1st. The state is us, the citizens.
2nd. The government is the state government, an employee of the state, established by the state and for the state. The state government owns no property and has no authority, it only manages our public assets, and acts in our authority.

Those things you mention were changed by protest.
People exercising their 1st amendment right to assemble and petition the government, assembled, and were a royal PITA to a lot of other people.
In time, that forced the hand of those who had been elected to placate those that protested, to get rid of the nuisance.

Since then, the right to assemble has been 'interpreted' as a secondary right, and the right to petition the government is the primary.
This empowered the government to require permits for protests, and subsequently just remove protesters.
Now you can only write a letter asking for change. The right to petition has basically been neutered, by removing the one effective method of coercion that the state [common man] had over the government.

Elections are not democracy.
How you come up with your representative is irrelevant.
Elected, appointed, born, whatever. It's absolutely irrelevant.

Democracy = People's rule.
Representative democracy = People's rule by a representative 3rd party.

The representative is not a leader.
He is an agent obligated to represent (i.e. listen to and obey) his constituents.

So long as a representative is actively representing, then he is executing his office, then the state has democracy.

If the representative goes off and does what he wants, and ignores what the state wants, then the state has no democracy.

We in the U.S. have no "leaders".
We the people are the leaders.
The people we elect are employed by us to represent us, in a government of our creation.

Whether or not the people in government care to do their jobs or not, is a separate issue.

Right now, someone will get elected. Even if they only voted for themselves.
There is no requirement to have a positive rating from the people, in order to get elected.
Regardless who gets elected, they all get paid by the same lobbyists, and pander to the same financial interests.
The only way you get change for the common man, is when it incidentally aligns with what's good for the entrenched interests.

eg. If Obamacare works out in the end. Great. If not, oh well, another 'meh' program that in the end just provides state unemployment labor. Whatever.
Either way, it didn't happen for a love of the common man and his health. It happened because insurance companies were lobbying for it.





I would like to add that "the other" is generally a really poor propaganda based impression.
Every country on earth, it's not as great their media says it is, and it's not as bad as other's media says it is.

Here a cop will shoot a little old lady half a dozen times for picking a fight with a random other person (this just happened locally).
In a crap ton of ex-soviet countries that people love to grimace about 'how bad it is', you can argue with the cops till they let you go. And you don't have to assume they will beat you to a pulp for it.

People's impression of "police state" is what they imagine from movies. A 1984 caricature. But that's not what a police state look like in reality.
It's a place that's generally normal, unimposing, and only time to time when you step on the wrong person's toes, you end up 'going away for a while'.

Here in the U.S., 1 in 18 men is in jail or on parole.
Good luck finding another country that even comes close.
The policing is out of control. Way too much 'getting tough' on irrelevant things that shouldn't even be a bother, let alone be considered crimes.

-scheherazade

Christ, you might want to look away starting around 5:05. Disfigured old lady groin is not something you'll forget today. Interesting story though.

*promote Lou Reed's old lady's sage observations and the death of satanic media who offer-up hacks like lady gaga and miley cyrus as talent, and NBC, BBC, (insert acronym here) as information relative to meaning.

As dumb as this sounds, something seems radically fake about the little girl, but the old lady seems real. It's actually making me wonder if they de-aged the old woman.

Well, get the pitchforks then! What are you waiting for?

Seriously, I'd rather be upset about the british government that does inacceptable things right now than an overpaid old lady who is only there for show. Unnecessary? Sure. Profiting from some very horrible history? Certainly. But which country is without skeletons in their closet? They all have bloodstains on their oh-so-white wests.
The only thing one should be mad about is the denial of those past crimes.

That...

That sounds AWESOME.

And you are of course, completely right. I have played MANY violent games, and I have read MANY violent books, and I have listened to MANY violent songs.

And I'm still not a violent person. In fact, the last time I did anything that could even be considered close to violent was when some preppy douchebag was standing in the very middle of the aisle in a tram and ignoring all the other passengers, even little old ladies, who awkwardly had to squeeze past this greedy asshole when he could easily have moved out the way. I walked past him to step off the tram, and as I did so, I bumped him out of the way with my shoulder.

OMG SO VIOLENT RIGHT!?!? I have clearly been ruined forever.

And really, despite all the violent imagery I've taken in through all these different mediums, I haven't killed even a single person. In fact, I haven't even hit anybody since I was something like eleven years old, despite the fact that I have killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people and assorted animals and mythical beasts during that time.

Pretty cool setup.
Yeah it helped the guy was cute, but the whole Q & A followed by the 'rain' just coming was pretty awesome.
I especially love he threw that old lady some love.

