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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[GavJ]

A better reply by way of example:

Constituency X believes that abortions are wrong, but not birth control
Representative X also truly believes that and intends to advocate for it.
During negotiations, Representative X might encounter a situation where it is advantageous to demand "both abortion and birth control be regulated" KNOWING full well that the opposition will compromise with him, and thus hopefully landing at a "middle ground" that is in actuality exactly what his constituency wants.

But if transcripts are made public, he might be unable to do that, because his offer can be taken out of context and interpreted non-strategically (or the flames fanned by opponent political ads) as "this guy double crossed us and went too far" This would be misunderstanding the situation though, as he wasn't actually double crossing them, but was working to give them exactly what they want.

[Rolepgeek]

So he's using logical fallacies in order to attempt to get legislation acted upon? Regardless of the morality regarding the subject matter(you chose a very controversial thing for him to be advocating...), that's still pretty awful to do.

Democracies, partisan politics, and representatives are not there simply to ensure that the majority gets whatever they want. If the majority wants something that is wrong, that doesn't mean they should get it. The most concrete example being oppression of minorities. On the other hand, it can also be used for the wrong sort of thing, like the NRA manipulating the system to prevent gun control laws from being passed when there has been in the past and likely still is overwhelming support for stricter regulations. Party politics are meant to look at issues from different perspectives so that between them they can find the best solution, not to stalemate each other and vie for power. People, and thus, representatives, should try and figure out what the concrete, best laws for everyone are, not simply bend to the will of a vocal minority.

It bewilders and frightens me how many people choose not to vote, while simultaneously explaining how our system has fallen into such disrepair.

[GavJ]

So he's using logical fallacies in order to attempt to get legislation acted upon?

What logical fallacy?

The most concrete example being oppression of minorities.

Not seeing where you are getting this from. If 2/3 majority wants to oppress minorities, then they can go make whatever amendments they need and laws they need to do so. The reason we don't have minority oppression laws is because the majority (or a big enough majority) doesn't actually want to oppress the minority.

I'm not seeing how it's any "special" example, any more than laws about stop signs or trade tariffs or fire hydrants. Please bear in mind that the constitution was drafted decades prior to slavery being illegal.

[SalmonGod]

A better reply by way of example:

Constituency X believes that abortions are wrong, but not birth control
Representative X also truly believes that and intends to advocate for it.
During negotiations, Representative X might encounter a situation where it is advantageous to demand "both abortion and birth control be regulated" KNOWING full well that the opposition will compromise with him, and thus hopefully landing at a "middle ground" that is in actuality exactly what his constituency wants.

But if transcripts are made public, he might be unable to do that, because his offer can be taken out of context and interpreted non-strategically (or the flames fanned by opponent political ads) as "this guy double crossed us and went too far" This would be misunderstanding the situation though, as he wasn't actually double crossing them, but was working to give them exactly what they want.

Public opinion can be manipulated more effectively by taking information out of context, when the public doesn't have access to the context.

Or a constituency may simply be unhappy with the results of secret negotiations, and be unable to determine what role their representative had in that generating that result.

And you say that representatives should be held accountable for advocating the will of their constituency, but accountability is impossible without transparency.

[Rolepgeek]

So he's using logical fallacies in order to attempt to get legislation acted upon?

What logical fallacy?

The Middle Ground logical fallacy. In the argument to get what his constituency wants, in your example, he is putting forth an extreme in hopes of getting a compromise, whether or not that compromise is actually the best thing; he's forcing another group of people to accede to his group of people's will. And yes, if you're a Social Darwinist who thinks that might/majority makes right, then that's fine. Most people aren't.

The most concrete example being oppression of minorities.

Not seeing where you are getting this from. If 2/3 majority wants to oppress minorities, then they can go make whatever amendments they need and laws they need to do so. The reason we don't have minority oppression laws is because the majority (or a big enough majority) doesn't actually want to oppress the minority.

I'm not seeing how it's any "special" example, any more than laws about stop signs or trade tariffs or fire hydrants. Please bear in mind that the constitution was drafted decades prior to slavery being illegal.

I'm saying that if the majority of the people in one state want, say, slavery, and the Senator actually goes up and presents that as a platform, there's no way people are going to ever take anything he does seriously again. And if the state legislature decides that it's okay, that still doesn't mean it's okay. The Supreme Court recently ruled the Civil Rights Act unnecessary, and there's plenty of states that still don't recognize gay marriage, so don't say we don't have minority oppression laws. I really don't see how the constitution being made when slavery was illegal is relevant: we need to rewrite the damn thing anyway, it's not some holy fucking text that must be held above all else. The way people act around it is stupid.

[GavJ]

The Middle Ground logical fallacy. In the argument to get what his constituency wants, in your example, he is putting forth an extreme in hopes of getting a compromise, whether or not that compromise is actually the best thing; he's forcing another group of people to accede to his group of people's will. And yes, if you're a Social Darwinist who thinks that might/majority makes right, then that's fine. Most people aren't.

