Thoughts on how to improve the current system

[Taem]

Finally getting back to some replies. This is the first; expect more to come. I have to stop after this post however - wife keeps nagging me to wrap presents!

The whole system needs to go. There is no reforming it, especially our joke of a two-party system, both of which have the same agenda at the end of the day: protecting the interests of the bourgeois scum (themselves, along with their corporate and military industrial complex parasite buddies). The poor, working class, and even the middle class at this point, no longer matter to them. Well, the middle class no longer matter. The poor and working class never did matter for them.

I'm not in disagreement with your assessment of our current political system, but I do disagree with your "starting from scratch" approach. Getting rid of earmarks was a start, but the system Congress uses deliberately does not use currency as a direct trade in negotiation, thus services are traded. It's the way of commerce, the way of business, and they way thing have always been and will be from now to the foreseeable future. The only thing that might make it a better system is more oversight, and a new party in place that will inevitably disagree with the current parties and force each side to find a middle-ground or find themselves on the outs, because with a mere 51% majority votes to pass a bill, two parties need only agree to pass a vote, so if a party on the outs wants to get any headway, compromises must be found. This would be the best of both worlds IMO.

Mandatory military service? Um, yea, good luck with that. Will never happen. Nor should it. Why should anyone have to be mandated to serve in the military to get a free college education? And women with a 3-month old child have to serve? You are joking right? Totally against this idea, for obvious reasons.

Then we disagree. For obvious reasons, such as Americas gang problem, I think a little boot camp would not only be good for moral, but make the citizens of this country much more patriotic and supportive of what living in this great country really means. We are not slaves - we should fight for our well deserved freedom. The fact that people in this country don't appreciate the freedoms we have here is pathetic. Teaching patriotism and respect to Americans, and giving them a college degree for their service in the process - a prospect which could only improve this country as a whole - seems like a great idea to me all around.

And as for the woman with a 3-month old child, I'd have to say get over it! My cousin and several women I know got pregnant in the service and were given a small amount of time to pop the baby out before having to get back to active duty. It's part of the life-style. It happens all the time; the bases have day-cares.

Disagree on Unions - they need to be stronger, not weaker. The decline of Unions is a big part of why workers wages and rights have been assaulted the last 30 years or so, though rollbacks through reactionary policies have been probably just as equally detrimental.

Couldn't disagree more. It seems ridiculous to me that the unions fought for the car workers - who were replaced by machines - by getting the worker who pushed a button in the factory to get paid for all the jobs that were "replaced" by machines, arguing he is doing the job of "20-men", so he should get 20-mens pay. Right... or the few times Safeway/Vons has gone on strike over a drop in pension pay for retirees because they could not afford to pay the increased healthcare fees any longer, but lost to union demands and instead had to raise prices to rates so absorbent, that I now shop at Costco, Smart and Final, and Walmart because shopping for 6-people at Vons would cost be over 2k whereas shopping at the other three costs me 1k. Greedy unions... There are ton's of people working minimum wage making a living just fine now being supported by the unions. But because the unions keep demanding more for each member - "what are my union dollars doing for me" - unionized stores have to find ways to recoup these lost profits, usually by raising the cost of products for EVERYONE else, so the few unionized workers can profit. The whole union system is forked and since Jimmy Hoffa, corrupt.

flag waving patriots of ANY nation disgust me, and I look down upon them.

I don't know what to say. If you don't support your own country, then I think your ideals are flawed because your picture of a perfect world will never be, not with so many people with varying opinions in this world. So knowing there will never be a perfect world, the only real choice there is is to either embrace the country you live in (or move to one you like better), or live as an embittered revolutionary who might attract a little notice, but fall far shy of the "American" dream.