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PoliGAF 2016 |OT8| No, Donald. You don't.

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LOL

CoHJBYuWYAAqHDy.jpg
 

royalan

Member
What a peaceful protest happening on JFK blvd right now.

Doesn't seem too crowded. Everyone chanting at a reasonable volume.

The Bernie or Busters, there seems to be whole dozens of them.
 

Holmes

Member
If there were three major parties in the US and all three candididates sucked, would we be victims of the three party system? Because in my native Canada, I know I'm going to hate all three leaders of the three major parties.
 

Bowdz

Member
Yep. Hillary and the democrats need to hit this point HARD. The irony of the GOP supporting Russia in this mess will be hilarious to see.

The best part of it is it undermines yet another GOP line of attack on the Clinton Foundation (she gets millions from oppressive regimes!) Meanwhile, their candidate might have substantial financial ties to Russia. Sad!
 

ampere

Member

It's really awful, but at the same time representative of how regressive the right is towards women

http://i.imgur.com/tQLYawG.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]

Is that official? damn lol

[quote="nature boy, post: 211207536"]LOL

[IMG]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CoHJBYuWYAAqHDy.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]

'You'll hear from our lawyers' is the last thing I ever expected to hear from wikileaks
 
Look, I love West Wing as much as the next guy.

It drives me up a wall when people post a clip from it and are like "Why can't Obama/insert Dem politician be more like Jed Bartlet?"

I don't know, because he's a fictional fucking character? Why can't he be more like Frank Underwood? Why can't he be more like Sherlock Holmes? Why can't he be more like Captain Hook? Who the fuck cares?

C'mon, this is a silly criticism. People often admire the characteristics of fictional characters and wish for them to be reflected outward. People who say this might be wishing for a liberal president who was a respected economic expert or a religious president who doesn't choose a few draconian laws from Leviticus as his or her basis of belief. They might just wish that they had a president who could be totally honest and convince Americans to look at things more fairly or rationally. Yeah, that's fucking fiction because most Americans choose their position first and then go looking for evidence to support it, but these are not crazy wishes or silly things to admire and wish for in real life.
 
I can't believe people are thinking the DNC didn't have a plan to clean this up.

Once the emails were leaked and they found out what's in them and how it would play (even though there's really nothing here they knew how this would come out).

This is all Kabuki theater.
 

Gotchaye

Member
C'mon, this is a silly criticism. People often admire the characteristics of fictional characters and wish for them to be reflected outward. People who say this might be wishing for a liberal president who was a respected economic expert or a religious president who doesn't choose a few draconian laws from Leviticus as his or her basis of belief. They might just wish that they had a president who could be totally honest and convince Americans to look at things more fairly or rationally. Yeah, that's fucking fiction because most Americans choose their position first and then go looking for evidence to support it, but these are not crazy wishes or silly things to admire and wish for in real life.

I think the objection to the Bartlet wishing is not that some of Bartlet's qualities can't exist in a real person but that his effectiveness is fantastical. I've never watched the show but my sense is that when people wish that Obama was more like Bartlet what they're wishing for is a president who could achieve something politically by doing something like giving an inspiring speech. But maybe the real world doesn't work that way!
 

Holmes

Member
The DNC will be streamed on Twitch right? I won't have access to my computer tomorrow so I'd like to stream it on my PS4.
 
You've created an oligarchy, brainchild. We need political parties to be independent of government to prevent authoritarian rule and there's only two popular parties because of fundamental laws of political science. We can switch to a system that allows for more parties but we'd be giving up direct elections.

We already have an oligarchy. What I've suggested is a more representative democracy. The people determine the parties, the government would simply be putting it on paper.

This seems to depend on what you mean by "personally responsible", though it's arguably true regardless. Like, obviously people not voting for Clinton could play an important causal role in Trump becoming president. That's just how voting works. And so if what you're interested in is bringing about good outcomes, not voting for Clinton can be very stupid.

