Al:

I wholly agree "It would be nice to have a functioning government again."

I stongly disagree it is only the Dem's fault. Most in this blog know the same shanagins (spelling) the Dem's are now doing was done / is being done also by the Repub's

The Dem's are disorganized, but to lump and say none has "forth a positive proposal in years." is flatly wrong and only adds to the partisanship.

To say "All it seems to support is spending our money on giveaway programs and giving away our Social Security to the Mexican illegals" is to witness you do not follow the real news (meaning outside MSM).

Clearly the "Republicans have screwed up and could use some help." Dem's have too, but I would argue the R's have been more guilty of removing "by the people and for the people" from government, your millage may vary.

I can offer alternative views to your examples, and you'll disagree, but that's fine.

Clearly the "Democrats should help America by working together and helping each other regardless of party.", but the R's should also "help America by working together and helping each other regardless of party."

My Two Cents: Your letter expresses the exact rancor you protest.

My Motto: Neither a D nor and R be.

Al,you are right that the dems have no new ideas. Basicly since LBJ their strategy for winning elections is to confiscate the earnings of those evil rich people and buy votes with it.
The republicans are overtaxing us too,but not to the extent the democrats would,given a free hand. At least the republicans have shown some backbone with the war on terror. If I'm going to pay taxes, at least I'd like to see some of it go for the defence of the country. Given the choice of dems or reps,I'll take the lesser of the two evils.

I hate to admit this, but, this time, the parties are blameless. For far too long, we, the voters have allowed campaign ads and, yes, our pocketbooks, to influence our vote instead of seeking out the information for ourselves and making sound decisions about leadership.

Mr. Rockefeller makes some good points above, but BobbyZ, thank you, thank you, thank you, for reminding us of what we all know (on some level, even the most extreme among us) but are embarrassed or ashamed to think about and admit to ourselves.

You nailed it, my friend.

Best regards,
Tony

Yard Dog,

You have a choice besides Ds and Rs. You say the Republicans are overtaxing us, yet you're going to vote for them, or, that is, say that you approve of them overtaxing us. Why not instead vote for someone who not only would not overtax you but would abolish income and property taxes and all other direct taxes?

Yarddog, a point of yours to be expanded:

"Buying votes"

Indeed that is what it is all about. Government freebies have become so common there is an entire culture in America that demands these as a "right".

This culture votes as a block for the canditate that will give them the most "freebies".

FDR should be included as the original consipirator for establishing a welfare class dependant on favoritsim by politicians in office. LBJ solidified that into the modern ficscal quagmire and anti self-determination agenda it has become.

Make each person responsible for earning their "handout" and much of the political mess will go away.

The Dems are doing the same thing today that the Repubs did in the 90's when Dole and Gingrich were around.

As a former Republican, now independent I feel that both parties are simply after power. It is no longer a government that looks out for the best interest of the citizens...it is the Repubs AND Dems who cower to special interest groups on both sides of the fence.

I believe most Americans are "middle of the road" in their political views. But yet we continue to elect people from both the far right and the far left.

Al, what you learned in school was right...government is supposed to be 'of the people, by the people and for the people'. The problem with today's government is that the people factor has been removed...gone...ka-put!

We need to get that way of life back people. Because if we continue on this road we are on, America will resemble the USSR from the late 80's and early ninety's.

Kind of off subject, but yesterday someone posted that the US would win a nuclear attack against us. There was a movie in the 80's called 'The Day After' I think. It is worth watching again. It proves that NOBODY wins a nuclear attack.

If we don't all start working together, I really feel that our way of life will be gone. Maybe not in 10 or 20 years...but definitely in our children's lifetime.

Hugh, I assume you are referring to corporate welfare, you know the ones who give millions of dollars to the repubs so that they can buy your vote.

