eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewww

that is aimed at Halo 2 BTW, WORST GAME EV4R!

I agree that people in the military should be paid more, but if you think about it, it just isn't realistic. We're borrowing millions from other countries every day for this war in Iraq, and it will be people [teenagers] like me who are going to suffer for it once we're getting 50% income tax later in life. The country just doesn't have enough money to fund the troops any more than they already do. Unless they drop the space program (NOT going to happen) or do something else to [drastically] lower spending, the military will just be the job for the person who wants to go get shot at for a halfway decent paycheck.

Lol, the space program is probably the lowest-budgeted department of the government. It's entire annual budget couldn't even pay for a single day of what the Iraq mess costs.

There's plenty of money for the government to use, should the government only spend it on things it needs. Like, you know, the military.

We need to end the concept of entitlements. We need to end the concept of the federal government sticking their nose into state affairs (like education) and liberty affairs (such as drug laws). We need to seriously consider ending entitlements. Not redefining them. Not restructuring them. ENDING them.

To do this we need eliminate the retarded notion of universal suffrage and move back to the way it was in the early days of our nation. Voting should be a privilege, not a right. It would be tricky to make it equal and fair, but voting should be a duty of the qualified few, not the many. (We also need to abandon the concept of our retarded two-party system).

Yeah. There's a lot we need to do. It just won't happen, sadly. Sux, too.

In my ideal world the US would have the largest, most powerful military whose members were compensated at market value. This would be pretty much the only thing the federal government would fund. States would be free to fund anything however they like (public school system or no public school system). Taxes would be lowered to the lowest amount possible. All gun laws would be abolished. All drug laws would be abolished. Income tax would be eliminated, replaced with a simple sales tax. No rights would be granted via government institutions (such as marriage) that are not afforded to those who do not involve themselves in said institutions.

Anyway, I'll stop ranting =/

I think you bring up some very good points, except for the anti-universal suffrage. This country is based around the fact that all men (using the term to mean the race in general) are created equal, and have the right to vote. Granted, a lot of your hillbillies probably don't vote, so they're not a problem. But if a person is living in a country, then damnit they have a right to say how it's run, even if they lose. That's the whole reason we fought Britain, was because we had no say. It would be kind of hypocritical to say only the socially elite are allowed to say how the country is run. It would only push the working class even lower.

I agree though with the fact that the Federal government should participate less in daily life, unless it applies to something that affects the nation as a whole. I'm on the fence on drug laws. On the one hand, they DO reduce the number of users, but on the other hand, people do drugs anyway and it's just extra money / jail space wasted trying to book all of them. I think the state should fund public school no matter what, because I think that anyone in this country who wants to learn should be entitled to do so. I disagree with the fact that you are required to go to school, as there are about 500 people at MY school (mainly Mexicans, not to be racist) who could give a shit if they went to school.

I think taxes should be as high as we need them to be, + a little surplus for times in which we go "Oh shit we need money." Right now, we have pretty close to the most powerful military around. The only reason we're losing to these pispoor terrorists is we're allowing ourselves to be pushed around by the UN. Just bomb the shit out of the place and get out, if the civvies aren't helping, then they're not on our side, and can go bitch all they want while we shove a 500lb bomb down their throat. Nobody should be more important than our boys / girls down there, and if that means killing a few innocents, well they're the idiots gaping at the fights in the streets and not hauling ass to Iran. The whole reason the UN was created was to prevent assholes like Hitler from causing another holocaust, not to stop the US from shoving around a country who has probably killed more of our troops than we have their civilians (correct me if I'm wrong here). Hell, THEY'RE killing more of their civilians than we are.

Oh yeah and I'm also pissed at the entire Islamic faith right now. I know this is a small sect of Islam that believes some twisted ideas, but have you once seen a public demonstration / announcement / whatever that denounces them as not being part of this faith? No. I will not accept them as being a separate part of that religion until the people who actually represent it step up and say "These are some craaaaaaaaazy fuckers, please don't think that our entire religion is like them." as well as publicly denounce them. Maybe they're too afraid that they'll get jihaded too.

Oh and it's not ranting if you have someone to rant back at you; it turns into an arguement there ^_^

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Noggin contributes meaningful conversation.

Don't you ever forget it.

I disagree with this. The US was indeed founded on the idea of equality--equality of opportunity. Further, the whole thing with Britain was more about "This is mine, dammit, not yours" than "Oh noes! You're taxing us without us being represented!" Britain was being a dick and taking their property. It made sense.

Universal sufferage wasn't really embraced until the 1820s. Before this only landowners could vote. In any case I'm not suggesting we go back to this method of selection, but I'd be more than happy to issue some sort of test every decade and only let the top 10% vote.

Letting everyone vote is just a bad, bad idea, IMHO. Running your political system based off a popularity contest is...retarded. Most people aren't even informed, yet alone capable of thinking something they weren't told to think by their favorite TV show.

Think of the most average intelligence person you know. Now realize half the people are dumber than him. It's not a pretty thought.

I think only people capable of critical thought should be able to vote. Historically, people capable of this have risen up to the economical elite in a post-feudalistic society. This is why voting was often limited to land-owners. Even today in the UK the house of lords is a (fairly) important body.

As long as anyone is able to become an elite I think it's perfectly fair to restrict voting rights to the elite. This is hard, for sure, as you could easily bias a test to favor whites, for example. The SAT has been accused of shit like this for years with some merit.

Just because something is hard, however, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

You bring up an interesting point, that I want to agree with but I still think is somewhat wrong. Perhaps we could do some sort of test to see who should be able to vote? IE when you go to sign up for voter's registration, you have to take a pseudo-IQ test, that would both test your ability to reason as well as your ability to understand the way government is run etc. So basically anyone with at least a HS education who passed their history class and wasn't a complete retard would be able to vote, but it would weed out all the people who just vote for the hell of it. Discuss?

I still disagree. I don't think more than 5-10% max of the population should be voting.

Or be making any decisions about anything, really.

I think that over 5-% of the US should not be voting, but that is just me...