6 ms·

> It makes me so frustrated too. Stop electing people who block it.

mikestew 3y ago
Such an unhelpful answer. You assume parent is one of the ones casting votes for those politicians? You seem to assume that there’s even a politician on the ticket that’s worthy of the vote on this issue.
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  >You seem to assume that there’s even a politician on the ticket that’s worthy of the vote on this issue. Tennessee also recently enacted legislation OUTLAWING RANKed-CHOICE VOTING [after Memphis attempted such voting], thus ensuring only two-party electorate; and for the foreseeable future. This state HATES its constituency, beyond anything more than their "fair" votes.
  - bigstrat2003 3y ago
    > This state HATES its constituency, beyond anything more than their "fair" votes. Before you can say that, I think first you have to show that most of the voters in TN want ranked choice voting. In my experience many people do not want it, because they feel it is unfair and that it amounts to getting multiple votes. And before anyone argues at me about "that isn't what RCV means", you're preaching to the choir. I am 100% for using some form of RCV instead of FPTP voting. But if it turns out most of the people in TN favor FPTP, then their representatives are simply doing their job on behalf of the people. I don't know if that's the case, but it wouldn't surprise me based on past experience.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    That's a fair bit of rhetoric, but we're pretty much a single-party state. New York is about as hard blue as we are hard red, and they despise their citizens. At least here I have more freedom and less taxes.
    - BobaFloutist 3y ago
      more freedom Unless you want to start a city-run ISP.
      - rpmisms 3y ago
        Yeah, mine is owned by the state instead, dirt cheap. I can do more things with fewer restrictions, I have more freedom. Anyway, I have to put together the gun I 3d printed, take my completely unregistered truck to church, then maybe go hunting without a license, then come home to my house where I pay $400 a year in property taxes. All legal.
        ProllyInfamous 3y ago
        Are you telling me that here in Tennessee, I can drive my unregistered truck on public roads, as long as the destination is a church? You definitely do need a license to hunt in this state, even on your own private land. There are even defined seasons (except for invasives). $400/yr/tax is probably a singlewide, but I do agree that property taxes here are low (and thus our education pays 43rd in the country to teachers). I'm genuinely curious about the truck-to-church thingy, though — as I do truly have an unregistered pickup truck (I have insurance, just no title).
        rpmisms 3y ago
        1. Farm tags exist, but only in some counties. Destinations can be church, groceries, or farm purposes. 2. False. On your own land (or land owned by family), you just need to follow season and report harvest. Check TWRA site. 3. 2k sqft and 5 acres. I'm in the mid-sticks, but yes, our property taxes are excellent.
- poulsbohemian 3y ago
  I can't speak for Tennessee, but I bet it's like most parts of the country. In my county we have something on the order of 37000 voters. Roughly 6000 voted in the last election. I ran two different campaigns and that meant our win number was just north of 3000. We have a relatively small population under 50 -- and none of them vote. Almost every problem in my county - housing, limited job prospects, etc -- can be traced to the morons that are in office. So, I'm recruiting the heck out of candidates, rebuilding the infrastructure to get them elected, running campaigns, etc. So yeah, the parent poster isn't wrong - you gotta get people out to vote, but you are right to that you've got to be a force for change in the overall system too. EDIT: Realized I should have noted that while we have 37000 voters, our population is around 62000... so even getting people registered to vote is a major need.
  - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
    It got SO BAD [the corruption] recently that our city/county (Chatt/Hamilton Co.) elected mayors/DAs that only recently began gray-hairing. From memory, the ages went from averaging 60 to 45. I'm not even 40, and one of our best local judges is my age!
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    How much of that population of 62000 are people eligible to vote? Each district in the US should have 700k people. Now back in the day it used to be like 250k but efforts to water down the power of the house in favor of the senate have led to 700k. There has got to be a percentage of people who cannot vote due to age/citizen status/etc.
wizzwizz4 3y ago
Who should one elect instead? (I'd prefer a general answer, rather than a specific one; it's a widespread problem.)
- NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
  Representative democracy as practiced in the U.S. does not usefully solve for single-issue politics outside of things like abortion / gun-control that also split along a pre-existing partisan divide. So, sadly, it doesn't matter who you vote for; you need to start earlier in the process.
  - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
    Ranked-choice voting, is a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting But Tennessee outlawed this voting method, last legislative cycle. So all they needed to do was redefine "fair elections" and —presto— they've saved their constituency from the nuissance of actual choice... [smell that, Mericuh'... it's the smell of "freedom"].
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    Score voting or proportional representation are the real fixes. We need to be able to vote for a different candidate without it being equivalent to burning the ballot. Right now one can case a meaningful vote only for legislators who serve corporations and the wealthy, or legislators who serve corporations and the wealthy even at the expense of democracy and human rights. Of the two, I think it is obvious one should choose the group that isn't supporting the leader of an actual insurrection. But the fact that's a controversial suggestion gives me no hope that we'll ever have a sane voting system.
    - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
      Honestly (and just a bit more than "pipe dream"), I'm a well-educated American that is actively planning exit to a former Balkan country... because the trajectory "seems better" / "more realistic" than attempting to die in what appears clear to me [at just-shy of forty]: unless I'm willing to shit all over my peers, I will die destitute in what this shithole is becoming. Perhaps I'll soon become one of the next few hundred annual American expat departures into the Balkans [if they'll have me — 'Mercuh has prettymuch chewn me up and spat me out, the few decades I've been employed here]. ::waves:flag:patrioticly::

Such an unhelpful answer. You assume parent is one of the ones casting votes for those politicians? You seem to assume that there’s even a politician on the ticket that’s worthy of the vote on this issue.

