8 ms·

Or, we can accept that ideologies are how we all make the majority of our decisions and then work to create a convincing ideology which combats the systems of p

by Crye 9y ago

Or, we can accept that ideologies are how we all make the majority of our decisions and then work to create a convincing ideology which combats the systems of power/corruption we're currently dealing with. None of this going to go away with facts and logic. Change never happened because someone spouted a couple damning facts and shamed people with power.

dtien 9y ago
Oh I disagree wholeheartedly. We're in the sh*tshow we are today not because of a lack of ideologies: Libertarian, Conservative, Liberal, Progressive, Evangelical, Green, and on and on... So clearly, there's no lack of 'convincing ideology' for any single individual's belief system and ideals. The problem as I see it, is that the majority of people have retreated into their ideologies and just started tossing grenades and stones behind their respective walls, rather than having dialogue, understanding, and compromising. And if your counter is that we're just lacking an even BETTEREST ideology that somehow rules them all, I think that's fallacy. Ideology is neither the solution, nor the problem. It's the fact that ideologies have become ending points, rather than starting points of discussion. Which leads me back to my original point that we need leaders who will govern by listening to ideas, facts, counterpoints, and making tough compromises and decisions based on that. EDIT: spelling
- indubitable 9y ago
  I really want to agree with you. And in times past I absolutely would have. But I think something that's become clear over time, worldwide, is that getting incorruptible, good, and objective people into office is not really possible - certainly not on a regular basis. Really it's unclear if such people even actually exist. I think most of us believe our decisions are driven by objective merit, yet we all view most of everybody else as subjectively driven. The latter view is probably the correct one. What we need is systems themselves that take human nature into mind. The founding fathers of the US set out to create this exact sort of system. And they really did. Lacking a super majority, literally a single senator can prevent a political appointment. So on this issue, if the senate really did not want to put into appointee into the FCC who was in favor of dismantling net neutrality - they had that power. When Pai was appointed by Obama in 2012 his views were no secret. The senate could have said no. McConnell could have proposed a new person, Obama formally nominates him, and again the senate could reject. They are under 0 obligation to approve any nominee - ever. Yes, this would be incredibly dysfunctional - but that is precisely how the US government was envisioned. The whole checks and balances thing we learn about in elementary social studies is specifically about preventing something from happening unless there is mass consensus. The founding fathers did not want a huge, powerful democratic government - they wanted a small accountable republic driven to progress only on issues where there was minimal to no opposition. You can even see this in things like the bill of rights. The bill of rights does not, for instance, guarantee you the right to free speech. It says you already inherently have that right - it is inalienable. The bill of rights does not grant you a right - it prevents the government from infringing on your natural rights. In other words the view is that governments cannot grant rights, but they can take them away. A dysfunctional government maximizes the freedom of the people by preventing the infringement of such freedom except in cases such that there is a mass consensus of its merit. The problem is that the doomsday scenario of all of congress falling into one clique happened. Politicians all need money to get elected and stay in office. Corporate donors (and influence) is where that money comes from. And this is where I think the problem is. But I also don't think there's any solution to it. Imagine you take all money out of political campaigns. That don't stop already famous individuals from running for office and their advantage in these cases would be monumental. There are radical ideas like treating political duty the same as jury duty, but I'm unsure how well that would be publicly received. The point here is that I don't think 'just get better politicians' is something that's necessarily workable in the longrun. We need to create systems that readily accept the realities of corruption, cronyism, and general pettiness -- but then operate in a publicly desirable way regardless of this.
  - double-a 9y ago
    Why do Americans believe trying to interpret the Founding Father's intent is a reasonable way to debate policy? If the opinions of 18th century wealthy men have merit today it should be because we believe their reasoning applies to current circumstances, not because they were the Founders of anything. I'm not saying I necessarily disagree that "a small accountable republic driven to progress only on issues where there was minimal to no opposition" is desirable today, but you have put forward no valid argument for it.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - mcantelon 9y ago
      "government maximizes the freedom of the people by preventing the infringement of such freedom except in cases such that there is a mass consensus of its merit" seems pretty clear. The argument is that the freedoms the founding fathers wanted to preserve are protected by making it hard for corrupt politicians to take them away. The vision of the founding fathers is taken seriously because they were very smart and America has been very successful in many respects.
    - popinman322 9y ago
