flynn23 wrote:
I was suggesting that complaining is useless.

Obviously, we disagree on that point. Complaining is what the First Amendment (not to mention half of the posts at Memestreams) is all about. Besides, aren't you, in effect, complaining about complaining?

flynn23 wrote:
Your line of "supposed to be there to serve the best interests of our country" is kinda laughable. Politicians serve the best interests of the people that put them in the job. This has always been the case. The original system assumed that the populace would be that "person" but in the last ~150 years it's really been corporations (defined in the US as a "person") so that is who has been the benefactor. This is not a new problem. This has been going on since before the Civil War. That's not to say that "good" legislation benefiting millions of people hasn't occurred, but I think that's a byproduct, not a direct result. I think the problem is more pronounced at the state level, where it's really down to the guy who contributed to your campaign that you have to see at church every sunday if you screw him over and try to do the "right" thing.

I understand why you might laugh at my idealistic principles, but I'm certainly not naive about the ways in which things actually work. I think the primary reason that the people currently "ask what the country can do for them" (to paraphrase John F. Kennedy) is that we've allowed too much government expansion. Rather than focusing on national and state issues, our federal and state governments are far too involved in our personal lives. They want to provide for our retirement and healthcare; they want to tell us which light bubs to use and how much water we can use in our toilets and washing machines; they want to provide home loans for everyone; etc.

In fact, government wants to do everything but regulate industries the way they're supposed to be regulated. Consider the legislative blunders, such as repealing much of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, that helped create this current mess. Anyway, the more government controls our personal lives and gets directly involved (beyond regulation) in our business lives (bailouts), the more politicians will have to serve the specific special interests of the individual constituents (including corporations, which are owned by the people), rather than focus on the primary, Constitutional functions of federal and state government.

flynn23 wrote:
...then we'll continue to be slaves to people who will steal the value that we produce. I know this is starting to sound like commie pinko rhetoric, so I'll stop there, but I think that the current system does not allow for a proper balance. Only more data and transparency will do that, and that means kissing your precious privacy goodbye.

"commie pinko rhetoric" - one of my favorite phrases :-)

We agree about transparency, at least when it comes to business. Requiring appropriate disclosure and transparency are important aspects of regulating the financial industries, and that's what government regulators should've been focusing on, all along. What we do as individual citizens is one thing, but when companies are in the business of handling the wealth of others, transparency is absolutely necessary in order to insure (as much as possible) that the companies are solvent and adhering to regulations.

As for individual privacy, technology has made that practically impossible in our daily lives, but I do think that individuals still should expect a certain degree of privacy from the government. Getting rid of social security, income taxes, and the I.R.S. would be a nice start, but I realize that the people of this country aren't going to do that. They've had the baby bottles in their mouths for too long. Likewise, too many citizens think that government was right to pump taxpayer money into failing companies that should've been allowed to go bankrupt. These days, it seems that government intervention is always the answer to any problem, great or small.

RE: Looting AIG