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I think that link should work. How would you answer his question?
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"If you say you're going to do something and you start to do it, and people enjoy it or respect it or are entertained by it, people will step up and help you."
I agree with Rebecca W from CA. I don't think people value their right to vote and take it for granted. People also think they're making a statement by not voting, but my opinion is if you don't vote, you don't have a right to bitch when things don't turn out your way.
I just took a class on advocacy for my M.Ed. degree and I was shocked to find out how many 20-something in my class weren't even registered to vote and had no clue how to do so. They didn't know how to find out who their legislators were either. When I was a kid, my parents took me with them when they voted and I got the message that it's important to vote.
__________________ Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car. -- Evan Davis
I think the answer to Obama's question can be summed up entirely with this entire Internet Radio fiasco. People don't vote because it doesn't mean anything anymore. Nothing changes. Those with money control the government and its actions.
Our government is corrupt and diseased, and when people feel their voice isn't going to be heard with big business waving their cash around through their lobbyists, no matter who gets voted in, then they lose the desire or will to take part in the process.
I think the government needs a serious clean-up. I think anyone in government who accepts cash in any way aside from their designated pay should be removed from office, and I think the FBI should have an agency whose task is monitoring our elected officials. They shouldn't even be allowed to draw pay from their private businesses while serving. They are performing public service and are being well-compensated for it already. Campaign contributions should be disallowed. There should be a campaign fund supplied by taxpayers, and when a person is running for office, upon qualification (registering to run, getting the required number of signatures, doing what is required to be able to have your name on the ballot) they will receive access to these campaign funds. No one will receive more than anyone else. To prevent TV costs, the FCC should require TV stations to run campaign ads equally, a reasonable number of times at reasonable hours. Those stations are licensed to serve the public. That would be a service they should be required to do at no charge. Term limits for ALL public offices. No one should be able to make a career out of politics (I'm talking to you, Teddy Kennedy).
I would personally be more inclined to take part if I thought it mattered and I wasn't just going through the motions. But people today are feeling just that, and that their government can't be trusted as it is. You have to fix that, first.
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"I知 not fat. I知 larger than life."
Damn, Thom. That was beautiful. Really. And I'll bet it pained you to write it knowing that the pork barrel will probably get deeper before it ever gets better.
"If you say you're going to do something and you start to do it, and people enjoy it or respect it or are entertained by it, people will step up and help you."
And yeah, waste that vote just like we do every year in the Corporate States of America, where big business makes the laws and your elected officials represent THOSE interests, not yours.
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"I知 not fat. I知 larger than life."
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