When did politics become a full time job?

[Guest 70below]

Pardon my ignorance. I admit up front that as politics does not interest me, I've not taken it as seriously in the past, as it is apparent that I need to. I do vote, and I do try to be informed on issues. However, in the overwhelmingly busy manner that life is lived these days, some things get thrown to the curb.

One of the things that has annoyed me of late, is when did politics become a full time job? My understanding of our representatives in the House and Senate of yore, they served on an as needed basis, and were called to session as needed. Called to service as needed? Our forefathers were creating the greatest country in the world, yet they did not sit around trying to think of ways to regulate us, our behavior, and lifestyles.

At some point it seems to me, Politicians began to make politics their lives, and in an effort to devote all their time to politics, had to come up with reasons to be there. Could this be the reason why we have so many laws that are not enforced or seem redundant? Or why the Code of Federal Regulations could be studied for ones life and never fully be understood?

Feel free to correct me, or rebut any of my statements. This is just an observation, and a personal matter of recent disgust with the direction our "representatives" have taken us.

[Smith]

When it started paying so well.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

When they figured they could bribe us with our own money. I would venture to say

sometime around the time the income tax was enacted.

[Raoul]

I would venture to say

sometime around the time the income tax was enacted.

Ain't that the damn truth.

[Guest 70below]

I figure there is plenty for them to do at this time if they want to work at it, why don't they work on creating people powered programs instead of ones drowned by inept Gov't agencies, or work on eliminating ineffective laws, codes, and programs, instead of creating new ones that just mask the others? I don't get it.....

[Guest gunslinger707]

Polotic's became a full time job when WE THE PEOPLE became LACKADASICAL in holding them to their OATH of office.WE allowed them to set their own salary with raise's when they felt like it.WE THE PEOPLE allowed it to become a full time job by continuing to elect the same rep's to office over and over!! just my 0.02 worth whut ya paid for it!

[Guest mikedwood]

I certainly share your concern. Wish I had an answer. Money, power and money and power.

[Guest mosinon]

There is this persistent idea that we are living in the most corrupt and worst times ever. This idea that it wasn't like this in the old days. This isn't true. Politicians looking after their own self interest has usually been the case.

I recall, from my younger days, a politician who got politics into to secure government contracts. To be sure he was kind of a weird guy. He'd walk around naked and so forth. Worse than that he cheated on his wife.

None of this is new. We want it to be new because we imagine virtue and ideas are interchangeable. If you don't follow the links, let me sum up:

Ben Franklin was into politics for the dough

[Guest 70below]

I don't claim to be naive enough to think that there wasn't something to gain for most to get involved. I believe there are good and bad individuals involved in everything. At least on a part time basis, they worried about lining their pockets, and not necessarily emptying ours.

[Guest mosinon]

I don't claim to be naive enough to think that there wasn't something to gain for most to get involved. I believe there are good and bad individuals involved in everything. At least on a part time basis, they worried about lining their pockets, and not necessarily emptying ours.

Well, here's the thing. Lining their pockets is necessarily emptying your pockets. Every tax is a redistribution, there is no way to get around that.

Tere are two nice debates to be had here. The first debate is whether morals over ride competence and the second is does motive really matter if the outcome is positive?

Hard questions.

[1gewehr]

Elected officials are just people. Like any other job, if you do not adequately supervise people, then you leave yourself open to corruption and theft. We do not adequately supervise our politicians. Our politicians have made the people their accessories to this theft by bribing them with earmarks and saying their job is to bring money to their home districts.

If WE do not fire politicians when they misbehave, who will? And if WE encourage congresscritters to 'bring home the money' then WE are just as guilty as they are.

[Warbird]

Pardon my ignorance. I admit up front that as politics does not interest me, I've not taken it as seriously in the past, as it is apparent that I need to. I do vote, and I do try to be informed on issues. However, in the overwhelmingly busy manner that life is lived these days, some things get thrown to the curb.

One of the things that has annoyed me of late, is when did politics become a full time job? My understanding of our representatives in the House and Senate of yore, they served on an as needed basis, and were called to session as needed. Called to service as needed? Our forefathers were creating the greatest country in the world, yet they did not sit around trying to think of ways to regulate us, our behavior, and lifestyles.

At some point it seems to me, Politicians began to make politics their lives, and in an effort to devote all their time to politics, had to come up with reasons to be there. Could this be the reason why we have so many laws that are not enforced or seem redundant? Or why the Code of Federal Regulations could be studied for ones life and never fully be understood?

Feel free to correct me, or rebut any of my statements. This is just an observation, and a personal matter of recent disgust with the direction our "representatives" have taken us.

Congress at the federal level and at the state level has never been as needed or called. Every state has their own schedule or meeting and adjourning. In some states they meet nearly all year. In others, like Montana, they meet only every other year. In the case of the states where they seem to met all year and in DC that time spent in session is much longer than it used to be. However it was never meet only when called.

As far as corruption, that was far more prevalent in the 1800's than it is today. There is far more oversight today than there was then. Does it exist now, sure, but nothing like it was then. In the end though accountability is at the ballot box.

As far as the politicians lining their pockets since the beginning of the country, that statement is patently false. In fact many of the founding fathers, including Franklin, lost money by going into politics.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Chris Dodd lined his pockets many different ways. He shoud

be in jail. Charles Rangel's ethics charges went nowhere.

Republicans went to jail and democrats, by and large,

still hold their seats. That's not corruption? The healthcare

scam is not corruption? I don't think it has changed very

much except that it has become demonized and co-opted

by the media.

We allow it to be this way. We get complacent and they

run over us. We have to hold their feet to the fire.

[Guest Drewsett]

Chris Dodd lined his pockets many different ways. He shoud

be in jail. Charles Rangel's ethics charges went nowhere.

Republicans went to jail and democrats, by and large,

still hold their seats. That's not corruption? The healthcare

scam is not corruption? I don't think it has changed very

much except that it has become demonized and co-opted

by the media.

We allow it to be this way. We get complacent and they

run over us. We have to hold their feet to the fire.

I think it's less a 'D' or 'R' thing (although the media certainly appears to like to run more stories about 'R's) and more a type of crime committed. I think that with the impeachment of Clinton that the Republicans created a very deep seated memory and hatred within the Democrats and the left-learning media outlets. How DARE the Republicans take down Clinton, their golden boy, for indiscretion and then have the moral turpitude to do the same crime.

All the pols are tax cheats so they're less likely to be the ones to cast the first stone for THAT crime. I did hope the charges would stick particularly against Rangel though.

[Oh Shoot]

I think it's less a 'D' or 'R' thing ..

D and R have become semantic terms only. The "left/right" aspects of each evolve through the years. The only constant is that each needs the other to survive - otherwise, a real party BY and FOR the people could arise. (gasp).

"The Soviet Union had a single, entrenched, systemically corrupt political party, which held a monopoly on power. The U.S. has two entrenched, systemically corrupt political parties, whose positions are often indistinguishable, and which together hold a monopoly on power. In either case, there is, or was, a single governing elite, but in the United States it organized itself into opposing teams to make its stranglehold on power seem more sportsmanlike."

Dmitry Orlov - Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century