A NEW POLITICAL PARTY!

A special thank you to Rich Miles for having posted what you see below in the June 11 edition of his always superbly thought-provoking blog Logical Negativism, at http://logicalnegativism@blogspot.com/. Given today's political climate, with so much dissatisfaction coming from nearly all quarters, I found this post particularly interesting.My own comments will be found in bold type alongside various points of, and directly following, his post.Here it is, folks:


by "Not Sure Who Wrote This"

Got this in my email today, and thought it was marginally clever. I don't say I agree 100% with everything said here, but it seems that a good deal of it needs to be said one way or the other. See what you think:
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*A New Political Party.*


*Not Democrat, Not Republican, Not Independent, and most definitely not Tea.*

*It's called the “PISSED OFF PARTY" (or POP).* CLEVER! Sure beats the GOP!

*This party is dedicated to vote every incumbent out of office in the next elections.*

*If you're Democrat, vote Democrat. Just don't vote for the incumbent.*

*If you're Republican, vote Republican. Just don't vote for the incumbent.*

*We need to send a message to all politicians, that we're tired of their B.S.*

*If the country votes out all the incumbents, the new incoming politicians will get the message...*


*It's pretty simple. Nobody needs to change parties and let’s face it, there's plenty of blame to spread around.* This appears to be an overly simplistic "solution" to our current glut of out-of-touch and unresponsve government officials. Merely substituting one Democrat for another or one Republican for another sounds fabulously sensible, But consider this: WHICH Democrat would you substitute, for example? And WHICH Republican? How would these selections be made, and, should enough voters of the opposite party not do the same replacement move with their candidate, might you not be giving the election to an opponent whose political beliefs don't match your own? Not only that, but I see the possibility of a huge number of candidates ending up on the ballot trying to fill one office rather than the usual two to four or so we now have. Would this not lead to counting irregularities, multiple contested election results, and lengthy and costly court battles to determine the election's actual winner? And might this not encourage your opposing political party's strict adherents to split your party's candidates to the point where your opponent party's candidate might win by default? I see nothing but potential trouble from this overly-simplistic approach.

*A few good politicians will lose their job but they probably have better retirement and insurance than 95% of the American public.* As much as we all seem to hate entrenched politicians, some are actually very conscientious, good public servants who know their job well and deliver what is actually needed for their constituents. They have learned how to get opposing factions to come together to accomplish something. Others have special knowledge or experience in a particular field of expertise. These politicians belong in office, should remain there, and should not become "good ones who would lose their jobs."

*You've had to struggle for the last 5 years. Some of you have lost your job and may be working in some other sector just to feed your family.* So never again vote for conservative, bought-out Republicans and Democrats who favored lax regulation that caused your economic turmoil!

*I guarantee you, none of them will suffer like this country has.*

*If you like what's going on and think this is a bad idea, delete this.*

*But if you're fed up and think this is a good idea, then pass this E-mail on.*

*If you really think this has legs, then a website and a blog could help get the word out.*

*To All 535 voting members of the US Congress: it is now official: you are ALL corrupt morons.* That is not at all true and is most revealing of the originator's cliche-ridden suppositions, oversimplification, and ignorance.




*a.. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.* Our postal system is the finest in the world. It has performed very well for many years, and its inefficiencies and problems began when Republican President Richard Nixon first took it out of pure government control. Originally a cabinet-leveldepartment, Nixon's 1970 Postal Reorganization Act turned it into the United States Postal Service, an independent, corporation-style agency with a monopoly only on the delivery of first class mail. opening the door to increasing numbers of private companies who were allowed to invade its domain, the federal postal system has become besieged on many fronts it never had to contend with previously. Also, the world wide web and email in particular have caused a more than 22% drop in the volume of mail going through the postal system. Given that it is required to deliver universal delivery of mail at an affordable rate (a requirement not shared by any other private delivery company like UPS, FedEx, or DHL, this puts the USPS at a disadvantage. Overall, though, it is still the most cost-effective means consumers have to receive periodicals and handwritten cards and letters.

*b. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.* There is nothing at all broken with Social Security until politicians began plundering its funds to reapportrion them elsewhere. The system by itself is fine, and must never be replaced by a for-profit private one subject to market manipulation and upheaval!

*c.. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.* Yes, thanks to market manipulations and deregulatory pressure from libertarians and the private sector, which once more fouled up what had been a fairly reliable and successful means to provide mortgages to those with lower income and mortgage security overall. That is hardly the government's fault.*d.. The War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.*

*e.. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.* These programs have benefitted MILLIONS of elderly and poor and have saved and extended millions of lives. It is private doctors and privately-operated hospitals WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER who have repeatedly illegally overbilled the system, and that does not mean that Medicare and Medicaid do not yet "have it right."

*f.. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.* As with Fannie Mae, there is nothing wrong with Freddie Mac that wasn't caused or worsened by reckless private market manipulators.

*g.. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.* The Department of Energy, just like numerous other fedceral regulatory agencies, has been sabotaged, compromised, and neutralized by big money from private industry, chiefly from the oil industry. George W. Bush transformed regulation into blatant cronyism, and that casts a far more negative light on private concentrated capital than on the government or its programs. So long as oil companies continue to pollute government regulatory agencies with dirty lobbying efforts and the outright purchase of elected officials, this unfortunate trend will continue.

*You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.*

*AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM? * ABSOLUTELY. SUCH SYSTEMS WORK EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD, AND, BARRING ANY FURTHER SABOTAGE OR INTERFERENCE FROM OUR EXISTING CORRUPT AND OVERLY-GREEDY PROFITEERING PRIVATE SYSTEM, GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE WOULD BE IDEAL. ASIDE FROM ABUSE FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR, MEDICARE AND MEDICAID, AS WELL AS THE VA, ALL DO A VERY GOOD JOB IN PROVIDING CARE FOR THEIR PATIENTS!

*IT'S NOT ABOUT THE NEED FOR GOOD HEALTH CARE, (OH YES, IT MOST CERTAINLY IS)IT'S ABOUT TRUSTING THE GOVERNMENT TO RUN IT!* PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES AND PHARMACEUTICAL MANUFACTURERS HAVE ALREADY DEMONSTRATED WHAT AN UNFAIR DISASTER PRIVATE HEALTH "CARE" HAS BEEN. BRING ON GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE!

*Folks, keep this circulating.
Posted by Rich Miles at 8:23 PM
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This email was undoubtedly begun and circulated by a justifiably frustrated individual who unfortunately doesn't really understand how our government really works. Clearly, the scenario which currently exists, with big money and special interests virtually buying out a number of government officials
and causing them to turn a blind eye to the needs of the majority of citizens. But this email also smacks of being started by a conservative or libertarian teabagger type in that it blames government for all of our woes and completely ignores the corrupting effect free market capitalism has on our government. The underlying tone of this email is that government can't do anything right (a lingering and incorrect attitude left over from the conservative Reagan years); that government should stay the hell out of private industry; and that government in and of itself is evil. To this underlying tone I would counter that government CAN do things right; that PRIVATE INDUSTRY SHOULD STAY THE HELL OUT OF GOVERNMENT; and that unrestrained free market private industry is the evil entity, NOT the government! Rather than simply replacing all congresspersons, would it not be far wiser to ban all funding of political campaigns by business interests, especially those who lie outside of a particular district or state? Would it not thus be far wiser to eliminate completely the corrupting influence of big money and special, self-serving interests? For THOSE are the influences in need of eradication, not just the members of Congress!