Elections 2015

[mockbee]

You know it's appropriate that the 'elections' thread is where the discussions surface on trump bloviating back onto the scene.

Like some have suggested already, this really isn't about him. It isn't even about his 'supporters'. Sure the polls show a good lead amongst Republican primary voters, but that is a miniscule number. Right now, he has 35 percent of the vote in polls among the roughly 25 percent of Americans who identify as Republican. (That’s something like 8 to 9 percent of the electorate overall, about the same percentage of people who think the Apollo moon landing was faked.) What these polls don't take into account is that these aren't votes, these are just people sitting at home feeling peeved and wanting to make a point to the pollster. Sure, a certain percentage of these people would actually vote for the guy, but these people are not making critical decisions for this country.

What I am most concerned about is the media/consumer culture stoking this frenzied rhetoric and the vacuum of leadership amongst the republicans that will result when this balloon pops.

[Artemis]

What I am most concerned about is the media/consumer culture stoking this frenzied rhetoric and the vacuum of leadership amongst the republicans that will result when this balloon pops.

Exactly! The Republicans really do not have anybody they can put forward to run. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina have revealed they are just as scary as Trump. Jeb has no charisma and comes across as too timid and meek. I don't know much about the other guys trying to run, but they don't seem suitable either.

[nausearockpig]

Maybe you can just get Obama to serve as Emperor....

[Hype]

It's the Tea Party movement's fault. They thought they were doing something noble in starting from grassroots support, but all they've done is cause the already right-wing Republican party to double-down on the worst facets of itself. There are no mainstream/centre-right republicans left, because admitting that you're willing to think about an issue and maybe sometimes side with Democrats on any issue that galvanizes the base has become career suicide. Worse, this makes centrist democrats like Obama and Clinton look like raving leftists... and it's what allows people to freak out that a fairly mainstream leftist like Sanders is a "socialist". Which is absurd, because by comparison to the rest of the world, Sanders is positively corporate.

Frankly, it doesn't look good no matter who gets the nod for either party. I guess Clinton would be more or less fine, but she'd be a let-down in pretty much all the ways that Obama has been a letdown. And I'm still sceptical that Americans will elect a woman. Especially a woman named 'Clinton'.

[mockbee]

I know what you are saying about the deep rooted chauvinism in American culture, really the last taboo, but to be honest I don't think it will be the critical obstacle that you fear. I thought the same about Obama, it seemed impossible, but he was elected twice, in troubling times. The majority of Americans will not throw away all sense of security for an unknown ideologue from the republicans. I don't think that people's personal sense of security is that threatened at this moment. Sure we are all shaken, but that is far from desperate. Maybe for the struggling blue collar white guy it feels that way, but no minority group would even remotely take that risk, for one they are completely left out of the republican equation, and without them there is no victory for republicans.

I don't know where that leaves the country though, democrats are not making inroads, they need a strong (real) strategy against ISIS and then convince us it's the only way to go (a la W Bush) and a strategy for bringing back the middle class. Maybe that is impossible in this close to post-capitalist world, but there needs to be a plan, a plan that most American's can get on board with.

Honestly, it would help if Sanders first name was Bill, and his last name was Clinton......

Not that I think he was some great president or had the greatest policies, but boy could he unite people.

[Pandemonium]

What I am most concerned about is the media/consumer culture stoking this frenzied rhetoric and the vacuum of leadership amongst the republicans that will result when this balloon pops.

Exactly! The Republicans really do not have anybody they can put forward to run. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina have revealed they are just as scary as Trump. Jeb has no charisma and comes across as too timid and meek. I don't know much about the other guys trying to run, but they don't seem suitable either.

Ted Cruz is the worst. He reminds me of the religious nutcase Senator in the film of Stephen King's "The Dead Zone" who will lead the world into a nuclear war if he gets elected President.

