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[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

Nope. But I guess that's the outcome if Americans lose their nerve and keep wasting votes on the same screwups.

Who, that could have credibly been elected, would have been better? I like, say, Nader as much as the next guy, but someone like that doesn't have the clout, charisma, or knowledge of "the game" to make it to such a high office.

Obama is moderately above average, all things considered, which makes him better than most Presidents. Current politics don't really allow for a transformative figure like an FDR or Lincoln, so a decently centrist (by U.S. standards) Chief Executive is about as much as I feel I can reasonably hope for.

 

[Gotchaye]

Look at it as in everything that is higher than 27 is more expensive in todays money than it was in 1960s money, while everything less is the opposite. With the exception of food clothes and car payments things are much more expensive. This also does not include gas for the car.

I don't think that's right. I can't make out the article text, but "weekly spend per head" is not "how much things cost", unless we know that people are consuming the same amount of stuff.

So food and clothing are probably actually cheaper now. But obviously much higher weekly spending on "phone" doesn't mean that phones are much more expensive now; we've largely moved to cell phones where every individual in a household has a personal line (and often a data plan). Health care has of course actually gotten a lot more expensive. Education has both gotten a lot more expensive and we now consume much more of it.

 

[Gallbaro]

Inflation=Good.

 

[Sibylus]

Who, that could have credibly been elected, would have been better? I like, say, Nader as much as the next guy, but someone like that doesn't have the clout, charisma, or knowledge of "the game" to make it to such a high office.

Obama is moderately above average, all things considered, which makes him better than most Presidents. Current politics don't really allow for a transformative figure like an FDR or Lincoln, so a decently centrist (by U.S. standards) Chief Executive is about as much as I feel I can reasonably hope for.

Try anybody from a third party, even at the head of a protest vote. Even if they're fuckups, you think they'll fuck up as fundamentally as this Dem-Rep revolving door setup? Where there are no consequences, there is no accountability. You just get people like Obama promising change and reaping the harvests of the disasters people very much like him created. This cycle doesn't stop if voters keep settling for the crumbs that Democrats tart up to look the slightest bit progressive.

 

[The Librarian]

Try anybody from a third party, even at the head of a protest vote.

That's just throwing your vote away. See: Bush v. Gore.

 

[Tamanon]

Try anybody from a third party, even at the head of a protest vote. Even if they're fuckups, you think they'll fuck up as fundamentally as this Dem-Rep revolving door setup? Where there are no consequences, there is no accountability. You just get people like Obama promising change and reaping the harvests of the disasters people very much like him created. This cycle doesn't stop if voters keep settling for the crumbs that Democrats tart up to look the slightest bit progressive.

Credibly elected. Third party doesn't fulfill that.

 

[pigeon]

Try anybody from a third party, even at the head of a protest vote. Even if they're fuckups, you think they'll fuck up as fundamentally as this Dem-Rep revolving door setup?

Here we go again.

People don't vote for Democrats because they "lost their nerve", any more than GOP voters really wanted to vote for the reanimated corpse of George Wallace but chickened out. They're acting in accordance with the median voter theorem. The two-party system isn't a cartel, it's a mathematical reality of a FPTP electoral system. If you want the country's elected representatives to move left, you have to actually move the country left. That or establish proportional representation.

 

[The Librarian]

Here we go again.

People don't vote for Democrats because they "lost their nerve", any more than GOP voters really wanted to vote for the reanimated corpse of George Wallace but chickened out. They're acting in accordance with the median voter theorem. The two-party system isn't a cartel, it's a mathematical reality of a FPTP electoral system. If you want the country's elected representatives to move left, you have to actually move the country left. That or establish proportional representation.

Yup. Third parties won't viable until we get rid of FPTP and move to a more parliamentary system.

 

[Sibylus]

That's just throwing your vote away. See: Bush v. Gore.

Voting Democrat and Republican irrespective of results is "just throwing your vote away", it serves no purpose even in sake of protest or conscience.

Credibly elected. Third party doesn't fulfill that.

And what is the criterion for credible electability in your view?

 

[The Librarian]

Voting Democrat and Republican irrespective of results is "just throwing your vote away", it serves no purpose even in sake of protest or conscience.

It's not. The best way for me to get things done that I want to get done is by working with the Democratic Party.

 

[pigeon]

Voting Democrat and Republican irrespective of results is "just throwing your vote away", it serves no purpose even in sake of protest or conscience.

People don't vote irrespective of results, though, they vote in order to achieve the results they want. Once again, if you really think that Obama's no different from Romney here, you have sadly misunderstood the entirety of American politics as well as the events of the past six years.

 

[Sibylus]

Here we go again.

People don't vote for Democrats because they "lost their nerve", any more than GOP voters really wanted to vote for the reanimated corpse of George Wallace but chickened out. They're acting in accordance with the median voter theorem. The two-party system isn't a cartel, it's a mathematical reality of a FPTP electoral system. If you want the country's elected representatives to move left, you have to actually move the country left. That or establish proportional representation.

Yup. Third parties won't viable until we get rid of FPTP and move to a more parliamentary system.

Even entirely within the bounds of a fatalistic "two parties and no more" scheme, I very much hold voters to account for letting Dems and Repubs rule it by fiat. So yes, nerve very much has something to do with it, because instead of punishing mistakes from inside your very narrow system... your voter base has collectively swallowed the lie that only the Democrats and the Republicans are permitted access to that two-party paradigm, as though no amount of votes could force one of the privileged two suddenly out into the cold.

Like this, a result that I've known more than a few cynical people would have sworn up and down was impossible. Until it happened. At the head of a protest vote. In a first-past-the-post system. All because enough voters got it into their heads that Conservative-Liberal trades were not the only possibilities in a two-party favored system, and more importantly, acted against a lot of conventional wisdom that this was tantamount to wasted votes. End result? Third parties energized. Liberals kicked in the butt and woken up. Conservatives granted their craved power, and their flaws fueling ardent opposition all across the spectrum. That may seem like a waste m'dears, but it's anything but.

 

[The Librarian]

Even entirely within the bounds of a fatalistic "two parties and no more" scheme, I very much hold voters to account for letting Dems and Repubs rule it by fiat. So yes, nerve very much has something to do with it, because instead of punishing mistakes from inside your very narrow system... your voter base has collectively swallowed the lie that only the Democrats and the Republicans are permitted access to that two-party paradigm, as though no amount of votes could force one of the privileged two suddenly out into the cold.

Like this, a result that I've known more than a few cynical people would have sworn up and down was impossible. Until it happened. At the head of a protest vote. In a first-past-the-post system. All because enough voters got it into their heads that Conservative-Liberal trades were not the only possibilities in a two-party favored system, and more importantly, acted against a lot of conventional wisdom that this was tantamount to wasted votes. End result? Third parties energized. Liberals kicked in the butt and woken up. Conservatives granted their craved power, and their flaws fueling ardent opposition all across the spectrum. That may seem like a waste m'dears, but it's anything but.

