I am not at all referring to the FDA and legal medication (although there are a whole other set of problems involved there). I'm referring to the government declaring certain substances to be off limits to anyone, that they will arrest and imprison you for even possessing certain plants or chemicals for personal consumption. If that is not trying to exercise control over my body, then please explain what is.

By food laws, I am referring to laws like those NY passed a few years back that limit the size of a soft drink I can buy, or the kind of oil used to make french fries. If the government truly wants to help, do so by providing objective facts about the food we eat, then let us decide what we want to put into our bodies, and how much.

Of course I am not referring to safety laws.

And as far as the whole insurance company issue goes, you should probably do some research on pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, PMBs, and health insurance companies. It's a giant money making scam with our government (Congress) at dead center. Kind of like how the SEC knew all about the credit default swaps on the worthless mortgage backed securities that led to the 2008 financial meltdown, but chose to do absolutely nothing about it because they are practically run by Wall Street.

It appears as though their efforts to keep Americans in the dark about insurance companies is working. But then again, that industry spending $157 million dollars a year in lobbying probably explains why the government is in bed with them.

@Piratefish that’s still not “telling you what to do with your body.”

You assume that voting actually matters. Have you been paying attention to the choices we've been getting from the two-cult, I mean party, system?

And if I had a dollar for everytime an elected official went against the wishes of his or her electorate, I could retire right now. So, it is not on 'the majority who make the effort to vote' (despite the fact that voter turnout has been abysmal for quite some time). It still falls squarely on the shoulders of the plutocracy who have entrenched themselves in our government.

Make excuses if you must, but remember, our forebears started by "bitching" long before they kicked in the door. Remaining silent, and playing their game their way is guaranteed to keep getting us more of what we already have. More of us need to start "bitching". those who remain silent are a big part of the problem.

@Piratefish ...wow.. ‘Thee reason’ our bitching forefathers system isn’t working. So, stockpile guns, amo & vests in anticipation of the revolution..? Or get off one’s high horse and dig in - meaning - run for office, support a more viable candidate, or stop discouraging those willing to make that effort (period)

Here’s how it works - Binary system due to winner-take-all. Two parties - Big differences! Same rules. Candidate runs against any & all comers in the Primary. Eventual winner runs against candidate from the opposing party.

Someone wins.. They’ve two pulls, their constituents, and their conscience. Some votes/ decisions are easy, some aren’t. Purits rarely last… Good constituants understand, bad one’s bitch..

There could not be more contrast than between our last four US Presidents! …so the ‘they’re all alike stuff' is just that - stuff. Elections have consequences ...as Bill Maher understands needs repeating.. Not to me, I’ve long ‘got it,’ and have done far more than my share. But guess what - Democracy only works when the majority do their part. If not - you get what you deserve.. As it appears you have ~

@Varn And purists who insist one voting for the "best" candidate instead of the one who might actually win have thrown not one but two elections to completely unqualified Republican candidates within the last 20 years. (No, I will NOT "get over it" about Nader in 2000. He cost Gore the election. Only Nader's partisans claim that it was Gore's fault for losing.)

The best is truly the enemy of the good in electoral politics. The only way to win is to appeal to the broadest cross-section possible, and it's impossible to do so while simultaneously being ideologically pure to the extreme wing of your party. Ask Mitt Romney or John McCain. Ask G W Bush or whoever the hell Clinton defeated in '96. (That was sad, I couldn't even remember Bob Dole...)

@Piratefish if voting didn't work, the GOP wouldn't do all the dirty stuff they do to keep some people from voting. It does work but we also have to do more than vote. We have to protest, be willing to be attacked and or jailed and most of all BE involved and informed.

@Paul4747 Right on. I well remember that asshole Nader (and I’d once highly respected him) … claiming “there’s not a dimes worth of difference between the two parties.” Really - Nader? …not a dime’s worth of difference between Albert Gore Jr. & bush jr…?

I wonder if Bob Dole remember’s ‘Bob Dole’ (3rd person joke). Hey - Thank You for speaking up… Often feel like a one-guy crusade … but I consistently lose it when hearing such rhetoric as above, way above. Then you ask for their solution ..and it’s revolution? As they quote or give an example of ‘the Founding Fathers…?’

