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Donna Brazile's book is a wake up call for the Dems.

Think they'll heed it or just hit the snooze button again?

(Slowman et. al. will now rag on the Reps as if that excuses the Dems)

Mark L. Fergerson

Reply to
alien8752

:

Both US political parties are much too influenced by large donations from r ich donors. The rest of the world has examples of how you limit the influen ce of rich donors, but the US Supreme Court keeps striking down imported re gulation as restrictions of "free speech" (by which they mean very expensive speech).

I blame the founding fathers, who were mostly Moderate Enlightenment groupi es - the Radical Enlightenment enthusiasts (like Ben Franklin and Thomas Pa ine) were very conveniently out of the country when the constitution was be ing drafted.

Every subsequent constitution in other countries has been based on Radical Enlightenment ideas, and has gone for essentially universal suffrage from the start, but the US constitution started off limiting suffrage to the pro perty-owning 6% and their political influence has been disproportionately h igh ever since.

Getting excited about the corruption of the Democrats while ignoring the fa ct that the Koch brothers have paid for the Tea Party faction to reduce the Republican Party to an ineffectual faction-riven mess is a classic example of the blind eye - and Mark L Fergerson is a fine example of the one-eyed supporter.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

HEX-cellent!

Reply to
Robert Baer

lying about apprently.

Why?

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This email has not been checked by half-arsed antivirus software
Reply to
Jasen Betts

rich donors, but the US Supreme Court keeps striking down imported regulation as

were very conveniently out of the country when the constitution was being drafted.

It seems a little wrong to give those that contribute nothing to the pie, a say in what part of the pie they get. As in, if you don't pay any Federal income taxes, why should you get to say how they are spent. Worse yet is, if you are living on the backs of the taxpayers and get input on how much more they will give you. I have a problem how to handle retired, military and temporarily out of the workforce. Let the fun begin! Mikek

Reply to
amdx

Bilious "Bird-Cage-Liner" Slowman will say anything just to see his name in print. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

amdx wrote on 11/14/2017 5:45 PM:

So income tax is the only way people are taxed? Even if one does not pay income tax directly, they still pay many other taxes and so are still financial contributors to the country. What did Franklin say about it? "The only things certain are death and taxes!"

Sometimes individuals grow a self importance simply because they can only see their own contribution and are blind to the contributions of others.

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Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
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Reply to
rickman

e:

rote:

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rom rich donors. The rest of the world has examples of how you limit the in fluence of

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roupies - the Radical Enlightenment enthusiasts (like Ben Franklin and Thom as Paine)

dical Enlightenment ideas, and has gone for essentially universal suffrage from the start,

wning 6% and their political influence has been disproportionately high eve r since.

They can get conscripted, even if they don't pay income tax. And they do pa y sales tax. Mikek is a little too income-tax fixated to think straight.

You do get affected by how they are spent, even if you haven't contributed. One of the arguments for democracy is that an election makes less of a mes s than a revolution, and where people feel powerless they can opt for solut ions that offer them the illusion of power (though real revolutions have a nasty habit a creating societies where all power is concentrated in even fe wer hands than it is in the US at the moment).

This turns welfare upside down. Welfare keeps you alive until society comes up with a job you can do.

Letting people starve before they can find a new job wastes whatever you've invested in educating them as kids - less in the US than in most other pla ces. US average spending on education may be relatively high, but most of t hat money is spent on educating the children of the rich - the median spend ing is a lot lower (which is why US statistics never give the median spend) .

Places that take welfare seriously also spend money on training scheme for the unemployed - when I was unemployed I was of the opinion that the Dutch government should have spent some money on retraining personnel officers to appreciate the point that people over 45 could be hired and would do usefu l work, but that was unrealistic (granting that personnel officers are the untrainable dregs of the administrative work force).

Not just with that. Mikek's mental model is about as far out of touch with reality as Jim Thompson's. He could be a personnel officer.

Which is why Jim-out-of-touch-with-reality-Thompson persistently miss-spell s it.

He may think that it minimises my motivation (which would be - unsurprising ly - unrealistic).

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

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