Moral responsibility is obviously a trickier question, and clearly there's a lot of blame to go around. Trump obviously deserves a lot of it. But like I said yesterday, I think the easy analogy here is to something like vaccine refusal. Is someone who believes that vaccination is wrong - because God hates it or whatever - morally responsible for the bad consequences of that? That's something we generally allow - afaik most states allow at least religious refusal. We only crack down on this kind of thing when we're talking about something that rises to the level of child abuse (like choosing faith healing instead of cancer treatment for a child). So I think probably someone could reasonably think that it's permissible not to vote for Clinton if you've got some quasi-religious view that it is wrong to vote for a too-shitty candidate even if that candidate is less shitty than the other. But, as the analogy suggests, I don't really see that other people have a reason to have much respect for the quasi-religious view that's doing the work here when ultimately it's about saying that it's very very wrong to tick a box in order to prevent a much much worse outcome. It's silly - to people on the outside this is going to look like choosing faith healing because chemotherapy is wrong.

I'm not getting into a moral relativism argument. My point is that we can't blame the voters for choosing a bad candidate if they were never offered a good one.

* I'm not sure how it could possibly be more democratic than the current system to have political parties defined by the state. There's a reason political parties are private entities -- it allows people to create them on their own.
* Similarly, tools to tell you which party you align with more closely already exist and were created by private services.
* "Distribute a level of power in the executive branch" is very easy to write and fundamentally incoherent to talk about for even five minutes. I challenge anybody to even vaguely sketch out a system that could sustain n executive officers with varying degrees of power and authority, where n is movable. There is a reason you left this bullet point so general!

I think you might do better here to outline specific things you think are problematic about the system, because there may already be existing, tested systems that attempt to address those issues. It would be more profitable to make reference to those systems rather than to attempt to design your own.

A government that doesn't properly represent all of its citizens is enough reason to consider how to go about making sure that it does. States choosing their own parties is not so democratic when you factor in money in politics. Frankly, you couldn't get more democratic than taking a direct vote from every citizen and then letting the data speak for itself, which is exactly what I proposed.

Anyway, I suspect not many people in this thread would be satisfied with my alternative proposal unless I literally drafted up a whole new constitution explaining every detail and policy difference. Obviously I'm not going to do that, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.

At the very least, I've offered an actual alternative, regardless if anyone thinks it's a good one. I mean, I don't think the two-party system is a good system, so you're all certainly entitled to disapprove of my solution.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Barlett exists in an old Washington. The congress critters hang out together and pork still exists. It was very I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine. Even when the ideologues appear on screen-- like in the pilot-- they are bested and shown the door by practical individuals.

I think Bartlett is supposed to be like the Clinton administration but it's an era long gone now.
 

royalan

Member
What magnitude of dozens are we talking about?

There's a huge march happening on JFK Blvd in Center City right now. It is pretty big.

But it's relatively peaceful, and made up of multiple groups.

The section of the march where the Bernie or Busters are is hilariously small, based on what I've seen on tv.

I might hop down there to see for myself.
 

shem935

Banned
There's a huge march happening on JFK Blvd in Center City right now. It is pretty big.

But it's relatively peaceful, and made up of multiple groups.

The section of the march where the Bernie or Busters are is hilariously small, based on what I've seen on tv.

I might hop down there to see for myself.
What's the march about or is it a coalition of groups all saying different things? Hope things stay safe.
 
I can't believe people are thinking the DNC didn't have a plan to clean this up.

Once the emails were leaked and they found out what's in them and how it would play (even though there's really nothing here they knew how this would come out).

This is all Kabuki theater.
?? What's DNC's plan? So far it looks like they are caught with their pants down while their hair is on fire.
 

Gotchaye

Member
I'm not getting into a moral relativism argument. My point is that we can't blame the voters for choosing a bad candidate if they were never offered a good one.

I mean, sure, ought implies can. I'm not sure who's saying that an abstaining voter would be to blame for "a bad candidate" being selected, where "bad" is defined such that Hillary Clinton is a bad candidate. I think it's pretty obvious that what people are saying is that abstainers would be to blame for the much worse candidate being selected. The people arguing this are clear that they think that voting for Clinton is morally obligatory - they're not going to blame people for her getting elected!

