is it just me, or does anyone else find the endless arguments about political issues to be irritating and prefer to focus on who's running, who's winning, and the consequences of such, rather than trying to figure out who's right and who's wrong?
close to every news source on the planet focuses on horse races rather than the issues at hand , much to the detriment of politics as a whole.
I guess I'm coming off the other end of this, specifically the TVT US Politics thread where people are arguing over whether Manning's or Snowden's actions were more/less defensible, and how (well or poorly) Manning was treated, and the legitimacy of national governments spying on each other, whether Snowden should come back to the United States, etc....
And I didn't mean focusing on the personalities; I meant focusing on, say, whether the state government has a one-party trifecta (i.e. controlling governorship and both legislative houses) and what this means legislatively (i.e. does the majority party have a supermajority anywhere? or does the majority party actually usually divide into factions or power-sharing arrangements with the minority?), whether the local school board has a majority in favor of teaching creationism, or how badly of a clusterfuck this or that California U.S. House race's jungle primary has become and how that might lead to a Republican representing a predominantly Dem-leaning area (as is the case in at least one seat right now).
And people keep arguing about the issues and forget to, say, vote in primary and general elections and municipal elections, and such, just because no one ever talks about them, and politics always feels so distant because it's always about high-profile national security issues or "the economy" of the entire country as a whole or hot-button endless-argument issues like the morality (specifically the morality) of abortion.
It really bugs me that many people don't even know who represents them in Congress and in their state (or territorial, in a few cases) legislatures, as well as their state government officials.
That said, given that they don't know this, of course it's going to be awkward when someone asks them to go vote. Vote for whom? Who the heck are these people? Who in the world are John Foust and Barbara Comstock? I mean, there's all this talk about how the political parties are cesspits of lies, and how being "non-partisan" is so great, but when it comes down to it, when you shove a low-information voter (a.k.a. pretty much everyone who doesn't intentionally pay attention to the election) in front of a ballot containing only full names and party affiliations, how do you expect them to make a decision?
Based on how funny the names sound? Based on how many lawn signs they've seen while driving to the voting location? Based on some random schmuck stopping at their door, ringing their doorbell, and telling them to vote for a certain candidate?
There's a severe lack of context, meaning, and justification. Yet it's for those local and state races that actually determine things like whether this patch of land will be turned from forest into a strip mall, or whether the sales tax is going to change, or whether people's children will fall into this or another school district.
Y'know, to be honest, we as Americans really need to have a good, candid, honest, long, detailed conversation about how we really expect to govern ourselves. What roles should we play as citizens -- how much learning about the issues should we be responsible for? how much responsibility should we delegate to our elected officials?
Because there clearly are problems with BOTH simply shoving everything onto the plate of our elected officials and treating them as a black box from which policy springs forth AND trying to take all matters into our own hands and telling government institutions to fuck off.
is it just me, or does anyone else find the endless arguments about political issues to be irritating and prefer to focus on who's running, who's winning, and the consequences of such, rather than trying to figure out who's right and who's wrong?
It's never hard to figure out who is wrong for me, and usually, *everyone* is wrong in their own way, except for people who have no practical chance of being elected, seemingly.
Is that so bad? Party affiliation is a pretty good yardstick if you want to know what someone's policies will be.
From what I've heard, in countries with parliamentary systems, such as Canada and the UK, this is more historically true.
In the United States, there are two major parties which basically function like governing coalitions do in parliamentary systems. During the 1950s-1990s, there was actually quite less ideological rigidity in each party -- liberal, moderate, and conservative Democrats and Republicans were common (though their frequency varied by region). However, lately, the parties -- especially the Republicans -- have become much more ideologically rigid.
However, people still talk about "bipartisanship", "non-partisan", and journalistic "fairness" betwen the two parties as if it were a good thing. And the funny thing is...it's actually somewhat of a good thing, because -- since we have only two dominant parties and little of anything else, yet our federal and state governments are generally designed with lots of checks and balances in mind, we pretty much are required to have some sort of cross-partisan support to get anything done.
is it just me, or does anyone else find the endless arguments about political issues to be irritating and prefer to focus on who's running, who's winning, and the consequences of such, rather than trying to figure out who's right and who's wrong?