Canada has a parliamentary system; the situation is not entirely comparable. It's not about voters "swallowing a lie" and only allowing Democrats or Republicans to be elected – it's because only those two parties have the infrastructure and capability to be elected on a national level.

I suggest you do more research before commenting any further. It's obvious that your foundation of knowledge of the American political system is thin.

 

[Sibylus]

It's not. The best way for me to get things done that I want to get done is by working with the Democratic Party.

People don't vote irrespective of results, though, they vote in order to achieve the results they want. Once again, if you really think that Obama's no different from Romney here, you have sadly misunderstood the entirety of American politics as well as the events of the past six years.

And if in the end they excuse travesty after travesty, how much can they truly care about results? They don't, is my point. They accept scraps. And I am perfectly aware that Obama is far better on social and socioeconomic fronts than Romney is, my dear pigeon. But I am not so blindingly partisan as to ignore that he is just as much the authoritarian, executive-empowering, accountability-shirking shrew that Bush the Younger was, and more.

 

[The Librarian]

And if in the end they excuse travesty after travesty, how much can they truly care about results? They don't, is my point. They accept scraps. And I am perfectly aware that Obama is far better on social and socioeconomic fronts than Romney is, my dear pigeon. But I am not so blindingly partisan as to ignore that he is just as much the authoritarian, executive-empowering, accountability-shirking shrew that Bush the Younger was, and more.

Neither are we. As for the rest of your post, again:

I suggest you do more research before commenting any further. It's obvious that your foundation of knowledge of the American political system is thin.

 

[Sibylus]

Really don't appreciate your insistence that outsiders ain't welcome, Dax.

Canada has a parliamentary system; the situation is not entirely comparable. It's not about voters "swallowing a lie" and only allowing Democrats or Republicans to be elected – it's because only those two parties have the infrastructure and capability to be elected on a national level.

I suggest you do more research before commenting any further. It's obvious that your foundation of knowledge of the American political system is thin.

Guilty as charged, I do not know the ins and outs of your electoral college. However, again, it's people continually voting for the same two factions election in, election out that is the reason you're in this predicament, and the reason you're not leaving it anytime soon. Third parties don't win this, that, or any states nationally because the electorate collectively operates on the assumption that they won't, and as if by magic the reality they predict is the reality they create. Fault me for not painting all the detail in correctly, but am I wrong in spirit?

Neither are we. As for the rest of your post, again:

"Neither are we", but we'll vote for his successors no questions asked? What you say and what you do look like stark opposites.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

The reason third parties don't make any headway is because they don't have the support of the corporate funding system that gives candidates VISIBILITY, which is what it takes for someone to become notable enough on a national level to actually capture the attention of a significant cross-section of the electorate.

Even if a third party WERE to rise to national politics, it would almost certainly be at the expense of one of the other two parties. And then organizational inertia, corruption, etc. would kick in, and we'd, basically, be back where we started.

Not to mention that Libertopians are probably the only third party that could credibly rise, and that fate is WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY worse than anything Obama has done, at least domestically.

Edit: Living within reality is not "blindingly partisan".

 

[The Librarian]

Really don't appreciate your insistence that outsiders ain't welcome, Dax.

Not saying that at all. All I'm saying is that you're coming in here and saying "you guys should do this" or "this is what's going on, here's what you need to do" when, admittedly, your knowledge of our politically system is thin. Hence my suggestion you do more research before making such hardened claims. If you're here to ask questions and learn more, that's fine, but the manner in which you present your assessment is off-putting. At least to me.

What else was off-putting was your implication that pigeon and I are "blind partisans."

Guilty as charged, I do not know the ins and outs of your electoral college. However, again, it's people continually voting for the same two factions election in, election out that is the reason you're in this predicament, and the reason you're not leaving it anytime soon. Third parties don't win this, that, or any states nationally because the electorate collectively operates on the assumption that they won't, and as if by magic the reality they predict is the reality they create. Fault me for not painting all the detail in correctly, but am I wrong in spirit?

In what predicament? See, the bold is where my frustration is coming in. Part of the reason people don't vote for third parties – either for president or Congress – is because they don't demonstrate the capability that they can win. Again, the only two parties in this country with the resources to compete on a national scale are the Democrats and the Republicans. Even if a person representing a third party were elected to the presidency, he/she would be constrained by the same factors Obama has to deal with. Coming in here and telling us to vote third party isn't going to solve anything – because the infrastructure isn't there to support them. We have to look at campaign finance laws, for one, to make it easier for candidates to run and win races. We have to look at the structure of our Congress and president – the Constitution – to make the system friendlier to third parties.

 

[ElectricThunder]

The Primary system, debate structure, and the vested interests the media has in keeping it the mess it is lends much to the overall mess of it---2008 election would've been far more interesting, at the very least, should the likes of Gravel and Kucinich on the Democratic side not been so literally systemically stomped out early.

In short: we've been doing it wrong for ages now, are getting worse at it to boot with ever more invasive interests at play, and it is rapidly catching up with us in terms of the quality of the end results. : (

 

[Gotchaye]

Guilty as charged, I do not know the ins and outs of your electoral college. However, again, it's people continually voting for the same two factions election in, election out that is the reason you're in this predicament, and the reason you're not leaving it anytime soon. Third parties don't win this, that, or any states nationally because the electorate collectively operates on the assumption that they won't, and as if by magic the reality they predict is the reality they create. Fault me for not painting all the detail in correctly, but am I wrong in spirit?

But you're not saying anything really interesting here. Yeah, if suddenly a majority of the US agreed more with the Green candidate than either of the other two, we'd have a much more liberal politics.

It seems to me that you're conflating the voters (collectively) and a bunch of individual voters. Yes, third parties are third parties just because they don't have a broad base of support. As an individual voter, I can't change that. As an individual voter, it is actually the case that if I vote for a third party I am making it more likely that the major party I disagree with more will win.

You can try to argue that individual voters have a responsibility to vote for the party they most agree with regardless of electoral considerations in order to try to demonstrate support for that party and eventually get it more votes, but this is going to be very difficult. No one can seriously think that the Green Party or whoever will explode into a huge thing in the course of just two or three presidential elections (as a result of marginally more people voting for it), so you're asking liberal voters to increase the likelihood that anti-abortion judges will end up on the Supreme Court, that health care reform will be sabotaged, etc., in order to maybe get better politics 16-20 years down the line. And that's all assuming that increased conservative presence in actual political office doesn't pull the country to the right - you're necessarily relying on a sort of"heighten the contradictions" plan here.

So, given all of those issues, why not just participate in the primary process of whichever major party is closest to you? Look at what the Tea Party was able to do.

If you don't live in a swing state, then, sure, vote for a third party in presidential elections. But your vote doesn't matter anyway.

 

[bonercop]

Guilty as charged, I do not know the ins and outs of your electoral college. However, again, it's people continually voting for the same two factions election in, election out that is the reason you're in this predicament, and the reason you're not leaving it anytime soon. Third parties don't win this, that, or any states nationally because the electorate collectively operates on the assumption that they won't, and as if by magic the reality they predict is the reality they create. Fault me for not painting all the detail in correctly, but am I wrong in spirit?

