On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Ronn Blankenship wrote:
> At 09:34 13-02-01 -0800, Joshua wrote:
> >Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >>Let them [politicians] be annoyed at having to stand in line for a meal,
> >>a
> >>busticket or a seat on the plane.
> >
> >Erm... don't you order these on the phone?
>
> Then let them personally keep redialing until they finally get through,
> spend eternity on hold listening to Muzak, then get cut off before ever
> getting through to the person they need and have to start all over.
Well, gee, I order plane tickets over the web; if I need to get
information not available on the web (e.g., is the flight someone's coming
in on going to get into ABIA on time?), the 800 number is usually answered
fairly promptly, either by an automatic system (American Airlines) or by a
cheerful and seemingly eager-to-help human being (Southwest). Of course,
other airlines may not be as good as either of those, but I haven't had
the direct experience to tell me that.
Bus tickets I don't know about. I haven't bought a bus ticket since
sometime in 1987, I think....
Now, if you want to talk about trying to order pizza around lunchtime on
Friday, I agree with you wholeheartedly. But then again, if you're
ordering for more than one person, all but one of the people who will be
eating the stuff is off the hook for placing the order and dealing with
the whole mess. (Guess who usually called in the pizza order at the
office? Someone else called in when we were ordering subs, though.)
> >>Let them get angry over being caught up in
> >>traffic every day
> >
> >I'm sure they are. There aren't special "politician only" lanes over here.
>
> But many of them are sitting in the back seat talking on their cell
> phone or something else while their driver deals with the traffic.
> Make the politician sit there with nothing to do except wait for
> traffic to clear while they watch their gas gauge hover on empty and
> the engine temperature gauge climb into the red, and wonder if they're
> going to run out of gas before getting to the next exit, burn up their
> engine, or get fired for being late. Then perhaps they will do
> something about traffic congestion.
I agree. Anyone who's supposed to be *running* things for the city of
Washington, DC should try leaving Richmond around 3PM, heading for a
destination within the city limits, on a day when rain is predicted for
the city. Three times ought to do it. ;) (I wasn't even driving, and
once was enough for me to see that there was really a problem.)
> >>and the unworkabillity of stupid tax rules.
>
> Best way to simplify the whole system: Make politicians do their own
> taxes without help. On April 16th, they'll pass a flat-tax law or
> something about as simple.
I like that idea.
> >That's what accountants are for. Over here, they're really cheap.
>
> Define "cheap."
Exactly.
And what do you do when you have a parent that will NOT go to an
accountant, and doesn't have a computer to run TurboTax on, and who has
capital gains during the year when the rules change mid-year on the
capital gains tax rates, and some of those are from international
investments, and.... And they expect YOU to help them with the mess!
(Next time, I swear I'm dragging her to an accountant, and if she wants to
understand it all, we can go over the forms once the right numbers are
filled in. But hopefully the tax law won't change mid-year like *that*
again.... And now she has a computer, at least.)
> The point of the above is that many politicians are treated so well as
> a result of their positions that they have little or no idea of what
> their average constituent goes through on a daily basis. Is that what
> we want, or would we prefer that the politicians be familiar with the
> everyday life of the common person? After all, in a
> democracy/representative republic, whose interests _should_ they be
> elected to look after?
I'd like to see non-career politicians. The kind of person who works for
awhile, understands the problems, runs for office, gets out within, say 15
years, and goes back to having a regular sort of career, where the
everyday problems have to be dealt with. But we don't collectively seem
to want to vote in those sorts of people, or they don't get far enough to
do any good before they lose touch.
Ah, well. I've got more immediate problems to deal with right now (such
as being hungry and wanting a rest period, and I'm going to take care of
those now!).
Julia
