4 ms·

It's a small but crucial part of a wider class war, which is beyond belief in its scale and sheer evil. "Vote blue no matter who" isn't gonna get us out of thi

It's a small but crucial part of a wider class war, which is beyond belief in its scale and sheer evil. "Vote blue no matter who" isn't gonna get us out of this one, and neither is donating to the ACLU and NPR.

SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
Out of? It’s how we got it. I can’t be the only one left that is wondering how the window shifted so far left so quickly. Well, I guess me and Elon.
- colpabar 4y ago
  It shifted because the powers that be saw an actual unified, targeted movement aimed against the ultra rich (occupy), and got scared. So now, instead of fighting against the people who own the government, we are fighting each other based on skin color. So progressive!
  - sli 4y ago
    Nothing really shifted to the left, certainly not the DNC. We just gave Bezos a $10B bailout. The rich are getting richer and richer. Roe is being overturned. There is not "far-left" presence in the US with any actual power. The right-wing (and Elon) freakout about the "far-left" is about people expressing their gripes with the state of things online, much of it being actual, salient criticism that gets handwaved away as "communism." There isn't a single far-left politician in the federal government. There are a few that are maybe left of center, but "far-left?" Absolutely not. Show me a rep or senator calling for public ownership of the means of production and then we have a conversation, but there simply isn't one. Nobody with a say is advocating for abolishing money, the state, class, etc. Even the list of politicians that support worker unions is really short. The furthest left US politicians go is social democracy, which is just democracy with strong safety nets to help keep as many people as possible from rock bottom.
dorfsmay 4y ago
I'm outside the US, but I see similar issues everywhere. I think it's time modern democracies stoped having "representative of the people" voting on laws. Laws should be considered each on their own value, and everybody should be able to vote for/against them.
- Buttons840 4y ago
  Perhaps going back to one representative per 10,000 would help? We'd have to use technology to hold a quorem though.
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    Unfortunately, United States has a population of ~330 million and that would mean a House of Representatives with 33,000 members. There's no way it would be able to effectively deliberate topics with that many people. Just imagine how little time each representative could be allocated to speak, given there are only 8,760 hours in a year. Additionally the individual power of each representative would be so watered down as to be practically meaningless. It's an unacceptable solution but it seems to me that the US is just too big and splitting it up would make more sense.
    - dolni 4y ago
      > It's an unacceptable solution but it seems to me that the US is just too big and splitting it up would make more sense. We already have this. The divisions are called states. And it's solid argument for a weaker federal government.
      - BitwiseFool 4y ago
        I wholeheartedly agree, but sadly the Federalists "won" this power struggle long ago.
    - Buttons840 4y ago
      Why do people need to debate on the house floor? Do such debates actually change anyone's mind or how they vote? Let them debate in an electronic forum with written arguments, let them debate in public and on social media (a good portion of political debate already happens on social media). Debate on the floor isn't so sacred we can't do without it. And yes, the power of individual representatives would be watered down, that's ok. It would be much closer to the direct democracy the parent comment suggested (and the reason I brought it up). It allows representatives to deal with boring bills the public doesn't care about, but there are enough representatives that I can reasonably expect to be on a first name basis with my representative if I care enough to get involved.
ranger207 4y ago
It's really a shame that my options right now are either the anti-freedom "no abortions, no weed, and absolutely no criticizing us" party, or the anti-freedom "no critical thinking, no guns, and absolutely no criticising us" party. Unfortunately under first past the post tribalism is rewarded, and moving to the center only gives room for a more radical same-party challenger to appear making you both lose. In my opinion, the greatest boost to freedom in current American politics would be the introduction of a better voting system[0] to allow third parties to exist and encourage them to work together to legislate. [0] I prefer score voting, but I'll vote for anyone who will get any alternate form of voting out there. For an easy explanation of the different voting systems, look at https://ncase.me/ballot/ https://ncase.me/ballot/
- tiahura 4y ago
  Trump was pro medical and thought rec should be decided at the state level. Seems pretty balanced and mainstream to me.
- dicknuckle 4y ago
  Score Voting, Runoff Voting, something, anything to fix the red/blue mess here.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Come to slovenia... we just had an election which was (a bit simplified), "a bad guy we have now, and most people hate, but right leaning grandmas like" vs "a guy we didn't know existed two months ago, but media propped him up, and he's the only chance to take on the current guy". Because of the voting systems, parties need 4% of the votes to make it into the parliament, and all the votes for <4% parties are basically "lost". The end effect was people not voting for the "new guy" because they liked the new guy, but because they didn't want the new guy to stay, causing a huge discrepancy between the the parties they actually wanted to win vs the voting results.

