Politics Discussion

[Pyure]

Ok, I see where you are coming from. How about I go back and reword that to include the word "unjustly" at the end...
I see where my ignorance, could be perceieved as meaning NO OPINIONS! NOPE! NOT ONE! instead of "Don't change someone's opinions just because they don't agree with you"

If there's 2 people:
1 liberal
1 democrat
And the lib. just tries to change the dem. to lib. just because he is not a lib... That is wrong.
The dem. tries to change the lib. to dem. because the dem.s are doing <x> better than the lib.s... that is fine.

Makes sense, but you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that they're trying to sway a person based on their allegiance rather than their policies.

A republican/liberal/whatever doesn't try to convince a new democract/socialist/whatever because he's X, he does it because he thinks they're doing "abortion" better, or "taxes on the rich" better, or "segregation of religion and state" better, or "rights for minorities" better.

All these hardcore polarized right/left/centrists ultimately believe not that their party itself is better (who trusts politicians?) but that their politics themselves are fundamentally better.

 

[jordsta95]

Makes sense, but you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that they're trying to sway a person based on their allegiance rather than their policies.

A republican/liberal/whatever doesn't try to convince a new democract/socialist/whatever because he's X, he does it because he thinks they're doing "abortion" better, or "taxes on the rich" better, or "segregation of religion and state" better, or "rights for minorities" better.

All these hardcore polarized right/left/centrists ultimately believe not that their party itself is better (who trusts politicians?) but that their politics themselves are fundamentally better.

Very true. But there are people, usually 18 or under, who just follow a political party because their parents do (not), and they will then use what they assume is better, when it may not be.
For example, I know nothing about the Green party (mainly due to may ignorance for the environment), but lets say I am 16, challenging to get the vote, and that is something the Green party want to do (lower voting age to 16).
Do I
a) Say that the Green party are the better party?
b) Say that any party that lowers the voting age to 16 is good?
You'd think B, but most likely to be A, because they are making that a big selling point of their party, whereas other parties are having that as a tack-on in order to get them the votes of a few young people who feel they should have been able to vote in the previous general election (which ended up with them getting screwed over, hard)

 

[Pyure]

Very true. But there are people, usually 18 or under, who just follow a political party because their parents do (not), and they will then use what they assume is better, when it may not be.
For example, I know nothing about the Green party (mainly due to may ignorance for the environment), but lets say I am 16, challenging to get the vote, and that is something the Green party want to do (lower voting age to 16).
Do I
a) Say that the Green party are the better party?
b) Say that any party that lowers the voting age to 16 is good?
You'd think B, but most likely to be A, because they are making that a big selling point of their party, whereas other parties are having that as a tack-on in order to get them the votes of a few young people who feel they should have been able to vote in the previous general election (which ended up with them getting screwed over, hard)

This is a great example. I wish you'd worded your last paragraph a bit better because your exact thought process is critical to responding.

I'm going to paraphrase you a bit and then respond to that.

"You'd think I would say that any party that lowers the voting age to 16 is good, but most likely I would say that the Green party are the better party."

The rest of your statement is very clear and I agree with it: parties will frequently tack on a populist notion to win votes so long as it doesn't directly oppose their own policies.

I think my counter argument is that while you may think you're saying they're better because they're better, you are actually providing a logical underlying reason for that: they invent policies you agree with, they don't just tack them on to win votes. What you "say" is irrelevant. You can say you like the Green party better. You can say they ARE better. I think its fair to say that your opinion is implied, and if anyone wants to know your reasoning they're welcome to ask.

 

[Padfoote]

I'm not American. I'm not sure what you're referring to by pork or port or whatever.

Pork is the addition of amendments to bills with things that will only benefit a legislator's state in an effort to get re-elected. For example, if there's a bill active to increase Federal funding to schools, someone can amend it to include $X million to go to their state for highway construction / parks / other things.

 

[RavynousHunter]

Pork is the addition of amendments to bills with things that will only benefit a legislator's state in an effort to get re-elected. For example, if there's a bill active to increase Federal funding to schools, someone can amend it to include $X million to go to their state for highway construction / parks / other things.

