I Have A Simple Question For The Class... DO YOU... In Total... Respect Our Government/System ???

[WillyT]

And I'm NOT talking about any particular political party, politician, or beaurocrat...

What I'm asking is...

At what point did you lose, or have your faith improved, by the people/leaders in power?

I used to teach 8th Grade American History, American Literature, and American Civics.

I used to take students to Washington D.C. every June to show them how wonderful our system of government is,,,

I DO NOT believe I could do that now with a straight face.

I say NO.

What say you ?

[JaneyVee]

1. Republicans broke our system of Govt.

[liberal_at_heart]

39. republicans are not the only repsonsible party for our broken system.

[Scuba]

67. +1

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. 57 here. first disillusionment came with Viet Nam...further with Nixon.

overall treatment of Carter, then Reagan's election and "popularity"...further erosion. The reaction to 911, the Bush years - all took the cake.

The question....does how one answer this depend upon which generation we are? Age? Race? Sex? Social status? Economic status? and more...I suspect it does.

And...with advancing age and experience (if one is open minded and wide eyed and questioning) brings disillusionment and skepticism and cynicism.

So, due to the influence of money, treatment of the disadvantaged, and magnitude of crimes that go unpunished at the highest levels - I would have to say no in practice....perhaps yes, in principle (but those principles have not been followed for a long time).

That's how I feel at the moment, having just walked my dogs with my wife on a lovely summer Raleigh evening. I feel very fortunate....and realize how badly this is all working for so many.

[cantbeserious]

3. This Government No Longer Serves Me - My Faith In the Institutions Of Government And Power Are Gone

eom

[ruffburr]

4. As it has become, A simple NO covers it for me

[Neoma]

5. No one is satisfied, whether properly informed or not, people simply don't like the government.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Nope...and I have become even more cynical

[pnwmom]

7. I don't like the anarchist alternative.

I think our only hope is to get back to a time when people actually thought it was possible to have a self-governing democracy and worked together toward that end.

Too many people have given up or have rejected the idea of government ever working to improve people's lives. Or, like the tea party-ers, they're actively working to destroy government from within.

[Fumesucker]

8. In theory yes, in actual practice not so much any more

Dubya, right from the beginning in FL, ruined me for taking things at face value.

[Egalitarian Thug]

9. No, not at all.

Of course, I'm more jaded than most because I was raised in the heart of it. I learned what I know about HAM radio from Barry Goldwater in his "shack". My grandparents were movers and shakers in the republican party and Mame Eisenhower was my godmother.

I've had a doctorate level education in American politics and how it really works, and has worked, for at least a century.

Strangely(?) the biggest problem I've had educating people during my life is the near total resistance I encounter from the people most abused and hurt by that system whenever I've shown them.

Nobody that matters cares about you at all. Not even a little, tiny bit. Live or die, you don't enter into the equation at all. They have their games, their battles, their friends and allies, and their plans, but none of it includes you AT ALL.

If people ever catch on to that, they might have some hope of doing something about it, but so far the overwhelming majority of Americans prefer to pretend that this is a Frank Capra film and they will be saved in the end.

[HardTimes99]

46. Your response here really deserves to be its own OP with its themes elaborated

upon, perhaps with some specific examples.

Myself, Katrina was the wake-up call when citizens who were hungry and needed food were labelled 'looters' for taking food from deserted store shelves, while Bush and Kindasleezy partied on down. 1 in 5 American children experiences at least one instance of hunger per month but I have yet to hear one word about this utter disgrace from our illustrious president or his courtiers.

[Egalitarian Thug]

74. Thank you, but I doubt I will do it. Katrina should have tipped everybody to

just how little the people in, no, not in... the people that run the government care about us or worry about consequences for their crimes. When the President came into office with his looking forward bullshit (and his initial appointments) I knew we were lost.

It can't be fixed from the inside because anybody that could and would will never get through the vetting by the people who really decide.

[Scuba]

68. Agree this post is worthy of an OP.

[ananda]

10. No.

..

[PowerToThePeople]

11. No

After Clinton's impeachment hearings, Market crash of 99/2000, Enron and all the other cooked book companies, Bush v. Gore, and Iraq war on lies I lost it. I had hoped to get it back with the current admin, but it has not improved things in my opinion.