Our Founding Fathers did an excellent job of providing us multiple opportunities to evolve their Constitution. Let’s use them! Revolution? ...apparently consisting of sitting back and watching shit go to ..hell (metaphorically typing) … then assuming you’re going to be on the ‘winning side?’ It’s Big Talk - after no walk… I’ve walked.

PS - yes, Bob Dole’s still alive, @ 95

@OpposingOpposum Yes, fight from the inside! And yes, the ‘GOP’ (Good Ol’ (boys) Party) has long encouraged voter apathy.. Has me wondering if ..or if not such posters are aware of it The R’s have long realized their numbers or demographics are shrinking ...so they’ve cultivated appathoy….

...then - motivate ‘their lock-step voters’ with some god-guns or gay dog-whistle issue ...and watch the salivating bastards race to the polls ….. as the bickering purists on the other side turn their noses up at each others ‘less than perfect’ choice.. We lose

@Varn People who go around saying the system is broken actually mean, "My side lost". When Clinton won, Republicans insisted there was no way that womanizing criminal could have won. Let alone twice. And when Obama won, they freaked. The system was completely broken, he wasn't even an American, it was the End Times.

But they responded by mobilizing their base and electing two Republicans in response; both times when the Democrats should have had easy wins. Clinton had the best sustained economy in world history, Gore should have coasted in on his coattails. And Trump was- Trump.

But the Republicans were willing to use their surrogates in the right-wing media to distribute lies and outright slander (at one point in a book called Slander which accused mainstream media of doing exactly what the right -wing media was up to). They painted Gore as a liar by taking completely truthful remarks out of all context and then spinning them for endless media cycles. And the mainstream press ended up reporting on the story, because otherwise they would be accused of hiding the "truth" and favoring Gore.

And of course Trump was a shameless liar, but again the media was duped into "reporting the story" about Clinton and couldn't simply say "Trump lied about his opponent again today, film at 11" without actually reporting the allegation. And because Hillary was not the nicest person, and a woman, she got classified as a bitch by (frankly, from the ones I knew) a lot of bitchy white women, who seemingly said to themselves, "I wouldn't vote for someone who acts exactly like me... but I have no problem voting for someone who acts just like my husband."

Factor in those Democrats who weren't sufficiently excited and decided that, since their candidates were shoo-ins, they could either stay home or register a principled protest vote for a third party, and you had two Republican victories. Because the thing is, there's no right-wing "third party", and three or more left-wing.

So now a bunch of far left liberals say the system is broken. No, it worked as intended. They just didn't vote for the candidate who had a chance to win. They threw their votes away, and were sad when the other team won the election.

To throw the Republicans out and keep them out, the Left will have to get more smart than principled and practice strategic voting. Don't protest and "vote your conscience" when it comes to the elections, come out and vote to WIN. Anything else throws yet another victory to the other side.

@Varn How in the hell did you get from what I posted to "stockpile guns, ammo & vests"? Seriously? Wow. I truly do not understand your mentality at all.

Where do some people come up with this nonsense? It's like they're stuck inside a box, and forgot how to think from a fresh, unprescribed perspective. Life has become a series of "if, then" reactions without ever any deeper, more critical thought.

@Varn, @Paul4747 I give up. How people have managed to turn this into a Republican vs. Democrat thing is absolutely stupid. In fact, it's a big part of how we have ended up in this fucked up mess to start with. Try to think outside the box you've been given. Framing everything as being either Republican or Democrat is guaranteed to keep everyone divided, bickering, and completely powerless. Which is exactly how we have ended up where we are at. SMH

@Piratefish Um... because the religious movement chose abortion as the issue of choice with which they would mobilize their base, take over the Republican party, and try to turn America into an effective theocracy?
How many Democratic legislatures do you see voting to restrict abortion rights?

Whether individual Republican legislators do or do not support abortion rights, most of them are afraid to vote their conscience because of the control the religious right has over the Republican primary process. Religious conservatives are a disproportionate power bloc in the Republican party, and they will hammer any politician who is insufficiently conservative by their definition.

