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RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#329551: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:35:22 PM

Republic just means no hereditary ruler, Charles.

The current system IS red = bad, since they've spent the past fifty years being steadily consumed by the interests of the rich at one end and the evangelical right at the other, whilst playing nice with racists.

It's now a party that serves the mega rich whilst giving just enough bigoted meat to its voting base.

It's fascist in all but name.

Edited by RainehDaze on Sep 28th 2020 at 9:36:18 AM

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#329552: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:35:50 PM

Direct democracy sounds good until you realize that the people on Duck Dynasty and Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo get equal weight to, say, a climate scientist in determining how we deal with the threat of climate change. More, in fact, because the population of climate scientists is vastly outnumbered by the population of idiots white trash less-educated people.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 28th 2020 at 4:36:40 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#329553: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:36:10 PM

[up][up]I'd honestly like to know what you think you're arguing with me over.

What do you think my beliefs about American Democracy are?

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 28th 2020 at 1:37:33 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
PurpleEyedGuma Since: Apr, 2020
#329554: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:37:07 PM

There’s a major issue with having a two-party system. It’s that because of it, for many people, elections are a matter of black and white. Right and wrong. Good and evil. They will instantly flock to the party they support, right or wrong.

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#329555: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:38:27 PM

[up][up] Because you appeared to be describing the principles of a representative democracy and calling it a republic. Which it can be, but it also might not be—the UK has a representative democracy but isn't a republic.

Electing people to represent you is separate from being a republic, basically.

(Everything after the first paragraph wasn't aimed at you)

[up] Can't fix two party systems without complete voting reform, and you're not going to get that when one of the two parties is trying to restrict the electorate. One thing at a time.

Edited by RainehDaze on Sep 28th 2020 at 9:39:35 AM

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#329556: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:39:21 PM

noun: republic; plural noun: republics

  • a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.
  • A state where there is a certain equality between members.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#329557: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:39:30 PM

Scratch the US out of that.

The argument is used exactly the same in every single country. The possibility of corruption is a bigger monster in the minds of most voters than systemically corrupted systems that need money in order to be restructured into something functional and noncorrupt.

Heh, very good point. [tup]

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#329558: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:40:55 PM

[up]x4 Yeah, well, our situation is unideal, and I agree that the two-party system should be replaced with something better, but short of change more drastic than we're realistically capable of without more suffering than it's worth, it's the system we're stuck with.

And to echo what people have already pointed out, normally in a functional political system blue = good red = bad isn't true, and it's a sign of how very fucked up our current system is that the red Republicans are so thoroughly evil and hostile to basic human rights that practically any blue Democrat is better by comparison. The time when red wasn't bad is sadly long gone and honestly voting blue until you're left with different shades of blue is our way towards that more balanced system.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 28th 2020 at 4:42:28 AM

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#329559: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:41:12 PM

[up][up][up]

2. a. A state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; spec. a state without a monarchy. Also: a government, or system of government, of such a state; a period of government of this type.
The term is often (esp. in the 18th and 19th centuries) taken to imply a state with a democratic or representative constitution and without a hereditary nobility, but more recently it has also been used of autocratic or dictatorial states not ruled by a monarch. It is now chiefly used to denote any non-monarchical state headed by an elected or appointed president.

Detailed OED entry on use of republic as regards government type.

Democracy doesn't immediately mean direct democracy; republic does not immediately mean that the government is a representative democracy.

Edited by RainehDaze on Sep 28th 2020 at 9:42:31 AM

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#329560: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:42:42 PM

There’s a major issue with having a two-party system. It’s that because of it, for many people, elections are a matter of black and white. Right and wrong. Good and evil. They will instantly flock to the party they support, right or wrong.

The moralising and partisanship doesn’t go away with multiple parties, but yes it can be lessened.

There is a movement in the US to enable a more multi-party system, by moving away from First Past the Post voting (there as long as you get the most votes you win, even if that’s only 30% of the votes cast), Ranked-Choice voting is now in place in Maine (despite Republicans trying to fight it), it’s potentially coming to Alaska and Massachusetts after November, Virginia and Utah are running pilot programs and I believe New York City is also adopting it.

[up] Divided By A Common Language I’ve run into this before, it’s a weird Americanism to think that Republic means something other than “not-monarchy”.

Edited by Silasw on Sep 28th 2020 at 8:44:49 AM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#329561: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:43:15 PM

The main reason I’m anti-tax is because my parents grew up in poor neighborhoods—my dad is an immigrant from Cuba, but now maintains a steady and wealthy business. They support having more power for the people.