I'm frightened by the amount of progress we'd be able to make if those people would put as much effort into doing their jobs as they do ensuring that they get reelected.

 

[jordsta95]

I'm frightened by the amount of progress we'd be able to make if those people would put as much effort into doing their jobs as they do ensuring that they get reelected.

That's something I don't understand about the American constitution... A president can only serve for 2 (or is it 3?) terms apart from under certain circumstances (*coughs* FDR *coughs*).
This makes no sense to me, because it means you could have a president which is helping the economy recover (or something) and this is something that would take over a decade, and they have it all planned out, however, after their maximum term allowance is over they have to hope whoever replaces them will follow through. (assuming they got reelected, and what they were doing was working)

 

[Vauthil]

That's something I don't understand about the American constitution... A president can only serve for 2 (or is it 3?) terms apart from under certain circumstances (*coughs* FDR *coughs*).
This makes no sense to me, because it means you could have a president which is helping the economy recover (or something) and this is something that would take over a decade, and they have it all planned out, however, after their maximum term allowance is over they have to hope whoever replaces them will follow through. (assuming they got reelected, and what they were doing was working)

That's a feature, not a bug. We're anti-monarchical here. FDR was a blunder that was fixed by constitutional amendment (before him it was considered courtesy to not have more than two terms, now it's law).

I could spend the next several hours expounding on how our traditions aren't just rooted in our experiences with a monarchy, but go back to the precedents of the Romans (who, put in a facile manner to save space, had the major, major design "bug" of allowing dictators with indefinite terms to "fix crises" that eventually ended their republic). I won't, because running though all of that covers several threads worth of content by itself and I don't want to usurp the thread for that when other people are using it. Needless to say, it's "baked in" to the system that there is no such thing as an infrangible executive.

Sadly, apparently nobody setting this all up foresaw the creation of a fourth branch of government that nobody elects and nobody can apparently fire or phase out, short of old age retirements and death. Of course, the idea of having enough of a bureaucracy that they'd form unions and metastasize to such a degree wasn't in the cards, but nobody thought to make this explicit since it was generally understood at the time.

 

[jordsta95]

That's a feature, not a bug. We're anti-monarchical here. FDR was a blunder that was fixed by constitutional amendment (before him it was considered courtesy to not have more than two terms, now it's law).

I could spend the next several hours expounding on how our traditions aren't just rooted in our experiences with a monarchy, but go back to the precedents of the Romans (who, put in a facile manner to save space, had the major, major design "bug" of allowing dictators with indefinite terms to "fix crises" that eventually ended their republic). I won't, because running though all of that covers several threads worth of content by itself and I don't want to usurp the thread for that when other people are using it. Needless to say, it's "baked in" to the system that there is no such thing as an infrangible executive.

Sadly, apparently nobody setting this all up foresaw the creation of a fourth branch of government that nobody elects and nobody can apparently fire or phase out, short of old age retirements and death. Of course, the idea of having enough of a bureaucracy that they'd form unions and metastasize to such a degree wasn't in the cards, but nobody thought to make this explicit since it was generally understood at the time.

To be honest, Britain has no limit on how long a prime minister can server, and we have never had a dictator...
I would say the British political system is better in every way than the American one, but I would be wrong. But I would say America could learn a lot from it's daddy.

 

[Pyure]

I could spend the next several hours expounding on how our traditions aren't just rooted in our experiences with a monarchy, but go back to the precedents of the Romans (who, put in a facile manner to save space, had the major, major design "bug" of allowing dictators with indefinite terms to "fix crises" that eventually ended their republic).

 

[Vauthil]

To be honest, Britain has no limit on how long a prime minister can server, and we have never had a dictator...

...history says otherwise, but I'm not going to argue that here other than to say that the only way I can imagine you coming to that conclusion is if you forgot the UK existed before the year 1900. You've had your share, they just tended to be bad at dynasty creation. =P

 

[Pyure]

...history says otherwise, but I'm not going to argue that here other than to say that the only way I can imagine you coming to that conclusion is if you forgot the UK existed before the year 1900. You've had your share, they just tended to be bad at dynasty creation. =P

The only one who comes to mind who would qualify as an actual dictator (not a monarch with unusual influence) is Oliver Cromwell.

