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Post by themoviesinner on May 9, 2017 7:23:29 GMT
I wouldn't be so fast. Macron said quite a few of things that weren't half-dumb in the last few weeks and he's only 39 so he'll actually have to live some more years in the world he's gonna shape now. Of course the correlation between money, corruption and power is an unsavory one, especially in France but a) you got to work with the situation at hand and b) this is possibly a trend that is in reverse already. Try to compare Hillary's and Trump's campaign spending for instance (of course Trump was a reality TV-star though which also give him a big boost) or try to look at Sanders' model. A central problem which you do not touch lies in who even wants to become a politician. It's not such a particularly great job, the most intelligent people tend to avoid it is my experience. And you need a certain degree of narzicism/egomania to want to think you'd make a good president of the USA. Another problem is that politicians already cater completely to public opinion (Merkel does by and large actually do what Germans want, make no mistake about that, the only politican that is more popular is Schäuble). The central problem is that public debate is dying in the process of the economisation of self. We wouldn't vote for these people if we wouldn't want them. The only way to change our politicians is to change public opinion. They come and go with it. Definitely, being a politician is not an easy job and not a particularly appealing one, but if someone has things to offer as one (and wants to) he has to have connections with the right people for him to have hopes of even being a candidate for the position. I don't think people like you or me could become politicians even if we wanted to, unless we started kissing butts left and right. As for Macron, he did say some sensible things, but I have become very wary with politicians, especially those that come from exteme neoliberal circles. And I agree with you that only public opinion can change our politicians, but public opinion is mainly forged through the media and we all know who controls that.
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erickeitel
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Post by erickeitel on May 9, 2017 12:24:15 GMT
its so much easier to respect a decision when it was clearly what more than a majority of the country wanted. imagine being basically 50/50 and losing.... when you had more votes. How's the "brotherhood of Trump" working out for you?
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Nyx
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Post by Nyx on May 9, 2017 13:04:16 GMT
Macron!
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Post by HELENA MARIA on May 9, 2017 15:35:41 GMT
Macron is an elitist prick.He's a media-hologram image created by the EU oligarch's for public consumption.
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tobias
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Post by tobias on May 9, 2017 15:42:17 GMT
Definitely, being a politician is not an easy job and not a particularly appealing one, but if someone has things to offer as one (and wants to) he has to have connections with the right people for him to have hopes of even being a candidate for the position. I don't think people like you or me could become politicians even if we wanted to, unless we started kissing butts left and right. I don't actually think it's that hard in Germany. Quite a few of our most famous politicians come from rather modest conditions. It's an entirely different deal in France where the entire parliament is full of people from the french Ivy-League type schools (Macron is too and Hollande was aswell), even across the parties. In Germany we don't have a corresponding Ivy-League because all universities are public (those that are not may not call themselves universities).
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bkguy182
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Post by bkguy182 on May 9, 2017 16:18:58 GMT
its so much easier to respect a decision when it was clearly what more than a majority of the country wanted. imagine being basically 50/50 and losing.... when you had more votes. So you basically think that only New York, Miami and California should elect the President? Because it's what would look like without the electoral college. no, i think the candidate who had more than 3 million votes than the other person should win, regardless of what city or state those votes come from. no ones vote should matter than anyone elses.
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Post by themoviesinner on May 9, 2017 16:34:17 GMT
I don't actually think it's that hard in Germany. Quite a few of our most famous politicians come from rather modest conditions. It's an entirely different deal in France where the entire parliament is full of people from the french Ivy-League type schools (Macron is too and Hollande was aswell), even across the parties. In Germany we don't have a corresponding Ivy-League because all universities are public (those that are not may not call themselves universities). It's the exact opposite here in Greece. You only become a politician if you are from a family of politicians or have connections with one such family. Our parliment is full of brothers, sisters, son-in-laws, even best man's of former politicians and most of them are career politicians, meaning that they have rarely, if ever, done anything else in their lives. It's one of the main reasons our country has turned to shit.
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Nyx
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Post by Nyx on May 9, 2017 19:41:50 GMT
Macron is an elitist prick.He's a media-hologram image created by the EU oligarch's for public consumption. Thats nice to know.