That's understandable, and lower taxes for the middle-class tends to be supported all-around - the problem crops up when the GOP pushes for tax cuts for the upper classes as part-and-parcel with the middle-class ones, which strains the ability of the Federal government to cover the costs. As another example, one of the routine issues is the USA's aging infrastructure, which was largely built during the Great Depression, and is in sore need of updating. The problem is that this was supposed to be paid for via the Federal Gas Tax, which has been $0.184/gallon since 1993, and not tied whatsoever to inflation, meaning the Federal funds to help maintain or replace infrastructure is rather sorely lacking.

I used to think that things were more complex than just “blue good, red bad”. But the way you’re putting it, maybe they aren’t.

There was a time when this genuinely was the case - each party held different priorities, but could work together to achieve an overall good aim while engaging in political horsetrading (something Joe Biden has been quite good at during his legislative career). The issue is that, since Obama's election, the Republican party has been arguing and trading in worse and worse faith, and Trump's election has gone almost full-blown Nineteen Eighty-Four, what with Sean Spicer's "alternative facts" and Rudy Giuliani espousing "Truth isn't truth" on live TV. And with Trump's open admiration of authoritarian governments, it honestly seems closer than ever before to being a "Hold power for power's sake" situation, with Mitch McConnell working behind the scenes to enable that.

Then compound this with the open hypocrisy of these same legislators - the recent Supreme Court fight could have gone a fair bit easier for them had McConnell not stonewalled for 9 months when Antonin Scalia passed away in March of 2016, not even offering a Confirmation Hearing for Obama's nominated replacement and insisting that "the people should have a choice" in the 2016 election. Contrast that with his attitude now. Beyond that, you have conservative State legislatures and Governors that override the will of their constituents (Florida with COVID-19 measures, North Carolina with banning LGBT bathroom legislation that Charlotte, NC had passed for the city itself, etc.) while proclaiming that they believe in small government and how localities know better... unless they disagree.

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#329562: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:44:43 PM

There’s a major issue with having a two-party system. It’s that because of it, for many people, elections are a matter of black and white. Right and wrong. Good and evil. They will instantly flock to the party they support, right or wrong.

That's one of the failures of the American democratic system, which doesn't allow for the propagation of third-parties. Third-parties are a catch-22. If everybody voted for them, then they could win elections. But nobody will vote for them.

Why won't anyone vote for them? Because a vote for a third-party is a wasted vote. If you vote for a third-party, then your vote means nothing. You might as well have not voted at all.

Why is a vote for a third-party a wasted vote? Because nobody else will vote for them.

Why will nobody else vote for them? Because a vote for a third-party is a wasted vote, and everyone knows this. And they would rather vote for candidates with a chance to win.

Thus, third-parties are ensnared by the futility of voting for them. It's not enough to make a leap of faith and hope that your third-party candidate can make it. Millions of Americans, at the same time, must all be willing to make the same leap of faith. And that's just not going to happen.

The problem here is the way our ballots work. You vote for one candidate exclusively, which means you can vote for one of the two big-ticket candidates or waste your vote on the third-party candidate you're interested in.

Look up Ranked Choice voting some time. Ranked Choice is an effective solution to the two-party problem. Under a ranked choice system, you list the candidates in order of preference. If a candidate fails to achieve a 51% majority of voters, the candidate with the lowest percentage of votes is eliminated and that candidate's votes are then reassigned to their listed second choice. This process repeats until a candidate emerges with a majority of votes.

Under a ranked choice system, voters would be free to vote for a third party without having to fear that their vote effectively would not be counted. Emboldening voters to vote third-party, in turn, would make third-parties more competitive.

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RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#329563: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:45:04 PM

[up][up][up] Of course RCV also has the limitation that it's applying a Single Transferable Vote to a single seat. It's inevitable for positions where you can only appoint one person, but it doesn't fix the party representation issue amongst representatives.

Multi-member constituencies would help more but one thing at a time, obviously.

Edited by RainehDaze on Sep 28th 2020 at 9:46:16 AM

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#329564: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:49:23 PM

The main reason I’m anti-tax is because my parents grew up in poor neighborhoods—my dad is an immigrant from Cuba, but now maintains a steady and wealthy business. They support having more power for the people.

