Funny that these conservatives never seem to object to the right-wing bias of the private talk radio industry
Left-wingers can't take the heat of the format in talk radio. In talk radio, you put callers on the air. I think most people are actually conservative in their views (admittedly I'm conservative/libertarian in my views too) and so, when given a format where they can't just buy their way and pontificate without interruption, they suffer. On TV, which is a one-way push format, liberals are better able to get a lock. Where they have to confront the real world, liberal ideas fail: witness the war on poverty, the war on drugs, public education - despite ever-increasing amounts of money channelled into these endeavors, nothing really seems to improve much.
Actually, my take on it is that the conservative minority have gotten so fed up with the leftist leaning of \. that they finally hit the point where they're not going to silently put up with it anymore. In my experience, it's the leftists who are immediately/always ranting about this or that cause, while conservatives are busy with everyday life and would really rather not be bothered with politics at all most of the time and thus only speak up when it gets intolerable. But like I said, that's just MHO.
Regarding your first point, gov't is the only entity with the legal power to force you to do anything. If those entities you mention force you to do something you don't want to, then you can take legal recourse against them. You can't argue with gov't like that, because gov't itself resolves the dispute.
Regarding the second point... yup, people are ignorant, gullible, and all that. Self-government is only for those people willing to educate themselves and engage in the process. If someone is not willing to do that, he gives tacit approval to being manipulated by others.
DC does not have representation in Congress. It's always been that way, specified in the Constitution. The residents do get to vote for President, and they can, of course, vote for things like mayor, etc.
The idea behind this is that the federal government needs to have control over the place where it does its business, and not be subject to the laws of any one state. That could potentially create a situation where the undue influence that state has on the federal government could lead to compromises in favor of that state, which wouldn't be fair to the rest of the union. I believe the rationale is described in the Federalist Papers pretty well.
I completely disagree with the notion of federally financed elections. You really want the people who are corrupting the system to have control over who gets the money to enter the system??? They already control ballot access, and access to debates. Does that help the democratic process? I think not.
Additionally, such financing would force me (and you) to fund those we disagree (perhaps vehemently!) with, and that's simply immoral. "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is
sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
No, what we really need is a removal of all campaign finance laws, except public disclosure. You support whomever you want to, and I'll support whomever I want to. As long the records are open to be analyzed for corrupting influences and bribery, what's the problem? Plus, correlation does not equate to causation. Who's to say that Senator X voted against a gun ban because the NRA funded him, or that the NRA funded him because of his views against gun bans? That's a tough call. But I think the greater danger is having the politicians funding themselves.
I can see some of the benefits of proportional representation. I also see the benefits in "districted" representation. I'd very much like to see one house in state legislatures be determined proportionally, i.e. ideologically. The other should remain allocated by district, so that everyone is guaranteed someone "close to home" to represent them, too. The US Congress is based on the idea of two houses selected by different processes - states mimicking the bicameral approach but forgetting the other part are missing the point. I also believe the 17th Am. should be repealed, to get back to that objective - I don't think the US House is the place for PR though, we just need to ditch the 17th.
You're right that we are screwed by the two big parties. All the more reason to stop voting for them. Not meaning that we should simply stop voting, but stop voting for them. The truly wasted vote is the one not cast at all, or cast insincerely. If you're from Oregon, that message may sound familiar.
I wanted to run for Congress. But filing fees are so high that I couldn't even seriously consider it this year. I can't sacrifice nearly a month's salary on a gamble that, given the current system, I'd very highly unlikely to win.
Of course, if I were willing to put a "D" or "R" after my name, that wouldn't be a problem, but I have higher standards.
Still, I'd encourage people to run for office if you can. Find a party and get involved supporting others if you can't run yourself.
Voting for a third party is in the short term throwing your vote away. Is there any way for America as a country to get to a place where it wouldn't be? Is there a better way to bring about reform?
Not that I can think of. The Duopoly has no desire for reform - the current system works just fine for their interests. Alternate systems such as Condorcet voting offer honest chances to all candidates, forcing them to compete on the strength of their platforms and ideals. To get someone in who wants reform, you have to work within the current system to elect someone outside the Duopoly. But the current system is unlikely to get that person without reform. It's catch-22 - but you'll never get anything if you don't try! Vote for anyparty that promises to shrink the size and scope of government and remove power from the gov't to restore it to the people. You may not agree with them 100%, but if the goal is to shrink gov't, they'll have less ability to do those things that you disagree with.