ProllyInfamous 3y ago
>You seem to assume that there’s even a politician on the ticket that’s worthy of the vote on this issue. Tennessee also recently enacted legislation OUTLAWING RANKed-CHOICE VOTING [after Memphis attempted such voting], thus ensuring only two-party electorate; and for the foreseeable future. This state HATES its constituency, beyond anything more than their "fair" votes.
- bigstrat2003 3y ago
  > This state HATES its constituency, beyond anything more than their "fair" votes. Before you can say that, I think first you have to show that most of the voters in TN want ranked choice voting. In my experience many people do not want it, because they feel it is unfair and that it amounts to getting multiple votes. And before anyone argues at me about "that isn't what RCV means", you're preaching to the choir. I am 100% for using some form of RCV instead of FPTP voting. But if it turns out most of the people in TN favor FPTP, then their representatives are simply doing their job on behalf of the people. I don't know if that's the case, but it wouldn't surprise me based on past experience.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- rpmisms 3y ago
  That's a fair bit of rhetoric, but we're pretty much a single-party state. New York is about as hard blue as we are hard red, and they despise their citizens. At least here I have more freedom and less taxes.
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    more freedom Unless you want to start a city-run ISP.
    - rpmisms 3y ago
      Yeah, mine is owned by the state instead, dirt cheap. I can do more things with fewer restrictions, I have more freedom. Anyway, I have to put together the gun I 3d printed, take my completely unregistered truck to church, then maybe go hunting without a license, then come home to my house where I pay $400 a year in property taxes. All legal.
      - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
        Are you telling me that here in Tennessee, I can drive my unregistered truck on public roads, as long as the destination is a church? You definitely do need a license to hunt in this state, even on your own private land. There are even defined seasons (except for invasives). $400/yr/tax is probably a singlewide, but I do agree that property taxes here are low (and thus our education pays 43rd in the country to teachers). I'm genuinely curious about the truck-to-church thingy, though — as I do truly have an unregistered pickup truck (I have insurance, just no title).
        rpmisms 3y ago
        1. Farm tags exist, but only in some counties. Destinations can be church, groceries, or farm purposes. 2. False. On your own land (or land owned by family), you just need to follow season and report harvest. Check TWRA site. 3. 2k sqft and 5 acres. I'm in the mid-sticks, but yes, our property taxes are excellent.
poulsbohemian 3y ago
I can't speak for Tennessee, but I bet it's like most parts of the country. In my county we have something on the order of 37000 voters. Roughly 6000 voted in the last election. I ran two different campaigns and that meant our win number was just north of 3000. We have a relatively small population under 50 -- and none of them vote. Almost every problem in my county - housing, limited job prospects, etc -- can be traced to the morons that are in office. So, I'm recruiting the heck out of candidates, rebuilding the infrastructure to get them elected, running campaigns, etc. So yeah, the parent poster isn't wrong - you gotta get people out to vote, but you are right to that you've got to be a force for change in the overall system too. EDIT: Realized I should have noted that while we have 37000 voters, our population is around 62000... so even getting people registered to vote is a major need.
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  It got SO BAD [the corruption] recently that our city/county (Chatt/Hamilton Co.) elected mayors/DAs that only recently began gray-hairing. From memory, the ages went from averaging 60 to 45. I'm not even 40, and one of our best local judges is my age!
- nebula8804 3y ago
  How much of that population of 62000 are people eligible to vote? Each district in the US should have 700k people. Now back in the day it used to be like 250k but efforts to water down the power of the house in favor of the senate have led to 700k. There has got to be a percentage of people who cannot vote due to age/citizen status/etc.

wizzwizz4 3y ago

Who should one elect instead? (I'd prefer a general answer, rather than a specific one; it's a widespread problem.)

NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
Representative democracy as practiced in the U.S. does not usefully solve for single-issue politics outside of things like abortion / gun-control that also split along a pre-existing partisan divide. So, sadly, it doesn't matter who you vote for; you need to start earlier in the process.
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  Ranked-choice voting, is a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting But Tennessee outlawed this voting method, last legislative cycle. So all they needed to do was redefine "fair elections" and —presto— they've saved their constituency from the nuissance of actual choice... [smell that, Mericuh'... it's the smell of "freedom"].
- plagiarist 3y ago
  Score voting or proportional representation are the real fixes. We need to be able to vote for a different candidate without it being equivalent to burning the ballot. Right now one can case a meaningful vote only for legislators who serve corporations and the wealthy, or legislators who serve corporations and the wealthy even at the expense of democracy and human rights. Of the two, I think it is obvious one should choose the group that isn't supporting the leader of an actual insurrection. But the fact that's a controversial suggestion gives me no hope that we'll ever have a sane voting system.
  - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
    Honestly (and just a bit more than "pipe dream"), I'm a well-educated American that is actively planning exit to a former Balkan country... because the trajectory "seems better" / "more realistic" than attempting to die in what appears clear to me [at just-shy of forty]: unless I'm willing to shit all over my peers, I will die destitute in what this shithole is becoming. Perhaps I'll soon become one of the next few hundred annual American expat departures into the Balkans [if they'll have me — 'Mercuh has prettymuch chewn me up and spat me out, the few decades I've been employed here]. ::waves:flag:patrioticly::