ilovefuzz.com

Max, two great posts there!

Mudfuzz wrote:Max, two great posts there!

MaxMaps wrote:If this so called movement that is happening now wants change so badly then they need to pack up the tents and make it a three party system. We have not had an third party contender since Eugene V Debs and if you want the so called 1% to be scared shitless then play ball at their own game. They say one vote is worthless but when you have a million votes you get peoples attention.

I agree with most of your post but don't forget Perot in '92 and '96.
He got nearly 20% of the Popular vote in '92 and 8% in '96.

Caesar wrote:America is successful when it blends the best of socialist and capitalist ideas. When we skew too far one way or the other, we fail. Pure capitalism is not the American way.

Fact.

Pure, unregulated capitalism leads to a few people breaking away from the pack and basically running everything. It's easy to say "you're just made 'cause they're successful", but, as we saw in 2008, it takes a good deal of socialism to patch things up when capitalism fails. And when it fails, it fails hard.

We need a (better) hybrid system. Socialism for the things people need (education, health care, police, firefighters, etc), and well-regulated capitalism for the things we don't.

And let's keep in mind, those that throw around the word "socialism" as an inherently bad word are the same ones that support subsidizing big agricultural conglomerates, oil companies, and pharmaceutical companies-- but when the other side wants to do the same for their smaller equivalents (small farmers, alternative energy), -then- it's socialism.

The socialism vs capitalism argument it attacking the problem from the wrong angle. There's a much deeper problem, and it's not going to be addressed by casting off every other idea as "socialist" as if that makes it automatically bad.

I have more I want to say, but... hangover.

^ True.

Not one country that is considered "successful" has gotten that way without government regulations on business and by having state run social programs.

The most successful of countries all have socialized medicine in one form or another.
When we try to make that happen in the US, people act as if the next logical step will be concentration camps and death panels.

The two most important things to having a successful country, in my opinion, are healthcare and education.
Neither of which should be controlled/influenced by for profit organizations.

Speaking of the 3rd party thing - can anybody explain the us election system to me? I know it's like ancient and probably not supposed to make sense, but are there reasons for that other than "that's how it's always been dun"? This is particularly interesting because the german system has shifted from a three-party system (post-war until the eighties) to a much more pluralist system. Five parties are in parliament now, a sixth one is getting ready to join. Possibly there will be a right wing party one day as well which would make seven.
That's possible because there are parliaments everywhere, cities, counties, federal states, the state. And every party can try to get in. You need a couple of thousand signatures to apply but if you got those your party's name is on the bill. That's the reason for oddities like the grey panthers (old people's rights) or the violet party ('spiritual politics'') are eligible. And if you (as a person) win the vote in your county (not accurate translation of wahlkreis but I don't feel like looking it up) you are in the parliament. If six or more of one party get in, then you get special rights. Then it's double checked if the number of delegates and their proportion actually matches the overall outcome of the election and seats get filled accordingly. (A party needs a minimum of 6% in the overall election to get to send delegates other than those that got elected directly.)
But yeah, there have been some of those smaller (and odder) parties to rise and that gives me a sort of hope that 'the system' is not entirely run by 'the man'.

So, why is it so hard for small parties to rise to any sort of power in the states? Why do you have to register for voting? Why is the voting not direct but done through some electoral college? Why do people think socialized medicine is a bad thing? There are so many things about the us that challenge the way I see politics and the world and sometimes I feel like dismissing them as stupid, but I think that would be wrong. Even though they are.

About the initial question:
It is a matter of choosing a society you want to live in.
I believe that it is right to support the weakest in the society, because I think that people deserve the most equality possible. I know it can be argued that it is not fair to tax the billionaire more than the poor. And that's right. But I think that it is not fair that people are poor anyway. You can't decide the case on the grounds of what is fair and what isn't. I think that taxes on hereditary wealth should be much higher, and income taxes should be growing exponentially with the growth of the income. This money should then be used for the guarantee of health care, welfare etc. This should be regulated by the government, by somebody elected by the people. It is not the same if Bill Gates donates half of his money to charity causes. Because it goes to the causes he chooses to support. Instead democratically elected people should choose the causes the money goes to.
I also want to live in a society that has a common idea of progress and development that is not equal to profit and growth. I want to live in a society that values the human being more than its productive force.

phantasmagorovich wrote:Speaking of the 3rd party thing - can anybody explain the us election system to me? I know it's like ancient and probably not supposed to make sense, but are there reasons for that other than "that's how it's always been dun"?

