Part of the problem with “issue” & “party” voters is it results in both the Rep. Shimkus & Rep. Johnson types. They might be absolute morons, but hey – they agree with me on that all important one issue, so damn the rest of it (as though there is only one concern that will affect me that they must deal with while they are there). Thus we end up with a majority of members who are absolutely clueless about governance as they are put there solely for “the cause” (and this country has many such “causes” to choose from). Hence special interest rule.

The result is that we have those willing to defend moronic claims on both sides because while they may be idiots in almost every other area, they do support that pet issue of mine, so therefore we’ll just ignore the messes they are making everywhere else. I mean that’s leadership and governance, right?

Anyone who can’t see both parties (and thus us ourselves as we are the ones doing the voting…) are equally at fault for where we find ourselves (on every level) hasn’t been paying attention (ignorance of history – and “in my lifetime” is worthless for anyone under 40), fail to understand economic and social realities (a requirement for any who wish to work successfully towards betterment of our situation, instead we get accounting games like raiding the S.S. trust fund and proclaiming we have a balanced budget as Clinton did – except we haven’t had an honestly balanced budget since the mid 1950’s), or they are simply too dimwitted themselves to realize how much all those other “unimportant” issues are going to end up affecting them.

There is lots of talk in these threads of conspiracy theories – they would be more interesting if those throwing them out there had a clue about human behavior and maybe, just maybe, had a glimmer of an idea how corruption and such enmesh themselves into a culture. We have already traveled miles down that road.

A few thoughts on where our society is by one who can word it better than I (in two parts):
http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov10/banality-of-evil11-10.html
http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov10/fraud-is-lifeblood11-10.html

I’ve yet to meet one who doesn’t recognize such is indeed our situation today, and yet all we hear is the special interests telling us the biggest problem is that one issue of theirs…

Didn’t you get the memo? Apparently we have lost our ability to adapt. Thus rather then moving out of the way of detrimental environmental, ecological, or even geographical changes as our species has done since time long lost to history, we will simply stay in place and drown…

That’s why it’s so important for our government (actually, it would be better for a world government to do it, but we take what we got…) to “take control” and “fix it” – even if we barely know how a tiny fraction of it works. As everyone knows, when our omnipotent governmental bodies come into action there are never unintended consequences, I mean look at what a great job they have done the past 50 years in “managing” our economy, maintaining infrastructure and all other manner of responsible “leadership”.

I fail to see how this bit of lunacy is any worse than this (at the 1:20 mark we get the famous Guam tipping over thought…): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg

Republican or Democrat – we get what we vote for, mostly fools. Why I think Chris is a bit disingenuous with his constant rants on Republicans… Both parties are full of less then genuis members.

My approach is that there may be global warming, and it might possibly be caused by humans – but neither indicates that the best way to deal with it is to attempt to stop it. Adaptation is a better path.

And also because most Americans live in fantasy worlds. of various kinds (including so-called religious ones like the anti-evolution “movement” ).

The worst case flood scenario would be a 200 foot sea level rise if all the ice melts. That would be really bad, and yet not nearly a violation of God’s promise to Noah (“never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh”) – so his point is meaningless anyway.

Now – I am skeptical of AGW alarmism. I think it takes away from more immediate environmental concerns such as water quality & distribution… but I really don’t like Shimkus’s approach either.