I'll adress your prompts first, then look properly at the other comments later on.
1. What do you think of the current state of two-party politics?
Your two-party politics is ruinous for your population for several reasons. For one, the lack of (realistic) choices outside your two parties means there's no alternative to either or, meaning you're stuck with a very limited ammount of choices, causing very limited variety and possibilities. Your choices are corporatist with limited social benefits and corporatist with individual responsibilities and religious backing - both choices which in many countries are incorporated into a single out of a dozen parties. In effect, you have one real alternative split into two to charade as a choice, while there in reality should be so many more.
Another problem is the polarization that the two-party system causes. With only two choices, it is easy to fall into the trap of regarding politics as "us versus them", turning politics into posturing against your "enemy" rather than a meaningful discourse about the economic and social policies of the country. With only one contender, it's easy to point blame and demonize the single entity against you - with more parties, blame couldn't so simply be pooled against your hereditary foe, as you'd have more contenders. Keep trying to demonize all your contenders, and your party would be alone and marginalized in the political game, a danger that hopefully would lead to more discussion and cooperation between parties, resulting in more moderate political descisions than what a two-party system ends up at.
Polarization of politics can also lead to a polarization of the population, which might affect citizen psychology. With a "us versus them"-attitude, after a while it becomes easy to accept the situation as a "good (my intelligent cause) versus evil (your misguided cause)". This might prompt you to look for similar structures in other aspects of life - friendships (is he an enemy or a friend?), entertainment (is this comedian slanderous or humorous?), religious views (is this person blessed or doomed to burn), views of foreign relations (is this country a friend or foe?). With such a polarized view of the world, suggesting something is good or bad becomes so much better, as the shades of grey are no longer interesting.
Of course, this is what I mean about how the system works for the majority of the voters. How it works for the economic elite is something entirely different. Internally, the citizens contribute to keeping the country stable by focusing their hostility on each other instead of those deserving their distrust thanks to the polarization and the "us versus them"-mentality. Externally, the "black versus white" worldview helps lobbyists forward economic interests abroad thanks to the "axis of evil".
2. What do you think of US foreign policy?
2a. With regards to the Middle East?
Terrible. Historically, the middle east has been the most politically stable region (aside from China) up untill the age of colonialization, with strong and legitimate rulers, advanced sciences and a very developed culture. The colony times toppled empires, set arbitrary borders causing regional strife and planted puppet regimes destabilizing and unlegitimizing its rulers. The US of course is not the cause of this, but after Europe stopped its colonial exploitation more or less, the US continues the trend in the modern days. While it of course is not the US's duty to undo the damages done by the colonial countries of the past, exploiting and continuing the damage they've caused at the cost of the people in the middle east is villanious - a crime against humanity as a whole.
2b. South America?
Very much the same as the middle east. The area doesn't have the regional strife of the middle east, but the political instability thanks to outside governments and their puppetteering has left the entire region pretty much a cesspool, compared to the west.
2c. Africa?
I'm not very familiar with any country's politics in Africa, aside from the private company resource exploitation of the very corrupt and divided continent. As long as many countries allow private companies to exploit African natural resources through usage of its (Africa's) divided and corrupt systems, nothing will change. While a change in US policies concerning resource exploitation in other countries' natural soil would go a long way to show an example and start a change in the west, the realism of this change taking place is nonexistant due to the corporatist control over the US.
2d. Region of your choice
Nothing to add.
3. What do you think of internal US regulatory agencies? (e.g. the SEC, the FDA, the USDA, etc etc etc)
I'm not very familiar with them. I did see a documentary a month or two ago about how the FDA allowed private companies to self-regulate through doing their own tests on their products, which obviously is a bad practice since it leaves a lot of room for manipulation of data. Aside from that though, it's not my place to comment on.
4. What do you think of US-driven economic policies?
4a. Such as the implementation of the International Monetary Fund?
I'm not too familiar with its specifics. It lends money to states in need, and profits through interests, I think? If that's the case, it's a short-term good thing, and a long-term bad thing. Money can only develop a country so far, and by the time the country has spent the money loaned to develop properly, the interest from the loans will strangle its economy for a long time to come, which can cause corruption or corporate sellouts by desperate citizens. In addition, there's only so much cheap resources and labor to go around - if a country gets money from the IMF, uses it to up its economy and thus the living standard of its citizens, their demands of pay and luxury will increase, meaning they need to siphon from someone below them (as the west has done from Africa and south America). This can only carry on as long as there's somebody to exploit, which brings me back to the point about Africa and the international community exploiting their resources.
4b. Various free trade agreements?
A big country with as strong economy as the US simply makes other countries unable to compete at their own local market, thanks to cheap US products produced by resourceful, wealthy companies with connections for manpower, knowledge and resources through bribes and networking throughout the world.