I love that they've got names of a couple of women born in the 1930s -- like little old ladies dancing for their supper.

Nothing works, except replacing your old lady with a nice new 18 year old college freshman.

And an old lady!

@lantern53
navy here.

and i agree.actions have consequences.
manning knew that as did daniel ellisberg and a litany of other people who revealed classified information but they did it anyways because they felt the truth should be known.
that the truth was more important than their own safety and security.

this is why i use the term "courage".
to act on ones own sense of morality and conscience KNOWING the full weight of an entire government will be pressing down on you when it all comes out.

the days of woodward and bernstein are gone i think.i could be wrong but i read the governments reaction as a strong signal to those who would seek to undermine its absolute authority.
see:the godfather principle

reporters being wiretapped and emails and phone records confiscated.
whistleblower status has been denied more than any other time in americas history.
its an old tactic.
create a climate of fear to intimidate anyone who challenges the narrative.

we shall see where this goes because i feel it will be a strong indicator of things to come.
interesting times my friend.

as for social programs.
i guess i would rather see my taxes go to infrastructure and the old lady down the street rather than bail out corrupt bankers and bomb brown people in a distant country.

but empire is expensive and we need those bombs.
or so they say.
i tend to disagree.

anyways.thanks for replying my friend.

The criteria for employment with the local constabulary in the U.S. uses at least a 90 I.Q. as a baseline....Cops don't need to be that bright. Most cops actions are dictated by the survival circuit and are motivated by their hind-brained impulses. You don't really exercise wisdom winding-up a fight-or-flight neanderthal.

gwiz665, are you that naive? If the world was all fluffy kittens and the sky were made of cotton candy then police would be helpful assistants in our societies with duties like earning, old-lady street-crossing assistance badges and traffic-directing patches. Oh, for a joyous world without firearms with puppies and kitties!!

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.-Isaiah 11:6

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.-Isaiah 2:4

Ah, that makes sense of it. From the video it seemed like she was driven by indignation and old lady fearlessness. Which is fine by it's self. But the real story is far more admirable and touching.

Why? Because you say so? I don't think you even know what that means.

Gun nuts choose to believe this is all about taking their guns away so they can't fight back when the government comes knocking on their doors for... some reason. Or that it's some furtive attempt by the government to track them and get them in some national database for mysterious and spurious reasons. This belief is often revealed via terse bullet points and catchy, oft-metered phrases that don't require a whole hell of a lot of memorization or deep understanding. Just short, simplistic regurgitations of bullshit from the rightie cesspool they are drowning in.

Authoritarians? Really? An authoritarian would want ALL your guns. Are you saying any government control is authoritarian, or does the term "government control" give you the "1984" willies? Are the old ladies behind the counter at my local DMV authoritarians, or just slaves to them? How about the building inspector? Passport office? Fish and Game Department? The person who decided there needed to be a red light at an intersection where I'd never had to stop on my way to work before? IRS? Why do I need a license/permit for everything? I mean, with the exceptions of my driver's license, passport, tax returns, fishing license, trail park pass, voter registration, car registration, smog certificate, and their records on the amount of water and electricity I use, I just wish they'd respect my privacy, right?

But, this isn't a privacy issue with you guys, is it? This is about the Alex Jones/Bachman/Palin/Beck/Limbaugh (the Thousand-Yarders) fantasy world where the government is out to get you and throw your children into liberal indoctrination camps. This is about "taking your rights" from you. This is about being prepared for the coming post-zombie apocalypse you hope is right around the corner so you can justify the thousands of dollars you spent prepping. A whole industry has sprung up around prepping, and they are happy to stoke your paranoia and reinforce your belief that you really do need all this gear, not to mention the boxcar shelter buried in the back yard with a year's supply of MREs. Money in the bank.

The 2nd Amendment? It's not a holy relic. The Amendments are subject to interpretation and limitation by Congress. If Congress passes an assault weapons ban, it's not denying you your 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. It's simply defining it, just as the 1st Amendment has been further defined by the legislative and judicial branches of government since it was ratified. The 1st Amendment doesn't give you the right to slander someone, yell fire in a crowded theater, or reveal state secrets, etc., just as the 2nd Amendment doesn't necessarily give you the right to arm yourself with anything you please, wherever you please.

Good troll, btw.

One of my cats use to do this and... now I have no hair!

Thanks Shadow you old lady killer you. May you rest in peace or may you not rest in peace if you know what I mean. You know cause I assume there are girl cats in kitteh heaven.