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I Served in Congress Longer Than Anyone. Here’s How to Fix It.

azgreg

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This is a nice piece in The Atlantic by John D. Dingell who represented Michigan in Congress for over 59 years.

For some of you it will be too hard to read. We know who you are.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/john-dingell-how-restore-faith-government/577222/

In my six decades in public service, I’ve seen many changes in our nation and its institutions. Yet the most profound change I’ve witnessed is also the saddest. It is the complete collapse in respect for virtually every institution of government and an unprecedented cynicism about the nobility of public service itself.

These are not just the grumblings of an angry old man lamenting the loss of “the good old days.” In December 1958, almost exactly three years after I entered the House of Representatives, the first American National Election Study, initiated by the University of Michigan, found that 73 percent of Americans trusted the federal government “to do the right thing almost always or most of the time.” As of December 2017, the same study, now conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, found that this number had plummeted to just 18 percent.

Unfortunately ideas here from Mr. Dingell will never happen in my lifetime and likely never.
 
Yeah, he blames everyone BUT the federal government and politicians like himself. He's just another person saying all his failures and the failures of his institutions are everyone else's fault. He sure did a bang up job for his state of Michigan, didn't he? I guess his view as a Democrat is there still are not enough regulations against the auto industry and taxes are still too low.

That is the new American way - blame everyone else for your own failures.
 
The biggest piece I would say, is Campaign Finance Reform is the single best thing, that if that could be enacted, it would improve things so much.

What is in place at this time, is nothing short of legalized corruption, it's absolutely ****ing mental.
 
Yeah, he blames everyone BUT the federal government and politicians like himself. He's just another person saying all his failures and the failures of his institutions are everyone else's fault. He sure did a bang up job for his state of Michigan, didn't he? I guess his view as a Democrat is there still are not enough regulations against the auto industry and taxes are still too low.

That is the new American way - blame everyone else for your own failures.

The problem for him is that during his time of service Washington, Congress, The House, Michigan and the Detroit Metro Area all vastly declined. He had his hand in all of that.
 
This is a nice piece in The Atlantic by John D. Dingell who represented Michigan in Congress for over 59 years.

For some of you it will be too hard to read. We know who you are.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/john-dingell-how-restore-faith-government/577222/



Unfortunately ideas here from Mr. Dingell will never happen in my lifetime and likely never.

It started in the 70’s when retreating into tribes got real momentum. We had hyphenated names, and a large influx of Vietnamese and other east Asians, and another influx of post amnesty Mexicans, we had immigration from former Soviet Republics, all in numbers great enough to live and earn without ever adapting to the culture.

Then we had the politicalization of our law enforcement agencies. We have a real problem with no way to solve it other that a complete and total overhaul of the educational system.
 
The problem for him is that during his time of service Washington, Congress, The House, Michigan and the Detroit Metro Area all vastly declined. He had his hand in all of that.


Thats when the “free market” let its auto industry sail away to rigged markets in Japan, mostly.
 
The biggest piece I would say, is Campaign Finance Reform is the single best thing, that if that could be enacted, it would improve things so much.

What is in place at this time, is nothing short of legalized corruption, it's absolutely ****ing mental.

A local paper did a piece on Arizona elections years back before they went under. Their research showed that in Arizona the candidate that spent the most money won something like 92% of the elections (at all levels).
 
What a disgusting piece of partisan BS.

Got to love this line….
There are many reasons for this dramatic decline: the Vietnam War, Watergate, Ronald Reagan’s folksy but popular message that government was not here to help, the Iraq War, and worst of all by far, the Trumpist mind-set.
Can't be a man and say your actual opinion: republicans.

These jackasses who see “deep state” conspiracies in every part of government are a minority of a minority, yet they are now the weakest link in the chain of more than three centuries of our American republic.
One can make the case deep-state isn't dangerous but non-existence is laughable and takes a moment of thinking to refute.

Anyhow:
1. full participation
I am all for registering people automatically but "No photo ID, no residency tests, no impediments of any kind" is insane. It is now good policy to have an honour system no need for even the illusion of verifying/discouraging fraud? This despite the ability to commit fraud becoming easier by the year? Not to mention hacking bring a huge concern, centralizing that voter registry would basically set what poor security we have now back even further.

