Politics Suck

The Core RPGC Main Forum
21

Well, that’s only once that it’s occured like this, next time might be different! I choose to be optimistic that next time I’ll be able to heard.There’s also the fact that I wasn’t aware of the rules and how the game was played; now I know that you can’t expect folks to give you a chance - as my precinct chairman said when I noted how underhanded the “roll call” vote ploy is, that’s how it works. I’ll just have to adapt.

As long as it’s better than Love in the Time of Cholera, I might read it. Geez, who knew that you would have to read such explicit stuff in high school.

I’m not arguing for inaction, quite the opposite. Don’t sit around, vote, argue with some GOP mates and think you’ve done your part. Act. Get out there and do something for what you believe in.

Then I’ve misunderstood you and I apologize for that. Don’t think though, that I’m limiting myself to voting and going to a convention every two years; I’m trying to make a much greater commitment to the party than that.

I agree with conservative principles and that’s why I’m trying so hard to get more involved; because, honestly, a voice of moderation has to be heard on some points in the Republican party and somene needs to remind them that being fiscally irresponsible is not a conservative ideal.

This is true, however, slow, small change after brutal years of slogging through the bullshit you describe seems much less effective than simply being a change yourself.

“Being the change you want to be.” is a great ideal but one person isn’t enough to achieve real change. One person driving a Corrolla instead of a Hummer doesn’t solve global warming; don’t misunderstand, I agree with your point but I would expand it further. You have to reflect your ideals or at least strive to do so before you can try to move others to do the same.

Being involved in a group increases your chances of achieving a goal a lot more than trying to start it by yourself.

Anyway, what I meant was that one is not forced to follow the laws. One can choose to violate them and possibly face certain consequences. As I said in a later post, there are dangers to violating a law, yes, but there are dangers (I’d even argue more dangers) to driving or riding in an automobile.

Now I get it, but knowing that there are consequences pretty much forces me to consider the worth of not following laws and deciding almost invariably that it’s not worth it. Not to say that there are exceptions, civil disobedience for example, but unless your going to break the law for a righteous reason or human dignity you might as well consider yourself chained to the law. But I see that’s where our paths diverge.

Monarchy is about as representative of the people as our democracy, but with a lot more panache. =P

I don’t believe a monarch is going to care about civil rights or the treatment of minorties at all. A Democracy at least enhances the chances of that. A monarchy would result in social disparity like France in pre-French Revolution times because having power in one man results in tyranny by default. Democracy has checks and balances agains that and there are lots more voices which can be heard.

22

No , instead you’re going to need to learn who you need to get connected to so you can work your way into the circle and be a part of that corrupt little system that disapointed you. The system isn’t going to be any different next time because you hope it will be. You have to bend it to work it for you.s

23

Your right, I’m being a bit naive. I’ll have to work into becoming part of that circle to ensure I can make a difference without sacrificing my principles. Not as easy as it sounds I’m sure. Good thing I have a chance to go to Houston and meet with other big shots in the party again - perhaps I can start there.

Arac, your view of anarchy doesn’t seem like it would ever come to fruition. So many things would have to go exactly right for it to occur and to what end? What would be different? How would the government, well…never mind, how would the lack of government really make anyone’s life better?

24

Just don’t sell your soul to corporations for sponsorship and money. They will sponsor you and if you don’t let them do something shady they will ruin you. Like Jeb Bush and all of the chemical and sewage dumping in Florida that burns people’s skin.

25

i dont get what you see in the republican party as an 18 year old african american student*. what is it about the party of entitled old white men that makes you want to go to bat for them so badly. like what are the things you like about the republicans? do they have better local policies for your county or do you support them on all levels? i stay away from the politics threads here because everyone has a doctorate in something and the posts are like novels so maybe you could give me some cliffs. just odd to see a young person so excited about the elephants.

*i might be wrong about your personal stats but thats just what i remembered about you

26

Entitled white men? Well, yeah, it’s pretty white-washed I’ll give you that, but I looked at the positions of the parties and settled on the Republicans and it wasn’t for kicks and giggles; it’s quite a hassle. I’ll admit, I’m not too sure about our local elections just yet but I support any candidate that reflects my ideals.

It started with the social issues mainly; pro-life (still think it’s a misnomer of a term) and against gay marriage. Those two issues are still somewhat important but in the end, they stretch credibility to support them wholeheartedly when there are other isues.