Well it's firstly important to remember than under U.S. style democracy, the executive(president) is separate from the legislative(congress) while in parliamentary democracies, the executive(prime minister) is a part of/head of the legislative(parliament). Also, state government is completely separate from federal government(at least administratively). So while general sentiments across the nation may follow trends, there is no direct influence of local/state elections or national congressional elections on presidential elections. Remember, senators are elected by states as a whole(2 per state) and congressional representatives are elected by regions of a similar population.

Another part of it is the length of terms. Nationally, senators are elected every 6 years, presidents every 4, and congressional representative every 2. The longer your term, the less susceptible you need to be to public whims, ideally, the more independent you can be(why federal judges are, and should be, appointed for life).

So, why is it so hard for small parties to rise to any sort of power in the states? Why do you have to register for voting? Why is the voting not direct but done through some electoral college?

Taking those two facts and addressing the first question, it is easier for third parties to gain power in states where people within the same, smaller region are more demographically and politically homogeneous. It's very difficult for this to cross over into national voting power. Even the most prominent independent(no party) national figure(Senator Joseph Lieberman) would find it difficult to establish a national voting bloc(although he's far more moderate than alternative, also he was originally a Democrat). Originally, the senate for each state(made up of people elected by small region) would elect two of them to the national senate. Now, the popular vote makes opinions more broad.

Another, more ideological way to think of it is that within a legislative body, parties exist, typically, as administrative manifestations of voting blocs. These are people you would, 9 time out of 10, vote the same way with even if you were all completely independent. When voting on a measure, you either vote for or against(or abstain). In the end, you have people who "won" and people who "lost" (where winning is having your vote enacted). This practical binary often manifests itself in parliamentary systems in the form of coalition governments. That is to say, even when you have a body made out of a healthy division of multiple parties, when time comes for deliberation, there are only two parties, "ayes" and "nays".

Why register for voting, to avoid voter fraud/create an image of greater legitimacy of elections as opposed to pseudo-democracies like Iran or Venezuela where their presidents are generally accepted to regularly rig elections. A greater question now is the issue of providing an I.D. to vote. In the U.S. you are not required to own/carry any sort of identification(a sort of unwritten right). It requires effort, time and documentation for people to get a photo I.D. This essentially makes voting more difficult for certain people. Statistically, these "certain people" are...drumroll...minorities. Minorities typically vote Democrat. Guess which party is in favor of requiring photo I.D.'s to vote?

Electoral college...yeah, that one is mostly "that's the way we've done it(since the early 1800's)." I forget what the original purpose was, but it's pretty useless, if not detrimental(I cite: Bush v. Gore in 2000. Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won the electoral college vote), at this point.

Yay, poli sci major!


Also, in the most general definition, I fail to see how capitalism is a bad thing. That definition, however, is a system of placing predictable value on goods and services to support the division of labor. The question becomes: How do we best legitimize this value and enforce the following contracts that result(i.e. I'm hired by you to build a house. I've build it. How do I know you'll pay me? How do I know that payment is roughly equal to the cost/effort in buiding the house?).

Most people confuse capitalism for "free market" and "free market" for Neoliberalism. The best example of a true free market would be Somalia.

See, I like the electoral college, because I have little faith in those who vote. Having a buffer zone between what the average voter believes and who sits in power seems like a good idea to me.

aen wrote:I'm into some socialism. Capitalism seems to have failed pretty completely.

yeah and socialism has a great track record

How about thinking of alternatives that are an altogether new paradigm? World doesn't work in binaries of capitalism/socialism.