It is easy to sit back and complain rather than be involved by voting and then letting your representatives know how you feel about issues. This has been the major problem with the citizens of our country. Too busy to vote or don't care enough. The only way to change things is to change politicians like the oil in your car--often.

yellowdog, I believe he is referring to the illegal actions of the Democrats in buying votes. Cartons of cigarettes to winos to vote Dem, handouts and payouts to poor people before they bus them to the polls to vote Dem, etc. Voter registration buses to take poor people to the polls to vote Dem, massive Democratic presence at black churches to sell their giveaway programs and buy votes, etc.
Or maybe he's talking about the welfare-vote buying program which is the staple of the Democratic party. "Vote for us or the Republicans will take away your free money." Lyndon Johnson's poverty programs were blatant, sham operations to make the poor dependent on the government for subsistence, hence dependent on Dems to keep them in free money, housing, and food. The Dems made slaves of the poor in our country, as surely as if they'd hooked them on heroin.
Democrats can't get support for their policies or platforms, so they buy votes instead. It's the only way they can get any support in this age of enlightened voters.
Thank goodness there's enough voters with conscious in our country to keep the right party in power.

Man, I don't like how you can't cut-n-paste with this new format.

Killian, do you know of documentation of the Dem actions you mentioned above, especially in regards to the cigarette giveaway and other items in your first paragraph?

Bobbyz, you rock my man! It is our responsibility to be informed and to look past all the campaign propaganda, the fear mongering, the corporate influence and choose candidates on their ability to govern and their willingness to uphold the values that made this country great.

It is time for the voters to be informed. Let's take back the Country from those who would make our land into a theocracy instead of the democracy our foreparents intended.

"I would rather be governed by a competent Turk than an incompetent Christian." --Martin Luther

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm

Killian, my guess is when you refference "the poor" you really mean the blacks. You sound like a typical southern racist republican to me. Your mentioning of LBJ gives you away as a bigot. You southern republican racists (now called neo-cons)were originally called Goldwater repubs before that you were called dixiecrats. The democratic party is much better off without you former souther dems. Better you take your religion and your hatred where it is truly appreciated the GOP. You probably think of youself as a christian, I am not christian and know little about it but if it includes letting the poor go hungry and naked then I'm glad I'm not christian.

Yellow dog-

it is ok to help people who are down on their luck. Everyone hits bad times at some point in their lives. What I interpret Killian as saying is that it isn't ok to have people living their lives off of the handout. I don't care what a person's color, religion, general beliefs are. If they need help, I think the government should help...for a while. But if a person has been living on welfare for a while and is not making an effort to get ahead...then I say why should we continue to help them?

You may call me a racist as well...I have definitely been called worse...but I don't believe in "special rights" as I have stated numerous times. And if people 'believe' the government owes them something, then that is a special right, and I do not want my tax dollars going to that!

Dough,
Buy a MAC it is easy to cut and paste.
Al, you said "I am perplexed now since one of the parties -- the Democratic Party -- has not put forth a positive proposal in years. All it seems to support is spending our money on giveaway programs and giving away our Social Security to the Mexican illegals."
Wait until the Medicare Prescription program kicks in. You will not believe the cost of it,NO CHILD left behind,letting illegals in the country(Bush's idea) just to name a few, national debt is at criminal levels, and all brought to you via the Republicans and G. Bush. People should open their eyes and look around and see what is happening and not base their thoughts and conclusions on what Rush (The Drug Man)Lemba(sp) and other talk show host tells them.

Killian, You know you have spoken the truth when you are ganged up on by the libs. LBJ and his "war on poverty" has done nothing to aleviate poverty. One could make the argument that in fact it has worsened the problem. More than 1 trillion dollars has been confiscated from the producers and turned over to the non producers in this country since the war on producers began.
I would support a law stating that no one on the government dole be allowed to vote. This would stop the vote buying in it's tracks. Then we would see how truly compasionate and caring these liberal politicans really are.

Gaytony,

You mentioned that the Ds and Rs cower to special-interest groups. The Democrat Party and the Republican Party are special-interest groups! Political parties are private organizations, no different from the ACLU and the NRA. Unfortunately, two special-interest groups have hijacked the government and control it.

The Libertarian Party exists reluctantly as an organization. We don't exist because we believe we should but because the Demopublicans have rigged the elections so that you can only get on the ballot if you belong to a private special-interest group. Since we refuse to join them and since we can't be on the ballot as Independents, we decided to try to play their game and work within the system and go ahead and form as a Party. Oh, you can get on the ballot as an independent...if you get over 100,000 signatures. But for all of us who want to run, that would mean that each of us would have to get 100,000 for each of us to get on the ballot, whereas if we form as a Party, we only need 100,000 altogether. Don't take that word "only" lightly though. It's almost impossible to get 100,000 a single time. It takes thousands of man-hours and a ton of money.