America's incredibly stupid, archaic political system is half the reason why it's so interesting to follow.

(and well, y'know, the part where everything that happens in America, even domestically, profoundly affects the rest of the world.)

 

[The Librarian]

"Neither are we", but we'll vote for his successors no questions asked? What you say and what you do look like stark opposites.

What do you mean no questions asked? Are you accusing me of being a low-information voter?

If Hillary were to run, and assuming nobody I like more challenges her in the primary, I'd vote for her for these main reasons:
1. I know she'll be closer to me on the issues than the Republican candidate.
2. She'll be the first female nominee for president in this country's history. I want a woman in the White House.
3. She is the best chance for Democrats in the immediate future to retain their Senate majority and take the House in a presidential election. Leading to the most important reason of all...
4. The best possibility for getting stuff done. I want another 111th.

 

[StopMakingSense]

If someone has healthcare provided by their employer, can they drop the coverage and go on Obamacare?

Also, is that Kaiser calculator pretty accurate? I'd only have to pay $4.97 a month, but I think that's for the bronze plan. My question is, how much would I pay if I have a $70,000 medical bill?

Thanks

One thing is to consider is that the bill will be based on a insurance-negotiated price for services. So the likelihood of a "$70,000 medical bill" is much lower.

That said, the max individual out of pocket for bronze - gold plans is 6,350, I believe.

 

[pigeon]

Like this, a result that I've known more than a few cynical people would have sworn up and down was impossible. Until it happened. At the head of a protest vote. In a first-past-the-post system.

Your example here is a parliamentary system with no executive -- thus heavily proportional -- in which the more leftist liberal party stole seats from the more centrist liberal party, causing the conservative government to get a majority and rule unchecked? And you consider this a victory for liberalism? God save us from such victories.

And if in the end they excuse travesty after travesty, how much can they truly care about results? They don't, is my point. They accept scraps. And I am perfectly aware that Obama is far better on social and socioeconomic fronts than Romney is, my dear pigeon. But I am not so blindingly partisan as to ignore that he is just as much the authoritarian, executive-empowering, accountability-shirking shrew that Bush the Younger was, and more.

I don't think anybody is ignoring that. But calling an enormous socialized health care program, gay marriage, support for marijuana decriminalization, economic stimulus, and the DREAM Act "scraps" is a little frighteningly privileged. Believe it or not, I prefer civil rights that are likely to come up in my everyday life to the abstract concerns that the government might be reading my email. Not that it's not something I'd like to do something about, but priorities matter.

 

[Oblivion]

Haha, oh god check this out:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/juan-wil...-occurred-to-you-conservatives-are-the-media/

Juan Williams calls out that nimrod Amy Holmes on all the different members of the conservative media (he even mentions Fox News!), and said that the WSJ is the biggest newspaper in the country (not sure if that's true). But what was really stunning to me was Amy's response to that, where she said that the WSJ may be conservative, but it's not conservative in its news reporting!

Seriously? You actually said something like this?

 

[Sibylus]

The reason third parties don't make any headway is because they don't have the support of the corporate funding system that gives candidates VISIBILITY, which is what it takes for someone to become notable enough on a national level to actually capture the attention of a significant cross-section of the electorate.

Even if a third party WERE to rise to national politics, it would almost certainly be at the expense of one of the other two parties. And then organizational inertia, corruption, etc. would kick in, and we'd, basically, be back where we started.

Not to mention that Libertopians are probably the only third party that could credibly rise, and that fate is WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY worse than anything Obama has done, at least domestically.

Edit: Living within reality is not "blindingly partisan".

Yes, and I'm suggesting that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. The Liberals lost their assumed prime position, and it's had the effect of energizing everyone (Liberals included).

Not saying that at all. All I'm saying is that you're coming in here and saying "you guys should do this" or "this is what's going on, here's what you need to do" when, admittedly, your knowledge of our politically system is thin. Hence my suggestion you do more research before making such hardened claims. If you're here to ask questions and learn more, that's fine, but the manner in which you present your assessment is off-putting. At least to me.

What else was off-putting was your implication that pigeon and I are "blind partisans."

In what predicament? See, the bold is where my frustration is coming in. Part of the reason people don't vote for third parties – either for president or Congress – is because they don't demonstrate the capability that they can win. Again, the only two parties in this country with the resources to compete on a national scale are the Democrats and the Republicans. Even if a person representing a third party were elected to the presidency, he/she would be constrained by the same factors Obama has to deal with. Coming in here and telling us to vote third party isn't going to solve anything – because the infrastructure isn't there to support them. We have to look at campaign finance laws, for one, to make it easier for candidates to run and win races, and we have to look at the structure of our Congress, and president, to make the system friendlier to third parties.

I get that that isn't your intent, but it's the vibe you're giving off by dismissively nailing me on details when what I'm trying to go for is gestalt. I shouldn't have to be a proverbial expert on your institutions to convey the spirit of what I perceive to be a huge problem amongst voters, and that's in large part drawn from identical apathy and attitudes that occur up here. We're grappling with the same sort of two-party death spiral, albeit in our case we have the advantage of the process not being as advanced (yet).

And I disagree entirely that resources and infrastructure are some insurmountable hurdle. That may have been for most of America's history, but its institutions were brought into being long before the advent of mass communication and the Internet. Campaign finance, the structure of Congress, the executive office, these are all excellent avenues for reform, but it should be stated that it has never been easier to put a name and a platform out there. Over-reliance on the system as-it-has-been-given only serves to empower and entrench the old guard, because they've bent all the rules and breaks their way.

But you're not saying anything really interesting here. Yeah, if suddenly a majority of the US agreed more with the Green candidate than either of the other two, we'd have a much more liberal politics.

It seems to me that you're conflating the voters (collectively) and a bunch of individual voters. Yes, third parties are third parties just because they don't have a broad base of support. As an individual voters, I can't change that. As an individual voter, it is actually the case that if I vote for a third party I am making it more likely that the major party I disagree with more will win.

You can try to argue that individual voters have a responsibility to vote for the party they most agree with regardless of electoral considerations in order to try to demonstrate support for that party and eventually get it more votes, but this is going to be very difficult. No one can seriously think that the Green Party or whoever will explode into a huge thing in the course of just two or three presidential elections, so you're asking liberal voters to increase the likelihood that anti-abortion judges will end up on the Supreme Court, that health care reform will be sabotaged, etc., in order to maybe get better politics 16-20 years down the line. And that's all assuming that increased conservative presence in actual political office doesn't pull the country to the right - you're necessarily relying on a sort of"heighten the contradictions" plan here.

So, given all of those issues, why not just participate in the primary process of whichever major party is closest to you? Look at what the Tea Party was able to do.

