US Politics Thread 2016-2020 - Page 704

skidman · 09-10-20, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Well, I'm sure when Texas flips and it's winner-take-all that aligns with your vote you'll be really ok with it.

No Neal, the same applies to CA. Me thinks winner-takes-all is inappropriate, no matter if it's a red or blue state. I can understand that the electoral system was set up to somehow compensate for divergent interests of the coastal densely populated areas and the rural states, still the composition of the electoral college should somehow reflect the ratio of red and blue votes. Anything else is, hm, a joke.

JU_88 · 09-10-20, 07:03 PM

Im just hearing rumours of a 36 year old man possibly a Antifa?BLM? Activist? has been caught for deliberatly trying to start a wildfire, not verified yet though...
we'll see.
treading carefully with this one. Predictable enough that many right wingers will want/expect it to be true, and many Left wingers will call it fake news or a setup.
need facts before arriving at either.

But at the very least, it sounds like a suspected arsonist has been caught. will post a link if i find anything worth while on it.

Buddahaid · 09-10-20, 07:33 PM

I don't care what the left or right propaganda machines will make of it because most of that will be bull guano anyway. The person will be an arsonist and the way things stand I'd be happy to call it domestic terrorism and throw the key away.

JU_88 · 09-11-20, 01:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

I don't care what the left or right propaganda machines will make of it because most of that will be bull guano anyway. The person will be an arsonist and the way things stand I'd be happy to call it domestic terrorism and throw the key away.

Well said.

Catfish · 09-11-20, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

I don't care what the left or right propaganda machines will make of it because most of that will be bull guano anyway. The person will be an arsonist and the way things stand I'd be happy to call it domestic terrorism and throw the key away.

Right.. and "bull guano" for FBS is ..

Skybird · 09-11-20, 05:40 AM

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinio...ew-ncna1239795

An opinion piece I can link up with even if not having been a fan of Bush jr myself.

JU_88 · 09-11-20, 06:15 AM

I gotta admit Sky, I have no idea what your current politcal stance (in general) is really.

Jimbuna · 09-11-20, 06:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JU_88

Im just hearing rumours of a 36 year old man possibly a Antifa?BLM? Activist? has been caught for deliberatly trying to start a wildfire, not verified yet though...
we'll see.
treading carefully with this one. Predictable enough that many right wingers will want/expect it to be true, and many Left wingers will call it fake news or a setup.
need facts before arriving at either.

But at the very least, it sounds like a suspected arsonist has been caught. will post a link if i find anything worth while on it.

Snopes is claiming it do be false as far as I'm aware.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/an...-fires-oregon/

Skybird · 09-11-20, 06:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JU_88

I gotta admit Sky, I have no idea what your current politcal stance (in general) is really.

Give up binary thinking and then you can see.

As I explained some weeks earlier, the "winner-takes-it-all" mentality forms a craving for competition as a way of living that becomes itself somewhat revolving around competing for the mere purpose and the mere meaning of life, leading to fighting against somebody else for the purpose of taking it all and taking everythingaway fom the other. The act of fighting becomes the focus of it all, not the thing that is being fought for. And this now has led the US society to a situation where it all goes beyond proportion and us foreigners ask ourselves whether the Americans really ever intend to stand united again, and if they ever intend to think again of this old motto "E pluribus unum". The poltical rifts are as wide as the San Andreas trench now, and they continue ion civil society, even inside families apparently.

If one is too deeply dug in in this extremism and polarization haunting the US now, then yes, I can imagine that then it is diffiult to understand where I politically stand. Because I reject both to chose between just 0 and 1. In other words, maybe I am too subtle, multi-layered.

Give up binary thinking. Consider me a libertarian, an undogmatic Buddhist and pragmatic Taoist, a traditional European humanist and an economic and fiscal Austrian. Add a bit of Klingon directness and aggressiveness, and a honorable mentioning of my love for squirrels, pizza and being lazy. All that together covers much of what "I" stand for in thinking: on politics, and other things. I believe in a lack of laziness leading to burnout, and that people with too many ambitions set the world ablaze, before burning out themselves, too.

Hawk66 · 09-11-20, 07:58 AM

Regarding the political system in the US it is rather puzzling how conservative (some?) citizens are there when you compare it with other topics being economic or technology.

The whole election system and some parts of the political system needs to be redesigned - from that everybody who may vote gets an automatic approval and invitation for the voting (as it is in many other democratic countries) to the electoral college to a reform of the same.

