This is like the three bears complaining about the prorridge being too hot or too cold, and then deciding that not eating, going on a permanent fast, is the best answer.

Instead of wasting time complaining, check out the platforms of the canditdates CAREFULLY, beginning at the local level, and vote CAREFULLY. Look for candidates that back your type of reforms and advocate for them.
If nobody and nothinsg fits your perfect ideals,, then wake up and smell the coffee: a perfect world does not exist.

Don’t participate, and you lose your right to complain, because you let others make the decisions for you.
Or move to a desered island, the only place society, with its institutions, is not complicated and messy.

If Kentucky is corrupt and you live in Maine……..well its not your problem is it? Its Kentucky whose tax dollars are being misused. Not Maines.

The difference between me and the op is I have to believe that he is encouraging radical shifts in voter patterns. I on the other hand offer up the TRUE conservative solution.

Smaller and less intrusive government in the lives of its citizens with much greater freedom for the states to rule their citizens much in the way this country was ruled under the articles of confederation.

A strong central government whose goal is to provide security for the nation and the states who provide the services and needs of their own citizens.

We could be rid of the IRS. Replace income tax with a state income tax and allow the government to have its money via a national sales tax as well as a portion of the state income taxes.

This would force the national government to balance the budget and live within their means.

It has always been the neoconservative and the libertarians vision of a less intrusive government with more power to the states. While maintaining the central role of the government which is to secure the borders and to provide for the “common defense” of this nation.

By doing this then the states themselves are subject to the voters who are very close to home. If you want three or four or five parties vieing for votes then the states must return to prominence and not be one of 50 legs holding up an enormous government boodoggle that continues to self perpetuate itself thru ever increasing financial self interests.

More power to the states, less power to the central government. More power to the individuals and less power to the governments.

That is the way that our nation was founded originally. Remember the articles of confederation? They worked for awhile. Loose knit states coexisting but something was missing.

Centrality of government. Okay we will give you a government…..you give us freedoms, states rights and individual guarantees of liberty.

I have preached the ops point of view for years. Both sides pat each other on the back behind the scenes while polarizing the populace in public. It is all designed to maintain the status quo and to maintain power.

Seriously…..Think about it…..The Republicans had all 3 branches of government….how many bills were passed limiting or opposing abortion, cutting welfare, creating a national religion, putting prayer back in school? By contrast when the Democrats had all three branches how many anti Republican things were forced down our throats?

The answer…..almost none…..gridlock abounds….for one reason……..the governments ever increasing need to perpetuate its own usefulness. The fashionable thing today is polarization perpetuated by the internet. It is my ever growing contention that the internet will stimulate worldwide anarchy on a scale that will boggle the mind. When facts that should remain hidden are brought to light a day of reckoning occurs. With the internet that day of reckoning is fast approaching.

Short of armed insurrection or some form of widespread nationwide strikes, the only possible solution I see is beginning a grass roots movement to implement change starting at the local level & working our way upward. The Ron Paul campaign gives us a model we can start with. They have proven that grass roots movements can be successful, at least as far as fund raising & getting out the message is concerned. In fact, the national conversation is doing very well as long as we can keep it going beyond his candidacy.

OK. Nader said he may not run, depending on who the democrats nominate. To my mind, it means he knows what most informed people do, that Edwards seems like the real thing. Saying there’s no difference between Edwards and Clinton is like saying there’s no difference between the Republicans and Democrats

Obviously everybody is corrupt. But since 9/11 the republicans have gone off the deep end, meaning there is now more than “a dime’s worth of difference” between the parties.

Hirschorn’s ideas are stupid. He has no sense of the implications of calling our political system a corrupt conspiracy. He fails to discriminate between democracy and corporatism. He conflates voting for people with buying people. He advocates the destruction of our democracy by delegitimizing it, as though nobody realizes the system is dripping with corruption.

I believe in voting. Voting works in conjunction with being a “squeaky wheel.” Vote for who you believe in, withhold your vote when they let you down, and keep up pressure to change. These are all essential ingredients: the Democrats aren’t ending the war because most dems will vote for them anyway (lesser evil) and the whole toxic anti-war = anti-soldier rhetoric puts them in a tight spot for our presspolitics.

We’re getting the government we deserve, that’s for sure. But this hirschorn guy has no clue. Ultimately, he’s arguing for passivity, which fits in well with this site’s version of “moderatism.” But the real solution is activism. Freedom is participation in power, and power abhors a vacuum. Locking yourself in a cage of passivity will just make you hopeless and more and more worthless for helping society. I mean, this hirschorn guy just reeks of depression!

I do agree that both parties are too influenced by special interests, and their own survival to consider the best course for the country on so many issues. Perhaps there could be a recall process for Congress.