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[Nilocy]

I'm considering starting a political party that does nothing but encourage more people to take politics seriously. Doing this by:

Encouraging more to vote and telling the media to fuck off.

Two simple aims that I can see quite easily getting me elected.

[Realmfighter]

I would vote for you.

[sonerohi]

I and my philosophical/societal/personal values movement will back your party.

[Aqizzar]

Encouraging more to vote and telling the media to fuck off.

Two simple aims that I can see quite easily getting me elected.

Describe your stances on-

• Gun Control
• Abortion
• Sales Tax
• Medicare Funding
• Chinese Tariffs
• Tax-Funded Research Grants
• Public Management of Student Loans
• Infrastructure Repair Priority
• Nuclear Readiness/Disarmament

Long story short, I'm not voting for you.  Even the worst journalism still generates public interest, and telling "the media" to "fuck off", is a fast track to constant investigation.  Every political party wants their own people to vote and spends exorbitant campaign funding to do just that.  Encouraging people who don't support you to vote is a fast track to irrelevancy.

I understand this is as much flippant conversation starting as anything, but I don't see anything to discuss.

[sonerohi]

I believe the idea is flawed as is, but as a political movement it is sound. Getting more people involved in politics to the level they should be before voting will ultimately lead to a nation healthier for its citizens wants and acting their desires.

[Aqizzar]

Define "the level they should be".  Define "healthier".  Define the "desires" of all voters in the country.

I hate to break it to you, but telling people get interested in politics, go vote, and ignore media distortion is exactly the goal of every political organization in the country.  Every single one of them just happens to filter those goals through their political biases, because all people are inherently politically biased.

As awful as it sounds, this right here?  This is as good as it gets from the top down.  If you want people to better inform themselves on politics and exercise their power to vote more often and more judiciously, you have to start much closer to the grain.  You can only shout it from the rooftops so loudly, and that threshold was crossed decades ago.

[sonerohi]

The problem is, with how things are, we cannot pin a definition to those terms, only vague ideas that sound nice. We've got a helluva lot of Thomas Jeferson goin, where is our John Quincy Adams?

[Aqizzar]

The problem is, with how things are, we cannot pin a definition to those terms, only vague ideas that sound nice.

If you mean "with how things are now", then you've completely missed my point.  At any time in history, you can ask every person in a country to define political literacy, their desires for their country, and how to make it healthier, and you'll get a different answer, often wildly different and mutually exclusive answers, from every single person.  That's what politics is.
 
If you knew that in the first place, and were speaking generally and not contemporaneously, then I apologize for going off topic.  And I don't know what you're getting at.

[sonerohi]

I'm saying that in general, we have an odd situation. It's like trying to thumbtack a sheet to a frame that is moving constantly and causing the sheet to billow out. Can't really pin it, it holds no definition. And the thing with Jefferson and John Q. As should be known, Jefferson was the man who wrote the Declaration, and brainstormed the Preamble. The superstition/myth/rumor/tall tale is that when Jefferson got up and named all those ideals, Quincy told him to shut up unless he could define them, for everyone. Grounded Jefferson a bit, and they worked together to make a more flexible system that protected everyones interpretations of those things. The problem is, we have a lot of those fancy, good sounding words being thrown out. We need our times Quincy to tell Barrack (just as an example, a lot more people need this too) to shut up until he can tell us what we are hoping for, and what needs changed and the why.

[Nilocy]

Encouraging more to vote and telling the media to fuck off.

Two simple aims that I can see quite easily getting me elected.

Describe your stances on-

• Gun Control
• Abortion
• Sales Tax
• Medicare Funding
• Chinese Tariffs
• Tax-Funded Research Grants
• Public Management of Student Loans
• Infrastructure Repair Priority
• Nuclear Readiness/Disarmament

Long story short, I'm not voting for you.  Even the worst journalism still generates public interest, and telling "the media" to "fuck off", is a fast track to constant investigation.  Every political party wants their own people to vote and spends exorbitant campaign funding to do just that.  Encouraging people who don't support you to vote is a fast track to irrelevancy.

I understand this is as much flippant conversation starting as anything, but I don't see anything to discuss.

All of those points can be solved with 5 words. I live in the UK. We alreay have abortion laws, we don't have guns, and we have the NHS.

