4 ms·

How? Voting and protesting haven't worked so far.

by xradionut 13y ago

adestefan 13y ago
Just because people don't vote the way you want them to doesn't mean it's not working.
- rza 13y ago
  Voting is not working. As far as the media is concerned, there are always going to be only two candidates, both of which are in bed with corporate lobbyists. Without every voter doing significant research on their own to make meaningful third-party voting blocs, that will not change. Money determines the primary candidates, and that money comes from the same places year after year.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    The fundamental problem is not the media (for all the problems the media has and produces), it is the electoral system, as is demonstrated by the comparison with the greater number of competitive parties in all the democracies that also have profit-oriented corporate media but do not a national legislature elected by plurality or majority/runoff elections.
    - davidw 13y ago
      Italy has one of those proportional parliaments. It's not exactly a utopia.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        No place is "exactly a utopia", but the issue was the media being blamed as the root cause of the partisan duopoly in the US, which is pretty clearly not the case. OTOH, systems with greater proportionality in representation also tend to have higher public opinion of how well the local government works, which is probably not coincidental; for a good general survey, see Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy.
        davidw 13y ago
        > systems with greater proportionality in representation also tend to have higher public opinion of how well the local government works Maybe they tend to, but when they drew that graph, Italy is definitely an outlier. People are not at all fond of how the government works, putting it mildly! Very proportional systems have large problems of their own too, including all the "horse trading" that goes on to form a coalition. This can and does involve a party that got, say 10%, driving a very hard bargain with the party that got 45%, giving far more relative weight to the people who voted for the 10% party. You're right that the media is not The Problem, no argument there.
        dragonwriter 13y ago
        > Maybe they tend to, but when they drew that graph, Italy is definitely an outlier. Granting that, why bring Italy up them? > Very proportional systems have large problems of their own too, including all the "horse trading" that goes on to form a coalition. Horse trading goes on to form a winning coalition in two-party systems, too (the major parties in electoral systems that create a two-competitive-party dynamic are, invariably, coalition parties); the difference is that, in such systems, the disporportionate power of the needed-to-win segment is less than in two-party systems, because its much easier -- because the factions are formal parties that you can negotiate with -- to swap coalition partners and form a new majority coalition if a minor partner wants too much. (That's also, really -- outside of systems like the US where you've got an FPTP electoral system forcing pre-election coalition building -- a bigger issue in unitary parliamentary systems vs. separation of powers systems -- because having a majority coalition in parliament is a more significant issue in unitary systems whereas in separation of powers systems, ad hoc coalitions on particular issues can function in the legislature without requiring a stable "ruling" coalition in the legislature. So, if you are looking at an FPTP separation of powers system like the US, its a problem that moving to a proportionally-elected but still separation of powers system alleviates rather than making worse.)
        davidw 13y ago
        > Granting that, why bring Italy up them? Because I live here and it's a very good example of proportional systems not being strictly better than what we have in the US. > swap coalition partners and form a new majority coalition if a minor partner wants too much. Easier said than done in many cases.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
Who are you, Wile E. Coyote? Just because something hasn't worked "so far" doesn't mean it needs to be abandoned. There are a shit ton of problems in our world and with our political system right now. But that's the historical norm. Even in the "good times" it's the historical norm. Today there are so many people who have this weird belief that somehow the lack of change due to their extreme apathy is a justification for that apathy. It's not. If more people spent the time to educate themselves deeply on issues and candidates. If more people spent the effort to have legitimately worthwhile political discussions instead of merely agreeing with those who already agree with them and shouting down those who don't. If more people decided to take the risk and enter politics. Things would be a whole lot different. Today the biggest problem isn't entrenched power structures, or gobs of money in political campaigns, or the lack of good candidates. All of those are symptoms. The biggest problem is that the primary ways that people learn about and discuss political issues are horribly broken. Most major news media outlets are horrid, only a few steps away from outright tabloid journalism. People decry fox news all the time but CNN and even the New York Times are, on the whole, little better, just different flavored output from fundamentally the same machinery. And people don't tend to realize this because every once in a while there will be something of legitimate quality that leaks through, and that event will serve as a rationalization for continuing to feed from those sources of information. These are precisely the same processes that keep people attached to religious institutions as well. Ask yourself, how much effort do you, personally, put into researching political issues and candidates? What about your friends? Do you hold them to account for being low information voters? Do you ever have serious, non-shouting, political discussions with people who have different views than your own?
- xradionut 13y ago
  Who said I abandoned voting? I said it doesn't work in this case. I research and vote every election. But I know for the more important offices at the state and national level, the system is broken. The two party system and big money means I don't get any say in selecting who runs, the corrupt system does.

