Emily Lake
Might be a replicant
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2014
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Ya, neither of those groups actually represent your interests.
Agreed.
Ya, neither of those groups actually represent your interests.
The Senate doesn't represent the interests of the citizens, it represents the interests of the States. The House of Representatives represents the interests of the citizens... at least, hypothetically.
No, the House doesn't. By your logic, it actually represents the interests of a myriad of small congressional districts, a great many of which are gerrymandered to represent Republican interests.
Agreed.My point is that it is inaccurate to think that the modern US system works in the way it was originally envisioned. What we have is a mutated version of that vision, and it produces abominations like the makeup of the current federal government in Washington.
But the compromise they came up with the division of government was to make she concetrated areas didn't completely overrule less ones. They never believed in a full democracy.
'Full democracy' is, like all purely ideological systems of government, shit.
The assumption that 'more democracy' is synonymous with 'a nicer place to live' has generally been true throughout history; but only because democracy to any degree was rare.
There are lots of things that should be decided by expert bodies, or even by individual experts, where replacing that decision making process with democracy leads to bad outcomes. The election of judges, district attorneys, and other specialist roles in government, is one such instance.
Democracy is what you do when all other options are even worse than asking idiots their opinions, and taking the average. Doing it any more than is necessary to avoid dictatorship is generally a poor idea.
But many people in the west (and particularly in the USA) seem to take the very simplistic view that if a little democracy is good, more must be better. Indeed that assumption is so common and widespread that it's very rare to see it questioned at all. Usually it is just assumed that more democracy is automatically a good and desirable end, and that the only discussion should be on the details of how to achieve it.
That the founders of the US strongly felt otherwise is clear. It's a shame that people today seem less inclined to think long and hard about just how widely it is wise to apply democratic ideals.
But the compromise they came up with the division of government was to make she concetrated areas didn't completely overrule less ones. They never believed in a full democracy.
'Full democracy' is, like all purely ideological systems of government, shit.
The assumption that 'more democracy' is synonymous with 'a nicer place to live' has generally been true throughout history; but only because democracy to any degree was rare.
There are lots of things that should be decided by expert bodies, or even by individual experts, where replacing that decision making process with democracy leads to bad outcomes. The election of judges, district attorneys, and other specialist roles in government, is one such instance.
Democracy is what you do when all other options are even worse than asking idiots their opinions, and taking the average. Doing it any more than is necessary to avoid dictatorship is generally a poor idea.
But many people in the west (and particularly in the USA) seem to take the very simplistic view that if a little democracy is good, more must be better. Indeed that assumption is so common and widespread that it's very rare to see it questioned at all. Usually it is just assumed that more democracy is automatically a good and desirable end, and that the only discussion should be on the details of how to achieve it.
That the founders of the US strongly felt otherwise is clear. It's a shame that people today seem less inclined to think long and hard about just how widely it is wise to apply democratic ideals.
Anyone who has had to try to get actual work done through a large cross-functional committee should be well aware that full democracy frequently comes up with bad ideas, poorly executed solutions... and does so at glacial speed.
Seems to me that you're advocating for some kind of hybrid democracy/aristocracy....
Also a good example of full democracy failing to make headway.Anyone who has had to try to get actual work done through a large cross-functional committee should be well aware that full democracy frequently comes up with bad ideas, poorly executed solutions... and does so at glacial speed.
Occupy Wall Street
Seems to me that you're advocating for some kind of hybrid democracy/aristocracy....
I'd settle for a re-engineering of a representative democracy. We just need to define some realistic and more robust guidelines for how those representatives are selected and what their roles are.
Seems to me that you're advocating for some kind of hybrid democracy/aristocracy....
I'd settle for a re-engineering of a representative democracy. We just need to define some realistic and more robust guidelines for how those representatives are selected and what their roles are.
I guess returning to the purpose of the Constitution and the understanding that trying to solve problems for 300 million people isn't the answer. Move democracy to the local and state governments and only have the federal govt do small things.
In terms of taxes, it should be 5% or so at the national level and the other levels at the state govt.
'Full democracy' is, like all purely ideological systems of government, shit.
