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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On March 29 2017 22:31 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 22:25 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 22:02 LightSpectra wrote:Here's the thing about whistleblowing: either you support it or you don't. You don't get to say "we love leaks that hurt our enemies but we need to stamp out the leaks that hurt us." Donald Trump hated Wikileaks when they revealed the "Collateral Murder" but loved them when they hurt the Democratic Party. Don't be like Trump. Daleiden did America a public service, just like Ellsberg, just like Provance, just like Kiriakou, just like Snowden. Let's be consistent and either say "we want to know ALL crimes going on without our knowledge" or "we want ALL crimes to be obscured from our vision so we can pretend everything is awesome." I know which side I'm on. On March 29 2017 21:55 Danglars wrote:
Haha explicit. Tell me, are you referring to explicitly asking for cyberwarfare against the Clinton camp ... incite to commit them with promises of reward? Why the hell do you keep bringing the Clintons up? Nobody cares about them anymore, they have no power. I'm concerned about our POTUS being compromised. Please drop your odd obsession with the Clintons. They are totally irrelevant at this stage. If you want them to be prosecuted for any crimes, fantastic, but that's not the pressing concern for anybody else right now. If you were explicit in your hypothetical all this would be avoided. You might recall one accusation of conspiracy that involved the Clinton camp, or do you need me to find you a couple links? Seriously, I'm having trouble understanding you. Sorry, just realized I misread your post. It would certainly be a smoking gun if it were found out that the Trump campaign explicitly asked for Russian cyberwarfare. But it doesn't have to be that explicit. Surely you're aware that proof of a conspiracy doesn't require a total reconstruction of the entire crime in question?
Your hypothetical revolved around "the Russians allegations were right all along" so it does matter what the allegation is, and the proof being absolute. A conspiracy to hack Clinton campaign emails? Certainly, I condemn the criminal that pays for that service. But for some intangible influence, I say Obama did as much for the Israeli elections when he disliked Netanyahu, without much ado, and surely it would matter (as it didn't in that case) of money changing hands, favors promised, a witness saying an understanding was reached. Otherwise, an authoritarian favors one who likes authoritarians and no conspiracy enters into criminality nor is likely to have occurred.
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On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source
Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved.
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On March 29 2017 23:34 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:05 zlefin wrote:
I would certainly not recommend the american system, most places in europe have a better overall setup in terms of user satisfaction/results; though as always there are issues. I'm pessimistic and doubt that we'll ever have UHC in America. Unless you're talking to an unusually well-informed American, most of the time when you say "Every developed country's government spends less per capita on healthcare but have nobody without insurance, also they have less infant mortality, less preventable deaths, higher life expectancy, nobody in insolvable debt from their bills, etc." And then they'll respond either with "yeah but that's socialism and we all know socialism never really works" or "but I read a comment on a blog post from a guy who watched a news segment about a girl in England who had to wait a week for a mammogram, once you look past the stats America's still #1." Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_system#International_comparisons
never is a long time. I agree it won't be easy; but it's hardly impossible for it to come someday. and there's plenty of precursors and known data about it.
I could see a good chance in the next hundred years; or even a whole lot sooner.
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On March 29 2017 23:41 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved.
Ought to be dissolved? Would you have said that before Trump ran for president?
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On March 29 2017 23:41 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved.
it's certainly outgrown alot of its usefulness/necessity. but from an asset/liability standpoint it seems worth keeping around. most of the places simply involve no significant liability, therefore are worth having as allies even if their assets are meager.