I know now that it has been going on much longer, Vietnam, Nixon, JFK, Guatemala, Iran's Shaw, Nicaragua... But I was too young to understand when these things happened or I was not born yet. Fascists have been working hard to achieve what we have now since the Prescot Bush days.

[KittyWampus]

12. Yes, I do respect our Government. It's the Republicans that don't respect it or the citizens.

Furthermore, if you study history you see that progress happens in spurts with some backsliding here and there. But progress we do. With the dinosaurs fighting very hard to keep us from moving forward.

[KG]

14. a good concept being poorly excecuted.

[HardTimes99]

47. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing - nt

[Logical]

15. I trust it less now than I ever had. n-t

[City Lights]

16. No. nt

[Go Vols]

17. No

January 20, 1981

[mick063]

18. I do

And it isn't entirely about the system. It is equally about the leadership.

There have been feudal monarchies that have been extremely benevolent to the citizenship. There have been Socialist governments that have been extremely brutal to the populace.

It is, and always has been, about the moral fiber of those that lead. In a true Democracy, we are able to collectively choose those most suitable. In a purchased "Democracy", we are not, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it is the human element that has distorted our representation into something less than representative, not the system itself.

[TeeYiYi]

19. Um,...no. ..nt

TYY

[former9thward]

20. No, the country is too big to govern under the present system.

The solution is either a new Constitution conforming to modern realities or break up the country into manageable parts.

[socialist_n_TN]

21. Nope and not for a long time.....

Vietnam era boomer here and that pretty much started me on the road to disgust. But it's really more disgust with the economic/political/social system rather than government. The government is merely a reflection of that system. It's called capitalism and it needs to be smashed. THEN we might begin to have a real democracy.

[LWolf]

22. What you are really asking, I think,

is when did I shift from the naive young idealist I once was to the cynic I've become?

If I'd been born earlier, I might point to some things that happened in the 60s, my first decade of life. As it is, though...that shift began for me with Ronald Reagan.

It reached its culmination from 2000 - 2004, with the selection, my registration with the Democratic Party, and my first, and subsequent up-close experiences with primary races and partisan campaigning and politics.

[NaturalHigh]

23. Nope.

I would be hard-pressed to name a politician of either party that I respect. They embody the adage that power corrupts.

[840high]

24. No.

[Lee-Lee]

25. Less and less

Because what I am learning is that no matter how good a program, how well intentioned, etc.... it gets screwed up.

It gets screwed up by politicians (on both sides, lets not put on blinders and pretend our guys never do it) manipulating them to their own ends. It gets screwed up by people abusing it. It gets screwed up by bad people within the system either being lazy and not doing their job, being greedy and manipulating it to their own end, or who see it first and foremost as a way to make them money instead of serve the people.

A government is only as good as the people who run it. Both politicians and those who manage the day to day bureaucracy. My faith in both groups diminishes almost daily.

[DJ13]

26. No

And the expectations we had from that "Hope & Change" BS makes it even worse.

[customerserviceguy]

27. Depends on what you mean by the system

If you're talking about the checks and balances thing, the best intentions of the framers, then the answer is an unequivocal yes.

However, if you include the way that it's been perverted, especially by money, then I'd have to hedge on that.

[BlueJazz]

34. What he said.

[Blasphemer]

56. Agreed... and I think the founding fathers would have been in favor of making adjustments to...

the system to prevent the kind of perversions we now live under.

[MotherPetrie]

28. I've had little faith in the govt. since I started developing real political awareness

in my early teens in the mid-60's.

But it took Obama to really take the dying remains of that faith and stomp it right into the ground.

[MindPilot]

69. But it took Obama to really take the dying remains of that faith and stomp it right into the ground

Pretty much sums it all up right there.

[Blue_In_AK]

29. No, I don't.

I used to, generally, but it's been broken for decades.

[The Straight Story]

30. No, because they see us all as the enemy now and chumps

They kiss ass come election time, then sit down and sell us down the river.

Bet if I got into some of their emails and such it would be jail (gitmo) time.

And boy do they get pissed when people expose their information, but they charge us to gather ours.

[Boom Sound 416]

31. i agree

and your kids might have that point when they find out they can't tour the white house because some cry babies can't share the bat and the ball and just have a good game

[sabrina 1]

32. No ... it isn't working and everything we did to make it work, has failed. So far. WE have to do

something different than what we have been doing.