A federal government has to have the majority of its votes be it absolute or relative. All other systems distort the will of the citizen and lead to the weird reality of (a couple of) Swing states. If there is the need that states or regions have to have more weight on the Federal Government then for instance that can be incorporated that the representatives of those states can also elect the president/government - to a certain degree (e.g. 3:1). This is transparent then, decoupled and the purpose clear and fair to everybody.

In the end, those who do not want to redesign the system to be fair to everybody regardless living in a rural village in Texas or be a black in one of the "democratic" cities like Boston - they simply do not want to have a fair system since the current one benefits them or their political views. The voting by mail circus triggered by Trump is one example - take 1/10 of the truth and make the rest of the story by adding 9/10 conspiration theories

If you want to have a fair system, let it redesign by scientists, politicians and citizens and give the citizens the choice to select between several concepts, which are considered to be fair by scientists. It would be the best exercise and test that your country gets united again...needless to say that this is true for many democratic countries...

Of crs we have an issue here: As long there is a major political movement, which considers science -at least in parts- as fake news, this will never happen.

u crank · 09-11-20, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hawk66

In the end, those who do not want to redesign the system to be fair to everybody regardless living in a rural village in Texas or be a black in one of the "democratic" cities like Boston - they simply do not want to have a fair system since the current one benefits them or their political views.

It is funny that you should say that. In 2008 and 2012 Barack Obama won overwhelming Electoral college and popular vote victories. Was the system not fair then? Were Republican voters surpressed? Did the system change overnight some time in 2016? Of course not. The system is only unfair when Democrats lose. They are quite happy with the system when they win.

I have no doubt that if Obama was running in 2020 with the same campaign as he had in 2008 he would bury Trump. Flawed candidates can lose to a only slightly less flawed candidate with startling regularity. Democrats may find that out with Joe Biden.

Skybird · 09-11-20, 09:47 AM

Of course on a "meta level" there are basic problems that cannot be bypassed by any system, and these problems are about system size. Because ideally it would be necessary that every member of a community can see what consequences of everyone else's (politically and economically interesting) doing has on himself, and what consequences his own political economical deeds have for everbyod else. Only that way you can have true transparency, but it unavoidably implies very small community sizes then, both geographically and economically, and also socially (population sizes). You need to make sure that those fullfilling public office duties never are allowed by the community to exclude themsleves from the consequences of decisions they make and want to impose on the community. And even under these circumstances, you still face probkems that derive fromt he mere fact that yiou have formed supra.family communties at all. The so-called "tragedy of the commons" as an exmaple.

A good deal of issues we have with our political systems, ALL of them, comes from that we simply form way too oversized communities and state structures. The bigger the system/institution/community, the more opportunities it offers to the corrupt, the abuser, the fraudster to hide in it and to redesign it to serve their own interests before the population'S interest: the core problem with practically every political party there is: that it puts its own power interests before the interests of the people. The rules and the structure of the community gets silenty chnaged to prpotect not the community form the single abuser, but to prtect the abuser in power from the community.

In the end, this is just another face of the sigh of frustration that I have voiced so often by now:

WE ARE TOO MANY.

Its all way too big, too many, too much.

JU_88 · 09-11-20, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

Give up binary thinking and then you can see..

I have done just that, well to the best of my ability, i have no solid partisian allegences of my own at least.

I was just more curious as where you considered your self these days (roughly speaking) and if you had to summarise.
Not trying to force you in to binary box. I understand there is quite a spectrum out there - And that right/left Authoritarian/libertarian scale is still a crude simplification at best.

But thanks for claryifying with the explaination you provided. I agree scaling things across such a large global population is... not workable in may ways.

mapuc · 09-11-20, 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JU_88

I gotta admit Sky, I have no idea what your current politcal stance (in general) is really.

Maybe he's about to change...a week before the election...you will see he has become a real Trump fan...

Markus

Onkel Neal · 09-11-20, 06:21 PM

It's all coming up Trump!

Trump nominated for second Nobel Peace Prize following Serbia-Kosovo deal
https://nypost.com/2020/09/11/donald...l-peace-prize/

09-10-20, 07:03 PM	#10547
JU_88 Silent Hunter Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: UK Posts: 3,750 Downloads: 11 Uploads: 0	Im just hearing rumours of a 36 year old man possibly a Antifa?BLM? Activist? has been caught for deliberatly trying to start a wildfire, not verified yet though... we'll see. treading carefully with this one. Predictable enough that many right wingers will want/expect it to be true, and many Left wingers will call it fake news or a setup. need facts before arriving at either. But at the very least, it sounds like a suspected arsonist has been caught. will post a link if i find anything worth while on it. Last edited by JU_88; 09-10-20 at 07:24 PM.