That's why we need to enact a voting system that supports putting candidates of more than two parties into office. (Condorcet, anyone?) I think it would be great to see three, four, or even more parties with sizable chunks of Congress, with none in a majority position. Force them to look at individual issues to get anything done, rather than voting as blocs.
Media loves having only two parties to cover, because head-to-head races create more buzz than actually talking about issues
Yup, pretty tough being a third party candidates, all around. Find an alternative party or two that you are at least somewhat comfortable with (just about anything has to be better than bought-and-paid-for Repucrats) and vote for them whenever possible. Introduce more competition and more points of view into the system. It's not even logical to assume that all issues are neatly resolvable into a mere two camps, as if the political spectrum is one-dimensional.
"If you're ultra-liberal and you can vote dem, repub or constitution--start voting constitution. Until they actually start winning elections, all you are doing is showing support for the alternative parties." Would that work for you as well?
What really needs to happen is for everyone to look objectively look at the platforms of all the candidates and choose between them based on that alone. Do not stop to think "but can he actually win?" because that's just capitulation to peer pressure. If you don't vote for what you believe, you'll never get what you want. There's nothing written in stone that says a Repucrat "deserves" your vote, and you sure as heck aren't "stealing" anything from them by voting for an alternative.
In Nebraska it's around 12k and in New Hampshire it's less than 1k. The two candidates in my state district were a retiree and a lawyer...those are about the only people you can get for that.
It's not that it's part-time, it's more like seasonal. It's bad enough finding a PT job, but I could do that. Finding something you can take a 4-5 month break from though...forget it. Especially when in most states the governor can call you in for emergency sessions! If you're going to be seasonal FT and on-call the rest of the year, you deserve a decent salary.
Our kids are not even preschool age yet, but we ordered some homeschool curricula and are seriously considering going this route. One thing I'm convinced of, they will not go to a public school.
All the voters have to do is rank the candidates - 1,2,3,etc. That's all - anyone too stupid to tell you who they like best, 2nd best, etc. shouldn't be voting. An individual cannot create cycles with ranks, though you can have "tie" preferences.
All the matrix stuff is done by a computer. It can be verified by hand if needed (and I agree that this is an important consideration!), but it is a time-intensive process. (Instead of varying with V, it goes by V*C*C.) If you mention "matrix" when introducing Condorcet to the electorate, you've lost. But you really don't need to. It is much simpler, and still conceptually correct, to say that you use the rankings to simulate a series of head-to-head matchups, and the correct winner must win them all - after all, a real winner ought to be able to beat everyone else, right?
If IRV isn't a good system mathematically, then it is not a good system practically! It is arguably not better than plurality, because at least with plurality, you know who the "lesser of two evils" is for tactical voting - with IRV you don't, because it becomes almost impossible to correctly guess how the runoffs getting to the final round will go.
Good grief, not another IRV supporter. Where do you all come from?
Try reading about Condorcet voting. Mathematically superior in most ways. If you take the time to really scrutinize IRV, you'll find that it just disguises the problem by giving the illusion of choice - in the end, you still almost always end up with a two-party system.
IRV isn't even monotonic, for crying out loud. The only thing IRV has going for it is "it's easy" - but heck, plurality voting is easy, and look how screwed up our political system is based on that decision.
Exactly correct. We need the 17th amendment repealed so that the states can rein in the FedGov. We need the 16th amendment repealed so the FedGov can't simply take as much as wants to fund stuff the people don't agree with. We need electoral reform so that "third" parties can dilute the monopoly of the donkephants and give us more options. We need to elect some statemen with balls enough to not hand over legislative authority to the president.
I almost did (for Congress). Why didn't I? Family and financial pressures. It's not cheap to run for federal office (especially as a third party, without the backing of a big party machine), nor is it easy on the family to be gone a minimum of 7 months of the year, weekend trips home notwithstanding.
Why the frownie? Do you enjoy the destruction of embryos so much that the thought of stopping it pains you? Or is it the thought of a religious person being right (and yourself, wrong) that pains you? Good grief, man, stop being so closed-minded.
Oh, and purely on the issue of population, it's extremely unlikely. I believe there are requirements for population for being admitted to the Union in the first place - that's why many western states are so large, so they could pass the population requirements.
