There goes the filibuster

[ZonieDiver]

I hope the lack of seniority for "Spectre" is sufficient for whomever the Republicans run against him in 2010 (looks as if it could be Ridge at this moment) to defeat him. Almost anyone would be an improvement.

[Sigaba]

IMHO, the problems with today's political system center around we the people.

More and more, we're clustering around one or two core issues that we use as litmus tests to vet candidates. As long as these tests are passed (or failed) we dismiss the rest of the candidate/office holder's track record.

This clustering is at variance with the Madison's vision (laid out in Federalist number 10, available here) of shifting alliances preventing factions from taking root and exercising a tyranny of either a majority or a minority.

We're losing sight of one of the key qualifications the founders wanted elected legislators to have: disinterestedness (link for previously cited source).

Originally Posted by Defender968

....America is also riddled with a great many victim minded, lazy, immoral, self-centered, law breaking people who's only goal is to get by, or get ahead if the government will do it for them. These people are only out for what is best for themselves, not what is best for the country, worse yet they are easily swayed by a clever marketing campaigns.

To what extent is this view of the rank and file in accord with the founders? As originally envisioned, the Constitution disenfranchised wide swaths of the American population and, it can be argued, fundamentally reshaped the political domain of not a few states. My point here is that, in some respects, the issues we confront today are nothing new.

Originally Posted by KClapp

Those statements demonstrate an ignorance of how our system works. Elections are bought, sold, and stolen in this nation and to ignore that fact is pure naivete.

FWIW, I don't agree with all of AFCHIC's points (although those points are far and few between), but I'm of the personal opinion that the only thing that exceeds her intellectual courage is the depth of her knowledge.

I most respectfully disagree with your assessment of her capabilities.

Originally Posted by KClapp

The statement about Congress not being willing to implement term limits demonstrates, in no uncertain terms, the true failure of this nation and it's civilian leadership.....Because some of us aren't willing to compromise our ideals and beliefs to that extent, even if the precious majority want it. I believe we have a historical precedent, with the Civil War

I believe that it is a bit of an overstatement to say that America is a failure or that the civilian political leadership has failed.

The level of discontent expressed in such a statement is painfully reminiscent of the comments exchanged among army officers during the American Gilded Age. This sensibility, known as "Uptonian despair" among the handful of historians who have this dynamic in depth , was disastrous to its two most vocal proponents William Sherman and Emory Upton. (Upton blew his brains out.) It undermined the military effectiveness of the army until World War II, and it poisons civil-military relations between American society and the army to this day.

We civilians may be screw ups in the eyes of some sheep dogs. Yet expressing contempt for us may not be a sustainable course of action when it comes to convincing us that we're doing wrong by you.

It isn't by accident that one of the most beloved and economically successful stories in the history of American mass popular culture is about a navy and not an army (link).