6 ms·

You are saying this as if those ads state facts and stick to the issues. Politics in the US is a mess. Party politics makes absolutely no sense to me. My trust

You are saying this as if those ads state facts and stick to the issues. Politics in the US is a mess. Party politics makes absolutely no sense to me. My trust in what they have to say, particularly on social media, is nil. Those ads will be turned off. I have never have, nor never will, vote along party lines. I am, proudly, unaffiliated.

macspoofing 6y ago
>Politics in the US is a mess. Why would you want it any other way? Democracy is messy. >You are saying this as if those ads state facts and stick to the issues I'm not saying that at all, but I will say this, political discourse is never about facts and policy. Same with activism. Do you think activists stick to facts and data to prove their case? Almost never. Do you think any housing activists that push 'rent control' as a partial solution to homelessness, care that 'rent control' as a policy has been objectively an abject failure and doesn't actually solve the issue at hand? Politics are emotion-driven and things like 'emotional trust' will outweigh any policy or fact-based discussion.
- ses1984 6y ago
  >Why would you want it any other way? Democracy is messy. Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me. >Do you think activists stick to facts and data to prove their case? Almost never. There's a difference between "appeal to emotion" and spewing outright lies.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me No! The opposite in fact! When Democracy is messy it means there's a lot of 'bumping' and 'turn' (to use some metaphors), unlike the sterile utopia that some push for, where everything is clean and specified and everyone follows a neat pattern (to use more metaphors). For example, I love how messy caucuses are, people are yelling and clamouring, convincing each other to join the other side, negotiating and trading (TALKING to each other), making mistakes, etc. Democratic chaos! Beautiful! But they are going away to just regular, boring voting because this chaos makes many people uncomfortable and it FEELS better to have a top-down, clean, organized, designed approach. This reminds me of Jane Jacobs [1], an urban activist that criticized the then modern notions of urban renewal which called for creating neat, sterile, single-purpose zoned areas. To her, a city should be 'messy' with active mixed-use neighbourhoods encouraging this 'bumping' and 'mixing'. She's right! And I see this idea of urban planning analogous to the democratic process. There is a side-benefit to this chaotic Democracy - it's harder to be gamed, by Russians or political consultants or political parties. >There's a difference between "appeal to emotion" and spewing outright lies. The other side feels the same about your side. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs
    - ncallaway 6y ago
      > But they are going away to just regular, boring voting because this chaos makes many people uncomfortable and it FEELS better to have a top-down, clean, organized, designed approach. I am strongly opposed to caucuses, but not for the reasons mentioned. I'm actually fine with the disorder, the chaos, the shouting. What I'm not okay with is the time commitment required. It seriously disenfranchises those who cannot afford to take an entire evening in order to vote. It creates a significant discrepancy between those who are privileged enough not to see the time commitment as a significant burden, and those who do. (Not to say regular voting is perfect. Look at the recent elections in GA for a counter-example, where voters had to wait in line for hours) Anyway, none of this is really relevant to your main thesis, but I did want to run down the tangent and present the case for why I think caucuses are bad that doesn't focus on disorder.
      - macspoofing 6y ago