Good point. Maybe this was by design - the checks and balances in the FedGov, coupled with the requirement that all states be guaranteed a republican form of government, together were supposed to obviate the need for it. Supposedly, the people would be wise enough that no state would ever devolve to the point that the others would want to eject it from the Union.
The fact is, we still live in a world with nations. Where you physically exist is still relevant. You can't escape that. Different laws apply in different places, even with the internet.
If your business/organization spans multiple countries, or if the concept of "nation" isn't really applicable to what you're trying to do, then be a.com.int or.org.int instead.
Drop nation-ambiguous TLDs. Let each country's "technical authority" decide which 2LDs it will have. Then we won't get bizarre junk like.aero, etc. Current ambiguous URLs (e.g. mcdonalds.com) could result in a HTTP 300 code with a list of choices (e.g. mcdonalds.com.int, mcdonalds.com.ac, mcdonalds.com.ad,..., mcdonalds.com.zw). This would remind many people that there is a world outside their own borders, and I believe that's a good thing. Take a little pride in your homeland; there's nothing wrong with that.
If this were to succeed and CDs were replaced with DVDs, online purchase of music for download would skyrocket because at least those songs can be put on their MP3 player.
That, and the fact that even though you can put like 500 songs on a DVD (who is really going to release albums like that?), nobody is going to pay proportionately more for a DVD album over a CD. So the price of online music purchases would plummet. Why pay a buck a track when you can get 500 tracks for $30?
I really wish the studios would clue in. Make CDs cheap, like they were supposed to become, and advocate ripping - time-shifting and space-shifting are fair use. When the marginal advantage to piracy decreases, most people will prefer to stay inside the law instead. I know I don't want to be hassled for songs I have on my computer/iPod/whatever, and if I could buy CDs for $7-10 I would sure buy quite a few more than I do now.
I got a LW 4/600 five years ago from an employer that was upgrading to a business model. I'm still using it now, courtesy of a LT/EN bridge on my network. Prints great, albeit a little slow, but when I only need 5 pages once a week, that's not bad. I've never had to refill the toner yet. The only thing I don't like is that I have to yank the power cable to reset it, as it has no switch.
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Left-wingers can't take the heat of the format in talk radio. In talk radio, you put callers on the air. I think most people are actually conservative in their views (admittedly I'm conservative/libertarian in my views too) and so, when given a format where they can't just buy their way and pontificate without interruption, they suffer. On TV, which is a one-way push format, liberals are better able to get a lock. Where they have to confront the real world, liberal ideas fail: witness the war on poverty, the war on drugs, public education - despite ever-increasing amounts of money channelled into these endeavors, nothing really seems to improve much.
Actually, my take on it is that the conservative minority have gotten so fed up with the leftist leaning of \. that they finally hit the point where they're not going to silently put up with it anymore. In my experience, it's the leftists who are immediately/always ranting about this or that cause, while conservatives are busy with everyday life and would really rather not be bothered with politics at all most of the time and thus only speak up when it gets intolerable. But like I said, that's just MHO.
When I can get KDE, GNOME, Xfce, EDE, IceWM, and Blackbox all using the same menus, I'll be a very very happy man.
Regarding your first point, gov't is the only entity with the legal power to force you to do anything. If those entities you mention force you to do something you don't want to, then you can take legal recourse against them. You can't argue with gov't like that, because gov't itself resolves the dispute.
Regarding the second point ... yup, people are ignorant, gullible, and all that. Self-government is only for those people willing to educate themselves and engage in the process. If someone is not willing to do that, he gives tacit approval to being manipulated by others.
DC does not have representation in Congress. It's always been that way, specified in the Constitution. The residents do get to vote for President, and they can, of course, vote for things like mayor, etc.
The idea behind this is that the federal government needs to have control over the place where it does its business, and not be subject to the laws of any one state. That could potentially create a situation where the undue influence that state has on the federal government could lead to compromises in favor of that state, which wouldn't be fair to the rest of the union. I believe the rationale is described in the Federalist Papers pretty well.
I completely disagree with the notion of federally financed elections. You really want the people who are corrupting the system to have control over who gets the money to enter the system??? They already control ballot access, and access to debates. Does that help the democratic process? I think not.
