8 ms·

In the current system, it sure seems like all those third party votes do is make sure that whichever mainstream candidate you consider the greater evil is that

by mwfunk 9y ago

In the current system, it sure seems like all those third party votes do is make sure that whichever mainstream candidate you consider the greater evil is that much more likely to win, since presumably you're voting for a third party rather than who you perceive to be the lesser evil. To the degree that the US government really is disconnected from the people it represents (which I hope it is, because the alternative is much more hopeless), the solutions are getting money out of politics as much as possible, and adopting systems of voting which make it easier for third parties to be successful (or at least, constructively influential).

nategri 9y ago
Re: Money-in-politics: I used to consider myself a Lessig-style single issue voter, but now everything is on fire and during the next 4 years there's a good chance I'll just vote for anyone holding a bucket of water. Once things are back to being normal-broken (instead of meta-broken), I'll get back on the wagon.
- zanny 9y ago
  The problem is that normal-broken is going to be more broken than it was in 2016 pre-Trump, which was more broken than in 2000 pre-Bush, which was more broken than in 1992 pre-Clinton, which was more broken... etc. I only don't mention Obama because, despite his mass expansion of drone warfare, erosion of civil liberties, total corruption in the face of wall street destroying the economy (and in response to Occupy), flawed healthcare law, military interventionism, and botched promises (nice job closing gitmo) Bush was so bad that it basically just maintained a status quo badness throughout his administration by shifting the bad from the absurdly bad (extreme torture, geneva violations, letting entire cities sink) to just normally bad (including letting a city parch itself on toxic lead water, which is still happening by the way). It is also valuable to consider that the more broken it gets, the harder it is to correct. The more power the oligarchs have, the more rules put in place to prevent protest and revolution. Gerrymandering has (on average) only gotten worse. The longer you wait to realign reality against neoliberalism the more traumatizing the correction is (and the more people that suffer and die under the regime, either from lack of healthcare access to being blown up by tomahawks).
  - CalChris 9y ago
    Yes, President Obama did not close Gitmo despite promising to do so. He also did not send anyone to Gitmo. It went from 220 when he was sworn in down to 41 when he left office, down more than 80%. Congress also did not close Gitmo. In fact they voted to deny any funds for closing it.
- mwfunk 9y ago
  That's a good description for how things feel right now (meta-broken). I'm past agreeing or disagreeing with whoever's in charge- right now it feels like no one is in charge, or if someone is in charge, I don't know who it is. This doesn't feel like different teams playing a game, so much as it seems like failures in the social fabric that allows the games to happen in the first place. This isn't a music festival with shitty bands. This is the Fyre festival and you're just wondering where to sleep and how to get home; it's already a given that there will be no bands.

by mwfunk 9y ago

nategri 9y ago

Re: Money-in-politics: I used to consider myself a Lessig-style single issue voter, but now everything is on fire and during the next 4 years there's a good chance I'll just vote for anyone holding a bucket of water. Once things are back to being normal-broken (instead of meta-broken), I'll get back on the wagon.

zanny 9y ago
The problem is that normal-broken is going to be more broken than it was in 2016 pre-Trump, which was more broken than in 2000 pre-Bush, which was more broken than in 1992 pre-Clinton, which was more broken... etc. I only don't mention Obama because, despite his mass expansion of drone warfare, erosion of civil liberties, total corruption in the face of wall street destroying the economy (and in response to Occupy), flawed healthcare law, military interventionism, and botched promises (nice job closing gitmo) Bush was so bad that it basically just maintained a status quo badness throughout his administration by shifting the bad from the absurdly bad (extreme torture, geneva violations, letting entire cities sink) to just normally bad (including letting a city parch itself on toxic lead water, which is still happening by the way). It is also valuable to consider that the more broken it gets, the harder it is to correct. The more power the oligarchs have, the more rules put in place to prevent protest and revolution. Gerrymandering has (on average) only gotten worse. The longer you wait to realign reality against neoliberalism the more traumatizing the correction is (and the more people that suffer and die under the regime, either from lack of healthcare access to being blown up by tomahawks).
- CalChris 9y ago
  Yes, President Obama did not close Gitmo despite promising to do so. He also did not send anyone to Gitmo. It went from 220 when he was sworn in down to 41 when he left office, down more than 80%. Congress also did not close Gitmo. In fact they voted to deny any funds for closing it.
mwfunk 9y ago
That's a good description for how things feel right now (meta-broken). I'm past agreeing or disagreeing with whoever's in charge- right now it feels like no one is in charge, or if someone is in charge, I don't know who it is. This doesn't feel like different teams playing a game, so much as it seems like failures in the social fabric that allows the games to happen in the first place. This isn't a music festival with shitty bands. This is the Fyre festival and you're just wondering where to sleep and how to get home; it's already a given that there will be no bands.