Ponder This

[sk8ndestroy14]

This is taken directly from a handout I was given this year in AP Government and Politics.

Ponder This

Can you imagine working at the following company?

It has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics:

*29 have been accused of spousal abuse
*7 have been arrested for fraud
*19 have been accused of writing bad checks
*117 have bankrupted at least two businesses
*3 have been arrested for assault
*71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
*14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
*21 are current defendants in lawsuits
*In 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving.

Can you guess which organization this is?

It is the 535 members of your United States Congress.

The same group that perpetually cranks out hundreds and hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line.

Something to ponder.

[Dave Sinkula]

Old.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/congress.asp

[Ezzaral]

Scary when you actually start taking notice of government and politics isn't it :P It's a shame many just don't pay any attention.

[joshSCH]

Wow.. that is interesting..

[maravich12]

heh......the congress is full of pimps in powdered wigs.

[Nichito]

ha... you should take a look to ours... all of them are corrupted, and several crimes are repeated towards them... and they're there just to pick big fat checks, worth enough to pay for the lifetime education of one single kid...

[sk8ndestroy14]

You just described our Congress.

[sk8ndestroy14]

Old. http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/congress.asp

Yeah, from 1999. Imagine what it's like now. And imagine all the things we don't know. They obviously think they can get away with a lot of things.

[Nichito]

omg... it must be worldwide then... haha... here we're all screwed up and all they do is put their fat asses on expensive chairs, waiting for the day to end...

[sk8ndestroy14]

*cough* Dick Cheney *cough*

[Nichito]

lol

[joshSCH]

*cough* Dick Cheney *cough*

hahaha.. Damn corrupt politicians.. Humanity is doomed to complete and utter destruction. We are too greedy.. We are our biggest threat to extinction.

[Ancient Dragon]

And one senitor from the state of MA who I will not mention by name should have been jailed for manslaughter some 30+ years ago.

[hbk619]

*7 have been arrested for fraud
*19 have been accused of writing bad checks
*117 have bankrupted at least two businesses
*71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

What's the betting the 7 for fraud are involved in the other 3 things.

[EnderX]

Depends. Are you specifying that each of the seven is involved in all of the other things, or merely that each of them has been involved in one or more of the other things?

[hbk619]

One or more really, odds don't seem to work that their all different people.

[jamello]

I believe it is a world wide problem. There seems to one word which can be used to describe polititians anywhere they can be found - "Corruption!":$. Look at Ancient dragon and Nichito for instance, they are describing politicians on different continents and if you don't look closely you'll think they share the same county:sad:. Same here in Africa. My younger sibling wrote me from UK and told me that he thought that british legislators are above the insipient corruption that oozes out of our own "hallowed" chambers. He found out much to his disappointment that he was unfortunately wrong.

It is a human thing. There is always the dark side of man trying to come out when the circumstance and conditions are right. In so much that democracies world over vote large budget to maintain people with fat "behinds" and fat chairs, it would always attract well dressed crooks who are hell bent in having their "fair" share of the national cake.

My opinion has always been to make these legistlator(s) chairs a partime job having minimal budgets just to put them offices together.

"Hallowed Chambers", world over, breed "Hallowed crooks":angry:

[sk8ndestroy14]

Yeah, but they vote themselves pay raises. That's bull. I don't see how the founding fathers didn' see that loophole.

I think it's the path to office that requires corruption. Without corruption and greediness etc. one is unlikely to be in office so all the "good people" out there don't have a chance to lead our country because in order to get to that position they must go against their values.

[WaltP]

Well, the opposite of PRO is CON. So opposite of PROgress is ...

[quintoncoert]

ha... you should take a look to ours... all of them are corrupted, and several crimes are repeated towards them... and they're there just to pick big fat checks, worth enough to pay for the lifetime education of one single kid...

i dont think the american politicians are worse than mine either.

mine can be divided into two groups.

group one is utterly incompetent and we have problems ranging from undrinkable tab water all the way up to the rampant rape and murder of small children.

the second group are intelligent enough to steel in either legally or illegally. with legal theft i mean writting yourself a paycheck of many thousands or millions of Rands as a performance bonus while your organization is in fact making a loss.