PatriotsReign

Incredibly sad...see for yourself.

"Even a cynic can find Washington's hypocrisy shocking at times. The Wall Street Journal reports today a House bill that would force lawmakers to make greater disclosures on financial transactions and disallow them from trading on nonpublic information is going nowhere fast.

That's right. Members of Congress are currently allowed to profit on insider trading! The bill, which has been languishing in the House for four years, would require elected officials "to make their financial transactions public within 90 days of a purchase or sale" and "prohibit lawmakers from trading in financial markets based on nonpublic information they learn on the job," the WSJ reports."

congress refuses to outlaw insider trading for lawmakers: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

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"No one walking this earth knows what is truly righteous"

STFarmy

In Common Sense, Thomas Paine said that as soon as the law-making body of the U.S. became a class unto itself and did not fear the voting power of the general public, they would cease to look after the benefit of the greater whole and look only after themselves. This is story, PR, is a perfect illustration of that. We need to elect people who care about the general populace.

Unforunately, that's a very simple solution to a very complex problem.

PatriotsReign

Great comments STFarmy! And I agree. Unfortunately, the "culture" permeates US gov't from the federal all the way down to the local levels.

It's called greed and the erosion of basic morals of people we used to hold in esteem. Not any more....

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"No one walking this earth knows what is truly righteous"

Harry Boy

This Congress:
The people hire them.
The people get what they deserve.

Dear Nancy, Reid, Schumer And Gang:
The more you screw them the better they like it, go get em.
Best Of Luck
harry Boy

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

Real World

Term limits would be a nice place to start. Farms, isn't it amazing how on point the minds of yesteryear were, compared to today. Maybe it's me, but when I read the words of people like Jefferson, Adams, Paine, etc. I come away enlighted. Yet when I hear their modern day contemporaries speak, I get insensed. Am I alone on this? Am I simply getting lost with the "in my day" mentality, where everything seemed better, tougher, purer in the past? Or is the reality that modern society, including (maybe especially) it's leaders, are more shallow, and self serving, than ever before?

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

apple strudel

I'm sorry but I am confused. How is it that members of congress do not fear the voting power of the general public? On the surface it looks like a pretty sh1tty thing for congress to do, but I'm having a hard time understanding the applicability of Paine's idea to today's congress.

Leave No Doubt

They absolutely do not fear the voting public and are pretty blatant about it too. Sad to see.

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edit...2012 BABY!

STFarmy

Being as involved in history (especially American history) as I am, I understand your feelings RW. It's pretty easy to be swayed by the rhetoric of the Founders. Without resorting to some of the ridiculous criticisms and revisionist history I've seen about some of the Founders, it's true that they were not perfect. Many had slaves (though some of them were conflicted about the practice and seemed to know how wrong it was), they did not consider women part of the political sphere, and some could be self-serving at best.

But I would argue that they were concerned with the well-being of the republic in general. And I think that this is because, at the time, there was no guarantee that the country would survive. The Constitution was drafted at a time when they had only been separated from Britain from 10+ years, and the Articles of Confederation had not done well in governing the country. They HAD to make it work; thus, they put the interests of the country over their own. All of us here have grown up in a world where America is the preeminent force on the globe (especially those of us who didn't grow up totally under the shadow of the Cold War). The politicians are working under the assumption (which has late come into question) that America will go on being the power in the world no matter what. Thus, there is no incentive to look for the good of the country, it will be fine in their minds. So, they look out for themselves. I guess it's a little like the phrase "necessity is the mother of invention" - without that overarching need to succeed, the culture of politics has become lazy and self-serving. Unfortunately, this seems to be the way of all successful political bodies.

So obviously, there's a lot of things that can be learned by reading those works, as RW says. And this is a pretty general statement, but I think it's a good part of the reason why politicians today look after themselves.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a blabbermouth today.

apple strudel

I'm still not understanding this. They must fear the public otherwise campaigns would not be so elaborate. I'm going to assume that you guys are saying that they don't fear the public because the public is easily mislead, but it's not like these guys don't get voted out of office all the time.

STFarmy

Well, I'm applying Paine's statements to why Congress is self-serving. You're right, they're not completely fearless of the general public, but many feel (or maybe felt, there's a lot more political activity in the population these days) that they can win elections by using the tired cheap tactics like negative campaigning and blaming. Of course they're afraid of being voted out, but people don't really pay attention now like they did then.