The assumption that 'more democracy' is synonymous with 'a nicer place to live' has generally been true throughout history; but only because democracy to any degree was rare.
There are lots of things that should be decided by expert bodies, or even by individual experts, where replacing that decision making process with democracy leads to bad outcomes. The election of judges, district attorneys, and other specialist roles in government, is one such instance.
Democracy is what you do when all other options are even worse than asking idiots their opinions, and taking the average. Doing it any more than is necessary to avoid dictatorship is generally a poor idea.
But many people in the west (and particularly in the USA) seem to take the very simplistic view that if a little democracy is good, more must be better. Indeed that assumption is so common and widespread that it's very rare to see it questioned at all. Usually it is just assumed that more democracy is automatically a good and desirable end, and that the only discussion should be on the details of how to achieve it.
That the founders of the US strongly felt otherwise is clear. It's a shame that people today seem less inclined to think long and hard about just how widely it is wise to apply democratic ideals.
Seems to me that you're advocating for some kind of hybrid democracy/aristocracy, and I think that's roughly what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Problem is that today, the less populated states are generally full of uneducated redneck racists (the FF didn't worry about racism, since everyone knew at the time, that blacks were not human), not intellectually and educationally privileged "aristocrats" as was the case when the Union was founded.
A good read, and a pragmatic look at the state of our democracy and how the end of the Trump presidency won't fix our problems.
I think this article is spot on, and I find myself saddened by the state of our political system. Until recently, I've been pretty optimistic about our country, but I'm becoming increasingly the opposite. Discuss.
1. | Convincing a large part of the electorate that the government that pulled us out of the Great Depression and that along with the Soviet Union saved the world from fascism is incompetent and not needed. |
1.1 | This was accomplished by leveraging the opposition to the civil rights legislation, through the age-old racial appeal that the black and brown people are genetically inferior coupled with the modern twist that the government is going to elevate these inferior people above the racially superior population. |
1.2 | This is embodied in the ideas that black and brown people are on welfare or want to be on welfare and that the poor deserve to be poor because of their failures as parents and their lack of initiative. |
2. | Convincing some people that the economy would operate better if the federal government left it alone, that the market is capable of self-regulation and would bestow the greatest degree of social justice on the greatest number of people if it was left alone by the government, all of the market failures of the economy are due to the interference of the government. |
6. | Convincing some people that the government should be run more like a business, that businessmen could run the government better than the politicians and the government bureaucracy run it. |
7. | Convincing some people that higher wages can only mean higher prices and inflation, therefore anything that supports higher wages is evil incarnate, things like the minimum wage and unions. |
8. | Convincing some people that profits are desirable and necessary, that there is no such a thing as excessive profits, making profits for the shareholders is the sole reason that corporations exist, that profits don't increase prices and can't cause inflation, unlike wages. |
9. | Convincing some people that free trade is necessary and inevitable, the lower cost of imported goods is a greater benefit to consumers than the cost of a few jobs, that supply and demand setting prices to prevent anyone from earning excessive profits from offshoring jobs. |
11. | Convincing some people that American industry needs more H1B1 visas for foreign workers because they can't find enough people to fill the positions that they need, at the salaries that they want to pay, and paying more will just increase inflation. |
12. | Convincing some people that inflation is a greater evil than unemployment and that increasing interest rates is the best way to fight inflation by creating unemployment in industries that depend on debt; housing, automobiles, appliances, etc., except for inflation in the stock market, bonds, derivatives and real estate, this inflation that we call "capital gains" is a good thing. |
13. | Convincing some people that illegal aliens are going to take their jobs and that other countries send us their worse people, criminals and such, that the illegals vote illegally, en masse, which is why we need to pass tight tighten voter id Iaws even if it does disenfranchise some legal voters, because even one illegal vote makes a mockery of our democracy. |
14. | Convincing some people that all of the mainstream media intentionally lie to push their liberal, one world agenda, that many of the universities are hotbeds of socialism that indoctrinate their students to support it, both groups tearing up the traditional values that have made this country great. |
'Full democracy' is, like all purely ideological systems of government, shit.
The assumption that 'more democracy' is synonymous with 'a nicer place to live' has generally been true throughout history; but only because democracy to any degree was rare.