While in general global trade is a good thing, I'm more for protecting domestic produce rather than having a international free-for-all trade frenzy, as the US will obviously "win" this - by "win", I mean the elite will profit, the population of competitor post-industrialized countries (including the average US citizen) will be unemployed, the population of non-industrialized countries will be employed in sweat shops working for cents per hour, and in general all the wealth will pool in an even tinier part of the population than currently, causing even more radical difference between the obscenely wealthy and the near-dead poor.
5. What do you think of the US constitution and how it should be interpreted?
I think the US constitution should be read and respected, but not taken literal in every situation as it was made for another time by people with different standards, different morals and a different life situation than anyone now. It should be the center of political discourse for the US, but not completely decide it.
5a. Do you think a US-style constitution should be adopted by other countries, in the way that the US has pressured some developing countries?
No. Countries should have the possibility to develop at their own accord, as long as they don't harm their neighbours or destabilize the global community. Wether they adopt democracy, dictatorship, theocracy or republic, wether they follow communistic, capitalistic, nihilistic or anarchistic ideals should be up to them.
6. What do you think the balance of federal power vs state power? What are the implications of stronger states' rights vs stronger federal rights?
I'm not very sure about the US power allocation between state and fed, so I cannot say. I'd appreciate enlightenment without having random wikipedia articles linked to me.
7. What do you think of the CIA?
They were historically important to handle the spiraling crime in the US, but are a monster today. Too few restrictions, too much power, too much application in foreign business the US have no right to interfer into.
8. What do you think of the FBI?
Not informed enough to comment on it. I'm guessing they're mostly dealing with domestic cases?
9. What do you think of the current congress?
They quarrel. They posture. They block things out of allegiance to a party rather than due to disagreeing with the idea. The world is black and white, and your country is suffering for it.
10. What do you think of Obama's presidency?
He was idealistic, or at least pretended to be, during his campaign, but has changed. I guess that wasn't the "change" he was looking for, but it's what came. I imagine the secrets of the US government, as well as current situation of country polarization, increasing religious and political radicalization in the country have, in some ways, broken his drive to be the president he dreamed of. He's not so much running the country as doing what he feels has to be done in the current domestic political and global economic situation.
He wanted to build a glorious castle with the help of everyone, but now he's resigned to make a basic shelter with the rotten driftwood that's available to him, without the help of anyone.
If the media has failed to discredit Assange, they've succeeded with Obama, and it shows. While pretty much every US president has had their ratings dive after the "honeymoon", the national and international media situation is much different now than before.
Of course, the mess of two wars and a broken economy with terrible spending left by the previous president is just another icing on the cake made out of raw poop.
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On January 18 2011 11:09 Insanious wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 23:23 Haemonculus wrote:
I'd love to hear about the various gun policies in other nations. Here in the states we have one of the highest firearm-homicide rates in the world, passing many other "first world" countries by a factor of 50. Wtf is it about us that we just can't stop shooting each other? In Canada... our gun regulation is almost the same as that of the USA, except that we have to register our long guns (terrible idea, does nothing...). Canada has almost the same number of guns per capita as the USA... and I know this is straight from Michael Moor (whom I severely dislike but he had at least one good idea here)... but really, I think its more the mentality of American's rather than the actual gun policies. If you watch say Fox News then compare it to the news on CBC... its totally different. American news is all about terrible things happening, how the world is killing it's self, and how someone else just killed another person. Canadian news rarely has violence in it... it covers tragedies, but respectfully... but more covers what is happening in politics and Canadian cities. This I think really does make a difference, if you are an American, watching you news makes it seem like stepping outside is going to kill you, but really: - Crime rates are down all over (USA and Canada alike) - Violent Crime rates are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY down in North America - The recession has ended in Canada and coming to an end in the USA - The war in Afghanistan is coming to an end and very few westerner's died in that war The world is a pretty happy go lucky place right now truthfully... but that's not what the news wants you to hear. The news is trying to compete with the Internet and other TV networks for ratings and as such has a sensationalized view of day to day life. This is stressful and scary, and I really do think it ends upw ith a much less trusting and more terrified populous and ends up with gun violence. You enter almost any Canadian home and there are multiples guns in them. There are a lot of Prison Guards, Police Officers, and Military personnel in Canada as well as a tonne of hunters. Canadian's LOVE their guns, we just don't shoot each other with them... I think it might be the fact that when we turn on the TV we listen to someone talking about a recovering economy rather than how the world is a shit hole and you might as well kill your self now...
Interesting to know. I agree on the part about media sensationalism. The media is no longer an objective force for truth, it is a business venture to get people to tune in. I think the sentiment in America is definitely shifting away from mainstream media. People don't want to be immersed in their crap anymore, especially younger people. Unfortunately, I still don't think the system will fail or change, probably only get worse.
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EPT
