The Cardboard Box Reform - Nixon's Ghost Bill & A Crucial Flaw in Democracy

We need to destroy their logic about "collecting everything, because they might need it in 100 years" first. They do it because it's so cheap, because they can, and because nobody is really standing up to them. However, if we allowed the government to do anything it wants "just because it can", thousands of our current laws wouldn't exist. I don't remember if it was Clapper or Alexander but one of them basically said the whole Snowden thing will blow-over, and they won't have to change a thing . From what we've seen already that seems to be the case. The watered down USA Freedom Act was killed, and they even made their collection powers stronger with that recent Intelligence Authorization Act. Can you believe that? Not even 2 years after the worldwide Snowden scandal, and they shamelessly push for even more spying powers. These people know nothing can touch them or stop them. And that speaks volumes about the state of our current democracies, when the will of the people, who are supposed to control their governments, and are the ones paying their budgets, have no say in the government's decisions. I highly recommend everyone watch this whole video here. It's an eye opener about many things, and I think he may be right about the root cause of the problem (vote transparency in Congress, which causes politicians to be bought, intimidated, and so on for their vote, just like it would happen with normal citizens's vote if it weren't anonymous): [VIDEO] It's from the video where I

This article kinda just glosses over any causes of lobbying, and then complains about the symptoms. There is one incredibly interesting video I have seen which lays out a major root cause of corruption in the US, and the rise of lobbying and corruption since the 1970s. [VIDEO] (Cardboard Box Reform) It is long, but well-reasoned and supported by a lot of evidence. Definitely worth a watch...

This is very long but it goes into a well thought-out theory for why and how this happened. Very interesting stuff. Well worth a watch. [VIDEO]

Voting has to be truly and completely private to not permit of corruption. Smartphones will not and cannot ever be so. Watch this: [VIDEO]

Just going to have to disagree... I think earmarks are exactly the thing that caused congresspeople to lose all of their power. > you've just put the big donors totally in charge of the campaign, because their spending dwarfs the spending of the candidates themselves. When the donors are the corporations, and earmarks result in higher profits for the corporations, a dangerous positive feedback loop occurs where you basically end up with corporations controlling the government instead of the elected politicians. As far as the worst political decision of the past few decades, watch this video if you have an hour to spare. It lays out the case where adding transparency in congressional voting is really the root cause of Congress being so screwed up. It might change your mind... [VIDEO]

You may reconsider after watching this video on why secret ballots (or anonymous voting in general) should be preferred over "voting transparency": [VIDEO]

Another great explaination is the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970, here's an interesting video. [VIDEO]

This video has a nice summary of all the changes in the 1970s, and how many other prominent authors have documented that radical shift. [VIDEO] The author believes the problems can be traced to the US congress switching from closed (anonymous) to open voting on January 3rd, 1971 Somewhat related, this post shows how the US congress has grown incredibly divided over time [LINK]