So you see what's wrong with this picture. You can't just decide to run for office and get on the ballot, even though the state Constitution guarantees that anyone eligible to vote is eligible to hold office. Instead, you must belong to a certain private special-interest group...unless you're rich, basically. And if you're not one of the two private special-interest groups already in power, you only get on the ballot after you've jumped through all kinds of hoops and spent loads of money, which means by the time you get on the ballot, you have very little time to campaign, which means you'll almost always lose, which means the two private special-interest groups in power will maintain their power, which is the true reason why political parties exist.

But if you'll ever elect us Libertarians, we would repeal all laws which stop third parties from getting on the ballot. We'll stop putting a person's party affiliation on the ballots. We'll stop asking people which party they belong to when they register to vote. And then we'll have much better government.

One day we will have a President with high morals. Haven't had one in a while. Both Bush and Clinton are[were] crooks, liars and self serving.
Bush doesn't care about our soldiers fighting a war overseas but Clinton cared less about bombing an asprin factory.

So, we stay away from the liar Republicans and the crooked Democrats and who do we have? answer: an unelectable 3rd party that struggles for less than 1% of popular vote. That party is like a Mac. Probably works great, but is it really worth the hassle to buy one?

So with that said, we really have a choice of 2 parties and have to pick the lesser of 2 evils.

Clintons presidency: (besides Monica) longest economic boom in US history, enheriting a deficit from Bush and turning it into a 500+Billion budget surplus, few deaths due to terrorist attack.

Bushs presidency: (so far) turning a 500+Billion surplus into a huge deficit, economic stagnation, over 3,000 deaths due to terrorist attack.

The lesser of two evils seems easy to see here:Democrat.

"Clinton's presidency inheriting a deficit and turning it into a $500 billion surplus". Never happened. Clinton's cronies had PROJECTED a $500B surplus IF they kept the current spending level. This was a result of,by the way,the largest tax increase in history."Few deaths due to terrorist attacks". Do you really believe that the terrorists were waiting on Bush to be elected to strike the world trade center? If so,it was the biggest mistake they could have made. If Clinton were in office on 9/11/01 we would still be awaiting the UN to decide the best course of action.
"Bush's presidency:turning a $500b surplus into a defict". Again,no such surplus exisited."Economic stagnation". Home ownership (even among minorities) are at an all time high. Lowest intrest rates in history."Over 3,000 deaths due to terrorist attacks". This one is true.(the only one) Again they picked the wrong president if that was what they were waiting on. Insted of turning our national security to the embezzler at the UN,he took on the terrorists head on.

yard dog,
although Clinton did project a huge surplus than never materialized, when he left office there was a surpluss non-the-less.

Bush can't get our country back in the green even by (adjusting for inflation) cutting our defense budget by 17%. Wow, this guy just can't manage money, but what the heck, it isn't his!

I blame Bush for 9/11 because of the warnings he received but never read. "Terrorists Determined to Strike Inside the US" The title of a memo Bush failed to take seriously.
That title always upsets Republicans. That one and "My Pet Goat."

Brian Harper,you blame Bush for 9/11 because of the warnings he received:"Terrorists determined to strike inside the US"? If Bush had tried to do ANYTHING prior to 9/11 you libs,backed by the aclu,of course,would have screamed bloody murder and you know it. Hell, I can tell you right now: Terrorists are determined to strike AGAIN inside the US. What are you going to do about it? Nothing except blame Bush for not being prepared.
No name calling upsets me. I stopped that in the 6th grade.

Brian Harper,

Why would it be a hassle to "buy" a third party, especially if it will work great?

yellowdog, nice try at avoiding the issue by spinning off into religion and racist behavior.
The truth hurts, don't it?

Paul:

I totally agree " ... the Ds and Rs cower to special-interest groups. Unfortunately, two special-interest groups have hijacked the government and control it."