Interesting, probably not, but nonetheless I feel it needs to be said. Strategic voting would have prevented the aforementioned result I was talking about, it's precisely the same rhetoric about our own system that is repeated nigh forever as our rates of people who don't vote keeps on climbing. A parliamentary system is by no means a magic bullet for voter fatigue and partisan entrenchment, and my reasoning is that its absence should neither be grounds to give up and assent to R&D domination. That isn't to say it's something that could happen over the space of one, or two, or three presidential elections, or that you'll like what the Republicans will do in the future... but as I see it, they're going to do it regardless of you strategic voting or not, because that revolving door is going to put them back into the executive's chair sooner or later. By my reckoning one should stop playing the game and get ahead of the curve, and see how far one's own personal footprint can go in finding people of like mind, in the very, very, VERY long term. In the short, it won't help things be any better, but again by my reckoning, they're already awful. Everything to gain.

Would the Tea Party really be an example to look to? I was under the impression they've practically been absorbed into the Republican party, influential, but doomed now to play the game "properly". Where is the spontaneity in that?

 

[The Librarian]

I shouldn't have to be a proverbial expert on your institutions to convey the spirit of what I perceive to be a huge problem amongst voters,

No, but you need to have a sufficient grasp of the concepts to make the hardened assessments that you are, and I don't believe that you do.

And I disagree entirely that resources and infrastructure are some insurmountable hurdle.

This is why you need to do more research. Once again, the structure isn't there in the US to support third parties, either at the presidential level or congressional. If we want to vote third parties, we have to change the structure first. I understand what you're saying, but short of a revolution, it isn't workable.

 

[Gotchaye]

Would the Tea Party really be an example to look to? I was under the impression they've practically been absorbed into the Republican party, influential, but doomed now to play the game "properly". Where is the spontaneity in that?

Look at the Republican Party now vs 10 years ago, or during the Clinton years. Many moderates have been purged and many national politicians are terrified of being deemed RINOs. There is now significant support among Republicans in Congress for keeping even military cuts in place as a means to shrinking the government. We've come much closer than anyone would have thought we could to government shutdown and debt defaults as part of Republican opposition to an essentially Republican health care reform law. Everything gets filibustered now and very little has been accomplished since 2010.

Who cares if they're now doomed to play the game "properly" or if the Tea Party has lost "spontaneity"? They've made more progress towards accomplishing their political goals than anyone dreamed possible. This is what a successful movement looks like. Sure, the die-hard Tea Partiers could have voted for third party candidates in 2010. In that case we'd have Democratic supermajorities and the DREAM Act, and probably some reasonably big climate bill. Also gun control.

 

[empty vessel]

If you want the country's elected representatives to move left, you have to actually move the country left. That or establish proportional representation.

I disagree with this slightly. It's not that "the country," as a whole, has to move. It's that there has to be a left movement. Movements appear bigger than they are. In real terms, the country has probably never shifted that much in terms of the percentage that are conservative and the percentage that are progressive. In fact, most people are now and have always been politically apathetic (compared to people who post on boards like this). What does change is how politically organized, loud and engaged one side may be vis-a-vis the other. For the last thirty years, conservatives have been better organized, more loud, and more engaged. Mostly this was through the infusion of business money and effort, but regardless of the cause, the effect has been a successful conservative movement. That didn't require moving the country right. It just required creating a conservative movement.

 

[Sibylus]

What do you mean no questions asked? Are you accusing me of being a low-information voter?

If Hillary were to run, and assuming nobody I like more challenges her in the primary, I'd vote for her for these main reasons:
1. I know she'll be closer to me on the issues than the Republican candidate.
2. She'll be the first female nominee for president in this country's history. I want a woman in the White House.
3. She is the best chance for Democrats in the immediate future to retain their Senate majority and take the House in a presidential election. Leading to the most important reason of all...
4. The best possibility for getting stuff done. I want another 111th.

What I mean by no questions asked is that I don't see what sort of mistake, short of something comically evil, being enough for you to vote otherwise. That is what I mean by blind, simply that the "lesser evil" argument looks like rationalization for voting the way you were inclined to vote already. It's well and good that you don't agree with x, y, and z, but at the end of the day your vote was never in serious doubt.

Your example here is a parliamentary system with no executive -- thus heavily proportional -- in which the more leftist liberal party stole seats from the more centrist liberal party, causing the conservative government to get a majority and rule unchecked? And you consider this a victory for liberalism? God save us from such victories.

I don't think anybody is ignoring that. But calling an enormous socialized health care program, gay marriage, support for marijuana decriminalization, economic stimulus, and the DREAM Act "scraps" is a little frighteningly privileged. Believe it or not, I prefer civil rights that are likely to come up in my everyday life to the abstract concerns that the government might be reading my email. Not that it's not something I'd like to do something about, but priorities matter.

It would be more accurate to say that we have two executives de facto, with one nominally representing the Queen and holding power over the other. In truth, the Governor General is in most regards a ceremonial position that rubber stamps whatever it is that the PM passes to it. For all intents and purposes the PM is the only figure in our government that really exercises executive authority.

And as a victory for liberalism? In the long run, yes, because it forestalls the doom of a revolving door for the top job and legislative clout, and it keeps the partisan progressive elements of this country from falling asleep when "their guy" is in. When "our guy" was in, their party legislated gay marriage and did other things for civil rights. That didn't stop them from ending their engagement to power with naked corruption, and it shouldn't and it wasn't dismissed as a necessary lesser evil. Had they been rewarded with power for their conduct, I'm not sure how that could be in any way construed as any victory for liberalism (except crony liberalism, and crony politics writ large). And yes, I do consider those things scraps when government across party lines is hard at work blowing holes the size of minivans into the ship of state. It will almost assuredly not be their problem to clean up, maybe even not yours. But so it is that the sea is never calm for long, and with the hull being what it is, short term gains may end up being chaff overboard.

 

[The Librarian]

What I mean by no questions asked is that I don't see what sort of mistake, short of something comically evil, being enough for you to vote otherwise. That is what I mean by blind, simply that the "lesser evil" argument looks like rationalization for voting the way you were inclined to vote already. It's well and good that you don't agree with x, y, and z, but at the end of the day your vote was never in serious doubt.

I would welcome having trouble deciding who to vote for among two good candidates, but the Republican Party is nuts right now.

So, yeah. You're not really saying anything, and yes, I have thought about my vote. You're just telling me what to do.

 

[Sibylus]

Look at the Republican Party now vs 10 years ago, or during the Clinton years. Many moderates have been purged and many national politicians are terrified of being deemed RINOs. There is now significant support among Republicans in Congress for keeping even military cuts in place as a means to shrinking the government. We've come much closer than anyone would have thought we could to government shutdown and debt defaults as part of Republican opposition to an essentially Republican health care reform law. Everything gets filibustered now and very little has been accomplished since 2010.

Who cares if they're now doomed to play the game "properly" or if the Tea Party has lost "spontaneity"? They've made more progress towards accomplishing their political goals than anyone dreamed possible. This is what a successful movement looks like. Sure, the die-hard Tea Partiers could have voted for third party candidates in 2010. In that case we'd have Democratic supermajorities and the DREAM Act, and probably some reasonably big climate bill. Also gun control.