Additionally, such financing would force me (and you) to fund those we disagree (perhaps vehemently!) with, and that's simply immoral. "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
No, what we really need is a removal of all campaign finance laws, except public disclosure. You support whomever you want to, and I'll support whomever I want to. As long the records are open to be analyzed for corrupting influences and bribery, what's the problem? Plus, correlation does not equate to causation. Who's to say that Senator X voted against a gun ban because the NRA funded him, or that the NRA funded him because of his views against gun bans? That's a tough call. But I think the greater danger is having the politicians funding themselves.
I can see some of the benefits of proportional representation. I also see the benefits in "districted" representation. I'd very much like to see one house in state legislatures be determined proportionally, i.e. ideologically. The other should remain allocated by district, so that everyone is guaranteed someone "close to home" to represent them, too. The US Congress is based on the idea of two houses selected by different processes - states mimicking the bicameral approach but forgetting the other part are missing the point. I also believe the 17th Am. should be repealed, to get back to that objective - I don't think the US House is the place for PR though, we just need to ditch the 17th.
You're right that we are screwed by the two big parties. All the more reason to stop voting for them. Not meaning that we should simply stop voting, but stop voting for them. The truly wasted vote is the one not cast at all, or cast insincerely. If you're from Oregon, that message may sound familiar.
I wanted to run for Congress. But filing fees are so high that I couldn't even seriously consider it this year. I can't sacrifice nearly a month's salary on a gamble that, given the current system, I'd very highly unlikely to win.
Of course, if I were willing to put a "D" or "R" after my name, that wouldn't be a problem, but I have higher standards.
Still, I'd encourage people to run for office if you can. Find a party and get involved supporting others if you can't run yourself.
Not that I can think of. The Duopoly has no desire for reform - the current system works just fine for their interests. Alternate systems such as Condorcet voting offer honest chances to all candidates, forcing them to compete on the strength of their platforms and ideals. To get someone in who wants reform, you have to work within the current system to elect someone outside the Duopoly. But the current system is unlikely to get that person without reform. It's catch-22 - but you'll never get anything if you don't try! Vote for any party that promises to shrink the size and scope of government and remove power from the gov't to restore it to the people. You may not agree with them 100%, but if the goal is to shrink gov't, they'll have less ability to do those things that you disagree with.
And isn't that the whole point?
The answer is so obviously "yes" in this audience. Was there any doubt? Why even ask?
That's why we need to enact a voting system that supports putting candidates of more than two parties into office. (Condorcet, anyone?) I think it would be great to see three, four, or even more parties with sizable chunks of Congress, with none in a majority position. Force them to look at individual issues to get anything done, rather than voting as blocs.
Yup, pretty tough being a third party candidates, all around. Find an alternative party or two that you are at least somewhat comfortable with (just about anything has to be better than bought-and-paid-for Repucrats) and vote for them whenever possible. Introduce more competition and more points of view into the system. It's not even logical to assume that all issues are neatly resolvable into a mere two camps, as if the political spectrum is one-dimensional.
"If you're ultra-liberal and you can vote dem, repub or constitution--start voting constitution. Until they actually start winning elections, all you are doing is showing support for the alternative parties." Would that work for you as well?
What really needs to happen is for everyone to look objectively look at the platforms of all the candidates and choose between them based on that alone. Do not stop to think "but can he actually win?" because that's just capitulation to peer pressure. If you don't vote for what you believe, you'll never get what you want. There's nothing written in stone that says a Repucrat "deserves" your vote, and you sure as heck aren't "stealing" anything from them by voting for an alternative.
I've said for a long time now that \. is actually a better abbreviation.
In Nebraska it's around 12k and in New Hampshire it's less than 1k. The two candidates in my state district were a retiree and a lawyer...those are about the only people you can get for that.
It's not that it's part-time, it's more like seasonal. It's bad enough finding a PT job, but I could do that. Finding something you can take a 4-5 month break from though...forget it. Especially when in most states the governor can call you in for emergency sessions! If you're going to be seasonal FT and on-call the rest of the year, you deserve a decent salary.
Our kids are not even preschool age yet, but we ordered some homeschool curricula and are seriously considering going this route. One thing I'm convinced of, they will not go to a public school.
