Jack Abramoff

[Top Wop]

Bunch of Quitters.

I claim spank

Why is it so important to you that you are the winner of some conversation?

[Zuruck]

Nice to see that both parties are trying to pass \"ethics\" bills. Hmmm...since when did these parties know anything about ethics...you see what is stalling it? The outlawing of pork for special interest groups...sort of like how McCain wanted campaign finance reform as long as he still got his cut. These people make me sick...why isn't this stuff on the front page? I don't even think it's a headline anymore. Saddening.

[Ferno]

zur, you already know the answer to that question.

[Gooberman]

Sorry Birds, been hella^2 busy working/graduate applications. Think Im done with those as I just got accepted to where I want to go. Hopefully I can think/write something up this weekend.

[Birdseye]

Bunch of Quitters.

I claim spank

Why is it so important to you that you are the winner of some conversation?

It's not, I was kidding. Goob knows me, so I can joke with him like that. Just friendly egging on. I respect his viewpoint and am very interested to hear his response.

[CUDA]

dont know how I missed this earlier.

So if corruption is the status quo, just leave it alone huh Cuda? Man, even in a topic like this, your bias is front and center.

Please Zurich again enlighten us with another of your pearls of wisdom. how is it by my saying something like.

things is he can accuse all he wants, its going to be damn hard to prove bribery in ANY case, besides is there any here that is naieve enough to think the this doesnt happen in both parties regularly? Politics are corrupt they have always been and will always be.

the only one here that is baised Zurich is you, it has shown its face in another thread, and now it rears its ugly head in this one. you are so blinded by your hate for what I stand for that you cannot see anything but that hate. sad really

maybe you should listen to En vogue

free your mind and the rest will follow, be color blind, dont be so shallow

[Gooberman]

It's not, I was kidding. Goob knows me, so I can joke with him like that. Just friendly egging on. I respect his viewpoint and am very interested to hear his response.

ya, that, and well, you know I am way too arrogant to let you get away with calling spank

Hmm, just because a founding father says something, doesn't mean it necessarily carries weight with me. I agree with the founding father, but I'm trying to operate realistically, although you've stated clearly that we are actually arguing about the realistic accomplishment of both ideas. I don't accept an appeal to authority as an argument that outlines how dissolving all the parties will be easier than what I have stated.

I agree, an appeal to authority is probably the weakest solo argument one could make for any case. I guess my only way out is to try and convince you that this is one hell of an appeal. These guys really were brilliant when it came to politics. Most of the arguments laid out against political parties can be seen daily in Washington. The party really is more important then the nation. I seriously think I could write a computer program that could do a comparable recreation of the job many of our representatives do in Washington.

Criticism of President()
If democrat then support claim
Else attack the source;

This can be run regardless of if we are talking about the war in Iraq or what Bush had for dinner. For too many representatives you could go straight down the list issue by issue and write if-then statements for each elected representative and end up with pretty much what we have today.

I don't see a third party ever denting this. In fact it could have the opposite effect of forcing each party member to become even more inline with the party’s message.

At the grass roots level your analogy is correct: To abolish the US of parties, we'd have to convince people one by one. But in my solution I think we can make a big impact with only a few percentage of votes, wherareas to move to a no party system would require an amendment to the constitution. This would require a LOT more support than I'm proposing:

Your right, it would require something near civil-rights movement. In fact this is a good analogy. Let me run with this; I've read a lot of sociologists who note that kids are not inherently racists, and so they jump to the conclusion that the main source of racism is being taught from outsiders. I disagree; I think racism develops as soon as a child’s protection becomes his own responsibility. That is when he starts looking for groups that are more like his. The point being, that through the civil rights movement most Americans have become able to deconstruct this notion, based on the agreement that \"racism\" is inherently bad. We have become able to kill our own racism so to speak. The same would have to become true for political parties. There would have to be a large scale movement where we realized that these groups that we have formed are inherently bad. These parties really are serving themselves and not the nation.

(can you tell that I would much rather argue with you about how parties are bad? )

I don’t have a plan to set this off. My plan is still basically your plan; convince people to become independent one by one, starting with myself.

I think you'd still find people falling into polarized camps on talk shows

Probably. I’ve come to really hate those ‘cross fire’/’hannity&colmes’ shows to no end. I don’t have an answer for this. I think those shows bare a good deal of the responsibility for this nation becoming so divided. When you watch them you have to pick a side/hero just to avoid having both sides call you an idiot. Debate doesn’t need to be fiery, it needs to be informed.

However, I don’t believe the average person is this polarized. Is there anything about loving the 2nd amendment that makes you hate abortion? Is there anything about wanting more money for education that makes one hate the death penalty? These issues aren’t binded by some common philosophy. So there has to be something else tying them together. Imo, what binds them is just the political party.

Well, I hope I have utterly convinced you that I am still in the process of thinking this through. It just seems like the right direction.

[Zuruck]

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/p ... 8081.shtml

I'm not really surprised by this, what surprises me is the White House stating that Bush didn't even know him. Seems they could have avoided a lot more if they would have pulled the approach the others are saying, \"we didn't know he was doing this\". Instead, they act stupid and now look stupid because everyone knows now that Bush indeed knew Abramoff, he was on his transition team.

[Lothar]

interesting article...

Does anyone know how large Bush's \"transition team\" was and how directly connected to him it was? If you're in Bush's cabinet, he most definitely knows you. If you worked on his campaign, chances are, he doesn't (there were thousands of campaign workers per state.) Where does the \"transition team\" fit in to all of this?

[Zuruck]

I'm not sure, but one would think that unlike campaign teams in every state, there is one transition teams that receives info from him. Maybe not though. Don't you think it would have been smart to just pull what the other congressmen are pulling and act stupid to the whole thing? Why is Rove denying that they knew each other? Seems like he's starting a fire that didn't have to be ignited at all. Doesn't seem like the usual Rove, normally he's on the button with that crap.

[CUDA]

I guess the question would be. has anyone on the other side immplied that he knew Bush? I kinda stopped following this story, so I'm really just skimming

[Zuruck]

I don't think so Cuda. Democrats have been implicated as well, but not to the levels of the Republicans. This man owned Delay, Ney, and many others I would bet, how far did the rabbit hole go? Maybe all the way down Pennsylvania avenue.