I'm particularly interested in participatory economics and other gift economies.

phantasmagorovich wrote:Speaking of the 3rd party thing - can anybody explain the us election system to me? I know it's like ancient and probably not supposed to make sense, but are there reasons for that other than "that's how it's always been dun"?

In the US when we go to vote we're presented with a ballot that has the names of the people we're voting for and the position they're trying to get elected to. We vote for our representatives in the congress, state, county, and city as well as judges and people who perform tasks that really shouldn't be voted on (like county recorder in my state). The individual that gets the most votes wins. period. Where the voting is done in districts a third party has to get their person on the ballot and win in their district in order to get in office.

If voting for representatives wasn't restricted to districts and was opened up to a national level based on party voting we would have all kinds of parties, but as it is the system is structured such that a 3rd party representative typically has to create "a cult of personality" in order to get elected. And where it's just one person from that party in office, that party still has no power.

D.o.S. wrote:See, I like the electoral college, because I have little faith in those who vote. Having a buffer zone between what the average voter believes and who sits in power seems like a good idea to me.

My vote literally doesn't matter because of the electoral college.

McSpunckle wrote:

D.o.S. wrote:See, I like the electoral college, because I have little faith in those who vote. Having a buffer zone between what the average voter believes and who sits in power seems like a good idea to me.

My vote literally doesn't matter because of the electoral college.

There's a lot of truth to that.

Although, really, in our elections the choices fall in such a narrow spectrum of economic and political ideas and models that our votes never really matter anyway.

Not to imply that's the way things have to be, but that's the way things are right now.

phantasmagorovich wrote:Speaking of the 3rd party thing - can anybody explain the us election system to me? I know it's like ancient and probably not supposed to make sense, but are there reasons for that other than "that's how it's always been dun"?

Are you asking about the presidential election, or all federal elections? The legislative elections are pretty easy to explain.

The House of Representatives has 435 seats. The entire nation is divided up into 435 districts and each one directly elects their representative. This is the directly democratic part of our government.
The Senate has 100 seats, 2 for each state. The reason for that is so each state has an equal say, regardless of how many people it has.

The presidential election is a little more complicated, but it's still not all THAT complicated. Each state holds a vote for president. But the president is actually elected by electors that are appointed by each state. Each state gets a specified number of electors, equal to their number of Representatives and Senators (plus DC gets 3 votes, for a total of 538). The thing is, the electors can vote for whoever they want. They don't have to vote based on how the statewide vote went (except in some states that have a law saying that they have to follow the vote). However, it is rare that an elector will vote differently from how the state votes.

Most people don't know this, but the primary reason why Madison and the other founders didn't go with a popular vote is that they didn't want to have to deal with how to handle slaves in the south. Most people think that it's because it was meant to be a check against a dumb choice by the populace, but that isn't true. I'm not making this up. This is what Madison said:

"There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections."

The reason we haven't changed it is because it's in the Constitution, so it would require a Constitutional amendment to change it. And the amendment process is so ridiculously difficult to pull off that it's just not going to happen. Not enough people care about it enough to go through all the effort it would require.

phantasmagorovich wrote:So, why is it so hard for small parties to rise to any sort of power in the states? Why do you have to register for voting? Why is the voting not direct but done through some electoral college? Why do people think socialized medicine is a bad thing? There are so many things about the us that challenge the way I see politics and the world and sometimes I feel like dismissing them as stupid, but I think that would be wrong. Even though they are.

The reason why we don't have any third parties in the US is because all of our elections are separate-vote-per-seat winner-take-all elections; we don't do any sort of proportional elections, where parties win a certain percentage of the seats in a legislature. Winner-take-all elections tend eliminate smaller parties and almost always end up as a two-party system. The reason why this happens is easy to see if you think of it like this:

A, B and C are running for a seat. A is conservative, B is moderately liberal, and C is a minor party which is very liberal/progressive. Because it's winner-take-all, most voters that would like to vote for C won't, because if they do, they are splitting the liberal vote, and the Conservative will win. It's a defeatist way of looking at things, but it's what happens. People end up voting for B just to make sure A doesn't win. And it's the exact same way if the third party is on the conservative end of things as well.