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[XXSockXX]

I think the 2 party system is one of the main reasons for the toxic political climate in the US. In Germany we have almost the opposite problem - too much consensus. Erosion of traditional voter milieus (and scepticism towards extreme ideologies) forces all political parties, even smaller ones, to expand their voter base into the moderate middle of society, not on the fringes. The disadvantge of that is that you can't vote for anybody if you're opposed to certain policies (as ideas like the anti-nuclear movement move from the fringe to the middle over decades and become consensus), the advantage is that the more crazy ideas and aggressive rhetoric get shot down very quickly.
To get a multi-party system going you would have to implement some proportional elements into the voting system though. (In the case of Germany for example this is done with a system that mixes proportional with plurality voting, were everybody has 2 votes.)

[Loud Whispers]

See, I agree partially with this. I think it IS media moguls trying to serve their best interests, but only to a point. I don't think they intend to make the populace ignorant, but to make more money.

They correlate.

RIP STEVE JEBS ;-;

They MAY be taking advantage of our self-imposed ignorance, but they're not trying to lull us into some false-sense of security or anything. They're taking advantage of the current situation, and this is by catering to what we want, plain and simple.

And encouraging everyone to be ignorant.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fox news top three stories today:

• Sex for visas.
  
• Zimmerman trial.
  
• Country singer in critical condition.

ABC news top three stories today:

• Cheerleader sues website for lewd defamation.
  
• The mystery of the forest swastikas.
  
• Country singer hospitalized.

NBC top three stories today:

• Zimmerman trial.
  
• Roswell UFO not taken seriously anymore.
  
• Country singer in critical condition.

MSNBC top three stories today:

• George Zimmerman trial.
  
• Something about democrats, scandals and forgiveness.
  
• Guns, insurance and children.

CBS news top three stories today:

• George Zimmerman trial.
  
• Economy growing slower than expected.
  
• Country star in critical condition.

CNN news top three stories today:

• Egypt's interim president limits his powers, sets timetable for elections
• Did Asiana pilot have enough 777 experience?
  
• Girls killed in crash were headed for camp.
  

________________________________________________________________________________


BBC top three stories today:

• Brazil riots, poll says corruption is getting worse.
  
• Egypt unrest: Interim leader outlines election timetable.
  
• Bin Laden Ladening Ladenned in Pakistan.

Russia Today top three stories today in not-Russia:

• Only Obama can stop Gitmo force-feeding.
  
• President Nicolas Maduro confirms that Venezuela received an asylum request from Edward Snowden.
• NSA controls global Internet traffic via private fiber-optic cables.

Al Jazeera top three stories today:

• Egypt timetable issued after shootings.
  
• Japan slams 'coercive' Chinese naval action.
  
• Zimbabwe PM announces anti-Mugabe coalition.
  

I really wonder which came first, the ignorance or the decline to ignorance. Jershey shore is on its sixth season.

And if you doubt how owned all American media is, you are in for a ride that never ends - welcome to Mr. Bones wild land of the free.

We can all point fingers all we want, but you can't get someone more interested in something important by yelling at them that they should, because it's important. It's like telling a kid to do his homework because it's important, if he already doesn't give a shit telling him to do it won't make him give any more of a shit.

There is no hope for these people. Anything outside of the realm of belief is impossible, everything outside of their visible horizons are irrelevant. Such is what is born from a culture where ignorance is prized. There are of such great amount of things to blame, it isn't quite worth the effort to try to do so.

How I see it, the only way to renew people's interest in politics (Outside of wars, economic depression, and other simple alternatives) is to simply get involved yourself. It sounds cheesy, but it's true.

Welcome back to partisanship and controlled opposition.

[Frumple]

We have the option to vote for candidates from the level of local government, to the level of national government. We have PLENTY of control, we just choose not to use or enforce it. Again, the system is NOT set up to make it difficult for the average person to get involved, it's very open to general input.

This is just... no. I'm... I'm kinda' sorry, but no. It takes a hell of a lot more than just choice to use or enforce the control we potentially have. The system itself is necessarily near-impossible for the average person to get involved with, especially on actual policy making levels, simply due to the raw logistics behind getting elected or getting the bodies necessary to get yourself listened to together. Th'average fellow can get involved, but it's going to be at the whim and patronage of someone else. There is a bloody reason the majority of elected positions on every freaking level of government in the states are largely held by people of a relatively advantageous economic position. Those without economic clout or backing (latter of which you damn sure better believe is going to come with riders) cannot, barring the rare exception, manage to manage a campaign. We can vote for candidates on all levels of government, but those people we're voting on are by and large going to be coming out of the same pool of people. It's possible to do things differently (crowdfunding equivalents, etc.), but those with a raw resource advantage stays ahead of the game for a reason, and it's not just because of lack of will.

Conceptually, we do have a lot of control in the states. However, the logistics behind organizing that control means that practically that control is next to impossible to leverage and effectively damningly small. Information technology development may be lightening the logistics burden there, but it remains to be seen if it's actually going to bring it down to a level that we actually see the barrier to entry into politics and general governance made healthy.

... I'd agree that getting involved is one of the only ways to even attempt to change that, though. Identifying and building the networks necessary for expressing what control the populace does have starts with that.