That's not a middle ground fallacy. The fallacy is when you assume that something is truth or best merely because it is a compromise. That's not what I'm describing. This has nothing to do with truth / he doesn't think his was is the One Truth just because it's the "compromise." In fact he knows it is not a true compromise and he knows he is using strategical leverage to haggle more effectively. He also knows full well that it's not best for the nation necessarily, or his debate opponent, but is best for him and his constituents, period. There's no self delusion in this example. Hell, the other guy int he negotiations might even know full well what's going on -- often both parties do when haggling. It's a matter of who has more clout at that moment in time, who "wants it more" etc. etc. more often than any sort of trickery.

Representative government is inherently competitive in its very core concept. If people weren't competitive, and if we had polite hive minds tuned to the common good, you'd never have a representational government. You'd just have 20 lawyers sitting around all day writing precisely the laws everybody wanted and making them law and everybody would go "Oh yup, those are nice laws" and go have a cup of tea. Same would be true with actual humans, if every district had homogeneous, identical populations.

The existence of representatives inherently implies competition arising from differing or contradictory interests.

I'm saying that if the majority of the people in one state want, say, slavery, and the Senator actually goes up and presents that as a platform, there's no way people are going to ever take anything he does seriously again. And if the state legislature decides that it's okay, that still doesn't mean it's okay. The Supreme Court recently ruled the Civil Rights Act unnecessary, and there's plenty of states that still don't recognize gay marriage, so don't say we don't have minority oppression laws. I really don't see how the constitution being made when slavery was illegal is relevant: we need to rewrite the damn thing anyway, it's not some holy fucking text that must be held above all else. The way people act around it is stupid.

Let me put it another way. Your claim was "Democracies, partisan politics, and representatives are not there simply to ensure that the majority gets whatever they want."

Name any amendment to the original constitution that makes the statement "The majority rules in America" any less true than it was when the constitution was drafted.

The 14th amendment? Actually that makes it even MORE true that "the majority rules." Because prior to that, it was more along the lines of "rich white men rule" which in some cases actually was the local minority. Whereas if everybody can freely vote, we move CLOSER to the true majority ruling.

As time has gone on, we've gotten closer to the fundamental democratic concept of the majority having the power, not further from it.

[GreatJustice]

So a politician is supposed to represent their constituents. Okay. But if they're absolutely supposed to represent their constituents, then you don't need elections, political parties, political platforms, or any of the other panoplies of modern democracy. Just pick a reasonably open minded lawyer from a given population, send him to Congress, and then periodically hold polls on specific issues as they come up. The "representative" would then have to get his "constituents" what they voted for however possible. That's really the only system in which politicians wouldn't be lying to either the supporters which campaigned for them or the moderates that swung the vote in their favour (where applicable).

Also, this only applies to systems in which the candidate actually represents the area in a meaningful sense. In Ontario, we recently had provincial elections that were contested between three parties, the Liberals (mildly left of centre), the Conservatives (right wing), and the NDP (usually far left, but a bit more populist recently). In Parliament, representatives basically have to vote for the party line, so they don't get the freedom American legislators get when it comes to "representing their constituents", so instead the parties basically support measures that help the areas that got them into parliament. In the case of the last election, the Liberals had a seat in Windsor held by a Cabinet Minister that they really wanted to keep, so they did a fair bit of campaigning talking about all the local improvements we could get from infrastructure spending, increased investment by the provincial government in the area's healthcare system, and so on. Well, the Liberals ended up losing the seat to the NDP, who dominated the north and southwest, while similarly not doing so well in most of the province. Yet they won overwhelmingly in Toronto, which basically gave them the election and a majority government, despite having lost basically everywhere else bar a few cities. Further, because of the Toronto seats, they won a majority government with about 37% of the vote, showing just how hard they were pummelled elsewhere. So obviously the talk of the area is that the Liberals aren't going to be sending much funding for hospitals or supporting policies that would benefit the southwest, and will instead be representing their "constituents" in Toronto. Does this at all seem like a good way for a democracy to function?

[GavJ]

The "representative" would then have to get his "constituents" what they voted for however possible.

Bill introduced
LawyerA "I need to get a poll on this."
LawyersB-Z "Us too."
...
[2 days later]
...
LawyerA "My poll says that the waiting period for this government service should be 6 months not 9."
LawyersB-Z "I need to get a poll on that."
...
[2 days later]
...
LawyerB "Okay."
LawyerC "Actually my poll says they're willing to compromise on 7."
LawyerA, D-Z "We need to get a poll on that."
...
[2 days later]
...
LawyerA "No, they really are stuck on 6."
LawyersB-Z "Okay, we need to get polls on that."
...
[2 days later]




The reason votes are necessary is that representatives have to act with autonomy a lot of the time for practical purposes so that the above doesn't happen constantly. For critical stuff, sure they SHOULD get polls and focus groups and go stumping and town hall meetings, etc. But not most of the time. Most of the time, you should expect them to advocate for you, but making the deals and gambles and judgments in the moment needed to actually get anything done, while advocating for you.

Those sorts of judgment calls require a person you trust who has skills you respect, etc. Not just some random lawyer. So you have a good reason to want to vote for them, not just draw lots.

