Thread: The 2010 Republicans

Originally Posted by flame

I consider a competitive market, a real job.

The job market for law professors at top law schools is certainly competitive, so I assume that by "competitive market," you mean a field that's subject to market pressures and economic competition. By your criteria then, if I'm correct, firemen, police officers and military personal are also all out.

Originally Posted by flame

I consider a competitive market, a real job.

The problem is we need representatives taking care of the american people. I feel we have so many people seeking power that they become educated in the law so they can use it to gain power. The power should rest with the people, if a union boss(as much as I dislike unions) can represent the vast majority of the people effectively, and bears their interests, then elect him. My problem is career politicians. We need people that are out in the market places of the people they represent. How many of the people on the ballot for congress have experience in international law, tax law, the middle east? They are told by lobbyist what to think and how to vote. Many laws are written by lawyers of companies lobbying congress. It may be a round about way but thats what is running our country. I need representatives that represent the interests of Texas. Immigration, oil, ranching, and technology, are important economies in Texas. If my representative doesnt understand any of these, he's not beneficial.

International law, man that cracks me up, if we worried more about our own country we might have something.

I mean to take nothing away from lawyers, they have their place. I just want someone who better represents me and my state. I think we have made things so technical, that the average citizen has no idea whats going on and thats not right. It seems that some support making it more technical, I dont feel the federal govt needs to get as deep into issues as they do.

The problem you have isn't with the individuals, it's with the system. No matter who is in power, whether it is the current members of Congress or regular business people, both are going to face lobbyists and have others write laws. The current difference is members of Congress are usually educated in law or similar background, whereas regular business people aren't. Just like I'd rather have a doctor fresh out of medical school to treat me instad of a random person off the street, I'd rather have educated people run the government.

I am not arguing against you on this because I necessarily disagree with you, though, but because I feel you are focusing your disdain on the wrong thing. I agree that Congress is not very representative now and there is quite a bit of corruption, but you should be blaming our system that allows it. It is outdated and focuses power in individuals instead of groups. You can yell and scream about the current people in Congress right now all you want, but the problems will manifest with whoever you put in there, even regular people off the street. We need to fundamentally alter our Congress, but the only way that will happen is with Congress passing and amendment to the Constitution and having the states ratify it. Good luck getting enough people in Congress to agree to give up their power, though.

I agree with you Flame. Part of the problem with our system and third parties is that, unless the third party is a true cenrist, then people who vote for the third party are "taking votes away" from one of the main candidates. It becomes a questions of the lesser of two evils. It's one advantage (there are disadvantages) of the Parliamentary system in many other countries, where if your party gets x% of the votes, then you get x% of the seats. This allows for many smaller parties to have some representation, instead of biggest takes all, as we have here. That way, if the Libertarians took 5% of the votes, and ht Republicans had 46%, then they could still have a majority where they agreed, but the libertarians wouldn't have some power to pull their votes.

It has another big advantage of not necessarily binding unrelated issues into one group. For example, what if you're socially liberal but economically conservative? Currently, neither party really supports your stance, but you kind of have to pick one. In the parliamentary system, you could have a party that sided with the Democrats on social issues and the Republicans on economic issues. Of course, then you don't have state-by-state representation, and smaller states may be even less well-represented.