2. publicly funded political campaigns
Great. So basically no connections to the political establishment and you don't get to play. Sounds wonderful. Where do I sign? At least with our broken cost barrier system there's lot of different sources of wealth to try and draw from. And the top spender isn't by any means always the winner.


3. Tyranny of the Majority
OMG! Seriously. If you want the country to fracture in the long term - this is certainly the way to do it. That "die a quiet death in the Senate...because of the disproportionate influence of small states" is on purpose. It reflects that the country should balance the intreats of minory opinions with that of the majority to maintain peace. It part of what unites everyone as Americans no matter how different. Ruling this large and diverse country from handful of urban centers is a death sentence - you don't need to travel far to see the effects.Take Canada - it balkanaizes more and more each year...and it has no chance of staying together. Their people don't unite as canadians - they are just cultures in a poltical union. Quebec, Westreaners, Inuit, Maritimers...these will be what you hear people are not canadians...and that is in no small part becuase they are disenfrancied by uraban centers of Ontario. Sure we've got a north and south but trust me the same types of restment is not there...and the union is much newer.....

4. protection of an independent press
Let's just gloss over the fact that mainsteam journalist types are less and less independent and diverse. Not to mention the free press refers to the printing press not the journalism profession and hence despite that being what it means today the better modern term of the founding fathers would be "a free internet".

But yeah, let's ignore internet censorship and meddling and focus on that "honourable" journalism profession. In my opinion a full-time gossip is not a honourable profession. Second no one is complaining about the actual "news" its the constant narratives and opinion peices that have taken center stage that are behind this current climate...
 
i would probably settle for making gerrymandering illegal at the federal level, making registration automatic at age 18, and extending early voting nationwide.
 
"I served in Congress longer than anyone. In that time, I didn't do **** to fix it. Now I'm going to tell you how, but I still ain't going to do **** to fix it myself. Thanks for listening".
 
Thats when the “free market” let its auto industry sail away to rigged markets in Japan, mostly.

The auto industry was not a "free market." In 1972 automakers had to reduce compression and add so many other items to the vehicles, plus put ugly as hell jutting out bumpers and regulations that targets American big cars - while at the same time liberals such as Ralph Nader were pounding little cars such as the Corvair - with the EPA, DOT and OSHA basically living in factories - while tariffs against USA products also were allowed. It took decades for the auto industry to start to recover and by then USA companies lost the market. Taxes and local/state regulations made manufacturing in Detroit and Michigan no longer viable. Even under Obama the anti-American production rules continued with the government giving GM billions to open auto factories in China, not the USA.

It was LACK of free trade that destroyed the US auto industry.
 
A local paper did a piece on Arizona elections years back before they went under. Their research showed that in Arizona the candidate that spent the most money won something like 92% of the elections (at all levels).
That is not actually that concerning as it might seem at first. A meaningful statistic would only look at races that were competitive which is only a small fraction of the total. In cases where the winner is relatively known beforehand, opponents are unlikely to outspend a proven winner.

One reason, I am actually quite intrested in seeing how the "top two" reforms they are trying in California play overtime.
 
Dingell could've simply looked at the contrast between 1958 Detroit and 2018 Detroit to get a good idea of why we no longer trust politicians.
 
It was LACK of free trade that destroyed the US auto industry.

LOL

You're completely ignoring that Japanese automakers revolutionized car production. They made better and more reliable cars. And in the free market consumers bought the cheaper more reliable cars from Japan.
 
Yeah, he blames everyone BUT the federal government and politicians like himself. He's just another person saying all his failures and the failures of his institutions are everyone else's fault. He sure did a bang up job for his state of Michigan, didn't he? I guess his view as a Democrat is there still are not enough regulations against the auto industry and taxes are still too low.

That is the new American way - blame everyone else for your own failures.

As opposed to those who spent forty years blaming the government and ONLY the government for EVERYTHING, and doing their level best to drown it in the bathtub, and then bitching about the chaos that ensues.