SV_BubbleTime 4y ago

Out of? It’s how we got it. I can’t be the only one left that is wondering how the window shifted so far left so quickly. Well, I guess me and Elon.

colpabar 4y ago
It shifted because the powers that be saw an actual unified, targeted movement aimed against the ultra rich (occupy), and got scared. So now, instead of fighting against the people who own the government, we are fighting each other based on skin color. So progressive!
- sli 4y ago
  Nothing really shifted to the left, certainly not the DNC. We just gave Bezos a $10B bailout. The rich are getting richer and richer. Roe is being overturned. There is not "far-left" presence in the US with any actual power. The right-wing (and Elon) freakout about the "far-left" is about people expressing their gripes with the state of things online, much of it being actual, salient criticism that gets handwaved away as "communism." There isn't a single far-left politician in the federal government. There are a few that are maybe left of center, but "far-left?" Absolutely not. Show me a rep or senator calling for public ownership of the means of production and then we have a conversation, but there simply isn't one. Nobody with a say is advocating for abolishing money, the state, class, etc. Even the list of politicians that support worker unions is really short. The furthest left US politicians go is social democracy, which is just democracy with strong safety nets to help keep as many people as possible from rock bottom.

dorfsmay 4y ago

I'm outside the US, but I see similar issues everywhere. I think it's time modern democracies stoped having "representative of the people" voting on laws. Laws should be considered each on their own value, and everybody should be able to vote for/against them.

Buttons840 4y ago
Perhaps going back to one representative per 10,000 would help? We'd have to use technology to hold a quorem though.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  Unfortunately, United States has a population of ~330 million and that would mean a House of Representatives with 33,000 members. There's no way it would be able to effectively deliberate topics with that many people. Just imagine how little time each representative could be allocated to speak, given there are only 8,760 hours in a year. Additionally the individual power of each representative would be so watered down as to be practically meaningless. It's an unacceptable solution but it seems to me that the US is just too big and splitting it up would make more sense.
  - dolni 4y ago
    > It's an unacceptable solution but it seems to me that the US is just too big and splitting it up would make more sense. We already have this. The divisions are called states. And it's solid argument for a weaker federal government.
    - BitwiseFool 4y ago
      I wholeheartedly agree, but sadly the Federalists "won" this power struggle long ago.
  - Buttons840 4y ago
    Why do people need to debate on the house floor? Do such debates actually change anyone's mind or how they vote? Let them debate in an electronic forum with written arguments, let them debate in public and on social media (a good portion of political debate already happens on social media). Debate on the floor isn't so sacred we can't do without it. And yes, the power of individual representatives would be watered down, that's ok. It would be much closer to the direct democracy the parent comment suggested (and the reason I brought it up). It allows representatives to deal with boring bills the public doesn't care about, but there are enough representatives that I can reasonably expect to be on a first name basis with my representative if I care enough to get involved.

ranger207 4y ago

It's really a shame that my options right now are either the anti-freedom "no abortions, no weed, and absolutely no criticizing us" party, or the anti-freedom "no critical thinking, no guns, and absolutely no criticising us" party. Unfortunately under first past the post tribalism is rewarded, and moving to the center only gives room for a more radical same-party challenger to appear making you both lose. In my opinion, the greatest boost to freedom in current American politics would be the introduction of a better voting system[0] to allow third parties to exist and encourage them to work together to legislate. [0] I prefer score voting, but I'll vote for anyone who will get any alternate form of voting out there. For an easy explanation of the different voting systems, look at https://ncase.me/ballot/ https://ncase.me/ballot/

tiahura 4y ago
Trump was pro medical and thought rec should be decided at the state level. Seems pretty balanced and mainstream to me.
dicknuckle 4y ago
Score Voting, Runoff Voting, something, anything to fix the red/blue mess here.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Come to slovenia... we just had an election which was (a bit simplified), "a bad guy we have now, and most people hate, but right leaning grandmas like" vs "a guy we didn't know existed two months ago, but media propped him up, and he's the only chance to take on the current guy". Because of the voting systems, parties need 4% of the votes to make it into the parliament, and all the votes for <4% parties are basically "lost". The end effect was people not voting for the "new guy" because they liked the new guy, but because they didn't want the new guy to stay, causing a huge discrepancy between the the parties they actually wanted to win vs the voting results.