I can relate as well, my parents are Chinese immigrants who left an incredibly brutal and totalitarian Communist government to come to the US, spending their early years in the projects. They are now fairly successful businesspeople who worked hard so that I could have a comfortable childhood, and taxation would remove money that could've gone towards buying things that I need. As a result my parents are generally anti-tax in principle (mostly my dad, my mom being a woman has come to accept it as a necessary evil because it helps fund things like Title IX), moreso because the Communist government they and their families escaped insisted they were allowed to own nothing at all and that everything they had was ultimately the government's property.

But, in America, the reason they were able to have food on their tables, have a roof over their houses, and go to public schools to learn the skills they needed to get jobs that paid good money, despite being poor immigrants whose parents made peanuts, was entirely because of things like welfare being funded by taxing those who did better than them. Taking money from people who can still afford to eat at the end of the day, so that those who can't, can, is itself a way to give more power to the people than we started off with. Even if it doesn't always seem as obvious.

And likewise, the reason the Communists were awful was not because taxation is bad, but because when you take everything, that's not even taxation. That's just straight-up greed, corruption, and authoritarianism, which has maybe half of anything to do with taxation (which still allows people to keep some percentage of what they earned).

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 28th 2020 at 4:54:12 AM

Balmung Since: Oct, 2011
#329565: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:49:55 PM

One note about the US tax debate - it's hostage to a literal child. Grover Norquist came up with his infamous "Taxpayer Protection Pledge", where he'd get politicians to promise to never raise taxes and threaten to destroy them if they did, when he was 12.

Oh and it very much is complex, even when parts are simple, there’s always a ton of complexity beneath the surface. There will also always be edge case exceptions, I believe that the Democrat senate candidate in Nebraska has been revealed to be a sexual harasser, his Republican opponent may well be a better choice in that instance (though I believe Democrats have disavowed the official candidate and are running a write-in candidate).
Oh yeah. The state party tried to get Janicek to step down but he refused because he won a narrow plurality against a split progressive vote and insisted that was all that mattered, and now Sasse is pretty much a slam dunk for re-election.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#329566: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:51:13 PM

Another way to enable third parties would be proportional representation. So instead of voting for one person to be the legislative representative for a smallish physical area, you’d vote for a party to get a share of the legislative seats, sometimes tied to a large physical area.

So instead of 100 different races between 2 parties, you’d have one race between 3-4 parties, and each party would get a percentage of the 100 legislative seats based on how well they did in that race.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#329567: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:51:19 PM

I used to think that things were more complex than just “blue good, red bad”. But the way you’re putting it, maybe they aren’t.

It both is, and isn't. The Democrats are far from perfect, either historically or in the present. But the Republicans are, at this point, so overwhelmingly bad in every possible sense that there's simply no comparison.

Thinking of parties in binary "good/bad" dynamics is an oversimplification, and a mental trap that encourages apathy and disengagement when one feels that neither choice qualifies as "good" by their personal standards. What really matters when voting in a democracy is which option is "better." A racist candidate, for example, is not good. But it's still "better" than a candidate who is both racist and homophobic. It will certainly feel gross, but it's better to vote for the racist candidate than to not vote, because by not voting you're letting the racist and homophobic candidate have better odds of winning.

And to be clear, I am not describing Biden and Trump in this example. Biden has his share of flaws, but outstanding bigotry is not one of them.

The main reason I’m anti-tax is because my parents grew up in poor neighborhoods—my dad is an immigrant from Cuba, but now maintains a steady and wealthy business. They support having more power for the people.

The thing to remember is that not all taxes are the same. When candidates talk about raising or lowering taxes, there's not a lever they adjust up or down that changes everyone's taxes the same. Most of the fight over taxes at this point is about tax rates on the ultra-wealthy. Democrats want to raise taxes on the super rich and lower them on everyone else so they can continue funding the government (including social programs that disproportionately help the poor), while Republicans want to lower taxes for the super rich, and will promise to lower everyone else's taxes too... except those lower taxes for the non-rich are usually a pittance and come with slashing the federal budget for social programs that help the poor, thereby actually costing the poor more in the long term.

The children’s democracy movement is very much a good-faith one.

Unless you're suggesting that we should allow newborns to vote, I assume you agree that there are children who are too young to have any clue what's going on regardless of how much information they are given on the subject. At that point, we are in agreement that there should be a minimum age limit to when people are allowed to vote. Beyond that is just debating where exactly that line should be drawn, which is a discussion I'm not terribly interested in and is irrelevant to my original point which was simply why age limits exist at all, not why they're set at 18 specifically.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#329568: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:54:03 PM

If it's defined in the dictionary as a representative democracy, it is a word for representative democracy.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#329569: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:57:17 PM

Another way to enable third parties would be proportional representation. So instead of voting for one person to be the legislative representative for a smallish physical area, you’d vote for a party to get a share of the legislative seats, sometimes tied to a large physical area.