[Nye Bevan]

33. 230+ years and still going strong. Damn right I do.

The Founding Fathers were geniuses.

[HardTimes99]

50. The Founding Fathers never contemplated snakes like Cheney or Yoo. Their genius also

required a few kick-starts from figures like John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Martin Luther King, Jr, Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden.

[Initech]

35. Short answer: no!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Long answer: as long as secret prisons and courts, the NSA, the Koch brothers, and the TSA exist, I won't.

[bvar22]

36. I respect our "system", BUT...

...the last 30 years has exposed a MAJOR vulnerability.
The RICH have been able to BUY BOTH Dominant Political Parties,
and this has effectively disenfranchised 90% of the American Population.
Americans who Work for a Living have ZERO representation in our current government.
A handful of politicians on the "Far, Fringe Left" still represent these Americans,
but that small minority has been Completely Neutered by the "Centrist" Democratic party leadership.

There IS a solution.
When the American Working Class & The Poor REALIZE that WE have more in common with each other
than we have in common with the RICH 1% Ruling Elite and their Mouth Pieces in Washington,
they WE can have "change" too!
Our neighbors in Latin America have given US that Blue Print!

So YES!
I DO respect our "system".
Popular, Transparent Democracy is a GREAT system,
and maybe someday we can RETURN to that system here!
WE outnumber THEM.

Spread the WORD!
Viva DEMOCRACY!

[marions ghost]

37. It's broken. What really gets to me is all the lip service paid

to the noble ideals of America, vs the sad truths we experience daily. I hate the lies and the pretense. It's like living in some kind of dystopian hell already. Who could feel good about being exploited, robbed, disrespected, betrayed and spied on by their own government, while being told how much the politicians value "the people"?

The Booshcheney regime showed us what the reality is, as never before. Anyone who was paying attention during that nightmare knows that what was done to us then was criminal abuse of power. The majority in the highest levels of government are not working for us. They are working for themselves and their friends.

The only people who will change anything are those who know the truth of just how bad this is.

[HiPointDem]

51. for me it's the blah blah lip service combined with the absolute lack of shame when they're

caught in their corruption. always making excuses, blaming someone else, or blatantly standing pat in a 'yeah, & what are you gonna do about it?'

that, combined with their fierce and self-righteous moralism when some little twerp is caught doing something 'wrong'.

they are shameless & disgusting hypocrites, first-rank liars, & out of the main chance & nothing else. listening to them makes me want to puke.

the ruling class once had the grace to at least *pretend* they weren't psychopaths.

[marions ghost]

75. They know that we have little power to stop them

so they just say, "sue me." And the excess power and profit now available to them means that the job attracts even more narcissist white collar psychopaths. The pirate sector is busy plundering the country.

What do you do about people who will lie, cheat, and steal, and call it government? They play by no rules of fairness or equality. Not even by practical ideas of "it takes a village." They want it all.

I don't know what we can do, except keep resisting and speaking out against it as much as we can. We are pawns in a very ruthless game of winner take all.

[liberal_at_heart]

38. hell no.

[RC]

40. In a word "NO!"

How can we respect a government that does not respect us, "We the people..."?
Our government has been bought off. Out "elected" politicians get rich from the legal bribery from well paid lobbyists, employed by the very people that have gotten rich ripping off "We the people..."
The NSA is the latest attempt at total control. One election short... That's it, the next election and we would have no chance of recovery, short of another civil war.
Hopefully the exposure Manning and Snowden have given us of what the real evil doers are actually doing, will give us another chance to make this country a country that we can be proud to live in .

[Vanje]

41. The present US Government

protects the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

At every level.

[daleanime]

63. +1

[bigwillq]

42. No (nt)

[cherokeeprogressive]

43. "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." 58,000+ men and women died for a lie.

No, I can't say as I do...

LBJ got on the radio on 8/4/1964 and asked the American public for permission to use military force without a congressional declaration of war based on something he couldn't confirm at the time, and later, he made the statement I put in my subject line. He actually made that statement in an offhand manner and even giggled according to reports I've read. As far as I'm concerned, LBJ is the first President who lied the country into war and no one seems to care and what's more; some here put him in the "Greatest Presidents Ever" category. He lied us into war. Then came Nixon, and nothing has been "what it seems" ever since.

