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[Rolan7]

Yes, it's politically popular to complain about illegal immigrant violence against American citizens, but what about legal citizen on legal citizen violence?  I don't see anybody commenting on the homicide rate within the legal citizen community.  How can they complain about illegal immigrants killing them, when they kill each other even more?

My "racist" family members never pushed an idea that illegal Mexican immigrants are especially violent.  They actually suggested that hard-working immigrant families were victimized by black people during the day, while the men were at work.  Can't even personally say that's true, just what racist family members said.

Basically, Trump is full of shit and reality is morally grey.  News at 11.

It was the liberal activist groups I hung around which told me about how illegal Mexicans are tools of Corporate America.  No social justice feelings parade, they called a spade a spade.  Actual activists.  Actual demonstrations, on bicycle, with arrests and hospitalizations.

I miss those days when I gave a shit.

[Rolepgeek]

Ok, but comparing 13th-century Europe to 20th-century Europe is apples to oranges. And there were 13th-century republics that committed atrocities as well. Venice paid the Crusaders to go fuck up some Christian towns down the Adriatic, because they had dared to break away. Then they paid them to sack Constantinople for the lulz and the gold. In the 1600s, they blew up the fucking Parthenon while fighting the Turks.

Moreover, you're treating this as an all-or-nothing situation: either full-blooded representative democracy in which the will of the masses dictates all, or an autocracy. What we were discussing is neither. If you wanted to be uncharitable, you could call it an oligarchy. If you were charitable, it would be a democracy with a limited electorate, similar to those of the 1700s.

In addition, there was nothing said of removing Congress from the equation. That could still be popularly elected, and provide citizens with a voice in government.

Look at the Westminster system -- people don't vote for Prime Minister, they vote for their local MP. (Now, the PM is selected by the majority party, so to some extent it is an indirect election.)

Hell, look at 16th-century Europe. My point wasn't about all or nothing, my point was that more democracy tends to put more balances and restrictions on individual leaders. It's a tendency, not an absolute. It's harder to lead one's nation towards greatness with as much vigor and fire as the emperors of antiquity, but it's also harder to be Vlad the Impaler. Not impossible, just harder. Even in 13th century Europe there were councils and all that. Yeah, the Republics paid people to go fuck up other people. By and large they didn't fuck over their own people more than could be expected from merchants (and I'm not certain how much of that was will of the people and how much of that was the righteous Doge Enrico Dandolo and his army of memes being possibly the most memorable leader of Venice ever).

I also personally don't really like the part of the parliamentary where you vote for a party and then the party decides who gets to be in office. I'd much rather just have compulsory mail-ballot voting.

Just don't go reactionary on us, RedKing >.>

In the medieval era, that would've been jack shit where extermination of populations was a regular thing that rulers conducted. Oh, that town we just took is being uppity? Yeah, burn it down, put the inhabitants to the sword, salt the earth for, oh, a dozen leagues around? That should serve as a decent enough example, I figure.

Civic rights?  City charters?

Yes, because the King of [insert country] cared about those before he was forced to. And yeah, there certainly were nobles who cared and abided by it, but there's not much in the way of teeth, not reliably enough to be comfortable in that security. The Thirty Years war certainly took those into account (not being sarcastic either), and shit still got burned down plenty.

[Rolan7]

Democracy is a lie, even in America.
Everyone in America could want a change of pace and it wouldn't matter, we'd still get a another Rep or Dem figurehead.  No wonder people tried to vote for the ineffectual change candidate, and are now flocking to the "fuck ALL this" candidate.
k
It's the prisoner's dilemma: Anyone trying to vote against the status quo is going to get shafted by the "other side".  It's actually irrational to try to fight it in the election itself, or even the primary.  Maybe there's some chance of a constitutional amendment, but I don't really think so.

Literally might just move to Canada finally, after I vote against Trump.  I'd vote for Bill but I don't really consider this voting "for" anyone.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

With all the other 2016-isms of this year, I'm honestly a bit disappointed by the lack of appearance of my long-standing prediction that Hillary would get a birther-analogue in the form of claiming electing her effectively gives Bill a third term and is thus illegal.

[Reelya]

The voters as a whole might make horrible decisions locally (hello, Iraq war), but in the long run they mostly end up doing what's right. Even if only because our notion of 'right' is shaped by what they did.

The voters had no say on the Iraq War. When Bush was elected in 2000, that was before 9/11, so the world potentially blowing up and the government going rogue and invading people wasn't even on the table.