Edit: I'm also just confused at the moral relativism talk here. I'm not trying to argue with you but just for clarity - I take it your position is that morality is relative so who can say if it's actually silly to think that ticking a box is too high a price to pay to prevent Trump from getting elected?
 
"Our lawyers are watching you" is pretty much code for "we're up to something shady and we hope you haven't figured it out entirely yet, and well deny everything." Also, how do they know it's discredited before they know what claims she makes?

btw, Wikileaks has lawyers? Do they have a corporate office somewhere? Also, they want to clamp down on the media? lol? That tweet sounds exactly like something Trump would say.
 
Well, the constitution hasn't always existed. At its inception, its effects were massive and unpredictable as well...



Thanks for the insult but I already know how unprecedented this would be compared to the history of our government.

Someone asked me to give an example of an alternative, so I did.

If you think that our current system is our only viable option, then maybe it is you who should take up some classes in sociology, political science and history.






The categorization would be completely transparent with data and graphs showing the divergence and convergence of data points on the issue. The voters would still decide their own affiliation, it's just that the electoral college would accommodate for it. Besides, under this system, there wouldn't be a president.



Maybe, maybe not, but I believe some executive actions would be more efficient with a small council instead of relying on the parliamentary system as a whole.

Yes they where massive and unpredictable and we fucking lucked out. I would argue that many of the elements that have made America a lasting, enduring, and healthy democracy were simple twists of fate. It was called the American Experiment for a reason. That they were unintended then, does not mean that they are not understood now.
 
"Our lawyers are watching you" is pretty much code for "we're up to something shady and we hope you haven't figured it out entirely yet, and well deny everything." Also, how do they know it's discredited before they know what claims she makes?

btw, Wikileaks has lawyers? Do they have a corporate office somewhere? Also, they want to clamp down on the media? lol? That tweet sounds exactly like something Trump would say.

Well I dunno about you but that wikileaks tweet made me twice as likely to watch what Joy Reid has to say now.
 

pigeon

Banned
?? What's DNC's plan? So far it looks like they are caught with their pants down while their hair is on fire.

I mean, part one of the plan is not to overreact or give a bunch of dumb statements about it that will just prolong the media coverage. Minimize media attention is always the right move for something like this.

They have already more or less fired DWS (she won't speak at the convention at all) but as NYC noted it's better not to actually fire her before the convention since she is the chair.

The guy who sent the religion email apologized and he'll probably resign as well.

Bernie came out this morning and said "Hillary is great, I'm not mad about the emails, but they should get rid of DWS." Which they already did, which shows the message is unified.

Seems like the lid is on to me.
 
C'mon, this is a silly criticism. People often admire the characteristics of fictional characters and wish for them to be reflected outward. People who say this might be wishing for a liberal president who was a respected economic expert or a religious president who doesn't choose a few draconian laws from Leviticus as his or her basis of belief. They might just wish that they had a president who could be totally honest and convince Americans to look at things more fairly or rationally. Yeah, that's fucking fiction because most Americans choose their position first and then go looking for evidence to support it, but these are not crazy wishes or silly things to admire and wish for in real life.
But Bartlet can do what he does on the show because it's a show. That's the point. If Obama or any pol was half as snarky and confrontative towards special interests as Bartlet was it would destroy him politically.

Are certain qualities of characters admirable? Sure. But I'm talking about the people who point to specific things Bartlet does and ask why Obama can't do those. Because it is fiction. You can admire Holmes for being clever without demanding that someone figure out a person's life story by shaking their hand.
 
I'm thinking there's an above 50% chance Clintons emails are leaked by wikileaks/Russia by November.

Never mind they were already released and only have 7 threads of top secret stuff.

But the media will jump all over it if it happens
 
I mean, part one of the plan is not to overreact or give a bunch of dumb statements about it that will just prolong the media coverage. Minimize media attention is always the right move for something like this.

They have already more or less fired DWS (she won't speak at the convention at all) but as NYC noted it's better not to actually fire her before the convention since she is the chair.

The guy who sent the religion email apologized and he'll probably resign as well.