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On March 29 2017 23:37 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 22:31 LightSpectra wrote:On March 29 2017 22:25 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 22:02 LightSpectra wrote:Here's the thing about whistleblowing: either you support it or you don't. You don't get to say "we love leaks that hurt our enemies but we need to stamp out the leaks that hurt us." Donald Trump hated Wikileaks when they revealed the "Collateral Murder" but loved them when they hurt the Democratic Party. Don't be like Trump. Daleiden did America a public service, just like Ellsberg, just like Provance, just like Kiriakou, just like Snowden. Let's be consistent and either say "we want to know ALL crimes going on without our knowledge" or "we want ALL crimes to be obscured from our vision so we can pretend everything is awesome." I know which side I'm on. On March 29 2017 21:55 Danglars wrote:
Haha explicit. Tell me, are you referring to explicitly asking for cyberwarfare against the Clinton camp ... incite to commit them with promises of reward? Why the hell do you keep bringing the Clintons up? Nobody cares about them anymore, they have no power. I'm concerned about our POTUS being compromised. Please drop your odd obsession with the Clintons. They are totally irrelevant at this stage. If you want them to be prosecuted for any crimes, fantastic, but that's not the pressing concern for anybody else right now. If you were explicit in your hypothetical all this would be avoided. You might recall one accusation of conspiracy that involved the Clinton camp, or do you need me to find you a couple links? Seriously, I'm having trouble understanding you. Sorry, just realized I misread your post. It would certainly be a smoking gun if it were found out that the Trump campaign explicitly asked for Russian cyberwarfare. But it doesn't have to be that explicit. Surely you're aware that proof of a conspiracy doesn't require a total reconstruction of the entire crime in question? Your hypothetical revolved around "the Russians allegations were right all along" so it does matter what the allegation is, and the proof being absolute. A conspiracy to hack Clinton campaign emails? Certainly, I condemn the criminal that pays for that service. But for some intangible influence, I say Obama did as much for the Israeli elections when he disliked Netanyahu, without much ado, and surely it would matter (as it didn't in that case) of money changing hands, favors promised, a witness saying an understanding was reached. Otherwise, an authoritarian favors one who likes authoritarians and no conspiracy enters into criminality nor is likely to have occurred.
Are you capable of talking about Donald Trump for five seconds without the whataboutism?
Personally I think what we know about Manafort, plus the panicked attempts from the WH to hit the brakes on any investigation, is already enough to impeach Trump, but sadly the GOP profits too much from having such a moron at the helm to sign off on their agenda while soaking up all the media criticism. So we need just a bit more evidence before the case is overwhelming.
Yes, a genuine smoking gun would be that. But I doubt the Kremlin's dumb enough to leave one of those around, so we'll have to settle for more and more lies being uncovered by the day until the situation becomes totally untenable.
On March 29 2017 23:41 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved.
Just curious, which TL Europeans have decried NATO but haven't also explicitly endorsed Le Pen/Wilders?
On March 29 2017 23:41 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:34 LightSpectra wrote:On March 29 2017 23:05 zlefin wrote:
I would certainly not recommend the american system, most places in europe have a better overall setup in terms of user satisfaction/results; though as always there are issues. I'm pessimistic and doubt that we'll ever have UHC in America. Unless you're talking to an unusually well-informed American, most of the time when you say "Every developed country's government spends less per capita on healthcare but have nobody without insurance, also they have less infant mortality, less preventable deaths, higher life expectancy, nobody in insolvable debt from their bills, etc." And then they'll respond either with "yeah but that's socialism and we all know socialism never really works" or "but I read a comment on a blog post from a guy who watched a news segment about a girl in England who had to wait a week for a mammogram, once you look past the stats America's still #1." Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_system#International_comparisons never is a long time. I agree it won't be easy; but it's hardly impossible for it to come someday. and there's plenty of precursors and known data about it. I could see a good chance in the next hundred years; or even a whole lot sooner.
Our government enacting rational policies is never going to happen so long as:
1. Major media outlets can brazenly lie their asses off without penalty (legal or social).
2. Politicians can pretty much take any corporate donations they want without penalty (legal or social).
Anyone can spend five minutes on Wikipedia and realize UHC is a fantastic idea, but the idea to do so is never going to cross a third of the country's minds.
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United States43262 Posts
On March 29 2017 22:42 opisska wrote:
Thanks for the ACA comments guys. I can imagine that some people are just pissed that their "costs went up" and don't see that they had to, because there are other people who are ill and poor, but also the comments on how the extra costs are split in an rather haphazard way show that some people are probably pissed pretty rightfully. It seems to really show that covering everyone while pretending that you still do it in a free market, naturally leads to a clusterfuck.
I am sometimes pissed with our own healthcare system, there are things that aren't optimal and that directly threaten my health, but I guess I should still be pretty happy about what we have. We actually have a party that has as a policy point going towards the US insurance model, but luckily they are hovering around a couple of percent and this movement doesn't seem to be getting any relevance any time soon.
Insurance doesn't normally lower costs for individuals over the long term, it simply allows them to average out their expected costs into predictable low payments rather than having no costs for a long time and then a single ruinous cost. Predictable costs are great for financial planning but if you're predictably really expensive due to a preexisting condition then insurance can't help you. Paying a monthly fee to be covered in the event of a car crash is fine, a car crash is unlikely, even though the care may be expensive the risk adjusted cost per month is low. Paying a monthly fee for ongoing treatment related to your diabetes is a different story, diabetics are high risk for a whole bunch of conditions and insurance will just level the costs out, not reduce them. If the problem is that you can't afford to be diabetic, insurance doesn't help that at all.