So the fact that they seem so dedicated to national defense also brought me into the fold and the conservative ideals that they party is supposed to extol: fiscal responsibility, non-interventionist policies (if you can believe it), belief that government should not be bloated to infringe in every aspect of public life and should remain as small as possible, low taxes, support the 2nd Amendment (too much of a coward own a gun though) and against affirmative action*.

Note that I realize that the Republican Party has changed a great deal and doesn’t reflect a lot of those principles - but one things for sure, the Democrats didn’t seem to “gel” with my principles as a whole. The Republicans can be turned back to a moderate voice and there principles through this election if McCain sticks to his guns.

Finally, and this might seem silly to some, I can’t let go of Iraq until we’ve done all we can. No, I’m not going to talk about it because we know what happens on this forum when that happens; I just feel that the Democrats don’t really have much of a plan except to leave and not only that, but leave when there might just be a chance for progress.

*Since someone’s going to ask about it, while affirmative action was neccessary when it first began because of how oppressed minorities were, I honestly think America has come a long enough way that we don’t need support based on race; rather, we need support based on income. I don’t get the best grades and I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed but I do well enough - I don’t want to be accepted in college over someone who’s white just because I’m black not because I deserve it. I don’t deserve anything. Rather, I owe my country more than anything. Help those who never had a chance because they were raised in bad neighborhoods or are impoverished, not a middle-class black guy who was raised in the suburbs.

27

You list all those issues as being what drew you to the Republican Party, yet you don’t like Ron Paul.

28

You know what? Ron Paul isn’t a bad guy. He’s been called the “most honest man in Congress” by McCain I believe, and there’s no doubting that he’s a fiscal conservative. I admire him for his dedication to the Constitution and he is experienced.

However, his strict interpretation of the Constitution is just not realistic in this day and age. The guy would eliminate the Department of Education for instance. There are so many government institutions that he would eliminate because they are not in the Constitution that we’d be reduced to a government that would not hobble but just be decimated under the strain of caring for the country.

Heck, I’ll even go so far as to say that he got a bad break from the press, but honestly, I just don’t see him as my President.

I was going to let this go, but as a proud Texan I’ll put in my two cents. Intelligent Design? Yeah, it’s kind of silly. I don’t see how we’ve limited publishers from distributing textbooks; if they really wanted to produce the books they would. It’s not like Texas keeps publishers in the state, they can move out of it if they want too.

But honestly, corruption? Don’t put that pike on Texas’s head alone. If you really want to talk about corruption look at Louisiana and Illinois but don’t limit it to that; there’s nothing no more legendary about Texas corruption than can be found in other states. We aren’t the first state to gerrymander a party into control, and while that doesn’t make it right, we didn’t invent the practice.

29

Social disparity as in unequal tax cuts, business-influenced policies and wars where certain companies get richer and poor guys lose their lives in the desert or back home? You live in the country where socialist is a cuss word (but when the shit hits the fan, no one minds the government increasing spending to ward off a crisis, following er… keynesian principles). It strikes me as relevant to point out that people also regularly wanted to remind that freedom of thought was a communist ideal, but they often didn’t fare that well.

Education, the holy grail of alternative political systems. It’d be great if self-styled democrats paid more attention to it; I’m sure it’s even mentioned somewhere in Pericles’ Funeral Oration. But yes, educated, self-reliant people who can see through the BS they are fed and act on their rights -I can get behind this. You must either support free people or patronise them and there always seems to be some of the latter, even in cases where the rein is more lax.

30

Better as in higher quality, yes. I think it’s definitely his best book (except, maybe, Autumn of the Patriarch). Also, it’s not a sort of angsty tirade about love not working out. Instead it’s mainly an examination of time and reality as an allegory to the current situation in Colombia and even the world. Better as in less fucked up, no. Incest is one of the main themes (the family can’t emotionally connect to anyone outside the family). Other pretty horrible things that would be spoilers happen, too.

All I’m saying is that, from my perspective, a party isn’t the most effective way to do that. However, your views are more in-line with those of a party than mine, so that makes something of a difference. In standing up for a party, I’d be achieving very little for a cause I agree with equally little of, which amounts to about no gain for a lot of work. If you agree more with the republican party, your effort would be a lot more valuable. I still think avoiding the party process, which seems broken to me, at least, might be more efficient, but I am something of a cynic.

A big fucking fence isn’t a waste at all. Actually, I think both conservatives and supposed liberals voted for that. But really, a fucking fence.