But, what my original point was was that the media has too much of a grip on our lives and is stirring up such a shit storm that we care too much about ourselves to look at the bigger picture. Hence telling the media to fuck off, and to encourage more people to vote.

[Aqizzar]

Sorry Nilocy, I completely forgot you're British.  That does change things some, but I have to believe that those issues still get raised from time to time by wingnuts wanting to change the system.  Especially the gun thing, I here that has some movements now.

Uh, don't take the wrong idea from the mentions of Jefferson and Adams.  I for one apologize for that whole mess.

[Strife26]

I really want to list my stance on all those issues, but I don't want to derail the thread.

[Shades]

Describe your stances on-

• Gun Control
• Abortion
• Sales Tax
• Medicare Funding
• Chinese Tariffs
• Tax-Funded Research Grants
• Public Management of Student Loans
• Infrastructure Repair Priority
• Nuclear Readiness/Disarmament

All of those points can be solved with 5 words. I live in the UK. We alreay have abortion laws, we don't have guns, and we have the NHS.

I notice you don't actually answer the question, just infer a response from where you live. How very politician like.

(also uk based, so far you don't get my vote though)

I really want to list my stance on all those issues, but I don't want to derail the thread. :(

Your stance would be wrong anyway strife :)

[Strife26]

Gun Control: Federal funding to a national registry of everything bigger than a .22. Three day cooling period and back-ground checks on all firearm purchases. National registry for CCP's. Amend the Constitution to declare arms to be an individual right, and not restrict anything less than LMG's.

Abortion: Declare it to be personally morally reprehensible, but acknowledge R v W as out of my power to change. No federal funding for abortions (as per Hyde Amendment)

Sales Tax: Probably end up raising it, just to fund assorted other programs.

Medicare: Eh, not quite ready for something concrete.

Tariffs: They're there, but not crippling. Just to compensate for the massive trade imbalance.

Research Grants: Sure. Maybe be a bit pickier about giving them out.

Loans: Federal guidelines on the interest chargeable, as well as schools advertising them. Possibly let the Federal Government give out student loans.

Infrastructure: Light a fire under the works departments (and everyone else, really). Get the states to pay for most of it.

Nuclear Disarmament: Not a chance in hell.

[Aqizzar]

I only made that list to point out that you need a lot more than a vitriolic sentence of intent to rally a political party.  But hey, I get a chance to pick Strife's brain, what fun.

Amend the Constitution to declare arms to be an individual right, and not restrict anything less than LMG's.

What exactly is that supposed to mean?  How is the language of 2nd Amendment not adequate?  What about ammunition types?  Stockpiling laws?

Sales Tax: Probably end up raising it, just to fund assorted other programs.

I just threw this in as it hit my mind.  There is no national sales tax (specifically so anyway), and every state has it's own constitutional rules about how sales taxes work.  That's important for a party operating in different states though.

Loans: Federal guidelines on the interest chargeable, as well as schools advertising them. Possibly let the Federal Government give out student loans.

That's exactly the point.  Right now, the federal government subsidizes banks to make student loans.  We've since figured out it would be simpler and cheaper (or more effective if the funding stays the same) for the federal bank to just make the loans itself.  There's a not inconsequential number of Congressmen who don't like this idea.

Infrastructure: Light a fire under the works departments (and everyone else, really). Get the states to pay for most of it.

America's infrastructure is crap precisely because nobody's paying for it anymore.  Most states have very strict rules about budgeting, and have written off infrastructure, especially highways and waterworks, as the federal budget's responsibility.  At the same time that American political culture, especially in Congress, regards infrastructure as a naturally occurring phenomenon.  All comes back to the same question, where ya gonna get the money?

Nuclear Disarmament: Not a chance in hell.

America's stockpile of nuclear warheads could annihilate the entire Earth landmass eight times over.  Our Trident submarine fleet alone could level every strategic population center on the planet in thirty minutes with plenty of ammo to spare.  How many times do you need to end the world are we preparing for?  Let's compromise at two, just in case the first doesn't take.

Medicare, Tariffs, Research Grants

Doesn't look like either of us is much qualified to argue about this one.  Just an endless revolving litany of, "I dunno".