Granted, but the appeal (to me, anyway) of a grassroots movement is lost when it grafts itself so thoroughly into the system that given enough time, where does it go? Where can it go? It can't circumvent the system because it has become the system, and sooner or later it's going to protect its own interests at the expense of the spontaneity with which it arose.

No, but you need to have a sufficient grasp of the concepts to make the hardened assessments that you are, and I don't believe that you do.

This is why you need to do more research. Once again, the structure isn't there in the US to support third parties, either at the presidential level or congressional. If we want to vote third parties, we have to change the structure first. I understand what you're saying, but short of a revolution, it isn't workable.

So where are the calls for revolution, then? If the system is as broken as you're telling me it is, how do you convince the people running it to change it (against their benefit)? If anything, that only strengthens the argument that one should be working less with Democrats, not more.

I would welcome having trouble deciding who to vote for among two good candidates, but the Republican Party is nuts right now.

So, yeah. You're not really saying anything, and yes, I have thought about my vote. You're just telling me what to do.

Fair enough, apologies if I'm coming across as being overbearing. I'm just endlessly frustrated at how many people around me throw their hands up, so I'm definitely sorry if I'm projecting some of that onto you.

 

[The Librarian]

So where are the calls for revolution, then? If the system is as broken as you're telling me it is, how do you convince the people running it to change it (against their benefit)? If anything, that only strengthens the argument that one should be working less with Democrats, not more.

Fair enough, apologies if I'm coming across as being overbearing. I'm just endlessly frustrated at how many people around me throw their hands up, so I'm definitely sorry if I'm projecting some of that onto you.

There are no calls for revolution because it's not that bad for enough people, and there a lot of people on the right and the left who are politically engaged but don't see any need to change the Constitution, or even consider it.

I haven't thrown up my hands. You're sitting here telling me that, in the 2012 election, I should've voted third party. Right now, because of the stupid way our government is set up, the Republicans in Congress have the ability to threaten the implementation of the Affordable Care Act – a law duly passed by Congress, signed by the president, upheld by the Supreme Court, and reaffirmed by the reelection of Obama. And they're using that ability to threaten to shut down the government if implementation of the act goes through, and if not that, not raising the debt ceiling. They continue this modern-day nullification with 25 million people's health insurance hanging in the balance. You're saying that, in 2012, I and many others on the left should've voted third party, threatening Obama's and Democrats' chances in Congress, and thereby increasing the likelihood that twenty-five million people won't get health insurance?

Absolutely not.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Granted, but the appeal (to me, anyway) of a grassroots movement is lost when it grafts itself so thoroughly into the system that given enough time, where does it go? Where can it go? It can't circumvent the system because it has become the system, and sooner or later it's going to protect its own interests at the expense of the spontaneity with which it arose.

A few posts up you indicated agreement with Snowman (welcome back, BTW!) that if say, the Green party rose to prominence we'd end up back where we are today, with respect to organizational corruption, etc. that plagues the current system. In both cases, the system itself remains intact. The downside is as Gotchaye described: likely ceding majorities to your opponents, and all the damage (from your point of view) they would do while the third party tried to gather momentum over the course of many elections.

Back in 2000, Nader was blamed (rightly or wrongly) for helping to tip the election to Bush, and look at the fallout over the years that followed for the nation and the world. Your approach would ensure many, many years of that, rather than building a movement to engage in the primary system and make more incremental progress. And I'm not sure it would actually work: there was a backlash against Nader and third parties for (possibly) helping Gore lose, which helped keep them a fringe party in subsequent election cycles. So I'm not even sure that voters would (or should) rally around a third part. Or should, given the potential consequences and the way it conflicts with their desired outcomes.

 

[Sibylus]

There are no calls for revolution because it's not that bad for enough people, and there a lot of people on the right and the left who are politically engaged but don't see any need to change the Constitution, or even considering it.

I haven't thrown up my hands. You're sitting here telling me that, in the 2012 election, I should've voted third party. Right now, because of the stupid way our government is set up, the Republicans in Congress have the ability to threaten the implementation of the Affordable Care Act – a law duly passed by Congress, signed by the president, upheld by the Supreme Court, and reaffirmed by the reelection of Obama. And they're using that ability to threaten to shut down the government if implementation of the act goes through, and if not that, not raising the debt ceiling. They continue this modern-day nullification with 25 million people's health insurance hanging in the balance. You're saying that, in 2012, I and many others on the left should've voted third party, threatening Obama's and Democrats' chances in Congress, and thereby increasing the likelihood that twenty-five million people won't get health insurance?

Absolutely not.

The health insurance of 25 million people is a big deal, and I haven't and won't diminish that, but my worries lie in consequences years, decades in the future, and with a far wider reach. And I'll certainly admit a national interest of my own in this, because little that happens in the US of consequence, good or bad, doesn't affect us here. The ACA is great news. But the US is ambling down a very dark road (albeit very slowly), and that's what chiefly concerns me as a weird and alien outsider.

A few posts up you indicated agreement with Snowman (welcome back, BTW!) that if say, the Green party rose to prominence we'd end up back where we are today, with respect to organizational corruption, etc. that plagues the current system. In both cases, the system itself remains intact. The downside is as Gotchaye described: likely ceding majorities to your opponents, and all the damage (from your point of view) they would do while the third party tried to gather momentum over the course of many elections.

Back in 2000, Nader was blamed (rightly or wrongly) for helping to tip the election to Bush, and look at the fallout over the years that followed for the nation and the world. Your approach would ensure many, many years of that, rather than building a movement to engage in the primary system and make more incremental progress. And I'm not sure it would actually work: there was a backlash against Nader and third parties for (possibly) helping Gore lose, which helped keep them a fringe party in subsequent election cycles. So I'm not even sure that voters would (or should) rally around a third part. Or should, given the potential consequences and the way it conflicts with their desired outcomes.

I fully admit that it might not work, I'll volunteer further that I'm probably biased toward action that causes damage now and not later, assuming that the preferable outcome (people unwedded to the system catapulted into it, pushing reform through before it had their way with them) would even be within reach. All I know with certainty is that I've lost all faith in old blood and institutions. The new, if nothing else, hasn't found somebody to sell its soul to yet.

 

[Videoneon]

That's just throwing your vote away. See: Bush v. Gore.

To a considerable extent sure, but it also was Bush V. Gore, the Supreme Court Decision. Denial of recounts in key counties, inefficient polling machines, and rejection of tens of thousands of votes, are not the responsibility of people voting Nader. There's only one other state where--if hypothetically Nader just didn't exist--Gore would've won over Bush, and that's New Hampshire with 4 EV's.

Bear with the awkwardness of it sounding like "you're right, but also not at the same time"

Here we go again.

People don't vote for Democrats because they "lost their nerve", any more than GOP voters really wanted to vote for the reanimated corpse of George Wallace but chickened out. They're acting in accordance with the median voter theorem. The two-party system isn't a cartel, it's a mathematical reality of a FPTP electoral system. If you want the country's elected representatives to move left, you have to actually move the country left. That or establish proportional representation.