However, if everyone assumes “just one person” can’t do something, and so they don’t do anything, there’re millions of people who could do something, but don’t, because they assume they’re alone. Just one person may as well try. From my perspective, it can’t end up much, if any, less effective than voting.

This can be true if the group is aligned with your goal, and the group itself is capable of achieving something. The groups in question, here, are massive, ineffectual beaurocracies, even if you do happen to agree with one. A gigantic sect of anarchists with immense power achieved less actual change in Russia (killing a bad Czar and having him replaced with a worse one) than Tolstoy did as one man, simply by being listened to. Obviously, not everyone can reach that level of personal influence, but it’s better to try for what you believe in than achieve something you don’t. [/silly idealist bullshit]

I happen to think freedom, real freedom, not the kind politicians talk about while they pass laws allowing you to do less and less, is essential to human dignity, meaning I think any breaking of a law in which one doesn’t believe is for a righteous reason. So, I don’t think our paths so much diverge as they’re just of different widths.

[QUOTE=Mullenkamp;606453I don’t believe a monarch is going to care about civil rights or the treatment of minorties at all.[/quote]
I was being facetious, so that was sort of the point. Democracy is only better when it actually works, and I don’t think that ours (or most others to be fair) really does anymore, if it ever did.

As for my view of Anarchy, it’s probably not the most likely on a world scale, and not even likely on a national scale within generations. Things like it have already worked before (most notably, in Spain before Franco came), though they run into a problem when faced with the necessity for military action, since most do not have any form of military. Nor would it be a utopia; people are not perfect, there would still be murders and atrocities. However, large-scale conflicts such as war (organized mass muder in my opinion), or large-scale atrocities like genocide would be almost impossible, though the latter could still happen, it’s much more difficult to achieve and much less likely to come into fruition without a government for dogma.
It actually doesn’t require very many things to go right, it just requires people to listen when a few things do. The main factour necessary is awareness, since people tend to be pretty reasonable when they actually find out about something, but unwilling to listen until they do. Thus, like Rig said, education is essentially key.

Politically, do you find it a discrepancy for the government to step in when it comes to saying who you can marry, yet saying you don’t want government influence in matters of every-day life. If two men want to get married, why is that really the government’s business. It is, after all, not a religious body that it can object on those grounds (at last not constitutionally), and it seems any two people should be able to legally join themselves. I don’t ahve a problem with you disagreeing with me, I just think that seems like a bit of a contradiction and was wondering how you explained it. I haven’t met a Republican yet who gave me one that made much sense, so I always ask.

31

I’m curious how’d you feel about the party system here in the land of pot and dykes. Disregarding the monarchy, which is really just a few costly figureheads with no real bite, we’ve got about 10 or so distinct parties with real differences between them. After voting time, coalitions are formed to make up the ruling cabinet, with the rest of the parties acting as opposition.

It’s obviously got it’s own problems, like the centermost party basically being a part of every single coalition (they tried to work around it, but then you end up with the right going super left and the left going super right), standard populist yelling and drama and that the coalition process isn’t guaranteed to put the highest voted parties together (last election the winners were social-democrat, labour, center. social-democrat couldn’t work with center, so now we have center-christian, fundy-christian and labour), but overall it seems like a somewhat decent way to represent the various viewpoints of people.

Also, our Prime Minister tried to skateboard on camera once and fell on his ass. That’s got to count for something.

32

Obviously, the more parties the better, and the more difference between them, the better, however, and the parties are probably still mired in a lot of corruption and infighting, right? I think individuals running independantly is preferable, though that’s very difficult in the modern world, especially on a national scale, without said individuals all being very wealthy, which is something to avoid in and of itself. Do all ten parties stand something of a chance, or do you have Greens/Libertarians who are parties that will pretty much never win anything, too?

In short, it sounds better from the outside, but I’d imagine there’s just as much bullshit to deal with when it comes to internal party politics (though I’m not a member of a dutch party to know), that making actually working for change from within a party difficult. Although you have less change in the party to make, since there’s more of them.

33

Obviously, the more parties the better, and the more difference between them, the better, however, and the parties are probably still mired in a lot of corruption and infighting, right? I think individuals running independantly is preferable, though that’s very difficult in the modern world, especially on a national scale, without said individuals all being very wealthy, which is something to avoid in and of itself. Do all ten parties stand something of a chance, or do you have Greens/Libertarians who are parties that will pretty much never win anything, too?