      What the grandparent comment did was bring the Founding Fathers into the discussion, took an idea from them, and then presented it in light of current events. You can evaluate the grandparent comment's idea without including the Founding Fathers; the reference is relevant only to show the changes that have occurred in the last 200 years.
    - candu 9y ago
      ...because we have documents (e.g. the Federalist Papers [1]) that explain their philosophy and arguments. Moreover, significant technological advances aside, our basic psychology / neurobiology remains virtually unchanged, and so many of their initial insights into mitigating the risks of human political systems still pertain. For instance: they foresaw the problems powerful interests acting in bad faith could cause, and so we now enjoy judicial recourse when politicians or appointees make arbitrary, capricious, or corrupt decisions. The fact that we're discussing legal challenges to the FCC's decision as even a possibility underscores this point. We understand more about human psychology / neurobiology now, of course, so this is one limitation of uncritically accepting their advice. We also have the benefit of over two centuries of additional hindsight. Still, I think there is good reason to at least consider the opinions of people who would, by any reasonable reckoning, count as political systems design experts of their time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Which leads me back to my original point that we need leaders who will govern by listening to ideas, facts, counterpoints, and making tough compromises and decisions based on that. Good luck raising billions of dollars or marshaling millions of volunteer hours to elect candidates that may or may not follow through on promises on any given issue. Where are these wise leaders going to come from that they're immune to the vagaries of party politics and voting blocs?
  - popinman322 9y ago
    Honestly, at least some of these issues can be addressed game theoretically... But having a well educated populace is key to most of those strategies. If people can't (or won't) critically evaluate claims, and vote, then how can we expect the system to work in their favor? Take Trump as an example of that latter point: I had friends who believed that because he was a businessman he would be able to run the country better than Hillary. They assumed this was true, and even when presented with his poor performance in that role they didn't yield. I didn't even receive a counter-argument. The conversation ended. As a side note: we already raise billions of dollars every year in the form of taxes.
EdSharkey 9y ago
The only protest that makes a damned bit of difference is the vote. Once in a long while citizens clean house. Major parties dissolve, etc, and fresh leadership emerges. This will happen again once rank-and-file on the left and right begin to find consensus on some key issues like diminishing freedoms, privacy, and corrupt leadership. It's my opinion that ideology gives one tunnel vision and shouldn't be encouraged. There are things we can ALL be pissed about, let's talk about those things. Above all, we should agree that "incumbency" and "party affiliation" are nasty things.
- bpchaps 9y ago
  There are many other useful forms of protest. What makes you think that? I genuinely challenge you to come up with a form of civic protest that solves a problem, then commit to solving it. Big or small; doesn't matter. Just get out there and do something. (Disclaimer: I've never voted and don't plan on it, but I spend much of my free time attempting to fix some niggling problems at local and state levels)
  - epmaybe 9y ago
    Do you not vote at the local/state level either?
    - bpchaps 9y ago
      No, though I've tried working with campaign teams before in Chicago. The ruthlessness (and by proxy, the system that enables such ruthlessness) of political candidates and their campaigns is something I'd rather not support.
- eftychis 9y ago
  Unfortunately, world history has clearly shown that by the time rank and file realize they need to reach consensus, they have lost their freedoms, privacy etc. (For their own good as so many dictators have said.) By being passive and blindly listening to your party's claims -- in this case Republicans and Democrats mainly -- you have conceded your power to extremist groups (see gun control, extreme right, racists), corruption (anything to do with lobbying in the U.S. (in other parts of the world it would be called legalized corruption)) and politicians passing last minute illegible bills to laws. If you have under 20% turnover something is ridiculously wrong with the system. Kid yourself not. It is your choice. You have the obligation as a citizen in a democracy to pay attention, vote and yes put your foot down when they feed you bullshit, like the FCC report. Otherwise, you are being ruled, you have conceded your power and it is democracy only in name. Thus I think this must be a wake up call -- see how many people on e.g. Twitter accepted this deregulation as totally ok and for "our own good". How many people know about title I and II classification? Or why FCC was forced in 2015 to finally classify ISPs as title II? Search what happened in 2005 here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_States#Section_706_vs._Title_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S... . It is not like ISPs are playing nicely or care about our rights. And us accepting their blatant lies and this farce is the defeat of the day. The worst thing is you teach the next generation of voters that this is ok and natural. It is not. And you are lowering the bar by saying "oh it is Republicans they can do that." No -- if Republicans followed their advertised mantra to the letter they should be totally against this deregulation. Don't lower the bar of what you are demanding from your representatives. If you care for your country and your life stay informed.
WillReplyfFood 9y ago
I agree comrade Crye, we should push for a manifesto, and send all those regressive Ideologists to the working camps so they can rethink theire ways.