How? Voting and protesting haven't worked so far.

adestefan 13y ago

Just because people don't vote the way you want them to doesn't mean it's not working.

rza 13y ago
Voting is not working. As far as the media is concerned, there are always going to be only two candidates, both of which are in bed with corporate lobbyists. Without every voter doing significant research on their own to make meaningful third-party voting blocs, that will not change. Money determines the primary candidates, and that money comes from the same places year after year.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  The fundamental problem is not the media (for all the problems the media has and produces), it is the electoral system, as is demonstrated by the comparison with the greater number of competitive parties in all the democracies that also have profit-oriented corporate media but do not a national legislature elected by plurality or majority/runoff elections.
  - davidw 13y ago
    Italy has one of those proportional parliaments. It's not exactly a utopia.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      No place is "exactly a utopia", but the issue was the media being blamed as the root cause of the partisan duopoly in the US, which is pretty clearly not the case. OTOH, systems with greater proportionality in representation also tend to have higher public opinion of how well the local government works, which is probably not coincidental; for a good general survey, see Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy.
      - davidw 13y ago
        > systems with greater proportionality in representation also tend to have higher public opinion of how well the local government works Maybe they tend to, but when they drew that graph, Italy is definitely an outlier. People are not at all fond of how the government works, putting it mildly! Very proportional systems have large problems of their own too, including all the "horse trading" that goes on to form a coalition. This can and does involve a party that got, say 10%, driving a very hard bargain with the party that got 45%, giving far more relative weight to the people who voted for the 10% party. You're right that the media is not The Problem, no argument there.
        dragonwriter 13y ago
        > Maybe they tend to, but when they drew that graph, Italy is definitely an outlier. Granting that, why bring Italy up them? > Very proportional systems have large problems of their own too, including all the "horse trading" that goes on to form a coalition. Horse trading goes on to form a winning coalition in two-party systems, too (the major parties in electoral systems that create a two-competitive-party dynamic are, invariably, coalition parties); the difference is that, in such systems, the disporportionate power of the needed-to-win segment is less than in two-party systems, because its much easier -- because the factions are formal parties that you can negotiate with -- to swap coalition partners and form a new majority coalition if a minor partner wants too much. (That's also, really -- outside of systems like the US where you've got an FPTP electoral system forcing pre-election coalition building -- a bigger issue in unitary parliamentary systems vs. separation of powers systems -- because having a majority coalition in parliament is a more significant issue in unitary systems whereas in separation of powers systems, ad hoc coalitions on particular issues can function in the legislature without requiring a stable "ruling" coalition in the legislature. So, if you are looking at an FPTP separation of powers system like the US, its a problem that moving to a proportionally-elected but still separation of powers system alleviates rather than making worse.)
        davidw 13y ago
        > Granting that, why bring Italy up them? Because I live here and it's a very good example of proportional systems not being strictly better than what we have in the US. > swap coalition partners and form a new majority coalition if a minor partner wants too much. Easier said than done in many cases.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

Who are you, Wile E. Coyote? Just because something hasn't worked "so far" doesn't mean it needs to be abandoned. There are a shit ton of problems in our world and with our political system right now. But that's the historical norm. Even in the "good times" it's the historical norm. Today there are so many people who have this weird belief that somehow the lack of change due to their extreme apathy is a justification for that apathy. It's not. If more people spent the time to educate themselves deeply on issues and candidates. If more people spent the effort to have legitimately worthwhile political discussions instead of merely agreeing with those who already agree with them and shouting down those who don't. If more people decided to take the risk and enter politics. Things would be a whole lot different. Today the biggest problem isn't entrenched power structures, or gobs of money in political campaigns, or the lack of good candidates. All of those are symptoms. The biggest problem is that the primary ways that people learn about and discuss political issues are horribly broken. Most major news media outlets are horrid, only a few steps away from outright tabloid journalism. People decry fox news all the time but CNN and even the New York Times are, on the whole, little better, just different flavored output from fundamentally the same machinery. And people don't tend to realize this because every once in a while there will be something of legitimate quality that leaks through, and that event will serve as a rationalization for continuing to feed from those sources of information. These are precisely the same processes that keep people attached to religious institutions as well. Ask yourself, how much effort do you, personally, put into researching political issues and candidates? What about your friends? Do you hold them to account for being low information voters? Do you ever have serious, non-shouting, political discussions with people who have different views than your own?

xradionut 13y ago
Who said I abandoned voting? I said it doesn't work in this case. I research and vote every election. But I know for the more important offices at the state and national level, the system is broken. The two party system and big money means I don't get any say in selecting who runs, the corrupt system does.