get the word out. Waste of time I know but one man/woman should not be able to have the kind of power we have seen and Im tired of doing nothing!

Yes executive orders were something NEVER intended as a backdoor power tool that allows the POTUS to circumvent congress, states rights or law.

Is the United States Political System Broken Beyond Repair?

Yes it is. Unless good men stand up and take back what's lawfull and natural.

I think all the western worlds so called democratic systems are past repair and they are all interlinked by international bankers and corporations that bribe our politicians.

Bankers are above the law and use lobby groups to commit high treason so vote for who you like but nothing will change and it should be obvious with all this spying on us that they fear their own people.

if/when people go after these leaders then they will start race wars so don't been fooled

a reply to: Logarock

We have a lot of powerful interests in this country wrestling for the wheel and they are deeply opposed to one another

Yes like one bank trying to out smart another one but we are just cattle in this game and even with 99% of people being against Fracking it still goes on but at least it will add some flavour to or cud.

It's not just the US political system that's broken, they're busted to hell all over the world. It is a system set up to make those who pull the strings of power, stronger and more invincible to those who aren't in the upper echelons of the wealth pyramid.

To that end, and in reality, democracy is just a façade to make people believe they actually have a say in how their country is run.

Elected 'representatives' are beholden to their financiers and cannot sway from their party line lest they no longer be an elected representative. In essence, they're just looking out for their own interests. That's it. End. Done. Finished.

Its crap and we all know it and it will never end because the only way to become a power broker is to whore yourself out to some lobby group and fellate the leader of the party in which you participate.

Lock, load,aim high and fire, folks. It's the only way things will ever change.

originally posted by: AlienView
a reply to: pauljs75

Other than that, other parties and independents aren't getting a fair shot at things. Until that gets resolved, then yes, it's broken as I see it.

What would be interesting is if someone or some group tried to bring a case wtih the Justice Department on the grounds that the two major political parties are operating a government monopoly - independent candidates and smaller political parties stand almost no chance of winning in elections. Essentially we have 'free' elections [if you have enough money to run] but unless you are supported by one of these parties you stand no chance of winning - a political monopoly - I wonder if anti-trust laws would apply?

I sat and listened to a progressive professor complain about this problem. This was back in the 80s. He said that it would take to long for the progressive movement to grow from the bottom, from the grass roots. As well the established parties were to well established to circumnavigate. He then explained how the progressives planed to run as democrats and over a much shorter period of time come to power by taking over the democratic party. Now 20 years later this is what we have, the new democrats.

This was never more obvious as it was than when they finally got ahold of congress and the oval office and crammed through their AFCA without any consideration to what the minority republican party thought about it or contributions to it. Why? Its in the word democrat. They rule by democracy and with contempt for the mechanics of a republic. Even the current POTUS ruling by executive order is another emanation of the use of raw power with true disregard at this point for the operation of a republic. They are power mongers and see governing as governing from power be it position or numbers. Same folks complain about the electoral congress simply because they see numbers, raw democracy, as their road to power. And trust me.......if they ever get true power they will take measures to close the door behind them.

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: I look at government as a necessity where humans cannot govern their own lives, so I see it as an inverse proportion with self-reliance on one side and government on the other. Since most everybody has their champion (beliefs, political systems, celebrities, etc), my champion is natural ecosystems. I try to extract wisdom from what is seemingly an endless intelligent system that is balanced, time-proven, and life-abundant. I believe there are parallels that can be applied to our systems because we are, in truth, a part of Earth's larger ecosystem and are inescapably subject to the same stimuli that generates the balance we see all around us.

So all that being said, here's the tough news as I see it: there is no precedent, no example in nature that displays the model of a handful of living creatures representing the democratic wishes of millions of their kind. Why? Because I believe it to be inefficient. There is too much variety, too many specific local conditions for this to be a good model. The only real solution is self-empowerment and actions that empower your local communities. I'm sure popular, relatively recent problems such as "terrorism!!" or "global trade" will emerge in response to this viewpoint but terrorism is a cartoonish judgement placed on people who have the same desires as you and I. "Global trade as only efficiently governed by centralized power" has shown its intrinsic inefficiency with the result of destructive banking practices, ruin of natural ecosystems and many people's way of life.

We can never be fully self-sufficient, but neither is any other animal in the natural world. But we are WAY off from bringing power back to a manageable distance that resembles energy management in a natural ecosystem.

The US is as broken and crooked as the Devil himself because he is the power controlling the Money Masters who just about own and run everything now and want anyone they don't need to die. He also owns the Leftist/losers. To see true Hope and Change, watch Youtube: "The Best Stories of People Who Have Seen Heaven and Hell".

See posts above that point directly at one of our challenges: hopeless and dishonest partisanship at all costs.

The Democrats and Republicans worked together for months on a healthcare reform bill.

On the Senate side, from June to September, the Senate Finance Committee held a series of 31 meetings to develop a healthcare reform bill. This group — in particular, Democrats Max Baucus, Jeff Bingaman, and Kent Conrad, and Republicans Mike Enzi, Chuck Grassley, and Olympia Snowe — met for more than 60 hours, and the principles that they discussed, in conjunction with the other committees, became the foundation of the Senate's healthcare reform bill.

The individual mandate was a Republican idea.

By deliberately drawing on bipartisan ideas — the same basic outline was supported by former Senate majority leaders Howard Baker, Bob Dole, Tom Daschle and George J. Mitchell—the bill's drafters hoped to increase the chances of garnering the necessary votes for passage.

The individual mandate had been originally put forth by the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation, and had been a component of every Republican healthcare reform bill ever submitted ... but suddenly ...

Republican Senators, including those who had supported previous bills with a similar mandate, began to describe the mandate as "unconstitutional." Journalist Ezra Klein wrote in The New Yorker that "the end result was ... a policy that once enjoyed broad support within the Republican Party suddenly faced unified opposition." Reporter Michael Cooper of The New York Times wrote that: "It can be difficult to remember now, given the ferocity with which many Republicans assail it as an attack on freedom, but the provision in President Obama's healthcare law requiring all Americans to buy health insurance has its roots in conservative thinking."

This is a small example of what is killing our democratic republic (hint, it's both) ... rabid partisanship.

Examples abound. This one was found with about 2 minutes of research in the most basic resource available:PPACA - Wikipedia