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[JoshuaFH]

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I'm not a political scientist, so I apologize if this sounds naive:

Doesn't the sheer size of the US inhibit the political process? That there's far too many issues, far too much at stake, to place into the hands of otherwise ignorant and apathetic laypeople? Wouldn't it be better if there were a tiered political process, say with the masses voting for their local governments only, and then the heads of those local governments being the only voters that can vote for representatives to state governments, and then the representatives of the States are the only voters that can vote people into national representatives overseeing the entire nation?

The benefits would be that it'd be downright impossible for idiots like Trump to come out of nowhere and skyrocket into a position of power; those positions of power would only be available to career politicians that had started at the bottom and worked their way up. Moreover, because each election is a small and disconnected process, the voting is impossible to fudge because there's just too few people in any single one. Also, that for people running, their constituency makes logical sense, who they have to appeal to for votes actually understand the issues, and the because the voter base is smaller, they wouldn't have to be in anyone's pocket for campaigning money, reducing the likelihood of corruption. It also allows the common man to focus on what's really important to them: those issues in their own community that they can actually understand and see the results from, rather than having to be educated on all issues that effect the entire world, which is unreasonable from the start. Fads and waves of popularity for causes or people would be greatly minimized, since they'd have to pass through the laborious trials of going through each tier of the democracy in order to get instituted at all, and fads never last long enough for that; so those people at the top can finally concern themselves with the greater issues of governing rather than be constantly pandering to the masses.

I don't know how parties would fit into all this, but I imagine those would be minimized as well, since the constituency of any given tier would be increasingly small and specialized, able to decide based on the facts rather than on popularity or party lines. I'm probably wrong on this one though, politicians just ruin everything.

The largest downside I can imagine would be that since the process is so much larger and slower, the masses lose a bit of that "consent of the governed" that makes government the smallest necessary evil it is; meaning that if the topmost administration is hated by the people, they can only vote for representatives that reflect that hatred at the local level, who then have to carry that to the next level, and so on, until a change in the topmost administration is made.

So, basically, our current democracy, but chopped up into lot of smaller democracies in a tiered pyramid structure. This is to accommodate the US's massive size and vast differences; and to allow governing to be rational without the drama and circus of massive elections every four years; and to allow elections to be themselves more rational and incorruptible. It's just an idea I've been stewing on for awhile, but I'm obviously one of those 'laypeople that aren't educated on the grander and subtler affairs of government'.

This is more or less exactly the electoral process used in the Chinese legislatures, incidentally, and in that particular case it means nothing due to all real power being held by an inner standing committee of oligarchs (partially hereditary). It's the most extensive legislature in the world with huge bodies of representatives very seriously campaigning for votes and deliberating on policy, while in reality even the small amounts of regionally devolved policy are settled by parallel non-government legislatures within the CPC.

Anyway, if I can find a point here, I'd just like to say that virtually every regime on the planet today holds elections (including the DPRK), and the formal process alone rarely makes an inkling of difference. Post-USSR Russia, for another example, started out with a constitution very similar to that of France, and immediately became an oligarchic kleptocracy and dictatorship without any altering of those rules. I used to think that the US could be "fixed" with a less stupid process than our system of casting most votes into the electoral equivalent of an incinerator, but really, it's the material basis of politics that matters more.

Yeah, I guess that's what it boils down to. Really, any government, no matter how well designed, is going to deteriorate if the people in it are unscrupulous and selfish bastards. Especially since that seems to be what the educational and economic system encourages people to be! Don't know how you'd go about changing that quickly.

[McTraveller]

Eh, fundamentally all government is simply an agreement between people - there is nothing "magic" about a government that gives it power.  Even a dictator can only be a dictator if enough people agree to enforce the dictator's decrees.  This is a pretty amazing thing when you realize it - for both good and ill.

