[Preechr]

Originally Posted by mburbank

"In a government where the amount of money one owns has no bearing whatsoever, "

How would that work, exactly? Not that I don't applaud the idea, but how? Legislate against it? That's what I'M for, not that it would solve the problem since everybody has a price, but it might make it harder. Seriously, I'm open to any and all ideas that takes money out f the political equation.

Well, you're not really gonna like this, prolly... You probably already know what my answer is going to be, in fact.

Basically, you would have to severely limit the government's currently maximized abilities to extract money from it's constituents.
The reason you don't like that idea, for the readers that don't know you as well as I do (not to tell you what you think,) is that this process would also eliminate the government's ability to control the income of it's most wealthy constituents.

The reason you'd have to do so, in order to have the government I've described, is that by limiting the money the proposed government has to spend, you'd be limiting the amount of power our new government could buy with that money.

It's really quite an elegant solution. For the last 60 or so years, the govenrment has been buying power wholesale by pandering both to the majority poor and middle classes as well as the very rich, promising it's power in exchange for part or even most of the citizenry's ready reserve of cash.

On the individual level, we use conservative government officials to limit the freedoms of others (typically the poor) to do as they please with their decisions just as at the same time we use liberal politicians to limit the freedoms of the rich to spend their money as they might. All of these power/cash exchanges result in someone's limitation of freedom, and all of them combined constrains us all. They all result in increased power for government as well, as the government is always getting more power for itself in trade.

That's what power is.

In this respect, the situation is just as kahljorn described when he said "money is power." That is an adequate description of the situation as it exists, unfortunately. Remember when I described the three pillars of society as commerce, spirituality and government? If you recall, I explained that each has it's own currency: cash, truth and power respectively. I also cautioned that we ought to not allow our society to include exchange rates for these currencies.

We shouldn't allow truth or power to be bought with the cash of only our richest few, just as we wouldn't respect any religion that extends it's blessings or teachings to only those with money and power (like Scientology, to be topical,) any more than we would respect a government that only served it's "illuminati" and it's most wealthy.

We currently acknowledge, pretty much universally, our American wall between the religious and state functions of our society. We communally accept implicitly the necessity of a government that abuses our religious beliefs to it's benefit, and the current World War is uniting the West behind the concept of the impropriety of a religion that serves as a government style.

Also implicit to American government, and this is generally confused to be a product of our wall between church and state, is our wall between religion and business. Because religions are not taxed as businesses are, it can be said that we have universally accepted that churches do not exist primarily to earn profits. We support more or less unquestioned our society that watchdogs churches like that of Jim Baker, to the point that it's pretty easy for any of us to spot religious "scams." True, the most needy of us still latch on to whatever sort of scam might be available at any given moment, be it religious or from Nigeria via e-mail, but we also almost universally acknowledge that any society we might build could never be idiot-proof.

Imagine three dots, arranged equidistantly, with a sort of peace sign separating them. That's the top down view of the society I imagine. Unfortunately, the society we built is missing the part of the peace sign that walls off the state dot with the business dot, allowing the free trade of money for power, and power for money.

Businesses are no longer constricted to the laws of true capitalism as long as our Big-3 automakers can pay off Congress to get tariffs levied on superior foreign cars as a trade for the existence in undeath of trade unions. Yes, I am a D&D geek, but that was as appropriate as it was pithy and recognizable.

Unfortunately for you, as to which I've previously alluded, ending the exchange of money for power also precludes the trade of the power of the people for the economic punishment of the rich.

That is what I mean when I talk about a government where money cannot buy power. It also means power cannot buy money. You can't have one without the other.

In addition to new laws that would prohibit the bad capitalism currently allowed by our acceptance of commercial protectionism (anti-globalism, read as: those that win votes by denouncing the evils of "outsourcing" as well as most farmers and teachers are your new enemies) we will have to go all Quid Pro Quo by disallowing the other classes, the non-business owners, from buying the power of government toward their own unhealthy ends.

We'd have to stop being Socialists.

That was probably the best I've ever explained that. I hope it worked.

Originally Posted by mburbank

"I'd love to see you voting for the person that best represents your true ideology or abstaining. "

I generally get to do that in the primaries. Hell, I voted for nader the first time around and if Dean hadn't run, I'd have voted foir him again despite the fact that he is quite obviously crackers. But my guy always looses by miles and then it's vote for for the guy whos less satanic. I admit it approaches poinlessness, but I like the little curtains on the booth.

You rock.

Originally Posted by mburbank

I think your pretty much correct in your assesment of my views on the greedy rich. Pitiful poor... It depends on what you mean. I don't think the poor are inherently better than the rich (unless you count that small few who only keep what money they need and divest the rest, bhuddist monks, crazy people and the like). The Rich just have so much more power to express their baseness and hurt huge swaths of other people. The poorer you get, the less people you can really hurt, until your down to deliberately peeing on the guy sharing your cardboard.

It took me ten minutes to read this to my neighbor.

Originally Posted by mburbank

I've always had the impression that the Liberatarians are lousy with Gun nuts, survivalists and people who think they were abducted by Aliens. Which is not to say that the Democrats aren't lousy with equally shitty and far less colorful constituents.

Unlike your adopted party, I can fully explain every plank of my party to your satisfaction... at least hopefully I can, depending on your ability to submit to superior logic. Wanna talk about the legalization of drugs? I've yet to be attacked on that front on this board. We could do it if you want. That's the supposed Achille's Heel of the LP, and I generally have a ton of fun convincing folks that it could happen to the benefit of us all.

Originally Posted by mburbank

I currently loathe the party for it's collective lack of spine and feel that if the Republicans succeed in solid one party facism we will be more to blame than they are.

That's not the plan at all. Both parties are competing to be perceived as American Tories. They are emulating three parties. In that respect, no matter the dominance of one party over the other, the only thing that ever matters is election-time. At that time, anybody can win.... as long as they are a member of the two-member cabal.

Originally Posted by mburbank

Sharks eat bloody stuff 'cause it's in their nature. It's hrd to feel bad for fish that cut themselves.

That's good stuff. If I thought the people here could get my connotations of that, I'd use it to replace your current quote in my sig.

Originally Posted by mburbank

I like Bernie Sanders. He's an independant. I think I'm going to be one of those.

I don't know him specifically, but I applaud your sack for abanding the concept of party loyalty.

You go, Jew.

Originally Posted by mburbank

I don't like the smell of the Deomcrats anymore.

I have taken to carping on the political missteps of the Dems, but, please, don't mistake that for some sort of desire I might or might not have for any sort of success for Democrats or any other sort of Socialist within the political portion of our society.

That being said, me too, and I'm glad you are starting to notice the stink. Take a whiff of the Republicans over there, dude... They are just as ripe, if not more.