So what they do is create risk pools. A big group of people are all put together, their risks averaged out and a single premium amount assigned to all of them. Some people in the risk pools will be getting fucked by this because they're young and healthy and have no real risks associated with them. They'll be massively overpaying for insurance compared to their actual statistical risks. But the flip side is that other people who are old or unhealthy will be massively underpaying.
The healthcare problem is that the high risk people want their insurance to be affordable so the Obama administration cut a deal with the insurance companies whereby the insurance companies agreed to hugely undercharge high risk people as long as they could get enough low risk people overcharged to offset their losses. Low risk people don't like getting overcharged and tended to opt out when they could because you could just save up all the money from the insurance you're not buying and pay out of pocket for your healthcare (generally they didn't save, they just assumed they'd always be fine). So Obamacare forced low risk people to join the risk pools or pay a penalty.
It's essentially transfer of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. Everyone pays the same, regardless of their actual costs.
The Republican problem is that they promised the healthy people that they could go back to paying next to nothing for their health insurance while also promising the unhealthy people that their health insurance would stay subsidized. And they're still trying to work out how to give the same money to two different people.
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United States43262 Posts
On March 29 2017 23:41 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved.
NATO is fine but the military obligations of the United States and the military obligations of her NATO allies are not the same and it's crazy to assume that they are. What benefit does Germany get from the fleet guarding Taiwan from China? Or the garrison in South Korea? A straight percentage of GDP comparison is meaningless. If all NATO allies had to set aside a specific amount of their GDP for the defence of the North Atlantic, and US numbers spent in spheres outside of the North Atlantic were discounted, I suspect the numbers would be different. At present the US is insisting that all military spending it does is on behalf of NATO and that NATO allies should feel indebted for every dollar and that's just bad thinking.
Argentina invaded the United Kingdom and the UK didn't get shit from NATO because it was in the South Atlantic. NATO is doing fine at keeping the peace in Europe and the North Atlantic and given the current economic strength of the NATO nations could probably do so with significantly decreased resources than it currently has.
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spectra -> I don't see how the actions so far are sufficient to impeach trump; I see no specific crime to assign to Trump.
sure, someone from his camp/advisors was compromised by Russia, but that's not sufficient grounds to remove Trump himself, only the advisor.
Major media (the better ones) don't brazenly lie their asses off, they have some imperfections that are notable, but are fairly decent in general. and of course things have always been like that.
Also, government is never going to enact fully rational policies anyways, because humans aren't rational, and this is a democracy, so the irrationality of people will always greatly affect government policy.
implementing UHC doesn't have to be done on grounds of rationality, there's plenty of other grounds on which it could occur.
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Watching Danglars and xDaunt go from disgusted/dismissive with Trump to Stockholm syndrome has been a bizarre experience. It looks like actual Stockholm syndrome.
Part of me wonders what portion of this phenomena is a result of a 2 party system and the deep feelings of tribalism it creates. Even things as simple as putting on colored jerseys while playing sports as a child are enough to make someone seriously proud of their team. It's interesting how the draw towards connection and alliance for the sake of protection has sprung into such a dysfunctional system.
Part of me has wondered if our country having even 3 different parties would largely derail the tribalism I've seen. To not be so stuck on the idea that it is "either me or them" and to instead have other options would perhaps make people more collaborative and willing to negotiate? I wonder if people feel like they are already committed to their party. Or something. I have no idea. But this isn't confined to Danglars and xDaunt. I know a couple people who went from laughably dismissing Trump to kind of identifying with him and using his persona in the same way people cheer for sports teams. I can totally see some people who give up a part of themselves for the sake of being a part of his power.
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stockholm syndrome sounds a bit too strong; it's just the standard rationalization effects and cognitive dissonance.
while a 2-party system makes it stronger, a fair bit of it happens anyways.
having 3 different parties might help, but it's hard for it to be stable in the american political system;
switching from FPTP voting to approval voting would probably have a much better effect of cutting down on the tribalism.
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On March 30 2017 00:03 Mohdoo wrote:
Watching Danglars and xDaunt go from disgusted/dismissive with Trump to Stockholm syndrome has been a bizarre experience. It looks like actual Stockholm syndrome.
Part of me wonders what portion of this phenomena is a result of a 2 party system and the deep feelings of tribalism it creates. Even things as simple as putting on colored jerseys while playing sports as a child are enough to make someone seriously proud of their team. It's interesting how the draw towards connection and alliance for the sake of protection has sprung into such a dysfunctional system.
