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From the outside, it has looked for a long time as if avoiding issues that matter is the whole point of your political system. No offense, we (Canada) are not m

From the outside, it has looked for a long time as if avoiding issues that matter is the whole point of your political system. No offense, we (Canada) are not much better, but your problems in that regard seem more dire.

humanrebar 13y ago
Just because there isn't a consensus doesn't mean that issues are avoided. Many questions do not have answers that two-thirds of the country can agree on. For small questions, perhaps that's harmful. However, for large questions, it's definitely a feature of the system that the electorate is forced to deliberate until wider agreement is reached. Are there issue in particular that you think are important yet avoided?
- JoshTriplett 13y ago
  > Many questions do not have answers that two-thirds of the country can agree on. For small questions, perhaps that's harmful. However, for large questions, it's definitely a feature of the system that the electorate is forced to deliberate until wider agreement is reached. It's not a feature, however, to spend so much time butting heads over a small handful of issues that nothing else gets much discussion time, and that everything else has to rally under one of those big banners to get noticed or get action taken. Some issues just need to be written off as disproportionate time-sinks that nobody will ever agree on. Disagreement at the level you're talking about is a strong sign that there's no strong consensus in any one direction, which itself provides strong evidence that government should stay out of those issues. > Are there issue in particular that you think are important yet avoided? Among many other things, we seem to have completely lost the small/large government distinction that used to characterize the two parties, in favor of a large/large government that only argues about what to do with itself. The question of doing nothing never comes up or gets any discussion time at all. Whichever side of that distinction you might favor, I think it's pretty clearly worthy of consideration. I'd also love to see more active discussion, consideration, and avoidance of the Overton window (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window) as a political failure mode, rather than business as usual.
JoshTriplett 13y ago
> From the outside, it has looked for a long time as if avoiding issues that matter is the whole point of your political system. No offense, None taken; I find that a problem myself. Though I'd characterize it less as "avoiding issues that matter" and more as "over-inflating issues that don't, crowding out everything else". When I look at politics elsewhere, though, I tend to see the same issue, just shifted elsewhere on the spectrum; I don't think this problem is unique to US politics.

humanrebar 13y ago

Just because there isn't a consensus doesn't mean that issues are avoided. Many questions do not have answers that two-thirds of the country can agree on. For small questions, perhaps that's harmful. However, for large questions, it's definitely a feature of the system that the electorate is forced to deliberate until wider agreement is reached. Are there issue in particular that you think are important yet avoided?

JoshTriplett 13y ago
> Many questions do not have answers that two-thirds of the country can agree on. For small questions, perhaps that's harmful. However, for large questions, it's definitely a feature of the system that the electorate is forced to deliberate until wider agreement is reached. It's not a feature, however, to spend so much time butting heads over a small handful of issues that nothing else gets much discussion time, and that everything else has to rally under one of those big banners to get noticed or get action taken. Some issues just need to be written off as disproportionate time-sinks that nobody will ever agree on. Disagreement at the level you're talking about is a strong sign that there's no strong consensus in any one direction, which itself provides strong evidence that government should stay out of those issues. > Are there issue in particular that you think are important yet avoided? Among many other things, we seem to have completely lost the small/large government distinction that used to characterize the two parties, in favor of a large/large government that only argues about what to do with itself. The question of doing nothing never comes up or gets any discussion time at all. Whichever side of that distinction you might favor, I think it's pretty clearly worthy of consideration. I'd also love to see more active discussion, consideration, and avoidance of the Overton window (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window) as a political failure mode, rather than business as usual.

JoshTriplett 13y ago

> From the outside, it has looked for a long time as if avoiding issues that matter is the whole point of your political system. No offense, None taken; I find that a problem myself. Though I'd characterize it less as "avoiding issues that matter" and more as "over-inflating issues that don't, crowding out everything else". When I look at politics elsewhere, though, I tend to see the same issue, just shifted elsewhere on the spectrum; I don't think this problem is unique to US politics.