Comments by "Ficus-lovin\x27 Capybara N\x27 pals • 🌟 • 25 yrs ago" (@YourCapybaraAmigo_17yrsago) on "How Lobbying is Ruining Democracy" video.

100%. The only solutions I see are organizing hard for another hard Left party, to carry on the fight that marginalized groups began in the 60s and 70s, and organizing to expand the number of matters that are settled on a public ballot instead of in smoke-filled back rooms and via bribe. We can also strive to increase our mutual aid. The more we help each other they're less we will be at risk of corporate harm or State abuse. Also striving to win elections on a local level will help
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Politicians know which side their bread is buttered on. Sure, they could be a Bernie Sanders and care about the People, and try to do some good with their position, or they could make tons of money and curry favor with billionaires and big business. Hmm! I wonder which one most of them will choose?? Perhaps this phenomenon will never be eradicated entirely as long as money exists but I'm sure there are things we can do to blunt it.
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Ultimately without the people's right to vote on every matter of importance I really don't see this problem being effectively controlled; although some effective bills might attenuate it partially. There's something fundamentally wrong in my mind with a chokehold of representatives being allowed to speak in our stead. Think of a bottle and the bottleneck. This isn't the military where decisions need to be made quickly, where consensus would be undesirable or unnecessary to the goal at hand; the more deliberation, discussion, public participation and viewpoints we have when discussing a matter of public importance, the better. I find governance by public representation just dictatorship with extra steps. I mean come on, who controls the politicians? The Big Banks and the corpos, who else? This has nothing to do with being a subject matter expert, these are simply placeholders for the public and I find the mere concept of representative democracy an almost complete oxymoron. Without full direct voting, where is our voice? I know that I won't get my way on every single ballot measure but I would feel a damn lot better if the public voted on everything versus being held hostage these corrupt clowns. I'm sick of the bottleneck.
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I wish I could buy the laws I wanted. Must be nice.
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That's where we are!
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@saliferousstudios in a way we are like a loose association of 50 state-lets. This has pros and cons. I'm not sure what the ideal social order is but I know that I hate what we have now. I know that nothing is perfect but I also know that living under dystopian corporate rule is not sustainable.
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A lot of rights aren't being respected right now and not just civil rights- definitely right to repair is well up there. Everyone deserves RTR.
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Lol but of course he did.
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@accuratealloys if we don't want to be powerless under a ruthless corporate State we do have some options. Unfortunately organized militias aren't one of them, it will just never be enough, mainly bc of the NG and state police. But that doesn't mean we can't hyper-organize for alternate parties, city councils, etc. It takes a lot of work but change is always possible. Just look what the black panthers did until they were all killed. One can always fight the State, after all they are just people. They deserve NO SPECIAL TREATMENT. FUCK 'EM I say!! So long as one isn't ruled by fear anything is possible.
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I would get behind that. The House should be much bigger to be more representative. I would also say get rid of the Senate - a bullshit body of elites that overrules popular will. I know that won't happen anytime soon, but that is what I would like to see.
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So true, and yet they demand people pay federal taxes which is bizarre- why should ordinary people have to pay big brother when they have no voice????. I can understand localized taxes because public services do need to be paid for collectively altho I have some libertarian arguments against compulsory taxation and income taxation the way they are currently assessed, which would take longer to explain in more detail.
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I assume this is satire
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So you just argued in praise of fascism and elite rule. Maybe we should just dispense with public input altogether and elect a few dictators??? After all democracy (or even the facade of democracy) is just SO time-consuming and annoying isn't it?? Isn't there an easier way where I didn't have to do all of this troublesome thinking?!? Well surprise- there IS! Say hello to fascism and autocracy! Wow- Where have YOU been all my life??