09-10-20, 07:33 PM	#10548
Buddahaid Shark above Space Chicken Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 8,576 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 0	I don't care what the left or right propaganda machines will make of it because most of that will be bull guano anyway. The person will be an arsonist and the way things stand I'd be happy to call it domestic terrorism and throw the key away. __________________ "However vast the darkness, we must provide our own light." Stanley Kubrick "Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming." David Bowie

09-11-20, 05:40 AM	#10551
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,672 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinio...ew-ncna1239795 An opinion piece I can link up with even if not having been a fan of Bush jr myself. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

09-11-20, 07:58 AM	#10555
Hawk66 Samurai Navy Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Germany Posts: 597 Downloads: 36 Uploads: 0	Regarding the political system in the US it is rather puzzling how conservative (some?) citizens are there when you compare it with other topics being economic or technology. The whole election system and some parts of the political system needs to be redesigned - from that everybody who may vote gets an automatic approval and invitation for the voting (as it is in many other democratic countries) to the electoral college to a reform of the same. A federal government has to have the majority of its votes be it absolute or relative. All other systems distort the will of the citizen and lead to the weird reality of (a couple of) Swing states. If there is the need that states or regions have to have more weight on the Federal Government then for instance that can be incorporated that the representatives of those states can also elect the president/government - to a certain degree (e.g. 3:1). This is transparent then, decoupled and the purpose clear and fair to everybody. In the end, those who do not want to redesign the system to be fair to everybody regardless living in a rural village in Texas or be a black in one of the "democratic" cities like Boston - they simply do not want to have a fair system since the current one benefits them or their political views. The voting by mail circus triggered by Trump is one example - take 1/10 of the truth and make the rest of the story by adding 9/10 conspiration theories If you want to have a fair system, let it redesign by scientists, politicians and citizens and give the citizens the choice to select between several concepts, which are considered to be fair by scientists. It would be the best exercise and test that your country gets united again...needless to say that this is true for many democratic countries... Of crs we have an issue here: As long there is a major political movement, which considers science -at least in parts- as fake news, this will never happen. __________________ Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein Last edited by Hawk66; 09-11-20 at 08:26 AM.

09-11-20, 09:47 AM	#10557
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,672 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	Of course on a "meta level" there are basic problems that cannot be bypassed by any system, and these problems are about system size. Because ideally it would be necessary that every member of a community can see what consequences of everyone else's (politically and economically interesting) doing has on himself, and what consequences his own political economical deeds have for everbyod else. Only that way you can have true transparency, but it unavoidably implies very small community sizes then, both geographically and economically, and also socially (population sizes). You need to make sure that those fullfilling public office duties never are allowed by the community to exclude themsleves from the consequences of decisions they make and want to impose on the community. And even under these circumstances, you still face probkems that derive fromt he mere fact that yiou have formed supra.family communties at all. The so-called "tragedy of the commons" as an exmaple. A good deal of issues we have with our political systems, ALL of them, comes from that we simply form way too oversized communities and state structures. The bigger the system/institution/community, the more opportunities it offers to the corrupt, the abuser, the fraudster to hide in it and to redesign it to serve their own interests before the population'S interest: the core problem with practically every political party there is: that it puts its own power interests before the interests of the people. The rules and the structure of the community gets silenty chnaged to prpotect not the community form the single abuser, but to prtect the abuser in power from the community. In the end, this is just another face of the sigh of frustration that I have voiced so often by now: WE ARE TOO MANY. Its all way too big, too many, too much. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

09-11-20, 06:15 AM	#10552
JU_88 Silent Hunter Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: UK Posts: 3,750 Downloads: 11 Uploads: 0	I gotta admit Sky, I have no idea what your current politcal stance (in general) is really.

09-11-20, 06:21 PM	#10560
Onkel Neal Born to Run Silent Join Date: Jan 1997 Location: Cougar Trap, Texas Posts: 21,297 Downloads: 534 Uploads: 224	It's all coming up Trump! Trump nominated for second Nobel Peace Prize following Serbia-Kosovo deal https://nypost.com/2020/09/11/donald...l-peace-prize/