The administration carried out the War on Terror, Afghanistan War and Iraq War all before voters could have another say. That's why Iraq was in 2003: it was important to make the Iraq War a done deal before the election campaign in 2004. Avoid giving the peons any sense that they're voting on whether or not a war goes ahead. Then when voting happens in 2004 it's against the backdrop of an already-ongoing war, and you can say to people "if you change leaders now things will really explode and the terrorists will get you!"

And what real choice is there? Bill Clinton had Kosovo and Somalia interventions which were both kind of messed up, but to avoid having those wars, you could have voted for Bush Senior, the guy who invaded Panama, and Iraq the first time. And Obama has all the drone attacks and other stuff going on, all over the place.

So it's not a question of the voters voting for someone who starts a war, it's tossing up whether you think one guy or the other won't go quite as crazy with bombing people as the other guy.

[Frumple]

Democracy is a lie, even in America.
Everyone in America could want a change of pace and it wouldn't matter, we'd still get a another Rep or Dem figurehead.  No wonder people tried to vote for the ineffectual change candidate, and are now flocking to the "fuck ALL this" candidate.

... no, if everyone actually wanted change it'd be pretty trivial to get someone that wasn't a republican or democrat, assuming they wanted someone that wasn't a republican or democrat. Like, if everyone actually wants change it wouldn't be particularly difficult to rewrite most or all of the constitution, nevermind something less involved or far reaching. Time consuming, but that's about it. People voted for the change candidate or the fuckitall candidate for all sorts of reasons, anger at the status quo they're not capable enough to get to change the way they want at the moment just one of them.

Thing is, a lot of folks don't much want change, or at the least don't want the same sort many other folks do. So like in a proper democracy the wheels just sorta' spin in place. Because you don't have much in the way of consensus. That's democracy working, not being a lie. It just happens that because no sufficiently large body of the polity can agree certain shit needs to be done and how, the shit doesn't get done.

Now, you can say there's a problem with that lack of consensus, but that doesn't really mean the system itself is broke. Just that folks are being stubborn and not letting it work all that well, from one point of view or another.

[Reelya]

Yeah, democracy is real. Most people have shit taste in most things, haven't you noticed? Why should political parties be any different. Sturgeon's Law applies here too.

As well as what Frumple said, there are also fundamental questions about what democracy is, and what it should be. People can't agree on the scope of things that democratic control should even cover, which is probably an impediment to getting one that "works" since different people won't define a "working democracy" quite the same way.

[Rolan7]

... no, if everyone actually wanted change it'd be pretty trivial to get someone that wasn't a republican or democrat, assuming they wanted someone that wasn't a republican or democrat. Like, if everyone actually wants change it wouldn't be particularly difficult to rewrite most or all of the constitution, nevermind something less involved or far reaching. Time consuming, but that's about it. People voted for the change candidate or the fuckitall candidate for all sorts of reasons, anger at the status quo they're not capable enough to get to change the way they want at the moment just one of them.

Nah.  "Republicans" and "Democrats" both want campaign finance reform, but it's still the prisoner's dilemma.  Sure the other side is *saying* they won't betray you - if they bother to reach out - but if you trust them, and they betray you, they win. 

So you have to choose the strong establishment candidates or get screwed.  So we get no election reform.  Status quo. 

I mean, absurd madman Trump does defy that trend - but it's not like the President can fix campaign finance policy.  That's not what the President *does*.  It's congress that determines legislation, yet we're lucky if someone shows up to vote for figurehead and remembers to fill in the straight-ticket box.

Democracy just doesn't work in America...
The parliamentary elections of the civilized world solved this problem so long ago, but we have no practical recourse so we're stuck with an objectively shitty system.  The establishment is never going to vote to dissolve itself.

The system is not broken.  The system is corrupt!

[SalmonGod]

Yes, it's politically popular to complain about illegal immigrant violence against American citizens, but what about legal citizen on legal citizen violence?  I don't see anybody commenting on the homicide rate within the legal citizen community.  How can they complain about illegal immigrants killing them, when they kill each other even more?

My "racist" family members never pushed an idea that illegal Mexican immigrants are especially violent.  They actually suggested that hard-working immigrant families were victimized by black people during the day, while the men were at work.  Can't even personally say that's true, just what racist family members said.

Basically, Trump is full of shit and reality is morally grey.  News at 11.

It was the liberal activist groups I hung around which told me about how illegal Mexicans are tools of Corporate America.  No social justice feelings parade, they called a spade a spade.  Actual activists.  Actual demonstrations, on bicycle, with arrests and hospitalizations.

I miss those days when I gave a shit.

I was just having fun with turnabout on the average conservative response to BLM.

