Here's my opinion on the matter.  Call me "right-leaning" or some cocameme bullshit, but I think that sometimes compromise is the only way we can get anything done in this country.  We're too polarized in this nation that there's no give anymore.  

Unfortunately, now that Obama has entered the general election phase, he HAS to court centrists and Republicans.  There's no getting away from that fact.  Democrats and left-wingers are not enough of a majority in enough places for this place to become a Democrat utopia.  There are enough people on the right to sabotage anything anyone on the left attempts to accomplish.  So unfortunately, that means that if Obama stands a snowball's chance, he has to go a little to the center to get more votes.  

I'm all for finding an idealist candidate, but the truth of the matter is... He/she would never get elected in this country.  There are not enough votes in the country to get someone truly idealist and progressive elected unless he/she was running against the Devil himself.  

The world is not blue or red.  It's purple.  And until people get it through their heads that BOTH SIDES have good ideas to bring to the table, then we're going to be exactly where we've been, spinning our wheels.  

Do I think that it's bad giving telecoms immunity?  You bet.  But right now, how else was the FISA bill going to be passed?  It needed to be passed, or else the government would continue going past the rule of law.  And to be honest, civil suits are the only thing that can be immune in this case.  It doesn't eliminate criminal suits.  Hell, the only thing preventing that is a blanket pardon at the end of W's term, and there's a real damn possibility he'd do that anyway, whether immunity was put into the works or not.  

Our country has come a long way in just fifty years.  Yes, we've seen the increase in corporate issues, but to be honest, they're the same issues that came around in the early 1900s when Grover Cleveland and Teddy Roosevelt set down anti-trust legislation.  Corporations have always looked for these sort of loopholes ever since they were created in ancient India.  Hell, even corporations have mellowed a lot since medieval times when corporations such as the East India Company and Hudson's Bay companies were colonial entities to themselves, with government-ensured monopolies.  

Obama's still a lot better of an option than McCain, who seems to be going into Reagan-esque memory lapses on a weekly basis.  Obama's not going back on any of his promises, he's just tailoring them to meet everyone, not just those on the left who got him the Democratic nomination.  Every student of political science knows that politicians HAVE to mellow out their primary message to meet the general public.

Bistro, there's an inherent flaw with the Plato's Republic system you're referring to.  It's based on governance by altruism, and to be honest, that's a very pretty lie.  In about 90% of the cases, any time you have anyone or even any group in power of even the smallest groups, there is bound to be politicking and power-grabbing.  Hell, even Plato isn't perfect, because the Republic is based on Hellenistic city-state governance, which inherently has a class system that is invoidable.

I use the Camarilla structure that IF and I have experience with.  These people were in charge of a game, with no intrinsic power other than lording it over other people playing it, and they invariably became fascistic within their ways of handling things.  Rules were adopted that tweaked the lower-power people, alienated entire game systems, and just generally fucked things up.  And this was the leadership of a game.

The problem inherent in governance isn't that the system is fucked up, but on a large scale, people who seek to lead are Type-A personalities that think their way is the best and damn anyone else with a differing opinion. 

Compromise doesn't mean giving up causes worth fighting for because you're just too damn tired from fighting for other causes worth fighting for.

Goddamn, I am starting to hate this notion of "compromise" more than just about anything else in modern politics. Coyote, please read the other thread we had about this compromise issue.

The other inherent problem with reverting to city-state situations is that in order to get the really big projects accomplished, say a working space agency, decent public education, or coordinated defense in case Mr. Mayor of Tinpotville gets enough frothing followers to take over YOUR city-state, you either have to have a big enough government to work that or... go to the private sector.  Which means corporate control.  Which would end up invalidating your entire point of going to city-states in the first place, wouldn't it?

Coyote, please explain to me how it would happen that Bush would get away with more stuff if Democrats actually dug in on their positions and voted against all of his propositions, and hey, maybe even voted to impeach him (which should have been done, and had sufficient cause, years ago).

I know that, and that is basically the ongoing challenge of good government, which we have failed miserably. State governments shouldn't be anything more than certain types of infrastructural trade agreements. Federal governments shouldn't be anything more than military defense treaties. You give them more than that, and here we are, pretty much.