by Crye 9y ago

dtien 9y ago

Oh I disagree wholeheartedly. We're in the sh*tshow we are today not because of a lack of ideologies: Libertarian, Conservative, Liberal, Progressive, Evangelical, Green, and on and on... So clearly, there's no lack of 'convincing ideology' for any single individual's belief system and ideals. The problem as I see it, is that the majority of people have retreated into their ideologies and just started tossing grenades and stones behind their respective walls, rather than having dialogue, understanding, and compromising. And if your counter is that we're just lacking an even BETTEREST ideology that somehow rules them all, I think that's fallacy. Ideology is neither the solution, nor the problem. It's the fact that ideologies have become ending points, rather than starting points of discussion. Which leads me back to my original point that we need leaders who will govern by listening to ideas, facts, counterpoints, and making tough compromises and decisions based on that. EDIT: spelling

indubitable 9y ago
I really want to agree with you. And in times past I absolutely would have. But I think something that's become clear over time, worldwide, is that getting incorruptible, good, and objective people into office is not really possible - certainly not on a regular basis. Really it's unclear if such people even actually exist. I think most of us believe our decisions are driven by objective merit, yet we all view most of everybody else as subjectively driven. The latter view is probably the correct one. What we need is systems themselves that take human nature into mind. The founding fathers of the US set out to create this exact sort of system. And they really did. Lacking a super majority, literally a single senator can prevent a political appointment. So on this issue, if the senate really did not want to put into appointee into the FCC who was in favor of dismantling net neutrality - they had that power. When Pai was appointed by Obama in 2012 his views were no secret. The senate could have said no. McConnell could have proposed a new person, Obama formally nominates him, and again the senate could reject. They are under 0 obligation to approve any nominee - ever. Yes, this would be incredibly dysfunctional - but that is precisely how the US government was envisioned. The whole checks and balances thing we learn about in elementary social studies is specifically about preventing something from happening unless there is mass consensus. The founding fathers did not want a huge, powerful democratic government - they wanted a small accountable republic driven to progress only on issues where there was minimal to no opposition. You can even see this in things like the bill of rights. The bill of rights does not, for instance, guarantee you the right to free speech. It says you already inherently have that right - it is inalienable. The bill of rights does not grant you a right - it prevents the government from infringing on your natural rights. In other words the view is that governments cannot grant rights, but they can take them away. A dysfunctional government maximizes the freedom of the people by preventing the infringement of such freedom except in cases such that there is a mass consensus of its merit. The problem is that the doomsday scenario of all of congress falling into one clique happened. Politicians all need money to get elected and stay in office. Corporate donors (and influence) is where that money comes from. And this is where I think the problem is. But I also don't think there's any solution to it. Imagine you take all money out of political campaigns. That don't stop already famous individuals from running for office and their advantage in these cases would be monumental. There are radical ideas like treating political duty the same as jury duty, but I'm unsure how well that would be publicly received. The point here is that I don't think 'just get better politicians' is something that's necessarily workable in the longrun. We need to create systems that readily accept the realities of corruption, cronyism, and general pettiness -- but then operate in a publicly desirable way regardless of this.
- double-a 9y ago
  Why do Americans believe trying to interpret the Founding Father's intent is a reasonable way to debate policy? If the opinions of 18th century wealthy men have merit today it should be because we believe their reasoning applies to current circumstances, not because they were the Founders of anything. I'm not saying I necessarily disagree that "a small accountable republic driven to progress only on issues where there was minimal to no opposition" is desirable today, but you have put forward no valid argument for it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - mcantelon 9y ago
    "government maximizes the freedom of the people by preventing the infringement of such freedom except in cases such that there is a mass consensus of its merit" seems pretty clear. The argument is that the freedoms the founding fathers wanted to preserve are protected by making it hard for corrupt politicians to take them away. The vision of the founding fathers is taken seriously because they were very smart and America has been very successful in many respects.
  - popinman322 9y ago
    What the grandparent comment did was bring the Founding Fathers into the discussion, took an idea from them, and then presented it in light of current events. You can evaluate the grandparent comment's idea without including the Founding Fathers; the reference is relevant only to show the changes that have occurred in the last 200 years.
  - candu 9y ago
    ...because we have documents (e.g. the Federalist Papers [1]) that explain their philosophy and arguments. Moreover, significant technological advances aside, our basic psychology / neurobiology remains virtually unchanged, and so many of their initial insights into mitigating the risks of human political systems still pertain. For instance: they foresaw the problems powerful interests acting in bad faith could cause, and so we now enjoy judicial recourse when politicians or appointees make arbitrary, capricious, or corrupt decisions. The fact that we're discussing legal challenges to the FCC's decision as even a possibility underscores this point. We understand more about human psychology / neurobiology now, of course, so this is one limitation of uncritically accepting their advice. We also have the benefit of over two centuries of additional hindsight. Still, I think there is good reason to at least consider the opinions of people who would, by any reasonable reckoning, count as political systems design experts of their time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
anigbrowl 9y ago
Which leads me back to my original point that we need leaders who will govern by listening to ideas, facts, counterpoints, and making tough compromises and decisions based on that. Good luck raising billions of dollars or marshaling millions of volunteer hours to elect candidates that may or may not follow through on promises on any given issue. Where are these wise leaders going to come from that they're immune to the vagaries of party politics and voting blocs?
- popinman322 9y ago
  Honestly, at least some of these issues can be addressed game theoretically... But having a well educated populace is key to most of those strategies. If people can't (or won't) critically evaluate claims, and vote, then how can we expect the system to work in their favor? Take Trump as an example of that latter point: I had friends who believed that because he was a businessman he would be able to run the country better than Hillary. They assumed this was true, and even when presented with his poor performance in that role they didn't yield. I didn't even receive a counter-argument. The conversation ended. As a side note: we already raise billions of dollars every year in the form of taxes.

