Tom Toles for September 20, 2010

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Ditto flagging. On the cartoon: Zing!!

I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one p!ssed off at these spamming maggots. At least they’re selling something. Not like the the MeetSuccess losers at Yahoo.

Very good ‘toon. Looking at what is happening now reminds us that good people can be misled by catchy phrases and slick talking politicians to actually do harm to ourselves. (Not to mention the talk show hosts like Limbaugh. It makes history, such as some dictators rise to power explainable.)

Talk show hosts on both sides are doing harm, to be sure, and catchy phrases aren’t solely an issue with one side or the other. People need to think and look up the facts before making their decisions… but that takes both “thought” and “effort,” and we don’t have time for these things, American Idol is on.

Toles’ Monday comments are here:

http://tinyurl.com/238renh

Justice Were you talking about “hope and change”? I think they were sincere although misguided.

Trouble with that, Tigger, is that the FreshNewBlood soon get taken over by the lobbyists and we’re no better off than before.

If they’re no dang good, they don’t deserve a second term in the House. Nobody deserves a second term (Prez, House, Senate, Gov, etc.) if they can’t make substantial improvements and keep their campaign promises.

^ Cleaning House is not the answer when we replace them with ones who are worse. Just because a person has not served before does not mean they are better. Most who are removed by term limits simply go to another elected job and they keep rotating around the system with all of the same lobbyists catering to them and they to the lobbyists so they will have money for their next campaign.

Going to Washington to clean out the corruption. O’Donnell allegedly paid for rent with campaign funds, citing “reimbursement.” If true, that’s going to be quite embarrassing.

^^justice

Please cite a source for your supposition. Often they switch one time but that ends it.

Term limits is one of main hopes.

I don’t understand this “lobbyists” abhorrence. A politician is supposed to listen to his constituents. How is he supposed to know what they want? Both unions and business have lobbyists. Environmental lobbyists are all over, etc.

I often hear the left say the voters are a bunch of idiots, but can’t remember off hand, the right ever saying that when they lose an election. Seems like a bad idea - all Americans may not be geniuses, but to talk about how dumb they think we all are just proves what elitist snobs they are, thinking we’re too stupid to govern ourselves.

The real failures are those who do not vote in “off year” elections, which consistently gives power to the disgruntled right. The other real “American failure” is that ALL politics has been so corrupted that far too many highly qualified, and ethical people, on both, or “all” sides, will no longer step up to serve.

The “engaged citizen” is too busy playing video games, texting, or tweeting about inane nothingness, to even see the direction the apathetic are “leading” us.

It’s also interesting how the strongest rants come from the least informed. With the increased intelligence of our robots, and decreasing intellect of the “populace”, that couch may well indeed soon be empty- permanently.

“I often hear the left say the voters are a bunch of idiots, but can’t remember off hand, the right ever saying that when they lose an election. ”

Reeeeeeeally? You should look at some of the posts here as examples. Besides, perhaps the Righties don’t call voters idiots when they lose an election. They prefer “cowardly un-American free-loading elites who hate America.” If those people were “real Americans” then they would have voted properly. And in case you want to naysay, “Real Americans” is Sarah Palin’s “code.”

Actually, there is a recent past example: the “class” of representatives who signed up for the Contract on – excuse me, with – America and followed Newt Gingrich’s marching orders. Part of the Contract included a focus on term limits (they wanted to introduce a law limiting reps to 12 consecutive years of service, or six terms), and many of the freshman representatives committed to stepping down after one or two terms. 25 Republican House members who were elected in 1994 signed the Contract. In 2006, every single one of them was running again. Here’s a list and article I googled. http://tinyurl.com/y8tg6yy

^MM

Not worthy of you. Unilateral disarmament. When it applies to all then of course the proponents will participate. You would just love for the Republicans to resign every few years.

How are facts unworthy? I kinda’ like 3 four year terms in the House (less time campaigning and cheaper) and two terms in the Senate, doing away with the current process for committee assignments- make ‘em draw from a hat, not on seniority or “favoritism”.

But as noted first time in, if we can’t get people to sign up for “lifetime potential jobs”, how will we really get “top quality” folks to take a “limited job”— oh wait a minute, as they all go out an become lobbyists at extremely high pay AFTER they leave- they DO get lifetime opportunities, to rip us off. So much for another effort at “ethical”.

Lib, Look at the politicians in the States which have term limits. Ohio is one. After a member of the Senate has to leave, he will run for representative and after that, Lt Governor, etc. They don’t go into business or get a menial job. Party doesn’t matter. The job of lobbyist is most popular.

Libertarian, not so. These guys signed up to do something by their own choice, regardless of what laws they actually managed to pass from the Contract (zero, as it happens), and they chose not to do so. They volunteered – I’m just calling them on their own choices several terms later. If they truly believed in term limits, they could live by them. I don’t believe in term limits, myself. It tends to lead to more representatives ignorant of the means by which laws can get made, and fewer effective politicians, which means people who can compromise to get things done. It’s really not a surprise that people like Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy were so effective – and could even get laws passed together. I think constraints on election efforts are more to the point, e.g., a level playing field to campaign: equal dollars’ worth of TV and radio, etc.

Pesky Chinese capitalist communists…

The campaign finance problem might be easier to attack from the “spend” side than from the “contribute” side. A start might be the ban of all political TV ads. Debates would be televised free of charge, and on every channel except those for kids. Also allow a “town hall” type broadcast, where voters ask questions and the entire unedited footage is aired.

If this runs into consitutional questions, we need a convention. I believe a CC is the only way we will ever fix campaign finance, anyway. Congress isn’t going to bite the had that feeds it millions, and the Supreme C sure isn’t helping.

Right now, we have a government full of people who got there largely because they were good at convincing other people to give them money. Sad.

That pesky constitution and really pesky Bill of Rights.