There’s corruption and back-dealing in any political system. But, I think the point of the multi-party system, and Rhaka can correct me if I"m wrong, is that government becomes more relfective of the will of the majority. When you’ve got ten parties, each with their own following, at least half of them are going to have to unite to win. its possible to make a diverse party platform that wouldn’t be possible if you just had two extreme parties.

For instance, in this country few people support the entire platforms of both the Democratic party or the Republican party. Most people would like to see some kind of combination between the two platforms. If AMerica had a multi-party system, you’d see parties like the Environmentalist Party, the Christian Fundamentalist Party, the Pro-Iraq party, the African-American Party. And these different parties could combine to make more diverse platforms that are more appealing to most people. For instance, most people in this country are against illegal immigration but are also against the Iraq. Ordinarily, they’d have to sacrifice one of these positions by voting either Republican or Democrat. But in a multi-party system, the anti-illegal immigrant party and the anti-Iraq party would probably combine, giving people a better choice.

Though, I think in most systems you have two dominant parties with lots of little ‘issue parties’ that are always shifting alliances between the two. I could be wrong on this though.

Blah, why do I make everything too complicated :stuck_out_tongue:

34

What I meant was that it’s a better system to vote in, but I don’t think I’d be much happier being strongly involved with a particular party as Mullenkamp described here, assuming they have just as much beaurocratic corruption as ours.

35

Amusingly enough, we’ve got both Greens and SUPER Greens who have been doing nothing but winning seats the past few years. I don’t think we have a Libertarian party (thank god, in my eyes <_<), but the Socialist party jumped from 3 seats to 25 last election. It’s all fairly dynamic, with the exception of the center christian party almost always being in the top 3 of votes. The only ones who never really had a chance were the Pedophile Party, for obvious reasons.

I can’t say anything about the corruption, they’re politicians, so obviously, but I can’t actually recall any scandals from the last decade or so. There is a good deal of infighting though, take Geert Wilders and his Fitna bullshit, or Rita Verdonk splitting up VVD, or whatever. It’s all filled with bureaucracy, but stuff still gets done. Ish.

36

Hmm…no Constitutional Court? As in, there’s no power of judicial review so that laws can change with the times? The primary problem I have from what I have discerned so far after reading about the Dutch Government is that there’s this huge push for relative consensus on every goshdarned thing. Don’t agree with the Council of Ministers on this policy? Psh, too bad, either be quiet or step down. I’m suprised no one’s just said “Forget it” and just voiced their dissent and kept their seat. Plus, there’s since everyone has to shake hands and act like they agree with everything there’s no way to know who’s to blame or thank on policy decisions, you could very well throw a good politician out with an entire coalition.

But geez, really? No judicial review? I understand the explanation behind the reasoning, that “politicans have a mandate from the people” and so are the only one’s who should have a say in changing or interpreting the laws. But if I apply that to American history I don’t see how that would work. Brown v. Board of Education would have never been brought to re-examine segregation. How can you depend on a politician who wants to deal with being re-elected to interpret the law in an unbiased and clear manner? If it’s unpopular, he’ll be motivated to not changing it at all.

But I digress: I view the multi-party system to be a siren song. A coalition government based on proportional representation gives voice to nearly every party, sure, but it also squashes the ability to hear dissent and reevaluations of policies. There’s such a focus on developing some consensus amongst everyone instead of airing out the dirty laundry that a lot of voices and opinions are muffled as a result.

We’ve got a lot of parties here in America, Arac, and if they aren’t major parties it’s because not enough people support them. It’s not like the Democrats or Republicans were always major players - they had to work for it.

37

Mullenkamp, in countries that follow the French model there is a Council of State with many of the powers of a Constitutional Court.

I don’t know if politics in the NL are consensus-based, but that hardly means all multi-party systems stifle dissent. See Italy, where a few weeks ago a tiny party’s maneuver signaled the end of the current government. In France parties are quite independent as well.

Keep in mind that the winner-take-all presidential system in the U.S. doesn’t favour a plurality of parties*. You can argue that the prez needs the cooperation of the Congress to govern, but in parliamentary systems the legislative branch can influence the executive branch, so small parties have greater influence. After all, if I’m not mistaken, the Perots and Naders usually run for president and don’t care too much about mid-term elections.

*It isn’t impossible of course, see Brazil.

38

Politics suck… but making fun of politicians is sure funny.

39

That is the best freaking image I’ve ever seen.