Does this at all seem like a good way for a democracy to function?

Maybe, maybe not. My point is not to answer that one way or the other. My point is merely that the answer to that question is not for some cowboy representative to just up and decide on his own either way. If people think it's a bad way for democracy to function, they need to overturn the system and replace it with a better one, using the constraints of the system. In a representative system, this means the people voting for representatives on a platform of "getting rid of representative government."

Otherwise it's just you alone deciding that the system is broken, even if 95% of people are totally happy with the system. That's not any one person's place, until/if a new government is drafted that MAKES it individual people's place to make such decisions.

Doing crap on your own to suddenly change government without following the rules has a name. It's called a "coup"

[palsch]

I think this was designed to annoy some of you.

They've released three FISA orders authorising Section 501 collection. Heavily redacted. On Tumblr.

Although at least some parts are pretty clear. Reading through the first (July 7, 2009) the requirements of data privacy and minimisation are largely intact, with only a couple of blacked out sections that seem unlikely to change the meaning much, if at all. Most of the redactions are explicitly references to the two organisations noted as (b)(1) and (b)(3) which the government couldn't legally identify even in declassified documents. I'm going to say that this is the most complete summary of such requirements so far and makes a good starting point for the debate on requirements of handling such data.

Which isn't going to mean much to many people, but it's a start.


I'll have to dig back into the arguments I started when I have time (if anyone wants me to respond to something in particular please ask), but to catch up with the thread a little;

Representative democracy means little beyond what it says. There is no one philosophy of why or how representatives should be selected or vote that holds sway with the population, or even with political theorists. Trying to come up with an ideological pure model of how a representative should act is a futile game, coming into conflict with a dozen ideologies and issues.

I for one don't think a representative should always act purely as a proxy for the surveyed will of their constituency. Sometimes they are going to be representing interests or populations from within that population that might not be a majority, but which still deserve representation on a national (or regional) level. Sometimes the population in general are just going to be factually wrong, about damned near anything you care to poll them on (and I doubt anyone would expect Americans to do better, I just don't have the latest polls to hand there), often in ways that would be damaging to government or society if used as the basis of legislation.

One path I've seen suggested for serious national reforms is a citizen's jury. You pull a completely random cross section of the population to form the jury. You then give them access to specialists and certain interested parties to form as comprehensive an understanding of the topic they are called regarding as they care to. They then produce a report and suggestions for action.

Other than the random part and how the final report relates to actual action, this isn't a million miles from one philosophy of representative democracy. How the people get put forwards and how representative they are is only a way to stop the initial jury being stacked in favour of a particular interest before they have even considered the evidence and need for action. In theory you would want completely unbiased representatives, but in practice you try to balance the biases against each other, giving more groups a voice so that any majority or plurality is diluted, and attempts to force their will against the evidence are obvious and can be denounced.

But that's assuming we care about evidence based government, which again is not a philosophical given.

[bulborbish]

Republicans oppose 49 billion emergency spending requested by Obama for being not offset, proceed to pass $287 billion in tax cuts with no spending offset

Is it appropriate to call republican's hypocrites yet?

[LordSlowpoke]

not really, they're pretty consistent in this whole "let's crash the country" business

[Angle]

You forgot their "Let's kick the gays around complain about how they won't let us kick the gays around" platform.

[mainiac]

Republicans seem to be based on the idea that the more money the rich accumulate and don't spend, the better the economy is.

And that anything opposing this view is EVIL COMMIE PROPAGANDA!

I think it's the "With Notably Rare Exceptions" syndrome.  Increasing the capital stock increases output With Notably Rare Exceptions.  Problem being that the notably rare exceptions are only rare if you actually try to avoid them.  If you just assume that translating the monetary capital stock to real output is easy and dont bother to do it you end up unchaining them.

[GreatJustice]

Republicans seem to be based on the idea that the more money the rich accumulate and don't spend, the better the economy is.

And that anything opposing this view is EVIL COMMIE PROPAGANDA!

I dunno, both parties seem to support the idea of the rich accumulating money being equivalent to the economy improving, they just have different methods of achieving that goal. The Republicans support tax breaks etc while the Democrats support literally giving them several trillion dollars indirectly via Federal Reserve purchases.

[mainiac]

I dunno, both parties seem to support the idea of the rich accumulating money being equivalent to the economy improving, they just have different methods of achieving that goal. The Republicans support tax breaks etc while the Democrats support literally giving them several trillion dollars indirectly via Federal Reserve purchases.

"Literally giving" in this case meaning "purchasing financial assets from them at market value".  The purchased assets are hardly worthless: conservative source, liberal source

So, sound principle, but they don't work much beyond the principle itself, meaning that the money just accumulates like a puddle of piss around a terrified three year old's legs?

I'm actually working on a presentation on this very subject for class this week and I'm stuck on the fence.  On the one hand, there is vast accumulation of those puddles of money: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EXCSRESNS

On the other hand, that's doesn't account for all of the QE money: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/WALCL

But then there are questions with the M2 target and velocity and just... oh I dont know.