It's never hard to figure out who is wrong for me, and usually, *everyone* is wrong in their own way, except for people who have no practical chance of being elected, seemingly.
I'd caution you to actually think through the implications (including the possible unintended consequences) of those people who "have no practical chance of being elected"; it's a lot easier to state an idea than it is to figure out how it's going to be implemented and what it's going to do at a fine-grained level.
And frankly speaking, I'm less concerned about specific people being "wrong" on their ideas, and more concerned about what they could create by working together or refusing to do so -- neither of which is not necessarily a good or bad thing, keep in mind.
Is that so bad? Party affiliation is a pretty good yardstick if you want to know what someone's policies will be.
Combined with the gerrymandering that's absolutely rampant in America, it leads to Congress elections becoming internal party elections rather than actual elections. This leads to electors becoming more beholden to their parties than to their constituents. Which leads to the kind of grandstanding stubbornness that causes gridlocks.
Teal deer, it makes bipartisanship less of a priority, which means it's more 'profitable' to prevent compromise rather than allowing it.
Is that so bad? Party affiliation is a pretty good yardstick if you want to know what someone's policies will be.
Combined with the gerrymandering that's absolutely rampant in America, it leads to Congress elections becoming internal party elections rather than actual elections. This leads to electors becoming more beholden to their parties than to their constituents. Which leads to the kind of grandstanding stubbornness that causes gridlocks.
Teal deer, it makes bipartisanship less of a priority, which means it's more 'profitable' to prevent compromise rather than allowing it.
It also nullifies any chance of more than the leading two parties having even marginal representation outside of the most fringe areas and situations.
Part of me wants to just wait it out and hopes that the system screws up enough that it'll force change to happen (aka, what I've been doing with the film and professional videogame business). But I feel like, if a change were to happen, it would have happened when they tried to close down the government for the purpose of grandstanding. And the news still managed to spin that as 'Republicans being stupid' rather than 'symptom of a growing problem in government'. Not that the Republicans weren't being stupid. So I have to question what would be a big enough fiasco to force the parties to actually listen to America.
More people have said that and been killed than there are thorium decay products.
I'd caution you to actually think through the implications (including the possible unintended consequences) of those people who "have no practical chance of being elected"; it's a lot easier to state an idea than it is to figure out how it's going to be implemented and what it's going to do at a fine-grained level.
And frankly speaking, I'm less concerned about specific people being "wrong" on their ideas, and more concerned about what they could create by working together or refusing to do so -- neither of which is not necessarily a good or bad thing, keep in mind.
I'm not sure what this means, but, if someone says they want to do things that will lead to an egalitarian, civilized society, I will trust them a lot more than someone who doesn't.
I went and dug up Scaruffi's best-of lists. While there's a lot (and I mean a lot) of names I've never heard of in the best of rock list, the genre charts are a different story. There's whole bunches of stuff I've heard of in hip-hop, funk, disco, synth-pop...
I'm not sure what this means, but, if someone says they want to do things that will lead to an egalitarian, civilized society, I will trust them a lot more than someone who doesn't.
Intention doesn't necessarily mean results, basically. For example, one could support the idea of a flat federal income tax because they feel it's more equal and fair, but that doesn't mean a flat federal income tax will actually result in people feeling that they're more equally and fairly treated.
As for pissing people off, I've learned that that's third priority:
1. help people who need help 2. credit those people who deserve credit 3. piss off those people who deserve to be pissed off
Not saying it's not worth doing, but it's just something fun to do that ought to take a back seat to more important things. #1 is obviously most important. #2 is more important because it helps build connections by which you can get #1 done more easily in the future.
The state system's entrenched in American tradition. Getting rid of it would probably require a revolution of the same scale as the French Revolution, and considering the number of gun nuts who'd be violently opposed to letting the revolution succeed, it's probably have a comparable death count.
And something will inevitably come up in its place, something that may not actually be good for the people who revolted. I'd rather work with what we have than tear the system up and get something that's harder to fix.
"And something will inevitably come up in its place"
This.
You still need some sort of sub-division system. You can't direct-govern everyone in a country the size of the United States. Monkeysphere psychology and all that.
Anytime it's brought to my attention, it's in a "WE HAVE TO STOP THIS NOW OR WE'RE ALL FUCKED WE ARE DOWN TO THE WIRE!" fashion, but then nothing happens and the TPP just disappears for a while again
Is that so bad? Party affiliation is a pretty good yardstick if you want to know what someone's policies will be.