I agree with you for the most part, but there is a ton of inertia at work--not just ideologically within the Democratic Party, but institutionally, as you acknowledge. In the meantime, as I've posted before, we put up with brinkmanship, capitulating, big money and lobbying all over the place, etc. Worse, we get things like the Third Way.

We can't boot out Tea Party candidates and Republican congresspeople fast enough to enact stronger reform. We can't convince enough Americans, especially a lot of troublesome red states, fast enough to change their minds about various policy issues. The time it takes to possibly do so is a risk.

This is the best this system can do.

You can try to argue that individual voters have a responsibility to vote for the party they most agree with regardless of electoral considerations in order to try to demonstrate support for that party and eventually get it more votes, but this is going to be very difficult. No one can seriously think that the Green Party or whoever will explode into a huge thing in the course of just two or three presidential elections (as a result of marginally more people voting for it), so you're asking liberal voters to increase the likelihood that anti-abortion judges will end up on the Supreme Court, that health care reform will be sabotaged, etc., in order to maybe get better politics 16-20 years down the line. And that's all assuming that increased conservative presence in actual political office doesn't pull the country to the right - you're necessarily relying on a sort of"heighten the contradictions" plan here.

So, given all of those issues, why not just participate in the primary process of whichever major party is closest to you? Look at what the Tea Party was able to do.

I'd like to add that by now I don't think the Green party shares the grassroots populist pretensions of the astroturfed Tea Party. Also, the Tea Party just surfaced in the aftermath of the victory of Obama, when Republicans made it clear that they were going to stonewall him. They're a movement, not an established party like the Greens.

Ultimately, I would think Tea Party voter feels respected all that much nowadays. They went into a fury after Romney's loss ("weak moderate candidate hand-picked by Beltway elite"). This is okay, because the Tea party has hideous ideas.

I don't understand exactly what it is that left voters or America are doing wrong. We have no Tea Party. The Tea Party successfully fucked up national health care plan that the Heritage Foundation made, among other things. Labor and Green movements are weaker than they could be. If the Democrats decide to move right, we're SOL.

 

[pigeon]

It would be more accurate to say that we have two executives de facto, with one nominally representing the Queen and holding power over the other. In truth, the Governor General is in most regards a ceremonial position that rubber stamps whatever it is that the PM passes to it. For all intents and purposes the PM is the only figure in our government that really exercises executive authority.

Yes, but the prime minister is the head of the parliamentary coalition, and he's out when the coalition falls, so although you have two executives de jure, de facto you have none, for the same reason that Boehner is not considered an executive.

And as a victory for liberalism? In the long run, yes, because it forestalls the doom of a revolving door for the top job and legislative clout, and it keeps the partisan progressive elements of this country from falling asleep when "their guy" is in. When "our guy" was in, their party legislated gay marriage and did other things for civil rights. That didn't stop them from ending their engagement to power with naked corruption, and it shouldn't and it wasn't dismissed as a necessary lesser evil. Had they been rewarded with power for their conduct, I'm not sure how that could be in any way construed as any victory for liberalism (except crony liberalism, and crony politics writ large). And yes, I do consider those things scraps when government across party lines is hard at work blowing holes the size of minivans into the ship of state. It will almost assuredly not be their problem to clean up, maybe even not yours. But so it is that the sea is never calm for long, and with the hull being what it is, short term gains may end up being chaff overboard.

This is exactly what I mean when I say your position is alarmingly privileged. Calling gay marriage a "short term gain" pretty well illustrates the blinkers required for your argument to hold water.

The health insurance of 25 million people is a big deal, and I haven't and won't diminish that, but my worries lie in consequences years, decades in the future, and with a far wider reach. And I'll certainly admit a national interest of my own in this, because little that happens in the US of consequence, good or bad, doesn't affect us here. The ACA is great news. But the US is ambling down a very dark road (albeit very slowly), and that's what chiefly concerns me as a weird and alien outsider.

So there you go. Your primary motivation in this discussion is to ensure the national security of Canada! I think this might explain why your position seems so orthogonal to those of us who are, you know, concerned about the welfare of Americans.

 

[Diablos]

http://www.dontfundobamacare.com/

Disgusting.

 

[empty vessel]

Granted, but the appeal (to me, anyway) of a grassroots movement is lost when it grafts itself so thoroughly into the system that given enough time, where does it go? Where can it go? It can't circumvent the system because it has become the system, and sooner or later it's going to protect its own interests at the expense of the spontaneity with which it arose.

I think you should consider distinguishing between movements and electoral politics. Movements affect electoral politics, but they do not operate as a part of electoral politics. I don't believe voting (or forming) third parties is as important as organizing movements outside of the system that tug at that system. The movement cannot be organized around parties but must be organized around issues (including issues about how elections work). When these movements grow and are loud enough--making substantive policy demands (as opposed to partisan demands)--extant parties will pivot towards them perceiving them as being votes.

I consider voting to be the minimal--and least effective--political activity that a person can engage in. It's borderline a waste of time, but if one is going to be politically engaged, then one may as well do it. And because it is so unimportant, one also might as well vote strategically, meaning vote for the lesser evil that stands any chance of winning, and pay it no further mind.

 

[The Librarian]

The health insurance of 25 million people is a big deal, and I haven't and won't diminish that, but my worries lie in consequences years, decades in the future, and with a far wider reach. And I'll certainly admit a national interest of my own in this, because little that happens in the US of consequence, good or bad, doesn't affect us here. The ACA is great news. But the US is ambling down a very dark road (albeit very slowly), and that's what chiefly concerns me as a weird and alien outsider.

But here's the thing: What you're suggesting Americans do may not work. The gains you are hypothesizing are just that. There is no political science that I've seen that supports what you're saying. In the mean time, we'll miss chances to support policies that I know have a better chance of succeeding (public financing), and may even hurt ourselves in the process. I also like pigeon's response:

So there you go. Your primary motivation in this discussion is to ensure the national security of Canada! I think this might explain why your position seems so orthogonal to those of us who are, you know, concerned about the welfare of Americans.

 

[Videoneon]

Forgive if this turns into a double post, but a post with six quotes + their responses looks too ugly

A few posts up you indicated agreement with Snowman (welcome back, BTW!) that if say, the Green party rose to prominence we'd end up back where we are today, with respect to organizational corruption, etc. that plagues the current system. In both cases, the system itself remains intact. The downside is as Gotchaye described: likely ceding majorities to your opponents, and all the damage (from your point of view) they would do while the third party tried to gather momentum over the course of many elections.

Back in 2000, Nader was blamed (rightly or wrongly) for helping to tip the election to Bush, and look at the fallout over the years that followed for the nation and the world. Your approach would ensure many, many years of that, rather than building a movement to engage in the primary system and make more incremental progress. And I'm not sure it would actually work: there was a backlash against Nader and third parties for (possibly) helping Gore lose, which helped keep them a fringe party in subsequent election cycles. So I'm not even sure that voters would (or should) rally around a third part. Or should, given the potential consequences and the way it conflicts with their desired outcomes.

