4 ms·

Exactly. The question now is: why is American government so broken, and the corollary is: what can we do to fix it? Is American culture simply broken, so that

by Arizhel 10y ago

Exactly. The question now is: why is American government so broken, and the corollary is: what can we do to fix it? Is American culture simply broken, so that only utterly sociopathic people go into government? Is America just completely filled with people who have been trained from birth to be sociopathic, as evidenced by the way they vote?

specialist 10y ago
Empowering (electing) people who cannot govern, and are in fact utterly opposed to anyone governing, is having the expected outcome. Because Freedom Markets[tm], booyah!
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Yes, but that doesn't explain why our voters consistently elect such people, while voters in other industrialized nations don't (nearly as much).
  - SapphireSun 10y ago
    America is the richest country in the world and as such attracts the best propagandists on the free market. American culture has a long individualist streak that distrusts authorities, combined with our many entrenched sins regarding e.g. racism, leaves a significant fraction of the population vulnerable to many effective forms of propaganda... and that's just the right. Except for a few states like MA and VT, the left consistently fails to field candidates that will fight for ordinary people against monied interests because that's where their election funds come from. In the past, leftists were associated with official enemies of the state (e.g. communists, socialists) by major media organizations and trusted authorities. Now most people here distrust their gut instincts about fairness, inequality, the golden rule, and mutual caring. Many forms of leftist organization were broken down and destroyed after the upheavals of the 60s, with especially aggressive pushes by Regan, but this has continued by both parties up to the present day with Republicans taking mainly larger digs at the integrity of the public trust. This story continues with rather emphasized savagery into the present day starting in 2017. However, this is an interesting moment where it seems there is a big fight brewing between truly breathtakingly rapacious greed and a significant fraction of the public. It will be interesting to see who wins in the coming decades - it may determine the fate of the planet's suitability for human life.
flogic 10y ago
"Slavery". That sort of system requires a fair amount of legal and propaganda support. Our election system gives the old slave states a boost. And our more bigoted politicians are constantly rehashing and reusing the propaganda to justify their actions. So while slavery itself is gone, the weighted legal system and propaganda are still in place doing what they do. It's a safe bet that much of the Flint water crisis is due to the water system being for "those people".
vertex-four 10y ago
It's the adversarial system - people vs Government. In pretty much every country that's doing well, the Government is considered a representative of the people, and is expected to act as one or suffer political consequences - but in the case of the US, it's expected that the Government as a whole is not a functional part of society, so it has no reason to behave as one.
- new299 10y ago
  Can you give some examples of those countries? Which countries are doing well and have governments that their people are generally happy with and consider representative of the people?
  - Symbiote 10y ago
    Most of Europe to at least some extent, with variations on different subjects. For example, in some countries people are dissatisfied with immigration policy, but they're probably happy with the roads and water supply.
    - new299 10y ago
      Not the UK: In which probably 50% of the population feel the government doesn't represent them. Not France I'd guess? Which seems to have issues and strong probability of a Frexit? Not Italy, whose politics as seemed somwwhat messy for some time? Those are the countries in Europe that are "doing well" in terms of GDP at least. Aside from Germany that is. So is Germany the role model? I'm really trying to ask an honest question. I'm wondering which are the countries currently doing well economically and treating their citizens well.
      - Arizhel 10y ago
        >Not the UK: In which probably 50% of the population feel the government doesn't represent them. When you have a situation like that, it seems like it's time to break up the country into smaller units so that you don't have a half-and-half divide, because then you'll never get to a stable state where a large enough majority of the population accepts the government (because they're constantly fighting the other half in a tug-of-war and the majority keeps flipping back and forth). According to the Brexit results, Scotland strongly favored "remain", and so did Northern Ireland. London did too. So obviously, Scotland should simply secede from the UK, and it can rejoin the EU as a separate nation. It's certainly large enough to be an independent nation on its own. Northern Ireland can too, or better yet it can rejoin regular Ireland which is already an EU member. I do wonder, however, what would happen if they did another Brexit vote just to see if many people have changed their minds.

by Arizhel 10y ago

specialist 10y ago

Empowering (electing) people who cannot govern, and are in fact utterly opposed to anyone governing, is having the expected outcome. Because Freedom Markets[tm], booyah!

Arizhel 10y ago
Yes, but that doesn't explain why our voters consistently elect such people, while voters in other industrialized nations don't (nearly as much).
- SapphireSun 10y ago
  America is the richest country in the world and as such attracts the best propagandists on the free market. American culture has a long individualist streak that distrusts authorities, combined with our many entrenched sins regarding e.g. racism, leaves a significant fraction of the population vulnerable to many effective forms of propaganda... and that's just the right. Except for a few states like MA and VT, the left consistently fails to field candidates that will fight for ordinary people against monied interests because that's where their election funds come from. In the past, leftists were associated with official enemies of the state (e.g. communists, socialists) by major media organizations and trusted authorities. Now most people here distrust their gut instincts about fairness, inequality, the golden rule, and mutual caring. Many forms of leftist organization were broken down and destroyed after the upheavals of the 60s, with especially aggressive pushes by Regan, but this has continued by both parties up to the present day with Republicans taking mainly larger digs at the integrity of the public trust. This story continues with rather emphasized savagery into the present day starting in 2017. However, this is an interesting moment where it seems there is a big fight brewing between truly breathtakingly rapacious greed and a significant fraction of the public. It will be interesting to see who wins in the coming decades - it may determine the fate of the planet's suitability for human life.

flogic 10y ago

"Slavery". That sort of system requires a fair amount of legal and propaganda support. Our election system gives the old slave states a boost. And our more bigoted politicians are constantly rehashing and reusing the propaganda to justify their actions. So while slavery itself is gone, the weighted legal system and propaganda are still in place doing what they do. It's a safe bet that much of the Flint water crisis is due to the water system being for "those people".

vertex-four 10y ago

It's the adversarial system - people vs Government. In pretty much every country that's doing well, the Government is considered a representative of the people, and is expected to act as one or suffer political consequences - but in the case of the US, it's expected that the Government as a whole is not a functional part of society, so it has no reason to behave as one.

new299 10y ago
Can you give some examples of those countries? Which countries are doing well and have governments that their people are generally happy with and consider representative of the people?
- Symbiote 10y ago
  Most of Europe to at least some extent, with variations on different subjects. For example, in some countries people are dissatisfied with immigration policy, but they're probably happy with the roads and water supply.
  - new299 10y ago
    Not the UK: In which probably 50% of the population feel the government doesn't represent them. Not France I'd guess? Which seems to have issues and strong probability of a Frexit? Not Italy, whose politics as seemed somwwhat messy for some time? Those are the countries in Europe that are "doing well" in terms of GDP at least. Aside from Germany that is. So is Germany the role model? I'm really trying to ask an honest question. I'm wondering which are the countries currently doing well economically and treating their citizens well.
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      >Not the UK: In which probably 50% of the population feel the government doesn't represent them. When you have a situation like that, it seems like it's time to break up the country into smaller units so that you don't have a half-and-half divide, because then you'll never get to a stable state where a large enough majority of the population accepts the government (because they're constantly fighting the other half in a tug-of-war and the majority keeps flipping back and forth). According to the Brexit results, Scotland strongly favored "remain", and so did Northern Ireland. London did too. So obviously, Scotland should simply secede from the UK, and it can rejoin the EU as a separate nation. It's certainly large enough to be an independent nation on its own. Northern Ireland can too, or better yet it can rejoin regular Ireland which is already an EU member. I do wonder, however, what would happen if they did another Brexit vote just to see if many people have changed their minds.