I guess their views as libertarians is that there's still too much government, and that only when complete and TOTAL anarchy reigns will there be enough freedumb.
 
"I served in Congress longer than anyone. In that time, I didn't do **** to fix it. Now I'm going to tell you how, but I still ain't going to do **** to fix it myself. Thanks for listening".

My point was similar "So everything turned to crap during your very long tour of duty which landed you at the top of the food chain and now you are the guy with the answers?".









Seems rather doubtful.








Welcome to DP!


:2wave:
 
The auto industry was not a "free market." In 1972 automakers had to reduce compression and add so many other items to the vehicles, plus put ugly as hell jutting out bumpers and regulations that targets American big cars - while at the same time liberals such as Ralph Nader were pounding little cars such as the Corvair - with the EPA, DOT and OSHA basically living in factories - while tariffs against USA products also were allowed. It took decades for the auto industry to start to recover and by then USA companies lost the market. Taxes and local/state regulations made manufacturing in Detroit and Michigan no longer viable. Even under Obama the anti-American production rules continued with the government giving GM billions to open auto factories in China, not the USA.

It was LACK of free trade that destroyed the US auto industry.

It was producing crap products partly because labor was always agitated and not that interested in turning in good work that did it.

This was management failure all the way.

The death penalty was earned.

Obama nixed it.

BAD CALL
 
Can't be a man and say your actual opinion: republicans.

I'll say it. Republicans have ruined this country with their obsession with communism, military spending and irresponsible tax cuts. They gutted the middle class with their war against labor unions.

Replace trillions in military spending with trillions in investments in infrastructure and the American people and you have a much stronger America today.
 
I'll say it. Republicans have ruined this country with their obsession with communism, military spending and irresponsible tax cuts. They gutted the middle class with their war against labor unions.

Replace trillions in military spending with trillions in investments in infrastructure and the American people and you have a much stronger America today.

You dont even begin to understand what went wrong.

Even now Europe is not the least bit interested in paying their own way!
 
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This is a nice piece in The Atlantic by John D. Dingell who represented Michigan in Congress for over 59 years.

For some of you it will be too hard to read. We know who you are.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/john-dingell-how-restore-faith-government/577222/



Unfortunately ideas here from Mr. Dingell will never happen in my lifetime and likely never.

Here's the Pew Research study.

Public Trust in Government: 1958-2017 | Pew Research Center

Trust in government reached a high of 77% in Oct of 1964. fell to 10% in Oct of 2011. 18% in Dec of 2017.

Isn't it interesting that the less the federal government was involved in one's life, the more trust we had in it.
 
Replace trillions in military spending with trillions in investments in infrastructure and the American people and you have a much stronger America today.
Most Western countries spend a lot less on Military, unfortunately still probably too little on infrastructure - what keeps you in America?
 
The auto industry was not a "free market." In 1972 automakers had to reduce compression and add so many other items to the vehicles, plus put ugly as hell jutting out bumpers and regulations that targets American big cars - while at the same time liberals such as Ralph Nader were pounding little cars such as the Corvair - with the EPA, DOT and OSHA basically living in factories - while tariffs against USA products also were allowed. It took decades for the auto industry to start to recover and by then USA companies lost the market. Taxes and local/state regulations made manufacturing in Detroit and Michigan no longer viable. Even under Obama the anti-American production rules continued with the government giving GM billions to open auto factories in China, not the USA.

It was LACK of free trade that destroyed the US auto industry.

It was lack of recognition of what represents value to the US buyer when value is all the US Auto Industry has ever offered that has killed it if it is in fact dead. That same lack of innovation also allowed foreign makers to prosper under the same regulatory environment that US Auto makers struggled to either comprehend or respond to even adequately. When foreigners do a better job with your own rules and in your own home market than you do, HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!
 
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I am pretty much opposed to monkeying with the structure of the Legislature. However is we are truly to a circumstance where "70 percent [of people]will then have 30 senators, and the remaining 30 percent of the people, mainly those living in the smallest and poorest states, will have 70 senators.” that is a whole different animal.
 
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