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Post by HELENA MARIA on May 9, 2017 21:28:16 GMT
Macron is an elitist prick.He's a media-hologram image created by the EU oligarch's for public consumption. Thats nice to know.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 1:06:19 GMT
So you basically think that only New York, Miami and California should elect the President? Because it's what would look like without the electoral college. no, i think the candidate who had more than 3 million votes than the other person should win, regardless of what city or state those votes come from. no ones vote should matter than anyone elses. Democracy is an awful idea. The electoral college insures that more ideas (which are often based on location) are represented. Without it, the mass brainless left-wing population of every single highly populated city would determine every election. If it were reverse, and christian conservatives were a majority, but they only spanned a few cities, I'm sure you would be in favor of the electoral college as well. If anything the US is too democratic.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on May 10, 2017 1:29:42 GMT
no, i think the candidate who had more than 3 million votes than the other person should win, regardless of what city or state those votes come from. no ones vote should matter than anyone elses. Democracy is an awful idea. The electoral college insures that more ideas (which are often based on location) are represented. Without it, the mass brainless left-wing population of every single highly populated city would determine every election. If it were reverse, and christian conservatives were a majority, but they only spanned a few cities, I'm sure you would be in favor of the electoral college as well. If anything the US is too democratic. Given the existence of gerrymandering and the fact that the Electoral College is a winner-takes-all system instead of a proportional system, I'm inclined to disagree with your assessment that the U.S. is too democratic. I also fail to see how democracy is a bad thing. Direct democracy can have its problems, so I'm good with a representative democracy so long as it is actually representative of the general public which is simply not the case right now.
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Post by countjohn on May 10, 2017 1:34:51 GMT
its so much easier to respect a decision when it was clearly what more than a majority of the country wanted. imagine being basically 50/50 and losing.... when you had more votes. So you basically think that only New York, Miami and California should elect the President? Because it's what would look like without the electoral college. That's such an absurd argument. You could come up with a zillion combinations of states that could theoretically elect the president under either a straight popular vote or the electoral college. It doesn't mean that those states individually "elected the president". And for the record, California, New York, and Miami only make up about 17 percent of the US population, so no, they don't "decide the president". For comparison, California and New York also make up 17 percent of the electoral college, so the electoral college doesn't put a any less emphasis on big states than a popular vote would. In fact, it probably puts a greater emphasis on big states since in the electoral college you win 100% of a state's votes by winning it as opposed to just the percentage you won. In other words, in the electoral college, Hillary Clinton won 100% of the votes in California, while she only won 60 percent of the popular votes in the state. So California had a greater pro-Clinton impact under the electoral college than it would have under a popular vote. To break it down, California makes up 12 percent of the US population and has 10 percent of the electoral votes. However, Clinton's victory in the popular vote would only give her 7.2 percent of the total popular votes (about 14 percent of the way towards victory) while her victory in the electoral college there gave her 10 percent of the electoral votes (20 percent of the way towards victory). The electoral college does slightly under represent big states like California, but they still have a bigger impact under the electoral college because a popular vote dilutes their impact (obviously no one is going to win 100%, or even 80 or 90% of the vote in a big state like California or Texas) while under the electoral college the winner gets their entire share of the vote. So, logically speaking, if you're concerned about big states having too much impact you should want to get rid of the electoral college.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 2:18:08 GMT
Democracy is an awful idea. The electoral college insures that more ideas (which are often based on location) are represented. Without it, the mass brainless left-wing population of every single highly populated city would determine every election. If it were reverse, and christian conservatives were a majority, but they only spanned a few cities, I'm sure you would be in favor of the electoral college as well. If anything the US is too democratic. Given the existence of gerrymandering and the fact that the Electoral College is a winner-takes-all system instead of a proportional system, I'm inclined to disagree with your assessment that the U.S. is too democratic. I also fail to see how democracy is a bad thing. Direct democracy can have its problems, so I'm good with a representative democracy so long as it is actually representative of the general public which is simply not the case right now. "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Ben Franklin that quote pretty much sums up my issues with democracy. It's a system in which 51% of a population can dictate and alter the lives of the 49%. There are certain unalienable rights that should never be called into question, even if a majority wishes as much. I don't expect many people to agree with me here, but my ideal government is not democratic in the slightest. As for the the current state of the US, the electoral college is far better than the alternative. I don't care about representing the majority. Every opinion should be represented, not just the majority opinion, and the electoral college insures that happens. This is kinda a moot point tho, because I think voting should be abolished all together.