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@aycc-nbh7289 Yeah that would be less fun. I tell you what I'm not banging any handmaid's tale CO idc how they look, sorry. Nope not today. Being a fertility concubine is not on my list of hot goals. I like military officers who don't get dragged into weird cults.... So yeah probably less fun Nah in all seriousness idk but I'm sure by organizing people of good values could strategize the right way forward
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Well it ultimately comes down to who does the State work for? The average person, or elite money? It's obvious which objective this State exists for. How to have better courts and laws in a corrupt fifth-world State created for ruthless corporate protection (and now mass incarceration)..... well that's the $64,000 question isn't it? Corpos rule all today. Yeah I don't see this changing without much more direct access to the ballot on every issue not just a few choice issues that our political thug-owners choose to "let" us have a voice on.
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@nates9105 I mean they're really just puppets for the big money and the corpos; they don't even craft any of our laws anymore - I mean all of our laws are written behind-the-scenes now, mostly by lobbyists. In fact, I doubt it's anything new; there have been lobbyists in some form or another going back to the 1800s. There have been a favors and bribes given to get the laws and favorable policies that elites have wanted going all the way back. With pretty rare exception, politicians have always been mouthpieces for the rich and elite in this country and I don't see that ever changing. So what are our options? Oh sure we can hope for a change and strategize and imagine that one day somehow WE will be able to have political influence of our own, WE will be able to get different/ better politicians in office and that may happen eventually, but that takes a long time. And still, even if it does, allowing only a teeny tiny group of people to affect law is a bad idea in my eyes. Human beings are human beings, and even if we could get a quality few people of high character in office I still feel that the majority would still be trash, self-serving, easily co-opted and slaves to their own prejudices; not only that, even the most sincere amongst them can't possibly hope to represent the diversity of views among their many thousands of constituents. I just think it's a foolish foolish system that sure, at the time of the revolution was indeed revolutionary, but it's NOT anymore. It's bullshit and bogus. Street Pigs and detectives are utterly unwell mindless evil zombies ruthlessly willing to carry out the will of corrupt politicians no matter HOW damaging, unjust, vicious, unnecessary, or wrong they are. These filth don't care so long as they get to be the ones carrying the gun and inflicting the pain. They're modern-day low-level nazis. So having an extreme and violent police state at the beck and call of a corrupt political structure is a pretty bad reality. (Asking a Pig to think and to question the wrong/evil that they do is like asking a brick wall to do calculus. It won't happen. Actually occasionally it does happen, but it's rare.) So in order to get better laws, even even if we don't make any major changes to curtail police power, it's pretty clear that that isn't going to come from the current rogues gallery of scumbags that we have at the moment. I think the only way to do an end run around the current worthless political class in this country is to remove their monopoly on policy control aka law . They're all filth, they're ALL shameless, and the few good ones are extremely outnumbered and powerless to do anything on their own; they don't represent 90+% of us and they shouldn't have the power to enforce minority elite will on everyone else, it's that simple. Here's the only system that I see as fully sustainable and fully just: I say ANYONE should be able to craft a law and then submit it to public critique for a proscribed length of time, then if it passes that it is sent for a preliminary vote and if it passes that with a high enough margin then it gets sent on to the final vote where if it passes THAT, then it's accepted into law. Voting, campaigns, politicians- it's the same old clown show decade after decade. They DON'T serve us and they don't care. Elections can be fun but ultimately they are distractions. It's theater, that's all. Soon as that politician, regardless of party affiliation, gets into office he is going to do the exact same thing his predecessor did and all the others before him have done since forever. He'll take orders from the party boss and both parties (which are really one party with two chapters) will continue serve the financial elite and the Police State. This is bad. Being held hostage by these worthless clowns isn't helping 90+% of us.... These people will never care about us and will NEVER represent our interests. If any of them at any level truly cared about basic public needs they would have be doing a lot differently for decades now. Can anybody truly represent you better than you can represent yourself?? Maybe in a court of law (only because there are special tricks, techniques, keywords, tricky phrases and buzzwords that they force lawyers to use) but outside of