I posted this last Christmas Day about visiting my Favorite Uncle (Don) in the VA Hospital. I never posted about it again, but he passed away 3 days later on the 28th. He never went home. He knew he was going to die when I visited, and even though my Cousins and Aunt were in the room, it was my hand he held, and me he promised he'd get better. He knew I was going to be destroyed. I promised I'd be back Saturday. He passed Friday. I blame Lyndon Johnson and the American Government for his death and the 40+ years of misery he suffered due to being wounded, contracting malaria, and being exposed to Agent Orange.

As far as I'm concerned, "government", in the federal sense, exists today only to serve itself. D.C. is the richest area in the United States and it's not because of the 537 elected critters, it's the 10's of thousands of federal employees who make their homes there.

All this nonsense about the NSA, PRISM, XKEYWHATEVER, and the rest? Does anyone really think it's about protecting the American People? If they do, they're either extremely naïve, or willfully ignorant. It's about protecting the Federal Government of the United States. Nothing more and nothing less. There will come a day, and I pray it doesn't happen in my lifetime, when an order will come down from somewhere inside the federal government to kill an American Citizen on US soil. That killing won't happen in order to protect an American Citizen. Its origin will be motivated by the government's fear for its own survival. I believe that with all my heart.

Our government offers us obfuscation, doublespeak, reticence, redacted documents, outright lies, and while taking much offers little in return but sustenance for those who cannot or will not provide it for themselves. It doesn't make people thrive, it merely helps them eat each day.

If you're wondering how I could call myself a Democrat and feel the way I do about government, go back and study where the terms "Big Brother", "The Man", and "Johnny Law" came from (they're not terms of endearment), and who people like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner and Bobby Seale were/are. In the years between then and now, government hasn't gotten BETTER at what it does, it's gotten better at HIDING what it does.

Thanks for asking.

[HardTimes99]

55. Great post. I wonder if LBJ really was the first president to lie us into war. McKinley may not

have lied us into the Spanish-American war the way LBJ did in Vietnam (having the yellow journalism of the Hearst and Pulitzer papers to do the heavy lifting), but he certainly didn't speak out against the lies and propaganda.

I take a slightly different tack from you, in that I see the government as protecting and serving the interests of the global elite and not so much its own institutional prerogatives per se. We're spending a gazillion dollars a year on this absolute shit and at the same time many American children are going hungry each month. It's an utter disgrace and a true sign of just exactly what representing is going on.

I'm really sorry about your uncle. He was as much a victim as the 58,000+ whose names are engraved on the wall or the 2-3 million estimated civilian victims in southeast Asia.

[bhikkhu]

44. Pretty much yes

in that our "government/system" is largely made up of people who have gone into public service to do good. It does take a good amount of education as well, and then it is a good job, one you can buy a house and raise a family on, and people usually stick with through to retirement.

Most of the people I have known that work in government are good people, they work hard, and they earn the pay and security they enjoy.

As far as how I respect the government functionally, its not as good as it could be. Once you are out of the administrative offices and into the political arena, its a mess.

It seems like people in general have been so brainwashed into thinking that government is full of corruption and waste, that "the government is the problem with this country", that they elect people to office who have nothing but contempt for actual governance. And then they have a mess of idiots running things, convincing them that their original belief is proven.

[HardTimes99]

45. A bloodless coup d'etat installed the fascists on 12/12/2000 (Bush v. Gore) and we became a rogue

nation among the community of nations on 3/20/2003 (invasion of Iraq without a U.N. Security Council resolution). Sometime in 2004, Bush and Cheney's NSA began wiretapping Obama and other prominent and not-so-prominent Dems. Thus, Obama's seeming landslide victory in 2008 is highly suspect, as evidenced by his appointments and policy formulations thereafter.

My opinion is admittedly out there on the fringes which is probably why it is allowed to propagate, at least for now.

[cherokeeprogressive]

49. You funny. I give ya... hmm... a week. Tops.

[cherokeeprogressive]

52. Man, was I wrong or what?

[uppityperson]

61. What did he say?

[cherokeeprogressive]

62. It was a two sentence post about Zimmerman, IMO intended only as flamebait. n/t

[uppityperson]

66. Thanks

[On the Road]

53. Yes, I Respect the System

It has shown the ability to survive abuses and setbacks and go on to thrive. Thinking is US is on the edge of ruin or fascism is, shall we say, short-sighted.