So instead of 100 different races between 2 parties, you’d have one race between 3-4 parties, and each party would get a percentage of the 100 legislative seats based on how well they did in that race.

As I said, STV (or whatever it's being called in this discussion) and multi-member constituencies. Or districts. Or whatever else you call them. The same principle as with Ranked Choice Voting, only you've combined several of the areas into one large area, which means pooled second votes etc. will be more likely to get smaller parties elected (and give everyone (hopefully) someone that represents their interests).

Though that's just the most easily implemented PR system.

[up] Well, it specifically means a state without a monarchy, taking a more niche meaning like that and using republic in contrast with democracy gives us the eternal stupid internet arguments where people insist that the US isn't a democracy because it's not a direct democracy and therefore Democrats are anti-American by default.

Edited by RainehDaze on Sep 28th 2020 at 9:57:43 AM

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#329570: Sep 28th 2020 at 1:58:47 PM

Unless you're suggesting that we should allow newborns to vote, I assume you agree that there are children who are too young to have any clue what's going on regardless of how much information they are given on the subject.

Personally I’d like a system where people under the voting age could petition for the right to vote, a fixed age would be retained where you automatically get the right to vote, but I’d like to see it possible for a person to vote before that age if they can prove them self capable of understanding the process. Likewise a scale what a person can vote for, I’d say that a kid should be able to have some democratic voice in the schooling from as soon as they’re old enough to attend school.

The flip side is that if we are honest about restricting voting access due to susceptibility to coercion and/or age-based lack of mental capability, then we should consider a maximise age for voting.

If it's defined in the dictionary as a representative democracy, it is a word for representative democracy.

The problem is which dictionary we use. Are we speaking American, or English?

Edited by Silasw on Sep 28th 2020 at 9:00:52 AM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#329571: Sep 28th 2020 at 2:00:29 PM

You've already said this isn't thread for this several times can you please take it to another thread? Really don't care about trying to give six year olds a vote because they can be taught to memorise some rules right now. It's just a little off topic to US politics.

Edited by RainehDaze on Sep 28th 2020 at 10:01:13 AM

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#329572: Sep 28th 2020 at 2:01:04 PM

Yeah, the winner-take-all method of election is another problem in the U.S. Proportional electing would also be a great step towards making third-parties viable.

As it is now, if 51% of voters vote red and 49% vote blue, then the red candidate wins 100% of the votes. In a Presidential election, states vote for President; voters do not. Voters vote for who their state will vote for. So if you're a Democrat in a red state, then your vote essentially goes to Trump regardless of what you put on your ballot.

Senate elections and House elections are very much the same. You're voting for one seat, and whoever wins the majority of that election gets the seat. There are no consolation seats for the election's losers; your guy wins or he doesn't, period.

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Balmung Since: Oct, 2011
#329573: Sep 28th 2020 at 2:02:23 PM

Direct democracy sounds good until you realize that the people on Duck Dynasty and Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo get equal weight to, say, a climate scientist in determining how we deal with the threat of climate change. More, in fact, because the population of climate scientists is vastly outnumbered by the population of idiots white trash less-educated people.
On the contrary, anti-science and otherwise reactionary views receive dramatically outsized influence from our representative system. Action on climate change, advancing or at least maintaining LGBTQ+ rights, the right to choose, and full universal healthcare are all positions that have pretty comfortable majority support among the actual population but are minority positions among our representatives.

Any truly fair representative democracy in which each person is perfectly equally represented would be virtually indistinguishable from direct democracy on the issues, while our current system gives a loudspeaker to the least informed and muffles the voices of the most informed.

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#329574: Sep 28th 2020 at 2:02:27 PM

Would be interesting if both Senate seats in a state were elected at the same time along proportional lines. Wonder how many of the states would send a Senator from each party?

Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#329575: Sep 28th 2020 at 2:04:21 PM

Personally I’d like a system where people under the voting age could petition for the right to vote, a fixed age would be retained where you automatically get the right to vote, but I’d like to see it possible for a person to vote before that age if they can prove them self capable of understanding the process.

Sure, but then you run into the same problem with having "competency tests" for adult voters, where it becomes extremely easy for partisans to dismiss tests from people they expect to vote in ways they don't like, while passing tests that shouldn't from people they expect to vote for their side.


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