It’s the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.

They even had a Parliament. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.

Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada for last 90 years and maybe you’ll see that they weren’t any stupider than we are.

Now I’m not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws–that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren’t very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds–so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort.

All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn’t put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats.

Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: “All that Mouseland needs is more vision.” They said:”The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we’ll establish square mouseholes.” And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn’t take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat.

You see, my friends, the trouble wasn’t with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.

Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea. And he said to the other mice, “Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don’t we elect a government made up of mice?” “Oh,” they said, “he’s a Bolshevik. Lock him up!” So they put him in jail.

But I want to remind you: that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can’t lock up an idea.

http://www.saskndp.com/history/mouseland.html

“I’ll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs. I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking. Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding out both puppets!”

– Bill Hicks

If you’re not voting third party, you’re wasting your vote.

If you don’t vote what you believe, you’ll never get what you want.

The people elect the government they deserve.

Two options is only one more than they had in the Soviet Union.

Every November the same party wins: the Politician Party.

A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil.

It amazes me that for all the talk of reform and eliminating corruption in government, no one ever addresses the fundamental issue: lack of choices, which is caused directly by our (plurality) voting method. Give non-Dem/Rep voices a fair and equal chance to discuss and promote the merits of their platform instead of dismissing them outright. This means changing the voting system to something that doesn’t predetermine the “leading two”. Anything other than this is a charade. “They” don’t care who wins, because it’s still one of “them”. The real danger (in “their” minds) is if an outsider were to get in and shake things up. Yes, the past 6 years have really demonstrated the truth in “not a dime’s worth of difference”. Who would have thought that a member of the “party of Reagan” would preside over the largest budget increase in history? Both parties want bigger government, so they can curtail your rights – whether they grab them from the left or the right makes no difference in the end.

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*EDIT*

In response to a recent comment…..

Congress is a product of a process controlled by the political parties. The political parties are in turn controlled by monied and powerful interests who let the parties know who they will back, and who they will not. The parties pick from candidates that can get backing, of course, otherwise they will be picking candidates who cannot advertise, campaign and travel freely – in other words, losing candidates. Once acceptable candidates are chosen, then they let the people vote on which one of these hand-picked people is to continue in the (very, very expensive) process. Once elected, carrying out any promises made during the political campaign is strictly optional.

In this way, congress (and the senate, and the presidency) end up being 100% made up of people selected by those same monied and powerful interests. “The people” do not control the type of person, or the obligations of that person. Once in power, the usual currency of politics – being supported to run again by the party, junkets, “fact-finding” trips, dinners, appointments to powerful committees, visits to the white house, campaign contributions, rubbing elbows with the powerful, pork for their district, commitments for speaking engagements, returning as a lobbyist, employment at a think tank, tips on everything from stocks to escorts – these, and more, are the “currency” of “elected” government service. It also doesn’t hurt to remember Orwell’s assertion that “the purpose of power – is power.”

Aside from those people, there is a vast army of unelected, but very powerful individuals who manipulate our daily lives with absolutely no requirement to, or evidence of electing to, pay any attention to public input or subject to public accountability. Not that such input is lacking; they just don’t listen. Examples abound; the FCC with its censorship and pandering to the rich for broadcast (broadcast speech belongs to the rich – period), the FDA with its holding back of therapies even to those who are about to die, the US park service which takes homes from people by force (eminent domain), the Supreme Court with its topsy-turvy interpretation of the commerce clause, disingenuous support for ex post facto laws, craven ducking of religion, and of course, just generally trampling the constitution left and right. And of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

So when you talk about the government – any of it – as being “the people” – you’re speaking of a situation that doesn’t exist in the United States of America. Our federal and state governments are operating broadly outside the bounds of its constitutional authority, within a cycle that is entirely controlled by special interests who have money and power. There are absolutely no signs that this situation is going to change.

You may wonder why free speech is allowed with GovCo gone so catastrophically wrong. The answer is simple: It is far better for them to let you vent than it is have you smolder and suddenly show up on some politician’s doorstep with what used to be your second amendment rights in hand. Between that and making sure you achieve a general level of complacency, while being distracted by the current round of boogeymen (Terrorists! Pedophiles! Immigrants! Global Warming!), they can keep the population from getting out of hand, even as they trample constitutional rights, engage in broad repression of personal, victimless choices, and pursue military adventures on sovereign foreign soil for the benefit of industry.

http://www.sunshineweek.org/
‘March 11 marked the start of America’s third annual Sunshine Wee, a national effort to cast light onto the growing recesses of government secrecy’.

Here’s an online guide to getting what the government’s got:

• The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has an easy-to-use FOI letter generator, for general requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
• For an individual’s files, people should make requests under the Privacy Act. Here are relevant forms from the Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism.
• Although access varies, every state now has open meetings or open records laws. The Reporters Committee has a handy guide on this, too.

The question you should be asking yourself is this……
“If I do happen upon a FOIA request, to any of the number of governmental agencies, will by inference this cause my file to expand?”

The nature of government past and present tends toward eternal scope creep. If Libertarians were to sweep all 3 branches of the US government tomorrow and hold power for a decade, we would still not live in a system that actually *had* zero regulation of businesses, complete abandonment of any sort of social safety net, or total privatization of all that is currently in the civic sphere.

Think about it – you surely can see extremity of some sort in the Democrat and Republican parties alike, no? But does this country look entirely like an incarnation of the desires of either one of them? No; it’s a hodge-podge of policies — sometimes contradictory — hailing from all over the political spectrum. So in the end, infusing the system with a bunch of anti-scope-creep politicians would merely introduce some friction to retard the expansion. Like any other party, if they took it too far, populism would push the pendulum of power away from them and things would drift back in the other direction.