Bernie came out this morning and said "Hillary is great, I'm not mad about the emails, but they should get rid of DWS." Which they already did, which shows the message is unified.

Seems like the lid is on to me.
This.

Though DWS isn't the chair. They replaced her with Fudge

When you have people like Terry McAuliffe talking about this stuff and hinting DWS should resign they clearly know what the final moves are.
 

royalan

Member
I mean, part one of the plan is not to overreact or give a bunch of dumb statements about it that will just prolong the media coverage. Minimize media attention is always the right move for something like this.

They have already more or less fired DWS (she won't speak at the convention at all) but as NYC noted it's better not to actually fire her before the convention since she is the chair.

The guy who sent the religion email apologized and he'll probably resign as well.

Bernie came out this morning and said "Hillary is great, I'm not mad about the emails, but they should get rid of DWS." Which they already did, which shows the message is unified.

Seems like the lid is on to me.

Yep.

And Mook's hitting the trail calling out the Russian involvement in the leak. I think that's going to be the big story out this in the long run.

LOL if Putin's involvement to try to sway the election ultimately helps torpedo Trump's campaign.
 

Vahagn

Member
As has been said before, the problem with a multi party system is that government becomes even more disfunctional. When you need 2/3 or 3/4 or even a simple majority to accomplish meaningful change in congress you're going to struggle to get to that point.


I mean, how are you going to even get the Supreme Court to be functional when the 9 seats are comprised of 4 different ideological bents?
 
I think the objection to the Bartlet wishing is not that some of Bartlet's qualities can't exist in a real person but that his effectiveness is fantastical. I've never watched the show but my sense is that when people wish that Obama was more like Bartlet what they're wishing for is a president who could achieve something politically by doing something like giving an inspiring speech. But maybe the real world doesn't work that way!

So sure, I believe that's true. But I don't think that it's somehow dumb or harmful that such people wish that others could be brought to rationality and to support of good policy by an effective speaker. It's not like there haven't been historical examples of people being brought to irrationality and support of bad policy by an effective speaker! Surely, it might work the other way (it might not, but certainly I can see why someone would have such a hope).
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Watching this protest parade on MSNBC, and it just looks like an unorganized clusterfuck

That's because MSNBC is busy trying to get words with them. SIR SIR SIR WILL YOU VOTE FOR HILLARY

"No, I will never vote for Hillary. Hillary is trying to enslave Xenu's children. The emails prove that she murdered Vince Foster and that the DNC is conspiring to snuff out all god's children."

repeat for every news station
 
I mean, part one of the plan is not to overreact or give a bunch of dumb statements about it that will just prolong the media coverage. Minimize media attention is always the right move for something like this.

They have already more or less fired DWS (she won't speak at the convention at all) but as NYC noted it's better not to actually fire her before the convention since she is the chair.

The guy who sent the religion email apologized and he'll probably resign as well.

Bernie came out this morning and said "Hillary is great, I'm not mad about the emails, but they should get rid of DWS." Which they already did, which shows the message is unified.

Seems like the lid is on to me.
I disagree. It's all over the Sunday talk shows. Not reacting to the episode is prolonging it in the media and it will be a sideshow at the convention. Weaver wants DWS' scalp and I say give it to him, because just her having on the stage is going to cause aneurysm to a bunch of people (she is still expected to gavel). Have an interim chair or some deputy take the effort.
 

thebloo

Member
It's odd to me that the discussion is fully centered on US(normal) while ignoring the already existing systems in other countries. The system usually devolves into a mess and the voters have no idea who will govern.

I mean,sure, you can create a government funded "isidewith" but it guarantees nothing at the end of the day. If it would, leftists would just vote for Hillary.
 
Victoria Brownworth ‏@VABVOX 1m1 minute ago
When you can count all the protestors yourself...
I wish there were more protestors for this.
#CleanEnergyMarch
#DemsInPhilly

Victoria Brownworth ‏@VABVOX 2m2 minutes ago
Seems the #CleanEnergyMarch is mostly anti-Hillary/DNC.
And white.
So no outreach here.
Sad
 
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