If we start getting into anglo-saxon tribes and whatnot I'm still thinking chiefs and pseudo-kings rather than dictators.

 

[Vauthil]

The only one who comes to mind who would qualify as an actual dictator (not a monarch with unusual influence) is Oliver Cromwell.

If we start getting into anglo-saxon tribes and whatnot I'm still thinking chiefs and pseudo-kings rather than dictators.

Not to mention the eras where the Crown was much less ornamental than it is now.

 

[Pyure]

Not to mention the eras where the Crown was much less ornamental than it is now.

What do you mean?

Just to be clear, when I think of a dictatorship I'm referring to a situation where the ruler doesn't have to contend with any sort of parliament whatsoever. He or she makes all decisions about laws, policies and particularly revenue (taxes)

 

[Vauthil]

What do you mean?

Just to be clear, when I think of a dictatorship I'm referring to a situation where the ruler doesn't have to contend with any sort of parliament whatsoever. He or she makes all decisions about laws, policies and particularly revenue (taxes)

I said anti-monarchical. Jord's the one who turned that to "dictatorship". =)

 

[Pyure]

To be honest, Britain has no limit on how long a prime minister can server, and we have never had a dictator...

...history says otherwise...

I'm 99% sure I'm not taking anything out of context. Correct me if I'm wrong; you may have been accidentally unclear.

 

[Vauthil]

I'm 99% sure I'm not taking anything out of context. Correct me if I'm wrong; you may have been accidentally unclear.

No, I'm just kind of doing other things while replying here and also don't really want to have this argument here as this is a politics discussion, not British History and Semantics 101. I don't really feel like reciting a family tree of Plantagenets, Yorks, Lancasters, Tudors, etc., and pointing out who in each group got away with literal murder. The point is that jord's rose-tinted glasses are just that, and that just since abuses haven't happened since doesn't mean they can't happen again when the right (wrong?) confluence of circumstances.

 

[jordsta95]

I said dictator seeing as you don't have a monarchy in America. So the closest thing I could think of, to what you were talking about, was a dictator... in my mind.

But yeah, we had Mr Cromwell, but to say England is a very old country, and we have had "democracy" for a lot longer than America has had white settlers. So there will be a few hiccups, but mostly, we have had a good history with politics. (if we don't look at foreign affairs... because yeah, we were dicks to the empire)

 

[Vauthil]

I'm personally sad we don't have anywhere else on this planet to carve out and run some more experimental governments on, and that the push to space is so markedly stalled rather than prioritized. The stagnation of governance has created pressures that need to be released and there's no safety valve left for that.

I have no objection to any particular one system of government, I just want somebody to approach it holistically and consistently for once with an eye to actual consequences and results and not just feeling good about having "done something".

 

[jordsta95]

Space is a nice idea, but I understand why it isn't done.
It is expensive to send something to space, and as it has to artificial value (money) to bring, without spending more than we could potentially get... It's a shame, because the 60's/70's got all the cool stuff, and now our generation? Yeah, you can go orbit the planet, and make observations and monitor the weather... nothing cool like LAND ON THE MOTHERF***ING MOON!

 

[Vauthil]

Space is a nice idea, but I understand why it isn't done.
It is expensive to send something to space, and as it has to artificial value (money) to bring, without spending more than we could potentially get... It's a shame, because the 60's/70's got all the cool stuff, and now our generation? Yeah, you can go orbit the planet, and make observations and monitor the weather... nothing cool like LAND ON THE MOTHERF***ING MOON!

Compared to national budgets, it's not all that expensive, especially versus typical annual U.S. military spending. This is why organizations like SpaceX are able to contemplate picking up the ball on this.

The real fun is going to be when one or more of those agencies actually get sustainable environments and manufacturing going on up there. Who gets the taxes and how will they manage to collect it? =)