        >What I'm not okay with is the time commitment required. I understand your position but this is way overstated. Anything worth doing is going to cost you time and effort and streamlining it will make it lose some important intrinsic property of it. Approximately 50% of American households carry credit card debt. Do you know why? Because if you truly want something, you'll find a way to get it even if it means financing it will cost you 3x-5x more than just saving up for it. I do not believe that the vast majority of people who care about caucuses would not find a way to attend a caucus. >It creates a significant discrepancy between those who are privileged enough I will never buy into this flawed notion of 'privilege' that misinforms more than it explains. Everyone is busy, especially when it comes to things they barely care about. If someone cares about caucuses and primaries they will get engaged and find a way to attend. Evangelicals that care about their faith will find a way to tithe 10% of their income, go to Church EVERY Sunday (not just once every 4 years), and get involved in Church activities. Practicing Orthodox Jews have very onerous stipulations on what they can and cannot do in their daily life, but they care about their faith and therefore they find a way to do those things - regardless of their income and wealth and privilege. Going to a caucus once every 2 or 4 years on a Saturday isn't a reasonable barrier for those that care. Worrying about those that don't care enough to make time isn't improving things. Your time would be better spent advocating to those people to CARE enough to attend, not destroying the beautiful chaos in order to HOPE it attracts those people into coming out.
  - stronglikedan 6y ago
    > There's a difference between "appeal to emotion" and spewing outright lies. The only difference is that spewing outright lies is a large subset of appealing to emotion when it comes to activism, which is itself a large subset of politics. > Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me. Democracy is compromise, and compromise at the level of government is messy. It's not giving up, it's jut not giving in to one idea without considering and weighing all opinions.
wffurr 6y ago
If you want to be effective and create change, you need to engage with party politics and push one (or both?) parties in a particular direction. Voting in party primaries and advocating for change within parties, given the state of affairs in US politics, is a better bet for effective change than maintaining a stance of moral purity.
- chii 6y ago
  This is absolutely the right stance to take. Nothing will change if you don't do it, and choosing to ignore politics is not going to lead to better politics. You'd just leave the bad actors all the room to act!
  - Spivak 6y ago
    You're right but I think it's a mistake to assume that politics should be everyone's "thing." Everyone should vote but not everyone needs to be in the weeds of the political process unless it's something they're passionate about. And when it comes to the "civic duty" level of participation there's honestly not much that to do. You'll know pretty quick whether you're part of the red, blue, or grey tribe so you can just vote by color and then look up what the local ballot initiatives are and vote on the ones that you have an informed opinion on. With this strategy you're the political equivalent of an index fund investor but you're role is still important since modern politics is a game of taking territory.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      Why should everybody vote? I live in a solidly blue state where the electoral college votes are a forgone conclusion. I'd just be adding another thimble-full of water to an ocean. I suppose voting would give me the sticker, but I'm not really a sticker collector. I could move to a swing-state, but I like living where I live, and not everybody can move to a swing-state anyway. Granted there is local politics, which I occasionally vote in, but more often than not I am not sufficiently informed in local politics to make an informed decision. If I don't feel I can make an informed decision, why should I vote? My input, if anything, would only add more noise to the process. That doesn't seem productive. I think, when aware of my own ignorance, abstaining from the voting process is the responsible choice.