[Frumple]

So hey, dunno if it's been mentioned yet, but the federal minimum age to purchase tobacco's apparently been raised to 21. Still kinda' leery 'cause mitch was one of the ones heading the bill, but... otherwise seems like a good thing. General indicators (it's been tried already on a state basis, with decent results) are it's probably going to get yet fewer people killed by or addicted to tobacco, mostly by way of making it harder for high schoolers to get their hands on it. Here's hopin'.

[Dunamisdeos]

Well that's nice. Just all around nice. Not used to that. What does it mean.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There's nothing nice about ramping up the drug war, again.

[Dunamisdeos]

Ah, there we go. Thank you. I was lost for a moment there.

[Doomblade187]

There's nothing nice about ramping up the drug war, again.

There is a balance between the war on drugs and letting tobacco companies sell to youth via pervasive marketing. While I would prefer a marketing ban, raising the min. age isn't the war on drugs in if itself.

[Kagus]

Ooh hey, marketing bans. Norway's got those, for both tobacco products and alcohol.

Funny thing about the rules on alcohol marketing though, is that it's technically illegal for a bartender to offer you booze. In a bar.


As in if a person walks into a bar, which is already an age-restricted zone, and they go over to the bar, the bartender is technically not allowed to say something like "Can I get you a beer?". Because that's advertising for alcohol... And advertising for alcohol is illegal.

Unless you specifically ask for something, they're not really supposed to mention the fact that there might be alcohol in this establishment that is dedicated to serving alcohol.

This also makes it so that breweries can't post pictures of their new beers on their social media accounts. Or mention them by name.

[Doomblade187]

Heh, that is an excellent example of a poorly written law.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There's nothing nice about ramping up the drug war, again.

There is a balance between the war on drugs and letting tobacco companies sell to youth via pervasive marketing. While I would prefer a marketing ban, raising the min. age isn't the war on drugs in if itself.

Holy shit, yes it fucking is. The only reason this is less harmful than all the shit that goes down with alcohol in high schools and colleges, which gets people killed constantly, is that tobacco is a less harmful drug overall. This will be used to destroy the lives of young people and increase police brutality, mostly on children.

And this thread is even worse for my health than either, because all the government has to do is listen to their PR people when doing something and I find you all in here fawning over it!

[Dunamisdeos]

There's nothing nice about ramping up the drug war, again.

There is a balance between the war on drugs and letting tobacco companies sell to youth via pervasive marketing. While I would prefer a marketing ban, raising the min. age isn't the war on drugs in if itself.

Holy shit, yes it fucking is. The only reason this is less harmful than all the shit that goes down with alcohol in high schools and colleges, which gets people killed constantly, is that tobacco is a less harmful drug overall. This will be used to destroy the lives of young people and increase police brutality, mostly on children.

And this thread is even worse for my health than either, because all the government has to do is listen to their PR people when doing something and I find you all in here fawning over it!

I do not recall a rash of incidents involving police brutality in regards to cigarette use on high school campuses.

I don't recall any in relation to alcohol use, either.

I am looking forward to learning about ways that restricting the sale of of cigarettes to children is going to [drug war]. Is it because kids are smoking cigarettes instead of using harder drugs, and now we are taking away the cigarettes so now there's more harder drugs?

[McTraveller]

I think the argument is that it's yet another law the authorities can use to assert authority over people.

[Dunamisdeos]

Yeah but like, how different is this from the regular 18-years-or-over-laws in terms of the effect this is going to have on society and, apparently, police brutality?
 
Is the 18 age law causing problems with children? Are the police curb stomping 17 year olds they catch with cigarettes? Do we expect them to fly-kick people who are 20 and attempting to buy cigarettes? Is this already happening and I am unaware of it? Feels like this is unlikely to have any widespread deleterious effects. Someone even said it had already been put into effect on a state level.
 
The downside of being a sarcastic jokey ponce all the time is people can't tell when I'm not being one.

[Enemy post]

To be honest, I thought the age limit was already 21 and younger people were simply ignoring it.

[Zangi]

There's nothing nice about ramping up the drug war, again.

Unless they go after rich white folk who happened to do it legally.