All the voters have to do is rank the candidates - 1,2,3,etc. That's all - anyone too stupid to tell you who they like best, 2nd best, etc. shouldn't be voting. An individual cannot create cycles with ranks, though you can have "tie" preferences.
All the matrix stuff is done by a computer. It can be verified by hand if needed (and I agree that this is an important consideration!), but it is a time-intensive process. (Instead of varying with V, it goes by V*C*C.) If you mention "matrix" when introducing Condorcet to the electorate, you've lost. But you really don't need to. It is much simpler, and still conceptually correct, to say that you use the rankings to simulate a series of head-to-head matchups, and the correct winner must win them all - after all, a real winner ought to be able to beat everyone else, right?
If IRV isn't a good system mathematically, then it is not a good system practically! It is arguably not better than plurality, because at least with plurality, you know who the "lesser of two evils" is for tactical voting - with IRV you don't, because it becomes almost impossible to correctly guess how the runoffs getting to the final round will go.
Good grief, not another IRV supporter. Where do you all come from?
Try reading about Condorcet voting. Mathematically superior in most ways. If you take the time to really scrutinize IRV, you'll find that it just disguises the problem by giving the illusion of choice - in the end, you still almost always end up with a two-party system.
IRV isn't even monotonic, for crying out loud. The only thing IRV has going for it is "it's easy" - but heck, plurality voting is easy, and look how screwed up our political system is based on that decision.
Exactly correct. We need the 17th amendment repealed so that the states can rein in the FedGov. We need the 16th amendment repealed so the FedGov can't simply take as much as wants to fund stuff the people don't agree with. We need electoral reform so that "third" parties can dilute the monopoly of the donkephants and give us more options. We need to elect some statemen with balls enough to not hand over legislative authority to the president.
I almost did (for Congress). Why didn't I? Family and financial pressures. It's not cheap to run for federal office (especially as a third party, without the backing of a big party machine), nor is it easy on the family to be gone a minimum of 7 months of the year, weekend trips home notwithstanding.
Why the frownie? Do you enjoy the destruction of embryos so much that the thought of stopping it pains you? Or is it the thought of a religious person being right (and yourself, wrong) that pains you? Good grief, man, stop being so closed-minded.
Oh, and purely on the issue of population, it's extremely unlikely. I believe there are requirements for population for being admitted to the Union in the first place - that's why many western states are so large, so they could pass the population requirements.
Good point. Maybe this was by design - the checks and balances in the FedGov, coupled with the requirement that all states be guaranteed a republican form of government, together were supposed to obviate the need for it. Supposedly, the people would be wise enough that no state would ever devolve to the point that the others would want to eject it from the Union.
The fact is, we still live in a world with nations. Where you physically exist is still relevant. You can't escape that. Different laws apply in different places, even with the internet.
If your business/organization spans multiple countries, or if the concept of "nation" isn't really applicable to what you're trying to do, then be a .com.int or .org.int instead.
Drop nation-ambiguous TLDs. Let each country's "technical authority" decide which 2LDs it will have. Then we won't get bizarre junk like .aero, etc. Current ambiguous URLs (e.g. mcdonalds.com) could result in a HTTP 300 code with a list of choices (e.g. mcdonalds.com.int, mcdonalds.com.ac, mcdonalds.com.ad, ..., mcdonalds.com.zw). This would remind many people that there is a world outside their own borders, and I believe that's a good thing. Take a little pride in your homeland; there's nothing wrong with that.
That, and the fact that even though you can put like 500 songs on a DVD (who is really going to release albums like that?), nobody is going to pay proportionately more for a DVD album over a CD. So the price of online music purchases would plummet. Why pay a buck a track when you can get 500 tracks for $30?
I really wish the studios would clue in. Make CDs cheap, like they were supposed to become, and advocate ripping - time-shifting and space-shifting are fair use. When the marginal advantage to piracy decreases, most people will prefer to stay inside the law instead. I know I don't want to be hassled for songs I have on my computer/iPod/whatever, and if I could buy CDs for $7-10 I would sure buy quite a few more than I do now.
I got a LW 4/600 five years ago from an employer that was upgrading to a business model. I'm still using it now, courtesy of a LT/EN bridge on my network. Prints great, albeit a little slow, but when I only need 5 pages once a week, that's not bad. I've never had to refill the toner yet. The only thing I don't like is that I have to yank the power cable to reset it, as it has no switch.