[SBeck]

So who is this an indictment against? Sounds like both sides are guilty as charged.

[concerned about politics]

Given the moral and intellectual climate at most of the elite universities our future leaders will attend, I don't have an optimistic outlook for the future of the country.

Cloned indoctrobots without a brain. It's like a borg invasion.

[Rhetorical pi2]

For eight years I told everybody who would listen that our most powerful leader and his administration were corrupt,and had a corrosive effect on American society. Many, even after his impeachment trial, would not accept this.

I'm not sure about the 7,000 figure, but the fella does have a point. But one of the most important is that the guy at the top is influental in setting the tone of the country. ...and there IS a new tone in Washington. You just have to listen hard to hear it above the vulgar din caused by the democrat party.

[TightSqueeze]

And there's not much I can see that ordinary people can do about it.

The best most of can acheive is to simply get over on the bastards.

[dheretic]

Those who support the elite are as guilty as the elite itself. That means that he who votes for either major party on a consistant basis is the problem.

[Askel5]

Given the moral and intellectual climate at most of the elite universities our future leaders will attend, I don't have an optimistic outlook for the future of the country.

There isn't one to be had.

[WIMom]

A message from Jim Robinson regarding the fundraiser!

[moderation_is_not_a_bad_thing]

The vulgarity, profanity and violence you see in entertainment are there only because those individuals occupying the positions of power in the entertainment industry said "Yes." If they said "No," those things would disappear from the screens and the magazine racks.

Hmm..... I was under the impression that free market capitalism and the First Amendment dictated what we see on movie screens and magazine racks. I'm not sure I want gov't involved in that.

[Donald Stone]

America's Criminal Elite

It is a sad state of affairs, more than half the registered voters in the U.S. don't vote as a direct result of the betrayal of the public trust by our elected and appointed officials.

Our Presidential candidates are so mediocre that presidential elections are won only by a couple of hundred votes, (depends on who is doing the counting).

Stealing federal tax dollars is a high stakes game, whoever controls the White House has unrestricted access to billions of U.S. dollars.

The Democratic Party and Republican Party are like two organized crime syndicates, having on-going turf wars to see who gets to be the Godfather for the next four or eight years.

The Capos are all the U.S. Government lawyers, U.S. Attorneys,federal judges etc. acting in concert with lawyers in the private who decide whether or not it is in the best interest politically or financially of either of the two crime syndicates to enforce the "Rule of Law" or the U.S. Constitution.

The Soldiers are the FBI that provide the muscle to promote, protect and facilitate any type of political corruption the organized crime syndicates desire to engage in.

[Lessismore]

If the elite become corrupt, you have a corrupt country.

Honesty, fidelity, thrift, hard work, diligence, and other positive character traits are known as "middle-class values". This is because they are so uncharacteristic of the upper class.

[Nick Danger]

If these 7,000 positions were awarded the way they are in, say, Saudia Arabia -- where your family name is 'Saud' or you don't get the job -- I suppose this fellow wouldn't sound like such a whiny loser.

He talks about "elites" as though these folks just aren't like you and me, because it's impossible to crack through the Invisible Wall and get one of those 7,000 jobs unless you're one of them. Oh, horsefeathers. Our very own World's Richest Man is a college dropout. The previous president of the United States -- may he rot in Hell -- grew up in such decidedly poor surroundings that even today people refer to him as "white trash."

Yeah, we have a few families that the media like to wave in front of us as some sort of hereditary nobility, but so what? To walk around thinking that opportunity in America is closed to all but a select few is the dumbest, most self-defeating claptrap I can imagine. Elites, schmelites.

[weikel]

The vulgarity, profanity and violence you see in entertainment are there only because those individuals occupying the positions of power in the entertainment industry said "Yes." If they said "No," those things would disappear from the screens and the magazine racks.

No then somebody else would step in to fill the demand I like sex, violence, and vulgarity in movies.

[Don Myers]

Isn't this theory taking away responsibility from the non-elitists? Corruption is at all levels of our society. It is easy to say, the devil made me do it, which is what Reese is saying about the elitists.

[sauropod]

Good to see ol' Charley Reese around. One of my fav's.

[JoeSchem]

I have to confess that I have lost my Jeffersonian faith in the people. All I have ever seen them do, save for a few individuals, is follow like dogs whoever happened to be in leadership positions at the time.

Most of these dog-like individuals appear to be women.

As a temp worker, I saw this in action recently in a job where we sit around cleaning parts all day. A certain male co-worker talked nonstop, eight hours a day, about his bizarre sex life and his desire to kill everyone. The guys thought he was a moron, but the women were fascinated, and listened attentively to everything he said, basically encouraging him to go on. If he hadn't been dismissed because of his abusive confrontations with the other males, I'm pretty sure he could have talked his way into bed with any of the women, even though he has a job just a cut above minimum wage, a mediocre intellect, the manners of a cur, and the physical appearance of a dwarf Neanderthal. And he definitely was not a feminist!

My view of women, I'm afraid, has suffered because of this experience. For all their bluster and insistence on self-actualization, women appear to be rather weak-willed personalities who eagerly seek to be dominated, and they will accept domination by the lowest, crudest, and most vulgar of males.

But we already knew that from the way the women's vote went for Bill Clinton.

I retain the romantic notion that there are still some strong-willed women out there, one of whom I might marry.

[PISANO]

A sad but true BTTT!

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Agreed! The highest public 'values'(e.g. those things desired)being eating, drinking, copulation, evacuation and snoring.

[Of course there are individuals that have major virtues, they just do not seek and obtain public office.]

"No honest man can be a politician"- a Great Philosopher circa 400 B.C.