groups

While those who rule us give lip service to the idea of " the voice of the people " they do everything possible to make sure that it is an uninformed voice and that it is focused upon BS emotional red herring non -issues such as gay marriage, prayer in school,abortion , terrorism , crime,and race .We have abdicated our right to self-government to a group of career thieves who represent only themselves and the big money interests who pay them .

Yes Dirck you are correct. However....I might add that a government of, by and for the people would in reality result in chaos quickly. (Mary sells sea shells.....sorry) The predominating idea is that if everything had to be ratified in a referendum nothing would ever get done. Vietnam probably wouldn't have happened. Panama certainly wouldn't have. Iraq (ouch) with its WMD's, even though we have receipts, probably wouldn't have gotten off Cape Kennedy.

A strong Federal government is necessary to carry out the political will of a people. Without a strong leader we are left floundering in peace with lower taxes and less war.

These types of issues are so complicated that they make my brain hurt.
I think that all homo sapiens (including Neandertalensis, etc.) have lived in groups. "Man is an animal of the polis." There is an inherent tension in social animals between the desires of the individual and the desires of the group. In family units, there is no pure dictatorship. You can go to the titty bar with the boys tonight, but your breakfast tomorrow is going to be burnt.

Evil King John (time of "Robin Hood"; John's brother, good king Richard Lionheart, was off fighting in the Middle East) signed the Magna Carta, establishing a written beginning of "due process", but he signed it with a sword held to his throat. Due process is the point of a sword.

Sure knights owned serfs, and lords owned knights, but it was never wholly a one-way street. Bring it on up to the time of the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson's slaves, including his children, had to pick cotton for free -- it was unskilled labor. But when the bottom dropped out of the international cotton market Jefferson switched to tobacco -- a crop that it requires some skill to plant, harvest, dry and ready for market. It is at that time that copper pennies begin to appear in the slaves' quarters. If Jefferson wanted to entice his property to produce, he had to offer something in return.

Personally, as a wage-slave, I resent the fatcats who own this country and Europe -- the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, the Krupps, etc. But over the last 200,000 years, I believe we have made some progress.

Order from chaos. I prefer the chaos of everyone having their say rather than ruled by automatons following the party line. It may be inefficient and slow on the uptake, it it is helluva lot better than crap spewed by party flakes and moronic pundits who haven't a clue as to what is going on or what they are talking about.
The rabble shall rule.

i agree with the above erply ghostancer, do not care about so call fat cats unless their begin to run the government if they are super rich that is cool for them.

Yichel , the fat cats DO run the government .

if so they figured how to do it by using all these figure heads? who then become even more meaningless. If i end up really believing this I may never vote againfor what would be the purpose?

Our current campaign finance laws put every candidate up for sale to the big monied interests . Then we make war to make money for the military suppliers and the oil producers . We allow millions of illegals to live here to keep wages down , especially for the big agri-businesses . We allow banks to leverage themselves up 30 times and destroy our economy , then we bail them out .The current depression will allow the big money to buy up a lot of valuable assets for pennies on the dollar .

Hmm. Is this archaeology, or is it history?