Regarding Nader, that was an explanation of reality, in the minds of the public, that came after the fact. It made things more difficult for a cleaner Gore win, but...Florida. Had Bush lost, the Green Party would very likely not be as ignored as it is, though third party it would remain.

Most everyone here is agreeing there's at least an institutional problem. My problem with the Democratic strategy, the mainstream strategy, is that it's ultimately susceptible to the same failings and hurdles of any Third Party, with the exception of already existing political capital. Fraud, scandal, and as we've seen with the Tea Party: a mobilized opposition. I have to vote for Democrats hoping that the Republicans are shit enough to scare away moderates and incompetent enough to not get their word out to would-be Republicans. I have to hope that the Republicans do not gain so much momentum with the power of FUD that the Democrats move to the center.

Your example here is a parliamentary system with no executive -- thus heavily proportional -- in which the more leftist liberal party stole seats from the more centrist liberal party, causing the conservative government to get a majority and rule unchecked? And you consider this a victory for liberalism? God save us from such victories.

I don't think anybody is ignoring that. But calling an enormous socialized health care program, gay marriage, support for marijuana decriminalization, economic stimulus, and the DREAM Act "scraps" is a little frighteningly privileged. Believe it or not, I prefer civil rights that are likely to come up in my everyday life to the abstract concerns that the government might be reading my email. Not that it's not something I'd like to do something about, but priorities matter.

first part--based off of what eBay Huckster was talking about, a lot lead up to that. This was the 2011 election, prior to that was Harper's first election as prime minister (2008?) which featured record low voter turnouts. The decline of the Liberal Party had been well underway years prior. I don't see, if the Liberal party becomes decidedly centrist in order to attract more voters, why left voters shouldn't actually coalesce around the NDP. Perhaps by now the stigma of the Liberal brand is dead, perhaps there'd be no rallying point for new voters prior to the NDP surge.

second part--yes, but this also obscures some of the significance of those achievements. Gay marriage/spousal benefit is not a right enjoyed with freedom across the nation, it was a DOMA repeal. Our health care should've been a lot better, and still yet those who need it most, may not see the benefits. Marijuana will take at least a decade to be enjoyed with impunity. Economic stimulus could have been stronger. Things impossible with Romney sure, but also owing to the victories of Right stubbornness. Consider also what we've lost-- gun control, immigration reform, redistricting, the sequester's effects. I understand that you realize that we're dealing with BS, and guessing that you might express support for similar policies as Bo might I don't actually believe that you think the complaints in question are privileged (more so that the rhetoric in making that complaint obscured what has been accomplished), but complaints of the progress we do make are legitimate. At the very least, it's direction for what has to come next.

I fully admit that it might not work, I'll volunteer further that I'm probably biased toward action that causes damage now and not later, assuming that the preferable outcome (people unwedded to the system catapulted into it, pushing reform through before it had their way with them) would even be within reach. All I know with certainty is that I've lost all faith in old blood and institutions. The new, if nothing else, hasn't found somebody to sell its soul to yet.

I'm actually quite similar to you in this post. I make a point to vote, and it's always the left-ing-est Democrats I can shuffle in on the state and national level. I did in fact vote Green in the Presidential election, though i don't consider myself to be a Green. The state I'm in is decidedly Democrat. the process, and a large segment of the voting base, make achieving the desired ends highly tiresome.

 

[Sibylus]

Back later to respond more completely, but just wanted to address something particular:

So there you go. Your primary motivation in this discussion is to ensure the national security of Canada! I think this might explain why your position seems so orthogonal to those of us who are, you know, concerned about the welfare of Americans.

When it comes to America in particular, I really couldn't care less about national security. It's in your hands already, it has been for decades, and I see absorption into the union as an inevitability given enough time. What concerns myself particularly is what that union will look like when we get there, as well as the peacefulness (or lack thereof) of the transition. Before that point, our legislators may very well repeat many of the same mistakes yours do (as they are wont to do).

And I'm not some manner of sadist pigeon, what the actual fuck is wrong with you. Save your demented rhetoric for people who are your actual enemies. NOTE: Not the funny people who watch ice hockey and eat strange food and who, contrary to belief, actually are concerned about the welfare of Americans out of some base empathetic wrinkle. You seemed confused.

 

[Diablos]

LULZ:

I'm so scared!!!!11111

How is Obama a "great" president, I'm curious.

Oh like this isn't the 800th time you've quipped that in here...

Personally I think Hillary's 2007/2008 argument about Obama has been proven right over the last five years. Republicans haven't been "loyal opposition" for decades. This level of obstruction may be new, but they attempted to hamstring Bill Clinton as well.

And you would be foolish to think Hillary would have had even a considerably easier time right now. Rest assured, if she gets elected in 2016 without a House majority backing her she's going to have the exact same problems.

It was pretty obvious from the beginning too. Obama traveled to the hill to sell the stimulus to House republicans, a nearly unprecedented act for non-television presidents. The minute he ended his presentation, he was told none of them would support his plan. That should have been the tell-tell sign. Instead a lot of the stimulus was wasted on tax cuts that didn't seem to do anything. I realize he couldn't get a trillion dollar stimulus, but I would have rather had an 830b stimulus that was all stimulus.

I'm not going to further re-litigate the past by discussing the massive amount of time wasted chasing "bipartisan" agreements on healthcare. Needless to say I don't think Hillary would have been naive enough to expect republican support for either a stimulus bill or a healthcare bill.

I'd agree Obama spent some extra time trying to be bipartisan. Given how the GOP responded by default, I don't think he'd have any easier of a time post-2010, nor do I think acting any differently pre-2010 would have changed the outcome of the tea party idiot wave. PPACA passing emboldened them more than anything else so it's almost a moot point. You can go on for eons about how big the stimulus should be and what it should have had in it blah blah but honestly, there's 500 different ways to spin that, Congress needed to act fast to save the country's economy from getting any worse. I seem to recall a lot of Dems being conflicted about how much of the spending gap should have been covered. Schumer wanted two stimulus packages.

 

[The Librarian]

I see absorption into the union as an inevitability given enough time.

How? I've never imagined that as an outcome.

 

[PhoenixDark]

Oh like this isn't the 800th time you've quipped that in here...

It's not a quip. Why do you consider him a "great" president, I'm curious.

And you would be foolish to think Hillary would have had even a considerably easier time right now. Rest assured, if she gets elected in 2016 without a House majority backing her she's going to have the exact same problems.


I'd agree Obama spent some extra time trying to be bipartisan. Given how the GOP responded by default, I don't think he'd have any easier of a time post-2010, nor do I think acting any differently pre-2010 would have changed the outcome of the tea party idiot wave. PPACA passing emboldened them more than anything else so it's almost a moot point. You can go on for eons about how big the stimulus should be and what it should have had in it blah blah but honestly, there's 500 different ways to spin that, Congress needed to act fast to save the country's economy from getting any worse. I seem to recall a lot of Dems being conflicted about how much of the spending gap should have been covered.