that? No I don't think so. I just don't like being totally powerless in this society. ITS NOT FOR ME. EVERYONE should be able to be a politician- if they so choose. Being a passive subject to a tiny representative body shockingly doesn't help any of us decade after decade. These slick political elites will never serve the masses (well, very rarely imo). Reps could still a have a role for additional debate and ceremonial roles, but always subject to final approval and ratification done by the public. Without a system like this we really don't have a voice. Have you ever noticed how incredibly disempowered our ridiculous governmental system is in this country?? and its that way by design. It was never meant to serve the 95%, it was always meant to serve the top 5%. No thanks. I'm for anarchy, but as pure anarchy has rarely existed and isn't possible today, then I'm for this. The only law in this country that really exists are laws that criminalize and penalize the poor and the working class for existing, that is all. When's the last time a corporate CEO or a company's senior governing board member, a political bigwig, or a Pig cop went to prison? Right virtually never. Those filth refuse to bow down to anyone and, like true psychopaths, feel like they have the right to do anything they want and that they are superior to all others. Where is the law on those filth in this country?? Well it's nowhere. Big surprise right? Until we get a political body that doesn't protect and serve the unaccountable elites, we're all going to be subject to completely unjust laws that the courts will enjoy using to crush us for sport. Happens every day. We didn't get from zero to mass incarceration via nothing - it was designed and carried out perfectly (and is still being done so). The only way to to make change is to take power away from these filthy reps and put it back in our hands. I don't know exactly how to do that, all I know is that without the public having the final say on all law and anybody being able to craft and submit law proposals, we are all FUCKED... and I'm tired of getting fucked. I'm tired of people being sacrificed on the altar of infinite profits for the big banks, big corpos, unfair tax structures, general injustice, and abusive local policy. I would like less law overall but I'm sure there's a place for some rational law and I have zero confidence in these wholly corrupted bought-and-paid-for suit-wearing thugs to provide it.7
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@aycc-nbh7289 the EC is trash. Will explain more later. If the principle has to be 'majority rules' than the EC is incompatible with that. There's really not that big a difference as you think between rural and city voices. We've all been gaslit to think we all want radically different things but every human being on Earth wants a few basic simple things- dignity, reasonable material security, maximum freedom, some kind of community, etc. Politicians win by dividing. I'm not saying life is going to be a paradise but the vast majority of us want the same basic things and surprise, NO current red-blue politician has any intention of giving them to you or making them easier for you to get. Want to know more?
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@aycc-nbh7289 don't you think "one person - one vote - simple majority" should be the system?? The EC violates that. Look no system is perfect but basing policy on anything other than majority rule isn't right. Unless the majority says that it's okay to start sleeping with our 12 year old cousin or bringing back slavery, or violating people's basic human rights to make decisions in our personal lives, then yes I want majority rule.
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@grmpEqweer shit... Take a number....
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😂 nailed it. F the substance, look- different words! Clearly they mean different things!
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Our politicians are HIRED. Yes they're voted in by ordinary stupid people who think they care about them- when they never do and NEVER will- but essentially they are funded and hired by mega-wealthy and big business. It's a red-blue uniparty machine. If you're not an elite and you vote for either branch of this duopoly, you're screwing yourself. Solution?? Viable other Left parties which Wall Street has successfully been able to prevent up til now. Or alternatively, full direct democracy. I'll take either.
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@LeejaMiller thanks for all your hard work! We do appreciate it. Even if we aren't sure how to change things, it's good to know the extent of the issues!
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TRUE... but good luck stopping it. The US govt is nothing but a sophisticated gangster cartel set-up; created and currently operated to protect the corporate (and big banking) dollar at any cost- including massive human lives. Their indifference to human suffering and loss of life is legendary. The US govt apparatus is the most sophisticated well-organized cartel operation in history as far as I'm concerned.
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@wyltedleaves I agree which is why I advocate for new Left parties and pushing for more policy through the ballot. It's the only way I can see.
