Great Comment

Found in discussion about the Michigan "re-do" primary controversy:

What makes any society civilized?
Rules

Rules that we teach our children, as we have been taught for each of us to live by and to live in our society with. Where are our role models for this? In this election, how many times have the Rules changed? For instance, both Florida and Michigan, after repeated warnings, broke the rules and put their primaries ahead of those states that remained within the rules and left their primaries on Super Tuesday. What does this SAY about our society? About Rules? That they are made to be broken? And when they are broken, we reward the breaker with a do over? Then, there are the Democratic campaigns. With each failure, the Clinton campaign has advocated and argued for changing the rules. There are many, many examples and each time, it is done to favor HER, not the Democratic Party and certainly not the Democratic Party objective which is winning back the White House.

The latest of these is Senator Clinton's refusal to allow Florida or Michigan hold caucuses (because HER campaign doesn't do as well with caucuses). IF, we operated in the same manner as we have seen repeatedly demonstrated by the Clinton campaign, in our jobs - we'd be unemployed. In a civil society, we'd be charged, convicted and jailed. It is NO wonder that people are apathetic toward Politics and don't exercise their right to vote. Perhaps our apathy is due to realizing that Politics is one of the ONLY places where playing by the rules doesn't count and playing dirty does. Now along comes another candidate that challenges us to challenge the rule breakers and says that WE CAN win in Politics by playing fairly and millions of people have stepped up to embrace that challenge. It can be boiled down to this:

Clinton: I will do it FOR you and enables the average citizen.

Obama: We can do it TOGETHER and empowers the average citizen.

In Clinton’s politics are politics as usual – rules don’t count. She believes you have to FIGHT to win. Obama’s approach is to play by the rules. He believes you have to UNITE to win and get the things done that the country needs accomplished.

Rules count and it informs us of both character and judgment of those who play by them and those who ignore them and break them. It seems that the only people in our society that HAVE to live by the Rules, is the average citizen. Big companies don’t have to live by the Rules. They hire Lobbyists to persuade our elected officials to create Rules which favor the corporations and not necessarily are our society. Our elected officials or politicians see themselves as held to a different standard or set of rules than the average citizen. We elect these officials to speak for us, the average citizens and all too often find out that they are speaking for Special Interests instead. The average citizen is being besieged on all sides.

Where were the rules to oversee the lending practices that now have many average citizens losing their homes? Now everyone is paying for the lack of oversight. Homeowners blessed enough to keep their homes, see their values plummeting and the cost of refinancing soaring despite many decreases by the Federal Reserve to the short term rate of interest. Our banking industry, which condoned, if not participated in poor lending practices are receiving help but what about the average citizen?

Where were the Rules? Who do the Rules benefit?

Our elected officials have chosen to put us and our country into TRILLIONS of dollars of debt to aid the average citizens of Iraq, not America. Yet, the average citizens of this country and their children and grandchildren, because of the Rules, will pay for this and the majority now opposes this course of action. The choice to go to war has made our Defense Contractors and Military Industrial Complex rich. And, this has not made us or our country safer. All these Rules have put our country into an increasingly severe economic downturn.

More than ever before, we are at an historical tipping point.

We, the average citizens do have a VOICE through our right to vote.
We can decide by whom WE CHOOSE to elect to serve and represent us.
We can decide who makes the Rules and who has to live by them.
Do we elect those who govern at the EXPENSE of the people?

OR

Do we elect those who govern with the CONSENT of the people?

Posted by: Dari

I'm by no means a Dummy-crap, nor am I a Refute-a-con. They're all con-artists, every last one of them. Who in their right mind would WANT to be President of this country, especially in the condition it's in now? It's like. . . buying a home that you want to fix up and getting inside and realizing that not only does it need new insulation, dry wall, plumbing, and electrical wiring, it also needs a new roof, new siding, new studs and rafters due to termite infestation, and an entirely new foundation because tree roots have infiltrated it and the house is about to fall over anyhow.

Bring in the bulldozers, already, and get it over with so we can build a new house - the right way. Our Founding Fathers gave us a great foundation to build on, but even they in their wisdom could have had no inkling that the politicians, bankers, corporateers, and money-grubbers sitting in all manner of political positions of power would have gone to the lengths they have to subvert their ideals, their plans, their dreams, their Documents founding this great Nation - and fucking it up beyond all recognition (yeah, I went there).

Bring back The Constitution!

As a resident and taxpayer of the Great State of Michigan, I am pissed that they are even considering any type of re-do. Our so-called "governor" and state legislature - ALL OF WHOM WE ELECTED - made our bed and now it's time for us to lie in it. BUT. . . not to forget how they STOLE our voice from us, which we entrusted to them, and tell them next election, "DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YA WHERE THE GOOD LORD SPLIT YA." If they're reelected, we're only showing them that we really ARE the morons they took us for.