I think Hillary would have faced a 2010 insurrection/tea party as well, especially if she managed to pass a healthcare law. We'll never know whether she would have pursued healthcare first, or focused on something else; regardless she'd have majorities in both chambers, and republicans would be upset.

I just don't believe she would have wasted time chasing Olympia Snowe and others, on any issue. When you have the ball, you're supposed to score as much as possible. I tend to think Obama's first term wasn't as productive as it could have been, time was wasted, and some things passed were heavily flawed (Dodd Frank comes to mind). We can cheer the 111th "productivity" all we want, but a lot of that stuff was not signed into law. Obviously the senate has a lot to do with it, but I feel like there were less ambitious yet important things that could have been done during that period.

 

[mightynine]

Haha, oh god check this out:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/juan-wil...-occurred-to-you-conservatives-are-the-media/

Juan Williams calls out that nimrod Amy Holmes on all the different members of the conservative media (he even mentions Fox News!), and said that the WSJ is the biggest newspaper in the country (not sure if that's true). But what was really stunning to me was Amy's response to that, where she said that the WSJ may be conservative, but it's not conservative in its news reporting!

Seriously? You actually said something like this?

Those who complain about bias the most are usually the biggest hypocrites.

 

[Diablos]

It's not a quip. Why do you consider him a "great" president, I'm curious.

ARRA, PPACA, saving the US auto industry (which proved to be an excellent idea, worth noting because this was especially personal for Obama like PPACA), repeal of DADT, ending the war in Iraq, getting Osama bin Laden come to mind, as well as smaller things like Lilly Ledbetter. Nothing's ever good enough for you, I know. But given the rabid GOP opposition he's done extraordinarily well. It's not an accident that he's the first Democrat re-elected with unemployment this dire since FDR, derp. Honestly, Obama should have lost fairly hard. Instead he had quite an impressive electoral victory over Mittens, and a surprisingly solid popular vote lead as well.

I think Hillary would have faced a 2010 insurrection/tea party as well, especially if she managed to pass a healthcare law. We'll never know whether she would have pursued healthcare first, or focused on something else; regardless she'd have majorities in both chambers, and republicans would be upset.

Weren't there rumors stating she would have waited until a second term to attack healthcare? Either way, you are basically admitting she'd have the same tough slog Obama did. Don't think for a second the idea of a President being a Democrat and having a vagina is any less offensive than being a Democrat and African-American to tea partiers. The same people would have been pissed off. Perhaps not as... violently. But they would have obstructed the shit out of every little thing Hillary would have uttered. Look at the incessant Benghazi obsession. They tried how many times to put it front and center to nail Hillary to the wall, and had she remained SoS they'd be even more tenacious. Expect them to bring it back from the dead in 2015 when she announces another run.

I just don't believe she would have wasted time chasing Olympia Snowe and others, on any issue. When you have the ball, you're supposed to score as much as possible. I tend to think Obama's first term wasn't as productive as it could have been, time was wasted, and some things passed were heavily flawed (Dodd Frank comes to mind). We can cheer the 111th "productivity" all we want, but a lot of that stuff was not signed into law. Obviously the senate has a lot to do with it, but I feel like there were less ambitious yet important things that could have been done during that period.

Relative to previous administrations Obama did a LOT in his first two years, probably more than most Presidents have in 8. You've lost me. And Congressional Dems kind of lost track of some things that had absolutely nothing to do with who the Preisdent was and everything to do with infighting and such. Don't forget the idiotic Blue Dogs and their ilk. You are way too hard on Obama and Democrats. Makes me question how your views might change as you grow older.

 

[Sibylus]

Yes, but the prime minister is the head of the parliamentary coalition, and he's out when the coalition falls, so although you have two executives de jure, de facto you have none, for the same reason that Boehner is not considered an executive. a)

This is exactly what I mean when I say your position is alarmingly privileged. Calling gay marriage a "short term gain" pretty well illustrates the blinkers required for your argument to hold water.

a) I make no bones about the de jure status of the two offices, but I do differ considerably on the interpretation of the de facto status. The GG is appointed by the Prime Minister in modern times, and by precedent has subordinated itself for many decades. That could change, but it is not currently the case.

b) By short term gain I simply meant achieved in the short term (not that the gains themselves are fleeting or illusory or unimportant), my concerns about civil liberties and the powers of the executive are decidedly much longer term and deliver their merits or demerits much further down the line. And the thought of another executive with the scruples of Nixon AND the executive powers of today's POTUS, it honestly scares the bejesus out of me.

I think you should consider distinguishing between movements and electoral politics. Movements affect electoral politics, but they do not operate as a part of electoral politics. I don't believe voting (or forming) third parties is as important as organizing movements outside of the system that tug at that system. The movement cannot be organized around parties but must be organized around issues (including issues about how elections work). When these movements grow and are loud enough--making substantive policy demands (as opposed to partisan demands)--extant parties will pivot towards them perceiving them as being votes.

I consider voting to be the minimal--and least effective--political activity that a person can engage in. It's borderline a waste of time, but if one is going to be politically engaged, then one may as well do it. And because it is so unimportant, one also might as well vote strategically, meaning vote for the lesser evil that stands any chance of winning, and pay it no further mind.

Persuasive points, I must admit. Thanks for the post.

How? I've never imagined that as an outcome.

That's been the tendency since about the time of the American Revolution, but a number of factors have prevented it in the past:

• British garrisons. Gone, replaced by a contingent of home troops and continental cooperation.
• British fiduciary responsibility. Gone, again replaced by a mix of Canadian and American economic and political interests.
• Crown loyalty. Gone, though some sentimental fuzzies remain.
• Political Isolationism. Gone, what historically was part natural homegrown fear of aggressive neighbor and part immigration of American Royalism no longer figures.
• Social Isolationism. Gone, our status as a white Anglophone's utopia has eroded nearly utterly in the face of pushback from Quebecois people, progressive immigration reforms, and efforts from the top to remake us in the image of inclusiveness.
• Cultural Isolationism. Gone, we like your culture almost as much as you do, and gobble it up in disproportionate quantities regardless of government's best failed attempts (such as the CRTC) to stem the tide.

Those checks have eroded to nothingness for decades at minimum now (some centuries), and our orbit only ever grows closer. I doubt a referendum today would have the requisite Fors, but I think it's a matter of time given trends, barring an out of the blue 180-degree turn to nationalistic jingoism that we've long grown comfortable living without.

 

[zero shift]

I've been told that sports funding for college sports teams does not effect how much funding a school gets for its academics as their funding is separate.

This makes no sense to me.

Can anybody please elaborate?

 

[Piecake]

I've been told that sports funding for college sports teams does not effect how much funding a school gets for its academics as their funding is separate.

This makes no sense to me.

Can anybody please elaborate?

Football and basketball earn the college money through ticket sales, media contracts and food, mechandise, etc. Wealthy alumni give money to their college's sports program. Colleges pay for sports using that money. They don't pay for sports with tuition or state funds

Though they might build a stadium with state funds