[Rolepgeek]

Democracy is a lie, even in America.
Everyone in America could want a change of pace and it wouldn't matter, we'd still get a another Rep or Dem figurehead.  No wonder people tried to vote for the ineffectual change candidate, and are now flocking to the "fuck ALL this" candidate.
k
It's the prisoner's dilemma: Anyone trying to vote against the status quo is going to get shafted by the "other side".  It's actually irrational to try to fight it in the election itself, or even the primary.  Maybe there's some chance of a constitutional amendment, but I don't really think so.

Literally might just move to Canada finally, after I vote against Trump.  I'd vote for Bill but I don't really consider this voting "for" anyone.

I disagree.

Trump is quite a clear indicator that the status quo doesn't always get what it wants, and while you're right that it's very difficult to unilaterally effect change on a wide scale in the federal system, that's because it's not supposed to work that way. It starts with the states. And they are making progress. Slow, grinding, piecemeal progress in terms of changing the system itself when looked at as a whole, but I think that may be because we look at things from an internet timescale now.

[Rolan7]

Ah... maybe.
I live in NC so maybe I'm distracted by the bad.

[Reelya]

I also personally don't really like the part of the parliamentary where you vote for a party and then the party decides who gets to be in office. I'd much rather just have compulsory mail-ballot voting.

I think that's really misconstruing how a parliament works. Each region votes on a local representative. Then, a government forms out of a coalition with a majority of votes. People are selected from the parliament to be ministers, but these people needed to win their local elections. So at each election the possible people who can be selected to be ministers changes. Unpopular people are excluded from the available people to run the government, no matter what the Supreme Leader wants. So it's not tied to a "party" at all, you just need a majority of votes in parliament to appoint ministers.

The thing is, right now, you're voting on one guy, the president, then he appoints un-elected people to run everything - you have no say on who he picks. So I'd say that the presidential system is more like "vote for a party and then the party decides who gets to be in office" than a parliamentary system. You're picking a figurehead, and then he appoints god-knows-who to be in charge of the actual show. Guys like Rumsfeld or Manafort.

A parliament is also more functional: the biggest voting bloc appoints ministers to be in charge of things, and these ministers can be recalled and replaced at any time, including the Prime Minister if they screw up. So the system is more responsive: factions can change in between elections, and unpopular prime ministers can lose their leadership mandate. You're not necessarily stuck with the same nutjob in charge for the whole 4 years, they have to establish their right to be in charge of parliament on an ongoing, daily basis. Whereas the US impeaching a president, that's basically never going to happen.

The American system with an independent executive who are most unelected causes your guys to mostly concoct ways they can bypass congress to get things done sneakily - effectively side-stepping all the democratic controls which are mean to be in place.

[RedKing]

It'd be interesting if there were a "no-confidence vote" mechanism in place, where a sufficient threshold of Congress voting could dissolve government and call for new elections. Except that the minority party would be holding that vote every goddamn day.

Just look at Obamacare. The House has voted SIXTY-TWO times and counting to repeal Obamacare, knowing damn well that they didn't have the votes to pass it in the Senate or survive a Presidential veto. It's like if you gave Congress a box that said "Break Glass In Case of Emergency", and then they proceeded to keep breaking it for no reason whatsoever.

Impeachment sort of works like this, except there actually has to be criminal grounds for impeachment, not just "you're doing a shitty job". (Not that this will stop the GOP from trying to impeach Hillary literally on Inauguration Day).

[mainiac]

Democracy is a lie, even in America.
Everyone in America could want a change of pace and it wouldn't matter, we'd still get a another Rep or Dem figurehead.

Clinton won the primary because she got a majority of the votes.  Trump won the primary because he got a strong plurality of the votes and the republican nominations are less democratic by design.  The problem isn't democracy, the problem is that you are a minority.  So you are pissed off that the system is WAD.

Yes, because the King of [insert country] cared about those before he was forced to. And yeah, there certainly were nobles who cared and abided by it, but there's not much in the way of teeth, not reliably enough to be comfortable in that security. The Thirty Years war certainly took those into account (not being sarcastic either), and shit still got burned down plenty.

Well now you are in a whole other century.  How about I point out that your daughter isn't safe in her bed because the Barbary pirates kidnap white women and make them sex slaves?  Or how the feds love to burn down cities in Georgia these days.

[Max™]

Well this seems really apt, got here on a bit of a linkwalk that I can't even remember fully (something about neanderthals and animal empathy?) but it's super relevant here, especially the later bit about internet discussions: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/how-politics-breaks-our-brains-and-how-we-can-put-them-back-together/453315/