al44 - my points are public domain click and paste...
and I don't have to look hard or far to see these "good points".
The critical part of the discussion is to ask the right questions, not necessarily to be able to cobble together (self-serving) politically correct answers to age old questions.
I don't have time to go much further in my thoughts until next week, but some points to consider in looking for the right questions and to flush out the bad guys:
1. The VOTE is crucial to Democracy - and if your party is trying to restrict the vote they are trending to the bad guys side. If you as lawmaker can keep from voting those citizens who trend to the opposition, you can rule the day/future.
2. The faulty belief that sending more money to the richest via the tax code is a good thing. That belief is not only debunked, but totally contrarian to the direction of a solution to not just the growing asset inequality but the maintaining of a national infrastructure that benefits everyone...and historically what has worked to facilitate the creation of a prosperous nation...not just 400-500 "rulers" controlling the political process of our country because of their wealth. Note: In business, the first signs of a company in distress and their beginnings of decline occur when preventive maintenance is delayed until things actually break, stopping all work, instead of planned rotations of preventative R&M. (See: collapsed bridges Minnesota, etc.)
3. Creating jobs is a far more productive use of tax dollars than creating prisons to house the desperate. If your political party is failing to support jobs creating legislation, they are trending toward the bad guys...
4. A good question to ask is why a political party would support growing a generation of financially desperate citizens - cheap labor? Create angry folks looking for scapegoats to blame and shift the view from the real culprits? (See: Limbaugh/Beck comedy show for complicity)
and way more examples...
I fear the genie is out of the bottle when it comes to control of the country's future prosperity and probably will be for another dozen years. Gerrymandering after the 2010 elections created defeat-free zones for the Republican party's biggest nutjobs. (See: Texas)
To me, one of the most insidious beliefs is that EVERYONE in politics is a bad guy. There are good people in government who are trying under incredibly hard conditions to do the right thing. The darker side of the spectrum hopes that the voting public will become SO disgusted with the political process that they drop out and don't vote. This is a goal of those who don't want people to vote who then subsequently become more and more politically successful because of fewer and fewer voters. ... reducing participation in the democratic process is a very effective way to keep a marginalized portion of the population from having a voice in their and our future...regrettably by their own carefully manipulated "choice".
A STEP: Support GROWING voter participation not reducing it. The BAD GUYS know they can not beat the rule of the majority vote if everyone participates. Today with a faceless dollar equaling a "vote", one human person's vote is crucial.
