ah yeah, i see that, although i still think debate has influenced policy in recent years, at least on gay marriage, but also on the major wars we've been involved in. of course those debates were always very tied into the wars themselves: body counts, perceptions of quagmire, etc. i'd never claim they take place in a vacuum. these debates stretch at least partially across the political spectrum; see this clip for some evidence of evolving views on gay marriage: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-may-10-2012/lord-of-the-rings---the-right-side-of-history. and even though our political system is polarized, enough voters are not set dogmatically to team red or team blue that every election is contentious. The system, and the voters, could be better, but the system is not hopelessly entirely broken.

do i really have to read about gay marriage for the next six months? christ almighty.

Abraham Lincoln was the first president to come out in favor of gay marriage

for the record, i meant:

why do all politicians think that no one will look back at what they've said previously? and when somebody does call them on it, why does their offered up excuse suffice and the matter get dropped?

example (you can use anything you want):

politician A comes out in August and says the sky is blue b/c of bird farts. plenty of people echo the idea and argue it against people that think insects have more to do w/ the sky's coloring.

someone (doesn't matter who) produces something in March of the following year that seems to all but settle things in favor of insects. politician A comes out and says, "well birds eat insects."

and everybody moves on.

IMHO, for two reasons. One, the ADD effect of the 24 hour news cycle. No one cares enough to go back and analyze unless it has something to do with sex. Two, people want to be loyal to their team (since the others are our enemy) and thus will accept whatever answer is given rather than appear to deviate even slightly from the party message.

Well, public speaking in general is inherently difficult, especially when you're trying to be all things to all people all the time and there is a camera literally everywhere.

If there were a politician who would admit publically, well, I was talking out of my ass there actually Im just trying to get elected this is what I really think it might work out better.

It's just kind of funny to me that we would try and make issues out of nonsensical unsolveable political arguments where small segments of the population are deeply entrenched.

WTF are you supposed to say about Gay Marriage? It has nothing to to with religion. It has everything to do with granting a very tiny segment of the population the same rights as everyone else. That's not something to vote on unless you happen to be Gay and even then, who can you trust to do something about it?

It's like having a single issue voter concerned only about abortion.

WTF can the government of the US or any State say or do about the sanctity of marriage? It's a contract between two individuals and their respective deity... and or some government licensing that grants a small group of rights to married people.

The only thing the government can do in respect to Gay Marriage is change the wording on some of the licensing.... and that's akin to an abomination? REALLY?

But you can't really give that speech at Liberty University either.

Perhaps I just would like them to acknowledge publically that 90% of the time they preach to the choir publically and that they are completely full of shit when making public statements. Hell half or more of policy is politically motivated too.

i was just thinking out-loud (post).

okay, that's a fair point--i guess i've just learned to live/not care too much about political bullshit/flip-flopping/etc. politics is a game, just like most other things to greater or lesser degrees.

though on one of electro's points, in a sense, making policy for political reasons is a very democratic way of doing things. as a politician, doing what you do because you think people will like it and vote for you or your party because you did it is, in a pretty literal sense, doing your best to try to represent the preferences of your constituents from your position of power. it might not be the best way to do things, but i think often the democratic side of playing politics gets overlooked.

Good point. I think that's why I considered the for lack of a better term Obamacare bill to be an impressive accomplishment for Obama. I was impressed with how much of the things that were important to the Democratic party he got them to pass early on. Obviously it's up for debate whether or not much of the Stimulus bill or Obamacare are good for the country or the economy etc but I am still impressed by what they got passed. I completely disagreed with the handling of the automakers, but the UAW is a huge contributor to the democratic party and they got bailed out. I don't have a direct comparison in my head, but I'm sure republicans have done the same thing too. You're absolutely correct in that it's the democratic process, but it's also what makes politics so shady in my opinion too. Strange bedfellows and lots of corruption all around.

I wish I could say it's like making sausage, but I'm not so sure the product tastes very good at the end. I often feel like petty arguments get in the way of effective beneficial change.

W. doesn't get it.

Fact: Under the Barrack HUSSEIN Obama Administration, Pearl Jam's fan club ticketing system has gotten worse. MSG '10? Canada '11? PJ20? Crowdsurge? When will our celebrity-in-chief apologize?

In all seriousness, maybe the Dems should throw in the towel this time through. Let Mitt win, his 'plans' will make the economy worse, and then they retake the whole thing in 2016.

if the Democrats were Republicans, they'd probably do this

i dont know why anyone would want to be president when the entire world's economy grinds to a halt in 2013.

isn't that what Rs did 4 years ago?

Mitt will just blame it on the prior administration, and claim that all we need to turn the economy around is more of his economic prescriptions. For four years. It'll work. I know it.

i'm gravitating toward the opinion that we should wholeheartedly try one approach to governing at a time.

if we're a republic, okay, let's be a real republic.
if we're a federation, okay, let's be a true federation.
if we're a socialist state, etc.

i think its all the half measures to appease these different ideologies that cause us all the most problems.

what does it mean to be a republic, or federation, in policy terms? those three seem pretty compatible.

but i don't know that half measures are the cause of our ills. they limit the effectiveness of policy in any direction, but that's not necessarily always a bad thing. and we did take one primary approach to foreign policy in the early Bush years, and things didn't turn out so well then.