[Bandit72]

Why is that stupid creationist bitch Sarah Palin sticking up for him? Religious fanatics should be banned from politics....which would errrr leave, no one?

http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/brea ... ouncement/

[Hype]

Nobody should be banned from politics. This would foster disenfranchisement, resentment, and ultimately revolution (of the worst kind).

Sane, intelligent people just need to step up and continue to enforce the constitution and enact sensible reforms.

Man, I swear I posted literally this exact thing 4 years ago... or 8 years ago...

[Bandit72]

Nobody should be banned from politics. This would foster disenfranchisement, resentment, and ultimately revolution (of the worst kind).

Sane, intelligent people just need to step up and continue to enforce the constitution and enact sensible reforms.

Man, I swear I posted literally this exact thing 4 years ago... or 8 years ago...

Sane and intelligent people would render these idiots useless surely? So why have them in the first place? It's a bit like employing people with no hands to cook burgers at McDonald's, only for the people with hands to say, 'don't be a tool, I'll cook the burgers. GO AWAY'

If you were a customer, wouldn't you want your food cooked properly? Or here screams coming from the kitchen?

[mockbee]

There are a fair number of people with 'no hands' out there who don't feel represented. If they have no place in our society, does that mean we are all striving for fascism in one way or another......

Maybe none of us can handle a democracy.

[Bandit72]

There are a fair number of people with 'no hands' out there who don't feel represented. If they have no place in our society, does that mean we are all striving for fascism in one way or another......

Maybe none of us can handle a democracy.

I was merely making the comparison with politicians who shouldn't be politicians. It wasn't a dig at disabled people.

[mockbee]

There are a fair number of people with 'no hands' out there who don't feel represented. If they have no place in our society, does that mean we are all striving for fascism in one way or another......

Maybe none of us can handle a democracy.

I was merely making the comparison with politicians who shouldn't be politicians. It wasn't a dig at disabled people.

No crap!

I thought it was an interesting analogy in regards to the difficulty of maintaining a democracy.

There are stupid people out there who want to be represented who don't feel like they are. If they aren't deserving of representation how can the smart people think we are participating in (striving for) a democracy?

I'm not being facetious when I say maybe none of us can handle a democracy and we are all a little fascist....

[Hype]

At the bottom of a lot of these assumptions and worries, there are important questions and concerns about what a democracy is, and is meant to be, and what it could be. These issues have been dealt with since Ancient Greece (at least!), where the first democracies were direct (every policy was a matter of citizen vote), restricted (men over a certain age, and I'm pretty sure property-owning was a requisite, no slaves or women or foreigners). Greek philosophy was largely sceptical of the value of democracy for many of the reasons you guys have brought up: most people are ignorant or stupid or just plain short-sighted/self-interested and don't care enough about the long-term big picture stuff, most people are easy to persuade if you can say things they want to hear, most people are afraid of things they don't know or understand, etc.

But in spite of all of this, one of the basic developments of modernity is the idea that whatever flaws democratic/self-rule has, it is preferable to leave it as open as possible, rather than to subjugate people to the authority of a single person (autocracy/monarchy/dictatorship), a small group of elites (aristocracy), or special interests (plutocracy, oligarchy, etc). The reasons for this are pretty clear: injustice will arise whenever the ruling power fails to account for the needs or goods or harms of some group or other, and all of the other systems tend to fail in this direction. Autocrats tend to eventually need to silence opposition, dissent, etc., aristocracies tend to need to limit the powers of other groups, and oligarchies tend to need to eliminate the other oligarchs or the possibility of other oligarchs).

I didn't mean to type a 5 minute introduction to the history of political philosophy, but basically what we're left with after the Renaissance and the Enlightenment is an imperfect system with many checks on any one source of power, which inevitably lends itself to certain forms of corruption (especially the standard canard in the US of "nothing happening in Washington" because of bureaucratic red tape, or of the problem of infiltration of special interests, or of large groups of stupid people influencing an election when voter turnout is low). But the fact is that all these problems are either soluble or at least manageable. The American system was the first to demonstrate how powerful this is, and it has reverberated around the world for nearly 250 years to the point where many other countries have either stuck with or improved on the original. This is why someone like Antonin Scalia is so dangerous. Yet, he will die, and we are unlikely to be stuck with someone exactly like him in his place. If this were a monarchy, we might not be able to say the same.

