Summations Only

I'm sure that many of the people doing occupy wall street are using time off from work including vacation or other paid leave. In that case it might be literally true that the employer is paying the employee while he protests. Of course nobody should accuse the employer of supporting the employee's politics just because the employer does not terminate the employee on vacation.I'm not surprised that somebody is reporting that OWS is being financed by left-leaning companies. I'm just surprised that anyone older than eight would believe such reporting without doing some basic fact checking. Of course some posters have well deserved reputations for forming or confirming their beliefs in exactly that way.I hereby retract all of the mouthing off I've ever done about the current generation being politically passive. Hopefully OWS doesn't produce a Kent state type 'incident'.

For anyone whose knee jerk reaction is to say that this is not slavery, let me note that the 13th Amendment specifically allows enslaving people as punishment for crimes. This is in fact, constitutionally allowed, legal, slavery. I'm sure that makes the practice more palatable in some circles.

That makes sense, but in practice we've often see the Senate behaving more statesman-like and pushing far more reasonable legislation than does the rabble in the House. There are some problems with the Senate, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe that giving more power to the House of Representatives would be a great idea.I might support changes to make government democratic, but I'd likely want a bill of rights about double the size of the current ten amendments.

I suspect that I can provide a counterexample for every example that you can provide.Yes it is true that the Senate has rules that often prevent anything from getting done, while the HR operates more democratically in that respect. But the short election cycles in the House seem to lead to constant showboating, pandering, and electioneering and little incentive to compromise. Yes they did. But I seem to recall that the Senate got on board with the health care bill much more quickly than did the House. I would suggest that the problem with the Senate has generally not been that the guy from Montana has undue influence. The problems are more often caused by the Senate rules that allow a minority of Senators to obstruct legislation that would easily pass.

I never said there was a House filibuster. I am not the idiot you suppose.The House votes on bills that the majority party and the House speaker allow to come to the floor. The majority party can refuse to entertain a vote on bills that are not supported by the majority of its party, despite the fact that the bills might have bipartisan support.In the House this means that small portions of the majority party, quite often the extremist, can and do hold up legislation.

Because the states are sovereign governing bodies that share the responsibility for governing with the federal government. And in fact the states have the bulk of the 'police' powers, with the federal government having only the enumerated powers in the constitution. The states have their own set of law, their own interests, and it is the heart of federalism that the states be separate democracy laboratories not subject to the will of the other states, at least to the extent that being left alone does not contravene the federal constitution.Rhode Island has no lesser interest then California and Florida in protect its own state interests. It makes sense that there is at least some provision in government that reflects that. Of course, one might well argue that dedicating an entire legislative body for that purpose introduces more negative than positive.

And despite their concerns, they decided to do include the Senate with equal state representation anyway for perfectly understandable reasons. I sincerely doubt that 3/4 of the states would agree to undo it now. Perhaps Jar isn't an idiot.

Surely there is a more compelling example than this. Or did I miss some sarcasm.

Yes more things come up for a vote in the HofR, but the question is whether the House is a place of compromises that allow legislation to pass. Much of voting that takes place is just political theater that is not intended to accomplish anything. Bills are passed in the House with little to no bipartisan support with the full knowledge that they have no chance of passing in the Senate. Bills are brought to a vote with poison pen provisions that are designed to kill all support by one party on another.For example, in the debt ceiling crisis, the House refuses to pass a bill in time to avert a hit to the US credit rating. Instead of entertaining any kind of compromise bill, and pandering instead to the Tea Party, the House insists on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that Republicans know will never be get out of the Senate. Were compromises on the table? Yes, but apparently embarrassing the President was a lot more important than reaching any meaningful compromise.You claim that I cannot cite any counter examples. Technically you are right as you have so far declined my invitation to cite any examples. So, tell me about the great compromise legislation passed in the House this session. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I can blame the House for using the Senate as cover for a symbolic, time wasting vote, which is what I believe was going on with the balanced budget amendment. The House bill wouldn't have passed in the Senate even if the Senate didn't have a filibuster, and in any event, the House knew that the president would veto it. I can agree with that somewhat.The problem with your hypo is that bills which are 50/50 ideological splits between all House members simply are not the rule. In the house, Bills which are not suitable to the majority of the majority aren't even placed on the agenda. Yes the bills are compromises, but they are compromises within a relatively narrow range of ideas.

I don't believe so. Being informed well enough to make good decisions is a full time job, and most people don't have the time to be informed about everything important. Most people today don't have an informed opinion about climate change.Also, in many cases, the opinion of one expert scientist/economist/engineer is worth more than the opinion of any number of people who form opinions based on their personal world view.Direct government is great for picking the color of the flowers on the White House lawn, or whether some street in VA ought to be named after Jefferson Davis. But for complicated issues where the outcome makes a difference, I think we are better served by paying the right people to make informed decisions if we aren't going to inform ourselves.

When the straight man says lines like this, the comedian half of the team is superfluous. The audience is already doubled over.

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Can I not choose to smoke and drink and check out at 72 with a massive heart attack? Wisdom and intelligence are just as relative as everything else. That is the whole strength of democracy.

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Not exactly a strength as I see it. Why would the fact that people are uninformed and make bad choices depress you if you think letting the majority drag the planet into the abyss is an okay outcome?

Representative government gives you a say in what is going on. If direct democracy results in premature death for all of us due to self-indulgent excess (your example), then what advantage does it have over a representative system.