EdSharkey 9y ago

The only protest that makes a damned bit of difference is the vote. Once in a long while citizens clean house. Major parties dissolve, etc, and fresh leadership emerges. This will happen again once rank-and-file on the left and right begin to find consensus on some key issues like diminishing freedoms, privacy, and corrupt leadership. It's my opinion that ideology gives one tunnel vision and shouldn't be encouraged. There are things we can ALL be pissed about, let's talk about those things. Above all, we should agree that "incumbency" and "party affiliation" are nasty things.

bpchaps 9y ago
There are many other useful forms of protest. What makes you think that? I genuinely challenge you to come up with a form of civic protest that solves a problem, then commit to solving it. Big or small; doesn't matter. Just get out there and do something. (Disclaimer: I've never voted and don't plan on it, but I spend much of my free time attempting to fix some niggling problems at local and state levels)
- epmaybe 9y ago
  Do you not vote at the local/state level either?
  - bpchaps 9y ago
    No, though I've tried working with campaign teams before in Chicago. The ruthlessness (and by proxy, the system that enables such ruthlessness) of political candidates and their campaigns is something I'd rather not support.
eftychis 9y ago
Unfortunately, world history has clearly shown that by the time rank and file realize they need to reach consensus, they have lost their freedoms, privacy etc. (For their own good as so many dictators have said.) By being passive and blindly listening to your party's claims -- in this case Republicans and Democrats mainly -- you have conceded your power to extremist groups (see gun control, extreme right, racists), corruption (anything to do with lobbying in the U.S. (in other parts of the world it would be called legalized corruption)) and politicians passing last minute illegible bills to laws. If you have under 20% turnover something is ridiculously wrong with the system. Kid yourself not. It is your choice. You have the obligation as a citizen in a democracy to pay attention, vote and yes put your foot down when they feed you bullshit, like the FCC report. Otherwise, you are being ruled, you have conceded your power and it is democracy only in name. Thus I think this must be a wake up call -- see how many people on e.g. Twitter accepted this deregulation as totally ok and for "our own good". How many people know about title I and II classification? Or why FCC was forced in 2015 to finally classify ISPs as title II? Search what happened in 2005 here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_States#Section_706_vs._Title_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S... . It is not like ISPs are playing nicely or care about our rights. And us accepting their blatant lies and this farce is the defeat of the day. The worst thing is you teach the next generation of voters that this is ok and natural. It is not. And you are lowering the bar by saying "oh it is Republicans they can do that." No -- if Republicans followed their advertised mantra to the letter they should be totally against this deregulation. Don't lower the bar of what you are demanding from your representatives. If you care for your country and your life stay informed.

WillReplyfFood 9y ago

I agree comrade Crye, we should push for a manifesto, and send all those regressive Ideologists to the working camps so they can rethink theire ways.