Also caveat that it's like two AM and I'm half asleep. Some of that may be somewhat disjointed. But goddamn, sorry Bd, saying that "we just choose not to use or enforce [our control]" is so massively understating the issue it's almost painful.

[Morrigi]

If we had a choice in this whole thing, it wouldn't have happened in the first place. Look at how the American culture has changed in the past fifty years.

Then? You could pick up a rifle at a hardware store as a child. Now? Background checks, deeply-ingrained fear of firearms, arguments to ban them entirely...

Then, what was a whistleblower? An exposer of legitimate governmental misconduct. Now, he is a dirty, treasonous TERRORIST!

Then, what was a mass-murder? A tragedy. Now, it is TERRORISM!

Make of that what you will. I could write a speech on this, but if I did someone might accuse me of TERRORISM...

But who, one must ask, is the real terrorist? The hacker, showing how truly vulnerable the government is? The partisan, fighting for his country and culture as anyone might? The whistleblower,  revealing that which has been hidden? Or the institution that demonizes them all and... cause us to be afraid?

[Aseaheru]

PTW and to rant.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thing I hate, the groups that are created to make it worse while pretending to make it better.

[Morrigi]

PTW and to rant.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thing I hate, the groups that are created to make it worse while pretending to make it better.

The curse of humanity.

[EnigmaticHat]

If we had a choice in this whole thing, it wouldn't have happened in the first place. Look at how the American culture has changed in the past fifty years.

Then? You could pick up a rifle at a hardware store as a child. Now? Background checks, deeply-ingrained fear of firearms, arguments to ban them entirely...

Then, what was a whistleblower? An exposer of legitimate governmental misconduct. Now, he is a dirty, treasonous TERRORIST!

Then, what was a mass-murder? A tragedy. Now, it is TERRORISM!

Make of that what you will. I could write a speech on this, but if I did someone might accuse me of TERRORISM...

But who, one must ask, is the real terrorist? The hacker, showing how truly vulnerable the government is? The partisan, fighting for his country and culture as anyone might? The whistleblower,  revealing that which has been hidden? Or the institution that demonizes them all and... cause us to be afraid?

The thing is, terrorism does exist.  Its not just a made up category.  The way our government has reacted to it is terrible, but the concept of terrorism is valid.

A terrorist is a person who carries out an activity similar to war, but that isn't technically war because they don't claim to serve or represent a governing body, nor are they fighting a civil war, nor are they necessarily fighting a specific governing body.  This distinction has a practical application: terrorists transcend nations and borders so that neither police nor soldiers are exactly right for dealing with them.  Thus modern governments need to come up with new ways.  The US has decided to deal with terrorists both as criminals and enemy combatants, whichever is harsher... which is fucking insane.  To give an example, US soldiers are under no obligation to attempt to capture terrorists alive the way the police need use limited force on criminals.  Yet, once they have captured a terrorist, they can give them sentences as if they were criminals.  The way you're supposed to deal with captured enemy combatants is hold them until the war is over and then release them.  But the war on terror is never going to end, and terrorists have no rights, which is why we have shit like off-grid prison camps where people are "held indefinitely without trial".  We've waged total, literal war on a concept.

For all that, its still not fair to say that our government's idea of terrorists is non-violent hackers and whistleblowers.  Terrorists have blown up buildings and shot people.  Its happened.

[Loud Whispers]

PTW and to rant.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thing I hate, the groups that are created to make it worse while pretending to make it better.

I hate these people the most. Arseholes? They're tolerable, at least they acknowledge they're awful people. But when you have an entire movement based around doing bad things citing "good" justifications, you're doing far more damage - you're reducing the visible possible actions to bad and worse.

[RedKing]

Then? You could pick up a rifle at a hardware store as a child. Now? Background checks, deeply-ingrained fear of firearms, arguments to ban them entirely...

....you can still buy a rifle at Wal-Mart. With no waiting period. And I'd seriously argue the "deeply-ingrained fear" bit, considering how ubiquitous they are in our pop culture.

But we should probably not go down this road of discussion. That way lies only madness.

[Aseaheru]

Good idea. Some people like flopping between things.

[Dutchling]

PTW political failure

[RedKing]

PTW political failure

My take on this thread:

[Mictlantecuhtli]

PTW political failure

My take on this thread:

It was never an intellectual topic of discussion either way. Anecdotal narrow self-reinforcing views fed by similar minded people does not 'dissent' make.

[Scoops Novel]

Where possible, let's raise the bar, but I'm still interested in the anecdote. For a start, what studies have been done into the voter turnout rate? I'm searching it myself, but I'd appreciate what you can find.

[RedKing]

Here's a good start.

The amount of scholarly attention directed at resolving the question why people turn out to cast a vote is vast. In a research field dominated by empirical studies – such as the one on voter turnout – an overview of where we stand and what we know is not superfluous. Therefore, the present paper reviews and assesses the empirical evidence brought forward through a meta-analysis of 83 aggregate-level studies. We thereby concentrate on the effect of socio-economic, political and institutional variables. The results argue for the introduction of a ‘core’ model of voter turnout – including, among other elements, population size and election closeness – that can be used as a starting point for extending our knowledge on why people vote.

EDIT: Damn, paper is behind a paywall.