Whatever you're shaking your head about, maybe it will dislodge the chunk of willful ignorance that keeps you from seeing the way things are. You can wish for us to get outside the categories of the political party system, but those categories exist because they work. The Republican party is ruthlessly organized to get things done and accomplish their agenda, and their agenda is now determined by the religious right to a frightening extent. If you don't want to live in The Handmaiden's Tale, the left needs to get organized and win elections.

Nice to see there are illiterate and/or petty assholes on this site who just want to argue about anything. Did you even bother to read past the word "abortion". This may sound rough, but I truly mean it from the bottom of my heart - go waste someone else's time. It's quite obvious that all you want to do is be a dick. You certainly haven't followed anything I wrote. Surprising, since most third-graders can understand my point (hint - it isn't about abortion).

@Piratefish Frankly… it appears you’ve wasted ours..

I think a lot of it is in electing the right people. But the right people have to be able to run for office first, and our current political system does not allow that to happen. We have been trapped into a mostly two party system that decides who our candidates will be. And in almost every instance, they are wealthy elitists who only care about money and themselves.

But I think some excellent examples of civil protest have been seen in our past. If more people cared as passionately about things that truly matter, like they do with sports, gossip, and material wealth, we might actually get some things changed. But as long as we are divided along racial, religious, gender, ethnic, and party lines, it is guaranteed that things will not change for the better. So a great start would be to quit buying into all the media hype about how different and hateful and dangerous we all are. It would be amazing what we, the people, could accomplish if we would quit letting them make us bicker among ourselves for a few minutes.

@Piratefish agree...the politicians benefit if we the people don't work together as a "we"...

@thinktwice They've been especially good at dividing us lately, too. One great example of this is racism. All indicators show that racism has been on a steady decline over the last 50 years, yet the media is making sound like there is a racist under every rock. It's classic Machiavelli.

I look around and talk to a lot of people, and have noticed very, very few actual racists. And the very few I have met or discovered are largely ignorant, inconsequential slow heads who are a dying breed. Yet so many follow anything the media parades out as if it is The Gospel Truth. And what has it done other than further polarize the people? We have far more in common with each other than we do our plutocracy. But they have managed to convince us that each other are the enemy. And the masses seem to be eating it up.

@Piratefish I kept thinking I lived in a bubble because a lot of what was supposed to be happening was not part of my experience...I also got caught in the fray but pulled out when I realized it was FB that was part of my fogged thinking...easy to think everything is true when everyone around you thinks and feels the same way...trusting people you know who are trusting people they know who are trusting people who they know...and so on...I also have not seen it all come around...and...even among friends that were Democrats, I found their thinking mirrored Republicans in their fervor...both sides frothing at the mouth...and yes...media, is highly responsible...

@thinktwice I can't tell you what a relief it is to finally meet someone else who has unplugged from the Matrix.

@Piratefish back atcha...

So that makes women more important, and everyone else less important? The government can make rules about my body, as long as I am not female. Check. Got it. Flawless logic.

And if insurance refuses to pay for the best treatment option, the vast majority of people are effectively blocked from getting the care they really need. Focusing on a technicality (paying out of your own pocket) ignores the absolute economic reality that millions of Americans receive substandard healthcare and die every year, or are forced to file bankruptcy due to insurmountable medical bills.

Maybe you have several hundred thousand extra dollars just lying around to pay for an uncovered treatment, but the vast majority of us are stuck with whatever the insurance companies dictate.

It is incredibly sad that there are people who are not only okay with this, but actually justify it. And are equally okay with spending hundreds of billions, even trillions, every year to subsidize banks, mega corporations, and the military-industrial complex that has invented virtually every war or conflict since WW II.

But again, how stupid of me, it only matters if I am a woman and the government is trying to control my body and my healthcare. SMH. I don't get why some people only care when it affects only certain groups. It's like they want to emphasize differences and promote division wherever possible.

@Piratefish So that makes women more important, and everyone else less important? The government can make rules about my body, as long as I am not female. Check. Got it. Flawless logic.
No, it's making laws based on the sex of the person. It's called discrimination. Didn't even bother to read the rest of your post, the above being silly enough for 1 day.