There are lots of things that should be decided by expert bodies, or even by individual experts, where replacing that decision making process with democracy leads to bad outcomes. The election of judges, district attorneys, and other specialist roles in government, is one such instance.
Democracy is what you do when all other options are even worse than asking idiots their opinions, and taking the average. Doing it any more than is necessary to avoid dictatorship is generally a poor idea.
But many people in the west (and particularly in the USA) seem to take the very simplistic view that if a little democracy is good, more must be better. Indeed that assumption is so common and widespread that it's very rare to see it questioned at all. Usually it is just assumed that more democracy is automatically a good and desirable end, and that the only discussion should be on the details of how to achieve it.
That the founders of the US strongly felt otherwise is clear. It's a shame that people today seem less inclined to think long and hard about just how widely it is wise to apply democratic ideals.
Seems to me that you're advocating for some kind of hybrid democracy/aristocracy, and I think that's roughly what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Problem is that today, the less populated states are generally full of uneducated redneck racists (the FF didn't worry about racism, since everyone knew at the time, that blacks were not human), not intellectually and educationally privileged "aristocrats" as was the case when the Union was founded.
More for a hybrid democracy/meritocracy; and I am thinking more widely than just the USA.
The problem with meritocracy is preventing the wealthy and/or powerful from turning it into an aristocracy, by declaring wealth or power to be a proxy for merit. The value in democracy is in preventing that from happening. But unfortunately it tends to do so at the cost of also preventing genuine meritocracy, as the public are by definition not qualified to assess the merits of candidates.
To my mind, the only way you can have a meritocracy that doesnt become an aristocracy is if you restrict or abolish inheritance.
To my mind, the only way you can have a meritocracy that doesnt become an aristocracy is if you restrict or abolish inheritance.
So how do you prevent children from inheriting their parents' genes?
Adoptive parent income has almost no impact on adoptive child income.
Perhaps it has nothing to do with genes.To my mind, the only way you can have a meritocracy that doesnt become an aristocracy is if you restrict or abolish inheritance.
So how do you prevent children from inheriting their parents' genes?
Adoptive parent income has almost no impact on adoptive child income.
The only way to avoid driving the whole nation into a ditch would be to convince millions of Republican voters that they are wrong, and I just don't see how that's possible. Decades of indoctrination have made them completely immune to facts or reason.
The only way to avoid driving the whole nation into a ditch would be to convince millions of Republican voters that they are wrong, and I just don't see how that's possible. Decades of indoctrination have made them completely immune to facts or reason.
This^ hits the nail on the head.
It's the people, not the politicians.
One of the great presumptions that democracy rests on is that the people will be informed enough to cast an intelligent vote.
One need go back no farther than 2000. Bush/Cheney truly fucked things up in just four short years to the point that it should have rendered the GOP a smoking ash heap, scooped up and dumped into history's dustbin. Following that, all the lies that Obama was going to destroy the country was completely disproven by reality.
Any person should have been able to admit that all the fear mongering about Obama simply wasn't true. It doesn't take a herculean intellectual effort to notice the difference between the right wing scream machine and reality.
But then Trump got elected. Over 60,000,000 Americans voted for him. Sixty-fucking-million.
A democracy cannot survive that kind of overwhelming stupidity. Yes, the right wing propaganda machine in the form of Limbaugh, Fox News, etc. is strong and relentless, but that shouldn't render so many people so intellectually bereft such that Trump should've ever gotten closer to the White House than as a tourist on a visit there.
Barring some unforeseeable turnaround, the U.S. is going to end up like Russia; a formerly great power whose only relevance lies in the fact that they have a shit ton of nukes.
To my mind, the only way you can have a meritocracy that doesnt become an aristocracy is if you restrict or abolish inheritance.
So how do you prevent children from inheriting their parents' genes?
Adoptive parent income has almost no impact on adoptive child income.
Why do you imagine that it might be in any way necessary or desirable to prevent children from inheriting their parents' genes?
The problem as it stands though with the number of voters that are actually involved in the process is that even with these low numbers of support (in the '40's) Trump could still win reelection in 2020.