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So a slim MINORITY should control it- in this case a moneyed elite? Lol you Constitution worshippers are genetically incapable of thinking for yourself. You've drank the "founders-are-geniuses" Kool-Aid all your life and now you immediately react negatively to any criticism of the system and the system so far is TRASH. It's essentially elite rule, in modern times corporate big-biz cartel. No we weren't at all more divided in 1860, or I would posit at least equally. You should learn to think for yourself- slave. The only alternative to majority rule is minority rule- which is actually exactly what we have now. I will oppose that, I do oppose that, and I will always advocate against that if my voice means anything in a sea of others. F THE CONSTITUTION- IT HAS A LOT OF FLAWS. There was some good ideas there and it was a good start overall I would say, given the time it was written, but it has some pretty glaring flaws, as do numerous amendments. It is time to completely redraw the Constitution for a 21st century world.
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@diggernash1 [AB25] riiiight .... So you truly believe we should be governed by others, bec you assume they have some sort of "superior" quality simply because they won some sort of bogus election, which is phenomenally easy to do if one has enough money- not to mention all the elections that are stolen- but this a system that makes sense to you... Is this correct? Have you been asleep all your life? How can you possibly trust the integrity of any of our elections in this country? You ARE asleep. From voting machines to straight up ballot tossing, BOTH major political parties (really just a single uniparty) but especially the GOP, engage in every scandalous election-stealing scheme they can, and not just on the federal level. Trusting these ridiculous representatives who want to be our dictators, who are bought and paid for ceaselessly by the big money, is a fool's errand AF and you have brain rot if you support it. Even if they were somehow these perfectly wise superhuman non-existent sober statesmen with the benefit all seeing wisdom (NONE of which exists btw,) I STILL WOULDN'T WANT TO TURN MY VOICE OVER TO SOMEONE ELSE! And why tf would you?? This isn't about trusting somebody with superior knowledge about a specialized area (ie medical doctors), this is about, essentially, personal freedom versus dressed up slavery. I have a problem with being considered human cargo to my so-called political "superior", when they are nothing of the sort!!! That's a separate discussion than the one about the corrupt owning of our reps by the Big Money which is always gone on since its early days, but they dovetail together. Why would you EVER want to be subject to someone else's will, especially when that person is utterly worthless and self-serving, aka reps, instead of having direct control over your own destiny, which comes from voting DIRECTLY on public policies that affect you???? You know - THE BALLOT?? Why do you prefer slavery to freedom??? If you want slavery for yourself that's one thing, but don't try to force that on others. I certainly do not. I want autonomy and I don't need nor want anybody else to speak for me! Why would I ever want to voluntarily subject to myself to somebody else's will that I don't agree with??? This goes for all of the US government's political would-be dictators, ie SCOTUS, the Senate (a worthless body that needs to be swept away), the House, the state houses and so on. We live in an incredibly fascist revolting police state in the US whose business is it to ruthlessly enforce the will of these political wannabe masters, often in full conflict of the public's will, and I will fight that to my last breath. The more government control exists, the less power and control we have to control our own destinies. I find this disturbing and so should you. If I have to live under certain laws, I have the right to have a controlling interest in those laws. I deserve to have my vote to count and I deserve to vote on EVERYTHING. Without that we are a little more than slaves, which you seem eminently comfortable with. Bizarre. So not only do we need a better representative body in this country we need either a more representative House with no Senate bodies at all, or more preferably, direct public voting on every matter of importance, totally bypassing the stranglehold of these political wannabe masters. You can stand with the elite money or you can stand with the public. Your choice. It's funny that you totally support majority rules for electing bogus representatives but you DON'T support all of us being ACTUAL adults and being able to vote on our OWN policies, not subject to these same bought-and-paid-for corporate-owned representatives..... weird. I don't know how to get through to people like you. You're smoking the dicks of the founders so hard and the nonsense myths that have sprung up since, and I don't know how to dislodge your jaw from their genitals. You seem to want fascism and financial elite rule. Well you should be VERY happy right