Who cares what the People think?

Now now @ETpro, just calm down a little bit. Your have to remember that when a politician says The People it means the lobbyist with lots of money.

Best recent example is all the politicians that said the people of their state didn’t want background checks for gun purchases, even though the polls were overwhelming in favor of that. The “people” in that case were gun manufacturers and the NRA.

We all know this and have for a long time, though. I’d be interested to hear how we, as the people, can change that because no one seems to have any ideas.

De Tocqueville noted that Americans seem incapable of deferring to people of superior intelligence and talent (the “elites” that attract so much scorn these days). He said that such people would end up either in academia or business, but that the nature of our political system would keep them out of politics. Our insistence on the importance of the opinion of the average person, he thought, would doom us to mediocrity.

@thorninmud I can defer, but I have to trust first.

@thorninmud He nailed that one.

Unfortunately (for America anyway), the Politicians do not care what the public thinks (or does not think) – the Politicians tend to care about what the Lobbyists want them to do. And as long as there is NOT an amendment to our constitution to abolish the Supreme Court ruling that “Corporations Are People”, these corporations will continue to subvert our election processes by pouring money to the candidate that is willing to bend to their wishes.

Look what happened with the universal healthcare debate: if you set out to guarantee universal coverage at a minimum cost and administrative burden (our purported goal), then a single-payer system is the undisputed choice.

But we never even put that option out there. Why? The average person has no grasp at all of the complexities of the healthcare system, but we all depend on it. If you propose a major overhaul to that system, people will panic. They won’t be able to understand the new system any better than they understood the old; they’ll just know that something important is being messed with.

Single-payer would have been a big change. It would have cut insurance companies out as middlemen. It would have ended whimsical pricing practices. A lot of people would have had to do things differently. It doesn’t matter how great an idea it is, or how many experts support it; it’s unthinkable in our system because it’s too far a stretch for the average imagination.

So instead we ended up with a plan that’s still hard to understand and has been emasculated into a parody of universal healthcare. And it still has half the country on a war footing.

This is how mediocrity happens. We insist on upsetting as few constituents as possible, then end up with ineffectual policy, which further convinces us that the government can’t do anything right. Big ideas have become impossible.

I prefer a political leader who will advocate for policies that can be made into policy or law that will benefit the population they represent, rather than promoting only policies demanded by the segment of their district who voted for them. Why? Elected officicials represent everyone in their district and sometimes what some subset demands may be foolish, ineffective, unfair or simply impossible to legally implement on account of factors those demanding it may simply not understand. We should be electing representatives who can think clearly and act as wise and responsible leaders, rather than party hacks.

@KNOWITALL “I’d be interested to hear how we, as the people, can change that because no one seems to have any ideas.”

The best question to ask. Fear not, for as I have previously proclaimed, Jesus has returned. The era of Truth is rapidly upon us… hee hee!

Ok ok for all you Jesus haters out there… take the word “Jesus” out of the equation if it makes you feel better. Go ahead. He won’t mind. It’s not about what we call him. It’s about what he actually is… The Truth, The Way, and The Life… found in the Clouds of Heaven”.

I offer you The former Mayor of San Francisco, and California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom interviewed on PRI yesterday afternoon by Tavis Smiley. Governor Newsom explains his plan to empower citizens to reclaim government with Cloud driven solutions. Check out his new book Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government. He suggest more openness and transparency… in a way that gives the information to the public, rather than keeping knowledge secret for the elite few. He believes government hoarding information is a bad thing for society. The Crowd and the Cloud is all we need. Government is going to be changing very soon. Hold on to your seat, because those in power may not go out lightly.

Support Citizenville at every opportunity. Newsom has gained the support of dozens of municipalities all over the country and Mayor Nutter (head of the US conference of Mayors) is in full support to send the message further. Call your local Mayor and suggest (demand) they become a member of Newsom Citizenville challenge.

Newsom’s Citizenville is eerily similar to the epic success of TED Prize Winner Dr. Larry Brilliant, who has developed InSTEDD to eradicate disease and pandemic throughout the world. Basically, free the Cloud Info to the public, and together we can accomplish much more than any government ever has. The government, as it turns out, has stood barrier between the people and the truth. Those days are coming to an end very soon.

Others of note are awakening too. Look to Tom Shadyac and his Life’s Operating Manual for advice how to make it through the transition from secrecy to transparency. Or just listen to his four hour interview with John Wells. Shadyac is the successful and very rich director of many Hollywood blockbuster movies. He’s turned his back on the materialistic world, and wants to share his awakenings.

Things are changing fast folks. Hold on to your seat. Seek out and support those who promote free information sharing with cloud based crowd solutions. We’re about to save ourselves.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Wild man! :)

In the beginning was the Word. The people shall have it.

If often takes a long time for the people to bring about change, but it does happen. Your examples prove that change can occur. Even when those examples were prominent, the majority of people were not in favor, but needed prodding to speak up, i.e. vote.

Polling is bullshit often funded by people seeking certain results. They use misleading questions and choices to choose from to get their desired results.

The more politicians talk the more I feel like the government can just go fuck itself.

This is all too good. You all know that when I ask a question, I generally like to address each response individually. When responses drop off, I will do that. But till then, great answers to each of you and thanks for your insight. I refuse to endorse or dispute individual answers and thus inhibit further input. But rest assured I am reading your replies. Thank you to one and all.

Our hunter-gatherer brains make us care. For more than 100,000 years we couldn’t survive if we didn’t.

\\\\widespread cynicism and apathy serves to persuade politicians that they are free to decide how the country should be run and what laws are required. As hard as it is, if you want a say in the direction your country is moving you have to get involved in the process and work with like-minded people to bring about the changes you believe in. If you don’t, then you deserved what you get and you have no right to complain.

@thorninmud The French have always been a lot more unconstrained in their vision of what man could be than what the majority here in the US have been.

@rojo The French have a strong intellectual tradition, where we have a strong anti-intellectual tradition. French intellectuals frequently rise to the same level of acclaim that we accord star athletes in our culture. They prize their great thinkers; we don’t even know who ours are.

It would be almost unthinkable for a French politician to try to project a folksy image. The French don’t want their leaders to be “just plain folks”; they want to elect someone who knows better than they do. Not so here. The average American has a surprisingly high confidence in his/her ability to grasp the issues, so they want politicians who validate their homespun wisdom, and get all suspicious if anyone tries to make the issues sound complex and difficult.