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Post by countjohn on May 10, 2017 4:12:42 GMT
That's why the US and most liberal countries have a legal framework putting inherent limitations on what the government can do. That doesn't have anything to do with the electoral college. I used to be somewhat mixed on the EC, partly because I bought into the "big states" argument (which isn't reflected by reality, as I showed in my other post) but ultimately it doesn't make sense to have an election but then come up with some arbitrary means to declare the winner other than who gets the most votes. If you don't want your leader to be elected by the majority, fine, don't have an election and come up with some logical means to select a leader. The problem is that most other means that have been tried for choosing leaders (a professional bureaucracy, military/police rule, a hereditary aristocracy, exc) really suck and generate even worse results than elections. In a similar vein to what I was talking about above, the original intent of the EC was for people to just vote for electors, who would then assemble and vote for whoever they wished. Basically picking the president the same way we pass laws. Currently you technically are just voting for a slate of electors pledged to a certain candidate, many states even have laws mandating that the electors have to vote for the winner in their state. Some states did that right away, but some didn't. That's why in the early Adams/Jefferson/Jackson elections you'll see on the maps that a number of states electoral votes are split, the electors in a lot of places were voting for whoever they wanted. That's why it was funny when Trump supporters defended Trump's EC victory as being "the way the Founding Fathers intended" but then condemned the idea of electors revolting and not voting for him, even though that was actually the way the Founding Fathers intended it to work. The system we have now emerged almost by accident. It was certainly not what was originally intended.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 14:11:03 GMT
That's why the US and most liberal countries have a legal framework putting inherent limitations on what the government can do. That doesn't have anything to do with the electoral college. I used to be somewhat mixed on the EC, partly because I bought into the "big states" argument (which isn't reflected by reality, as I showed in my other post) but ultimately it doesn't make sense to have an election but then come up with some arbitrary means to declare the winner other than who gets the most votes. If you don't want your leader to be elected by the majority, fine, don't have an election and come up with some logical means to select a leader. The problem is that most other means that have been tried for choosing leaders (a professional bureaucracy, military/police rule, a hereditary aristocracy, exc) really suck and generate even worse results than elections. In a similar vein to what I was talking about above, the original intent of the EC was for people to just vote for electors, who would then assemble and vote for whoever they wished. Basically picking the president the same way we pass laws. Currently you technically are just voting for a slate of electors pledged to a certain candidate, many states even have laws mandating that the electors have to vote for the winner in their state. Some states did that right away, but some didn't. That's why in the early Adams/Jefferson/Jackson elections you'll see on the maps that a number of states electoral votes are split, the electors in a lot of places were voting for whoever they wanted. That's why it was funny when Trump supporters defended Trump's EC victory as being "the way the Founding Fathers intended" but then condemned the idea of electors revolting and not voting for him, even though that was actually the way the Founding Fathers intended it to work. The system we have now emerged almost by accident. It was certainly not what was originally intended. I agree with most of what you said here. I don't like the electoral college, I don't like trump, I don't like democracy, i don't like partisan politics, I even the think the founding fathers were too democratic. I'm quite the extremist when it comes to politics. My ideal government is a night watchman state, in which its power is so minimal that voting and parties are irrelevant. The soul purpose for the state's existence would be to maintain certain public necessities (police, emergency services, court, military). Limit government anymore, and I'm a legit anarcho-capitalist. Officals wouldn't be elected, they'd probably be chosen like any other professional. It would be quite the mundane job. I don't expect you or anyone else here to agree with me, and you're probably right about all your criticisms of the electoral college. I'm happy to argue about it tho.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on May 10, 2017 17:01:57 GMT
Given the existence of gerrymandering and the fact that the Electoral College is a winner-takes-all system instead of a proportional system, I'm inclined to disagree with your assessment that the U.S. is too democratic. I also fail to see how democracy is a bad thing. Direct democracy can have its problems, so I'm good with a representative democracy so long as it is actually representative of the general public which is simply not the case right now. "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Ben Franklin Fun fact: the word "lunch," which is short for luncheon, did not come into popular use until the 1820s, three decades after Franklin died. This quote is not only misattributed, but it seems to not take into consideration how America is a representational and constitutional democracy, so the minority is ensured certain unalienable rights (or at least that's the intention).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 17:12:53 GMT