now! the government of this country is exactly that! It has never been more criminal than it is today. It is now nothing but an amoral cartel for the ruthless enforcement of the corporate will at any cost- and destroying the world in the process, and that has been the case going back a long ways. This government was NEVER a body for the average person, it was for the tiny elite, always, and you support that right? You must LOVE the way things are now then! Decades of ruthless corporate rule has harmed whole sectors of society and completely flies against the wishes of a good 90+% of the country. Ask the victims of massive corporate criminality in East Palestine how they feel about corporations being held to no law at all while their lives are destroyed or forever changed. It must be nice to be completely above all accountability, the way all Blue Pigs and corporations are in this tenth-world s-hole. So you need to leave this channel because you are a rightoid who cannot be reached. I am an armed hard leftist but I'm also a libertarian and quasi anarchist- NOBODY has the right to be anyone else's owner or master and you puzzle me that you think that is how we should structure ourselves. Quite gross. If we MUST have a representative body, it should be limited in it's scope and be forced to represent the interests of the People, not a corrupt destructive corporate Wall Street elite. After all, why am I paying taxes if I'm considered to be a non-entity by these worthless scumbags reps if my wishes don't matter in this corrupt criminal organization we call "government"??? I mean, you would agree that is a fair question, is it not? Rightoids - you're a weird bizarre breed. Totally unassailable by logic. Better off not to engage in most cases.
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@diggernash1 my definition of fascism is the embracing of violence, the complete rejection of empathy, and the willingness to crush ones opponents by any means necessary. Kind of like what Israel has been doing to the Palestinian homeland and the Palestinian indigenous for the last 75 years culminated in their worst egregious moves yet as we speak.
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@diggernash1 once again you defend the barbaric concept of might makes right. I don't know why. I don't believe you really believe this because if might makes right, why have any laws at all? Let the bigger and stronger have their way with the weaker. Only might matters, not rights. I doubt you truly believe that. There WILL be a Palestinian State, and I'm sure whatever was proposed in 1922 was unacceptable for legitimate reasons but I'll be happy to look it up for more details as I'm not aware of any legitimate and fair two-State proposition at any point in time; but again, why should they have had to give up any of their territory? The region was PALESTINE- if I come into YOUR house with guns and say "hey you! You give me 90% of your house and if you fight back I'll kill you", would you say that would be a fair arrangement? Would you say that would be a "good faith" negotiation? No I don't think you would. Now instead of "house" just substitute "whole territory" in it's place. if Jews wanted to come and live in Palestine peacefully as part of a pluralistic, equal society they were not opposed, they were welcomed, but they wanted a Jewish-only ethnostate and they have subjugated the indigenous Palestinian people ever since. And they have only achieved such with at first the UK and now the USs enabling, funding and protecting. They would have been helpless on their own and would never succeeded in fire in one shot if it wasn't for being armed by the UK in 1948. So Israel's Zionazi movement has never achieved anything on their own. They're nothing but a weak pathetic murderous expansionist empire wannabe State and they have only been able to achieve anything because they had powerful benefactors. So even under your barbaric value system of 'might makes right' they would have failed because on their own they had nothing! Nothing. They have done nothing on their own but been puppets of Western gestapo-style empire. All political evils come to an end, the only question is when. I believe we are watching the beginning of the end now. Keep on supporting the Zionazi scum. I hope that's not the best you can do. I AM on the far left bro where the hell did you think I came from? As left as you can go and even further. I am proud to stand with Palestine until my last day because they are HUMAN, they have a right to EXIST, they were there LONG before the Zionazis invaded and they have a right to DEFEND themselves and regain their lost lands. Nobody deserves to be colonized, nobody. Full Palestinian dominance and independence will come- the revolution is inevitable and I believe we're seeing it now. Everyone has the right to freedom, liberation, self-determination and justice. It's that simple. I'm so proud to support my Arab global family - and I'm not arab, but right is right.
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Do you see reply labeled AB25?
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