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... American politics will never surge forward.
Our system makes it exceedingly difficult to run on just one plank of a
platform. You'd never see a politician elected without hearing every single
opinion on every single element under debate.
http://www.thelocal.se/19928/20090607/
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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"Darren New" <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote in message
news:4a2c53ec$1@news.povray.org...
> ... American politics will never surge forward.
> Our system makes it exceedingly difficult to run on just one plank of a
> platform. You'd never see a politician elected without hearing every
single
> opinion on every single element under debate.
>
> http://www.thelocal.se/19928/20090607/
Not everything works for everybody. US has to deal with several real (and a
couple of imaginary, to be fair) problems simultaneously. If those are all
taken care of, sure, the luxury spending inordinate amounts of effort on
singular and frivolous platforms might be fashionable.
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Darren New wrote:
> ... American politics will never surge forward.
Thank God for that. The last time any country "surged" politically, a
guy named Adolph Hitler got elected.
> Our system makes it exceedingly difficult to run on just one plank of a
> platform. You'd never see a politician elected without hearing every
> single opinion on every single element under debate.
What generally keeps things locked up is that large numbers of people,
on sides of the aisle, think that they will be utterly screwed if the
other party gains power. It usually isn't quite that bad, but the
longer either party remains in power, the more the prediction gains the
appearance of truth (and a bit of the substance as well).
But the general condition is that on any topic, on party wants to have
things a certain way, for everybody, whereas the other party wants
everyone to decide for themselves. The party that is for controlling
changes from topic to topic. On some topics, such as firearms
ownership, the Democrats want the government to make the decisions
(whether or not you have a gun), whereas the Republicans generally want
each person free to decide. On other topics, such as abortion, the
Republicans want the government to make the decision, whereas the
Democrats want each person to decide for herself. There are no issues
where both parties want the people to decide for themselves, because
when that is the case, the topic is not an issue. There are topics on
while both parties want the government to make the decisions, but
generally they both want the same decision to be made, to the topic is
not at issue.
The upshot of this is that on any issue, you are either with one party,
or you are with the other, or you are in wacky territory altogether and
will find your home in a fringe party.
If you are not consistently with one party, you will lose support from
that party. Although much is made of the swing vote, getting out the
party base--that is, getting those who either vote for one party or stay
home--is actually the most important thing in any election, and the
turnovers in the 1994 and 2006 Congressional races, and the 1992, 2000
and 2008 presidential races, were the result of the losing party largely
failing to do this.
Regards,
John
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On 06/08/09 07:10, John VanSickle wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> ... American politics will never surge forward.
>
> Thank God for that. The last time any country "surged" politically, a
> guy named Adolph Hitler got elected.
Fastest invocation of Godwin's Law that I've seen!
--
Every hard drive I've ever bought has been larger than all my previous
hard drives combined. And this is without even trying.
--Seen on Slashdot.org
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:38:32 -0500, Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> On 06/08/09 07:10, John VanSickle wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>> ... American politics will never surge forward.
>>
>> Thank God for that. The last time any country "surged" politically, a
>> guy named Adolph Hitler got elected.
>
> Fastest invocation of Godwin's Law that I've seen!
I was thinking the same thing....
Jim
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John VanSickle wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> ... American politics will never surge forward.
>
> Thank God for that. The last time any country "surged" politically, a
> guy named Adolph Hitler got elected.
Yep. I never said it was good or bad. Just that the system as implemented
here makes it hard to get votes from a handful of people and still have an
effect.
> There are no issues
> where both parties want the people to decide for themselves, because
> when that is the case, the topic is not an issue.
That's actually a very insightful way of looking at it. Thanks!
> If you are not consistently with one party, you will lose support from
> that party.
And that's why parliament systems tend to have somewhat wackier people
elected but each of whom seem to have less individual power.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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Mueen Nawaz <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> On 06/08/09 07:10, John VanSickle wrote:
> > Darren New wrote:
> >> ... American politics will never surge forward.
> >
> > Thank God for that. The last time any country "surged" politically, a
> > guy named Adolph Hitler got elected.
> Fastest invocation of Godwin's Law that I've seen!
And IMO in this case it was completely uncalled for. It sounded like the
same kind of idiotic argument like "social welfare is communism, and thus
we must not succumb to it, like all those European countries", after which
you have cough medicine costing $100 a bottle (which in other countries
costs something like 10 cents).
--
- Warp
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On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:28:22 -0400, Warp wrote:
> And IMO in this case it was completely uncalled for. It sounded like
> the
> same kind of idiotic argument like "social welfare is communism, and
> thus we must not succumb to it, like all those European countries",
> after which you have cough medicine costing $100 a bottle (which in
> other countries costs something like 10 cents).
Agreed. We subsidize farmers to grow corn for ethanol over here, it
seems that we like providing business welfare in the US (bank bailouts,
auto industry bailouts, agribusiness subsidies, etc) but if it's
individuals, we'd rather they starve or die of some horrible disease.
It's sickening.
I'm reminded of something I heard actor Craig T. Nelson say on Glen
Beck's show on Fox News: "I started my own business and it failed.
Where was my bailout? I was on unemployment and food stamps and the
government didn't help me out at all!" (paraphrased)
My first thought was, "uh, dude, where do you think unemployment and food
stamps come from?"
Jim
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On Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:42:12 -0600, somebody wrote:
> the luxury spending inordinate amounts of effort
> on singular and frivolous platforms might be fashionable.
Some people don't think that copyright/patent/trademark reform is
frivolous.
Jim
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