jeff wrote:
Stephen Trapani wrote:
jeff wrote:
Stephen Trapani wrote:
Capt. JG wrote:
"Stephen Trapani" wrote in message

More than enough money to supply all that stuff disappeared
into the
companies run by Cheney's chums. Twice as much of our money
was spent to
give the USCG the equipment they need and they didn't get so
much as a
usable RIB out of it.

Any clue why a politician would want to risk life in prison to
make their "chums" rich? People spout this so much and never stop
to think of how ridiculous it is. These are bad, evil people
taking huge risks for someone else?? It doesn't make a bit of sense.

Huh? People risk jail time all the time for profit motive. They do
it for themselves and for others, which is not mutually exclusive.

Let's try again. The popular contention is that all these
politicians are making decisions so that their *friends* can profit,
not themselves. As we all know, high profile politicians like
presidents and vice-presidents have their finances highly
scrutinized until the day they die. Any large influx of money would
shortly be obvious to the entire world, so we all know they can't
get any significant kickbacks or profit of any sort remotely related
to any companies who profited while the politician was in office.

So the kooks, who have to come up with some motive for their
contention of corruption, are then relegated to claiming the
politician is doing it all for their friends. As if there is or ever
has been any type of criminal who does such a thing. I've never
heard of any criminal who wasn't going to profit from his crime if
he succeeded. Has anyone else? People just don't break the law for
that reason. It's not part of human psychology. Never has been.

You're either very naive, or you think the readers are.

The entire business and political world works on favors given without
an explicit promise of the favor returned. Most of us only see this
on a small scale: the vendor gives an extra portion, knowing that it
will create goodwill that will come back eventually. But if you give
a sizable contribution to one politician, that will guarantee a
favorable hearing not just with that politician, but with all others
of his party. And when a businessman gets favorable treatment from
politicians, essentially stealing from the common folk, is he called
a thief? Nope, he's called a "conservative." (OK, a few are called
Democrats)

Think about what you're saying. Cheney, who was selected by Bush as
his running mate, so badly wanted to be *vice-president* that he
surreptitiously promised to sacrifice the well being of the country so
these companies could make billions and billions of dollars in profits.

No. He did it out of habit. It's the system he knows, the people he
trusts. It just turns out that his friends, relatives, associates etc.
are the ones who make money.

So anyone with a habit of taking such huge risk to do so much for the
people he loves but not for himself is generally considered a wonderful
wonderful person, right? I mean the story is normally how evil of a
person it takes to do what he does. Do these pieces really seem to fit?

Does that really make sense to you?

Absolutely. In fact, the only question is that its worked so well
(after a fashion) for thousands of years, is it worth changing? The
"moderate-liberal" position is that its the only game in town, but that
a portion can be siphoned off for the social welfare.

The thing that most people don't see clearly is that the country is
controlled by a fairly small group, 2-5% of country. Nothing is going
to change that, it has gone on for thousands of years.

So what you are saying is that democracy is a farce. It hasn't really
gotten average citizens of democratic countries any more rights,
priviliges, or benefits than any form of government that has come before
it, or more than any other country currently on earth. Democracy is just
a farce meant to hold the ordinary person down as has happened for
millennia.

Have I got that right?

Stephen