Often but not necessarily.
I would have voted for a republican candidate in the last presidential election (I forget his name, Rex something) if he'd actually made it through the primaries, but he was too socially liberal, so he didn't.
Comments
And I didn't mean focusing on the personalities; I meant focusing on, say, whether the state government has a one-party trifecta (i.e. controlling governorship and both legislative houses) and what this means legislatively (i.e. does the majority party have a supermajority anywhere? or does the majority party actually usually divide into factions or power-sharing arrangements with the minority?), whether the local school board has a majority in favor of teaching creationism, or how badly of a clusterfuck this or that California U.S. House race's jungle primary has become and how that might lead to a Republican representing a predominantly Dem-leaning area (as is the case in at least one seat right now).
And people keep arguing about the issues and forget to, say, vote in primary and general elections and municipal elections, and such, just because no one ever talks about them, and politics always feels so distant because it's always about high-profile national security issues or "the economy" of the entire country as a whole or hot-button endless-argument issues like the morality (specifically the morality) of abortion.
The primary elections (where voters choose the nominees of the parties) has occurred already, but the general elections will be on November 4, 2014.
cameraman stahp
odd
And yeah, it's a very 1950s name.
It's true both ways, I think - there are some names (e.g. Bradley, Jonas, Robin for a girl) that are much more popular in America than over here.
That said, given that they don't know this, of course it's going to be awkward when someone asks them to go vote. Vote for whom? Who the heck are these people? Who in the world are John Foust and Barbara Comstock? I mean, there's all this talk about how the political parties are cesspits of lies, and how being "non-partisan" is so great, but when it comes down to it, when you shove a low-information voter (a.k.a. pretty much everyone who doesn't intentionally pay attention to the election) in front of a ballot containing only full names and party affiliations, how do you expect them to make a decision?
Based on how funny the names sound? Based on how many lawn signs they've seen while driving to the voting location? Based on some random schmuck stopping at their door, ringing their doorbell, and telling them to vote for a certain candidate?
There's a severe lack of context, meaning, and justification. Yet it's for those local and state races that actually determine things like whether this patch of land will be turned from forest into a strip mall, or whether the sales tax is going to change, or whether people's children will fall into this or another school district.
Because there clearly are problems with BOTH simply shoving everything onto the plate of our elected officials and treating them as a black box from which policy springs forth AND trying to take all matters into our own hands and telling government institutions to fuck off.
Representative Steven McCarty Palazzo (R-MS-04)
In the United States, there are two major parties which basically function like governing coalitions do in parliamentary systems. During the 1950s-1990s, there was actually quite less ideological rigidity in each party -- liberal, moderate, and conservative Democrats and Republicans were common (though their frequency varied by region). However, lately, the parties -- especially the Republicans -- have become much more ideologically rigid.
However, people still talk about "bipartisanship", "non-partisan", and journalistic "fairness" betwen the two parties as if it were a good thing. And the funny thing is...it's actually somewhat of a good thing, because -- since we have only two dominant parties and little of anything else, yet our federal and state governments are generally designed with lots of checks and balances in mind, we pretty much are required to have some sort of cross-partisan support to get anything done.
And frankly speaking, I'm less concerned about specific people being "wrong" on their ideas, and more concerned about what they could create by working together or refusing to do so -- neither of which is not necessarily a good or bad thing, keep in mind.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stevealtes/geeks-and-greeks-an-epic-graphic-novel-about-mit-p
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
As for pissing people off, I've learned that that's third priority:
1. help people who need help
2. credit those people who deserve credit
3. piss off those people who deserve to be pissed off
Not saying it's not worth doing, but it's just something fun to do that ought to take a back seat to more important things. #1 is obviously most important. #2 is more important because it helps build connections by which you can get #1 done more easily in the future.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
This.
You still need some sort of sub-division system. You can't direct-govern everyone in a country the size of the United States. Monkeysphere psychology and all that.
I would have voted for a republican candidate in the last presidential election (I forget his name, Rex something) if he'd actually made it through the primaries, but he was too socially liberal, so he didn't.
Cold + being allergic to something (not sure what) we have planted in the front yard. I am dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.