macspoofing 6y ago

>Politics in the US is a mess. Why would you want it any other way? Democracy is messy. >You are saying this as if those ads state facts and stick to the issues I'm not saying that at all, but I will say this, political discourse is never about facts and policy. Same with activism. Do you think activists stick to facts and data to prove their case? Almost never. Do you think any housing activists that push 'rent control' as a partial solution to homelessness, care that 'rent control' as a policy has been objectively an abject failure and doesn't actually solve the issue at hand? Politics are emotion-driven and things like 'emotional trust' will outweigh any policy or fact-based discussion.

ses1984 6y ago
>Why would you want it any other way? Democracy is messy. Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me. >Do you think activists stick to facts and data to prove their case? Almost never. There's a difference between "appeal to emotion" and spewing outright lies.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me No! The opposite in fact! When Democracy is messy it means there's a lot of 'bumping' and 'turn' (to use some metaphors), unlike the sterile utopia that some push for, where everything is clean and specified and everyone follows a neat pattern (to use more metaphors). For example, I love how messy caucuses are, people are yelling and clamouring, convincing each other to join the other side, negotiating and trading (TALKING to each other), making mistakes, etc. Democratic chaos! Beautiful! But they are going away to just regular, boring voting because this chaos makes many people uncomfortable and it FEELS better to have a top-down, clean, organized, designed approach. This reminds me of Jane Jacobs [1], an urban activist that criticized the then modern notions of urban renewal which called for creating neat, sterile, single-purpose zoned areas. To her, a city should be 'messy' with active mixed-use neighbourhoods encouraging this 'bumping' and 'mixing'. She's right! And I see this idea of urban planning analogous to the democratic process. There is a side-benefit to this chaotic Democracy - it's harder to be gamed, by Russians or political consultants or political parties. >There's a difference between "appeal to emotion" and spewing outright lies. The other side feels the same about your side. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs
  - ncallaway 6y ago
    > But they are going away to just regular, boring voting because this chaos makes many people uncomfortable and it FEELS better to have a top-down, clean, organized, designed approach. I am strongly opposed to caucuses, but not for the reasons mentioned. I'm actually fine with the disorder, the chaos, the shouting. What I'm not okay with is the time commitment required. It seriously disenfranchises those who cannot afford to take an entire evening in order to vote. It creates a significant discrepancy between those who are privileged enough not to see the time commitment as a significant burden, and those who do. (Not to say regular voting is perfect. Look at the recent elections in GA for a counter-example, where voters had to wait in line for hours) Anyway, none of this is really relevant to your main thesis, but I did want to run down the tangent and present the case for why I think caucuses are bad that doesn't focus on disorder.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      >What I'm not okay with is the time commitment required. I understand your position but this is way overstated. Anything worth doing is going to cost you time and effort and streamlining it will make it lose some important intrinsic property of it. Approximately 50% of American households carry credit card debt. Do you know why? Because if you truly want something, you'll find a way to get it even if it means financing it will cost you 3x-5x more than just saving up for it. I do not believe that the vast majority of people who care about caucuses would not find a way to attend a caucus. >It creates a significant discrepancy between those who are privileged enough I will never buy into this flawed notion of 'privilege' that misinforms more than it explains. Everyone is busy, especially when it comes to things they barely care about. If someone cares about caucuses and primaries they will get engaged and find a way to attend. Evangelicals that care about their faith will find a way to tithe 10% of their income, go to Church EVERY Sunday (not just once every 4 years), and get involved in Church activities. Practicing Orthodox Jews have very onerous stipulations on what they can and cannot do in their daily life, but they care about their faith and therefore they find a way to do those things - regardless of their income and wealth and privilege. Going to a caucus once every 2 or 4 years on a Saturday isn't a reasonable barrier for those that care. Worrying about those that don't care enough to make time isn't improving things. Your time would be better spent advocating to those people to CARE enough to attend, not destroying the beautiful chaos in order to HOPE it attracts those people into coming out.
- stronglikedan 6y ago
  > There's a difference between "appeal to emotion" and spewing outright lies. The only difference is that spewing outright lies is a large subset of appealing to emotion when it comes to activism, which is itself a large subset of politics. > Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me. Democracy is compromise, and compromise at the level of government is messy. It's not giving up, it's jut not giving in to one idea without considering and weighing all opinions.

wffurr 6y ago

If you want to be effective and create change, you need to engage with party politics and push one (or both?) parties in a particular direction. Voting in party primaries and advocating for change within parties, given the state of affairs in US politics, is a better bet for effective change than maintaining a stance of moral purity.

chii 6y ago
This is absolutely the right stance to take. Nothing will change if you don't do it, and choosing to ignore politics is not going to lead to better politics. You'd just leave the bad actors all the room to act!
- Spivak 6y ago
  You're right but I think it's a mistake to assume that politics should be everyone's "thing." Everyone should vote but not everyone needs to be in the weeds of the political process unless it's something they're passionate about. And when it comes to the "civic duty" level of participation there's honestly not much that to do. You'll know pretty quick whether you're part of the red, blue, or grey tribe so you can just vote by color and then look up what the local ballot initiatives are and vote on the ones that you have an informed opinion on. With this strategy you're the political equivalent of an index fund investor but you're role is still important since modern politics is a game of taking territory.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    Why should everybody vote? I live in a solidly blue state where the electoral college votes are a forgone conclusion. I'd just be adding another thimble-full of water to an ocean. I suppose voting would give me the sticker, but I'm not really a sticker collector. I could move to a swing-state, but I like living where I live, and not everybody can move to a swing-state anyway. Granted there is local politics, which I occasionally vote in, but more often than not I am not sufficiently informed in local politics to make an informed decision. If I don't feel I can make an informed decision, why should I vote? My input, if anything, would only add more noise to the process. That doesn't seem productive. I think, when aware of my own ignorance, abstaining from the voting process is the responsible choice.