[Marrah_G]

54. No, I don't

I think it is corrupted at all level beyond any means of repair. Those who are needed to end the corruption are the ones who are corrupt. It's so deep now that I honestly don't see it changing for the better.

[ohheckyeah]

57. Oh, heck no.

I haven't since the 70s.

[Savannahmann]

58. As a principle on Paper?

Yes. In principle, as it is intended to operate. Yes.

In practice? Not so much.

As an example. The First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

Congress shall make no law. The First Amendment is intended to be a guide, for good and moral men/women to use. Just this side of a commandment from God. But with the same limitations. Congress shall make no law. Notice how it doesn't say The Supreme Court shall rule that any law which.... But it says Congress shall pass no law.

How many times (Citizens United excepted) has the Supreme Court had to tell the Government that they were enforcing a law which abridged the First Amendment? How many times has the Supreme Court had to rule on a Religious Display? How many times has the Press found themselves targeted by Politicians?

On paper, the Amendment is a good thing. In practice, not so much. Take any amendment you want. The 4th Amendment. We're so much smarter now, so much more evolved. Yet we're trampling that like it has been woven into a door mat at the main entrance of a popular shopping mall. Fifth Amendment, The Supremes just ruled that you have to specifically say that you are invoking your right to remain silent or they'll use that right against you. I could go on and on.

The words, and meanings on paper, are a wonderful and amazing thing. Each branch given responsibility, each branch given authority, and each branch equal. If a Judge misbehaves then that Judge can be impeached. In practice, it's almost never done, no matter how outrageously the Judge has behaved. Congress was given immunity while in session, the idea being this way Virginia could not hold up delegates from South Carolina and affect legislation. Good in principle, but abused in practice.

The nation in principle, I love. The nation in practice, well I despair of ever loving it again. We forgot that just because we can do a thing, doesn't mean we should.

[cprise]

59. I have lost some respect for it over the years

As for the extent of "some", I'll let readers infer.

When I found out the extent of incarceration and thirst for punishment in our "justice" system, that was a big deal to me.

[RobertEarl]

60. I did

Even through Vietnam, Nixon, Reagan, Bush years, I always had respect for the system.

Now that I know votes are stolen, there is no more hope, no respect.

Since the people don't even get it (first stolen vote reply on thread) what's the fucking use? I am pretty much here to see what you good people are doing and just praying you all come to your fucking senses and realize why the system is fucked up.

You have lost it because you lost your vote.

[limpyhobbler]

64. I respect it the same way I would respect Mussolini or something.

I'm scared of it.

[Raksha]

65. Simple question, one-word answer: NO!!!

[Le Taz Hot]

70. I think the original concept was fine

(that whole only white, male, landowners can vote thing notwithstanding). But greed for money and power have bastardized it that it's not Democracy anymore. It's fascism. Having said that, I think we still have one thing that they don't have direct control over and that's our vote. It's why North Carolina and other states are trying to bring back Jim Crow (and apparently succeeding, thank you Roberts court).

I've taught as well, Willy, and there is NO WAY, without losing my soul, that I could teach students the illusion and not the reality.

[davidn3600]

71. Not the way it currently is

-Freedoms are rapidly vanishing.
-The government has absolutely no respect for the Constitution.
-The Criminal Justice system has become a big business with for-profit prisons, insane laws, and law enforcement thugs arming themselves to the teeth.
-Congress doesn't give a shit about the working class. Everything they do is about protecting the profits of the rich who fund their campaigns.

This is not a sustainable trajectory. If we dont find a leadership that wants actual change, this government is going to eventually fly to pieces just like every other empire in human history.

[G_j]

72. The whitewash of Iran/Contra

I knew at that point we were screwed.

[hobbit709]

73. The one as written originally or the one it has become?

The original system worked until the corporations took over.

[treestar]

76. Yes. It has worked since 1789.

And the people in power can always be changed.

[rurallib]

77. Lost some faith during Vietnam but regained it when Nixon resigned

But the eye opener for me was Reagan and the takeover by corporations.
This was reinforced during the Clinton years. And of course Bushco was a disaster. They seemed to have completed the transformation away from democracy.

[KansDem]

78. Democracy requires an informed public with empathy

Stupidity and selfishness won't cut it...

[warrprayer]

79. ....

[Puzzledtraveller]

80. sometimes

but not lately.