[Hype]

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/videos ... 9/?fref=nf

[Bandit72]

I'm not against having a multiple of electable candidates. I can totally see why having autocracy, aristocracy or plutocracy is a bad idea. My point was that I was against having RETARDS as electable candidates. How on earth can you allow someone who believes that dinosaurs walked with man a good choice for the people. I mean, come on.

What else does she believe to be true?

[Hype]

The problem is that restricting candidacy for elected office results in anti-democratic policies. Think about it with other cases: if you exclude those convicted of criminal offenses, you create a state in which all the ruling government needs to do to retain power is fabricate (or otherwise produce) criminal proceedings against its opponents (see: China, Russia, Ukraine, etc.)

You might think that 'intelligence' is somehow different, because it seems obvious that it's a prerequisite for even being considerable, but it's got exactly the same problem: the ruling party simply needs to concoct a way to declare the opposition mentally unfit. By the way, something like this actually happened once in Bavaria, with King Ludwig II. The story is, as far as we can tell, that his family orchestrated a coup to remove him by declaring him mentally ill. (The real reason they wanted him out was probably his exorbitant spending habits, with "their" money). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/desti ... r-all.html

So, what I'm saying is that it may be obvious that we don't want stupid people, or bad people, or crazy people, to lead us... and that IS obvious. But any attempt to codify this in a constitution or law that supersedes the right of any citizen to run for office is effectively the destruction of the entire value of democracy, which isn't about selecting GOOD leaders at all. It's about making sure we can get rid of bad ones without a civil war or military coup.

The fact that people seem to want to vote for charismatic morons is a problem, but it's not a problem of democracy, it's a problem of civic education and civic engagement.

(Another thought: the same argument as above might be used to criticize the American Presidential-candidacy requirements of natural-born citizenry and minimum age that is far above that of suffrage. But that's an argument for another time.)

[Bandit72]

The fact that people seem to want to vote for charismatic morons is a problem, but it's not a problem of democracy, it's a problem of civic education and civic engagement.

Yes, this totally.

[Hype]

It's also a problem of campaign finance laws, btw!

[Bandit72]

I have a bit of political confusion.

Is it, or is it not true that the American constitution seperates the idea of religion from the state? If so, why is it that no atheist candidate would ever win an election for presidency?

[creep]

I have a bit of political confusion.

Is it, or is it not true that the American constitution seperates the idea of religion from the state? If so, why is it that no atheist candidate would ever win an election for presidency?

because 75% of the people here believe in god and most people that believe in god think that there is something wrong with someone that doesn't.

i was really surprised that mitt romney mas the republican nominee in 2012 since he is a mormon. i guess mormons do believe in god so that is good enough.

[Bandit72]

So the constitution is kept out of the presidential candidacy? That doesn't make sense.

The first amendment to the US Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

[creep]

i guess i don't follow. the presidency is a popularity contest. if you want to become president you tell the people what they want to hear so you let them know you believe in god. it's not required that you disclose your religious beliefs.

[Bandit72]

Ah, I think you answered it with your first response. 75% of Americans believe in God so would never vote for an atheist in the first place.

I wonder what would happen if all candidates were atheists.

[Bandit72]

I think that's what confused me. Why was something written into the costitution which is now completely disregarded. Doesn't matter, it's obviously far too deep for me.

[Hype]

The separation of church and state (establishment clause) doesn't say you can't be religious and in the government. In fact, it says the converse: the government can't test your religion (i.e., can't have any specific religion or no religion) as a criterion for holding office, because that would be tantamount to a state religion. But there's nothing stopping people from wanting to vote for religious people, and not wanting to vote for non-religious people. You can't police that.