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Ben Franklin Fun fact: the word "lunch," which is short for luncheon, did not come into popular use until the 1820s, three decades after Franklin died. This quote is not only misattributed, but it seems to not take into consideration how America is a representational and constitutional democracy, so the minority is ensured certain unalienable rights (or at least that's the intention). Whether Franklin said it or not is irrelevant to my original point. He has several other quotes describing democracy in a negative light tho, and I've see it quoted using the term "dinner" instead of lunch. I don't know how you can be so sure, as there seems to be a lot of dispute when it comes to the quote. Again tho, it's irrelevant. My original statement would be exactly the same if I had not attributed the quote to Franklin. I don't think the founding fathers are infallible, so I wasn't trying to insight some kind of authority. I just like the quote.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 17:16:49 GMT
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Ben Franklin Fun fact: the word "lunch," which is short for luncheon, did not come into popular use until the 1820s, three decades after Franklin died. This quote is not only misattributed, but it seems to not take into consideration how America is a representational and constitutional democracy, so the minority is ensured certain unalienable rights (or at least that's the intention). Also the us is a constitutional republic. Not a democracy
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tobias
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Post by tobias on Jun 10, 2017 0:52:49 GMT
tobias Wouldn't have been a horrible bet lol Corbyn campaigned surprisingly well but I think the really decisive factor was how terrible May campaigned. She set heself up like some kind of Iron Lady 2.0. I don't think you could forsee this. In the last week before the election I also had a hunch that Labour would do better than people were expecting. I wouldn't have made that prediction if I knew May would go full onslaught. Usually right-wingers get momentun from terror attacks but in the UK Labour got that momentun (Corbyn's speech was actually really good, May on the other hand suggested to censor the internet). Look at this graph, I basicly made the prediction when the Torries were at their absolute peak because that was before they (or May in particular) started to spew bullshit (they do that all the time, really but I'm talking about bullshit even by their standards): upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Opinion_polling_UK_2020_election_short_axis.pngI'll take you on SPD getting slaughtered though and AFD underperforming (possibly becomming the weakest party in parliament, even an outside chance of them not getting in). Unlike Corbyn and Labour, Schulz and the SPD are campaigning terribly and they give in to the CDU more and more and come of as incredibly untrustworthy. It's really quite a disaster: They campaign on social justice (but it does not have the same connotations as in the US, it's really about people with money trouble, low wage workers, children in poor families, that kind of stuff) but are afraid of a left alliance which makes them come of as incredible sellouts (which is probably a rather fair description of them to be honest). Merkel's campaigning strategy is a little like Clinton and Theresa May combined: Strong and Stable & "You have no choice" but she is very clever because she never says it but merely suggests it so that people make up that connection themselves and fool themselves into voting CDU. The AFD decided to pick a lesbian former Goldman-Sachs Banker as their candidate (paired with a 70 something year old hardline conservative) which wouldn't sit well with their electorate. Further her rhetorics are patheticly horrible (it's impossible to take her seriously), by far the worst of all candidates (and this will especially hurt them because when it came to rhetorics Petry, who used to be their leading figure, is one of the best - she was pathetic, too but at least she could debate). The problem is that the CDU can do whatever they want. People see them as very close to center but they have hardline conservative loonies within their lines aswell. So they can run a very two-faced campaign. Merkel says some kinda left-leaning progressive stuff and then on the other hand Seehofer (technically from the CSU but they are in a union) can propose some conservative policy and then people just cherrypick whatever they like and vote for them. SPD on the other hand is in the public debate locked somewhere in center. I made a quick estimation about the public political discourse in Germany (not necesarilly the parties real positions but where they can campaign). It shows that the SPD is between a hard place and a rock: i.imgur.com/hSgWbIk.pngNote: The size of the parties on the chart has nothing to do with their voter share. In the last election the SPD got 5 times as much as FDP or AFD.
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