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A question for you, because I think about this a lot. You are right, but WHY do they?

This is a very good question. I think there are multiple reasons. Probably the biggest reason, IMHO, is that there is a natural tendency for someone elected to want to govern, i.e. to exercise their power. It's great that Ron Paul consistently votes against unconstitutional laws, but I imagine that's rather boring fare for your average Congressman.

I think the second reason is that once elected, the focus of most of these clowns turns towards how to get re-elected. Bringing home pork to the home state is one way to buy votes. Passing big sweeping government programs that are popular with some particular voting block is another. And our system is currently broken in that there is no "feedback loop" on programs that don't work out well. The politician gets the credit when passing the initial legislation, but no blame when the program has unintended negative consequences or otherwise doesn't do well. This is an area where the press should be active, but unfortunately for today's lazy journalists it's just too easy to re-print Democrat talking points. Studying the impact of past legislation is hard.

I think the third reason is what you said. If you are on one side or the other, you are going to have some people really mad at you. No one likes to have people mad at them, and it takes resolve to stick to your principles. Unfortunately, most of these snakes try to straddle both sides (the press even glamorized this spinelessness during the Clinton years - remember "triangulation"?).

I think we are at an inflection point in our history. The dollar is going to collapse, and when it does things are going to go in one of two directions. If we go the route that European Social-Democracies went, the "answer" will be more intrusive government and more government regulation. If there is enough of that American independence and free spirit left, it's possible things might go the other way, and we might actually move back towards a Constitutional Republic again.

I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about all this, but after seeing someone like Obama get elected, it's really hard. Living and working near Seattle, I spend a lot of time talking to liberals these days, and I've even seen a good friend change from a conservative to a liberal. It's like a mind disease, and it runs so deep there is just no fixing it. Increasingly I am coming to the conclusion that we will never convince people like this, and that you can't have a functional free society with these people around. You need to get away from them, or get them away from you, and make sure that you stamp it out when you see it, because once it hits critical mass, your society is doomed.

>I’m trying to keep a positive attitude about all this, but after seeing someone like Obama get elected, it’s really hard. <

Your post was excellent and I think your right about so much of it. But one thing is a misnomer.

Obama may have been elected. But there are a few things that need to be sited about his election that you can take heart in.

First of all, over 3 million ACORN ballots were found to be fraudulent. Dead people, double registrations, fictitious people whatever. (it doesn’t change the fact after, but they know now)
Second, a lot of times in an election, people are not voted in, but rather people are voted out. Obama knew this and ran against BUSH. It was clear he was trying to bash bush the whole time and make McCain out to be another bush.
So he won basically against a man who was VERY unpopular, even though he was not running against him.
In this sense, he was not voted in, but rather it was a signal that they wanted something other than bush.
Third, McCain was not strong and outspoken. he did not back up Palin and he looked like he was not much better than Obama himself.
There was no real clear choice there.
Fourth and perhaps most important was that Obama promised the world and has delivered squat. he lied and most of his base realizes that now.
He has gotten the dubious honor of having the worst popularity after his first term than any other president in history. People realize that they were duped. They don’t like it. he lied to them and most people hate that even from a politician.

The ones who are still die hards are about the most ignorant and idealist people ever. they refuse to look at facts and don’t want to admit that they could have been lied to. They consider themselves too smart.
They can not hold out forever, as the popularity dwindles for obama, and the fanfare dies down, they will switch sides as fast as we change our socks.

Obama is in for a downfall, people will want substance from now on.
His bag of tricks has worn thin. Every time he wants something, it is a catastrophe - immediate threat or some other fear mongering tactic he can think of. It is old already and he knows it. But he can’t switch gears now, he has locked himself into his position.
the only real threat is now that he has time to do much damage.
We must do what we can to stop it, but the more outrageous he becomes the less people will like him.
Personally, I think after this health bill, they have about expended all their good will, first year give him a chance bs and they have been pained socialist. It is going to be hard to push much more through without being watched close.

I met a very nice liberal family from Portland on a recent cruise. The wife worshipped Obama and hated Bush. I told her 26 million women in Iraq and Afghanistan now live under the rule of law, thanks to Bush. She didn’t see the significance, as nothing good could possibly come from war.

Later, after hearing they had bought an historic home and were remodeling it, I said the value will be appraised on energy-saving rather than what the market was willing to pay, under Cap ‘n Trade. They were happy about it. You just can’t fathom the stupidity of liberals, even when they are smart and successful.

They holler about the Patriot act but can’t wait to turn their private medical information over to the government.

It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. The first one being "demoralization". It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generation of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism; American patriotism....

The result? The result you can see ... the people who graduated in the 60's, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. You can't get through to them. They are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern [alluding to Pavlov]. You cannot change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still can not change the basic perception and the logic of behavior.