Part of me has wondered if our country having even 3 different parties would largely derail the tribalism I've seen. To not be so stuck on the idea that it is "either me or them" and to instead have other options would perhaps make people more collaborative and willing to negotiate? I wonder if people feel like they are already committed to their party. Or something. I have no idea. But this isn't confined to Danglars and xDaunt. I know a couple people who went from laughably dismissing Trump to kind of identifying with him and using his persona in the same way people cheer for sports teams. I can totally see some people who give up a part of themselves for the sake of being a part of his power.
I agree wholeheartedly with your whole post. Unfortunately as long as we have FPTP, a viable third party is probably not going to happen unless it devours one of the other two in the process. And I don't really see that happening. It might be healthier in the long run if the Sanders-Ellison faction split off from the Democrats or the moderate Republicans split off from the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus, but it would devastate them in the short run and I doubt that either would deem the risk to be worth it.
On March 30 2017 00:03 zlefin wrote:
spectra -> 1. I don't see how the actions so far are sufficient to impeach trump; I see no specific crime to assign to Trump.
sure, someone from his camp/advisors was compromised by Russia, but that's not sufficient grounds to remove Trump himself, only the advisor.
2. Major media (the better ones) don't brazenly lie their asses off, they have some imperfections that are notable, but are fairly decent in general. and of course things have always been like that.
3. Also, government is never going to enact fully rational policies anyways, because humans aren't rational, and this is a democracy, so the irrationality of people will always greatly affect government policy.
4. implementing UHC doesn't have to be done on grounds of rationality, there's plenty of other grounds on which it could occur.
Added numbers for convenience:
1. You're right that there's been no hard evidence, the equivalent of the "Smoking Gun" tape in Watergate. That being said, the circumstantial evidence, lies, and continued resistance to investigation is piling up higher each day, and Trump is looking more and more like Richard Nixon as we go on. Perhaps the GOP would be wise to decide to take the initiative in cutting ties with Trump rather than waiting for the possibility of having the anchor wrap around their feet and drag them into the sea.
2. Disagree heartily. Roughly half of America relies on FOX/Breitbart/WND/the Blaze, and I'd laugh my ass off to anybody who says that they're closer to real journalism than they are to tabloid garbage and propaganda.
3. Granted, but this is an especially bad problem in America.
4. So long as half of America continues to believe in Reaganism with religious fervor, it ain't gonna happen, with either logos or pathos.
On March 30 2017 00:11 zlefin wrote:
switching from FPTP voting to approval voting would probably have a much better effect of cutting down on the tribalism.
I've taken a great interest into voting and political systems over the past year, and I've determined that the healthiest democracies in the world are ones with preferential voting (Concordet method or instant-runoff) and a parliamentary system (where the Head of Government is selected by a majority vote in the Lower House of the legislature as opposed to directly elected).
IMO the best way to fix America's broken democracy is to spread the word about how awful FPTP is. There's probably too much resistance to re-writing the Constitution or abolishing the Electoral College, so I would deem that to be the best start.
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United States43262 Posts
You wouldn't need a constitutional amendment. States can decide for themselves to end winner takes all in their state.
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Is that in reference to FPTP or the Electoral College?
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United States43262 Posts
On March 30 2017 00:26 LightSpectra wrote:
Is that in reference to FPTP or the Electoral College?
That's a very strange question that doesn't really make sense. Many states use FPTP winner takes all for the Electoral College delegates. They could award Electoral College delegates using PR without any support from outside the state which in the larger states would guarantee that third parties were able to get delegates and therefore form coalitions to elect a President (as the Presidency isn't FPTP (simple plurality), it's absolute majority).
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The issue is that system would reduce the power of the individual state in question relative to the ones who hasn't changed their system. It would be illogical for any state to do it. The ones who already have some form of it only have 3-4 electoral votes, convincing California to go from a guaranteed 54 for the winner to like 40-14 would only result in really pissing off Democrat votes for example.
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Only asking because there was a proposal floating around a few months ago about each state choosing to pledge all of their EC delegates to whichever presidential candidate won the popular vote, so I wasn't sure if you were referencing that or talking about FPTP.
When people vote for the POTUS, they are using FPTP (in most states). The EC does a simple-majority vote, which is ingrained in the Constitution. My proposal is that for both selecting their EC delegates, and their Congresspeople, every state should opt to switch to a preferential voting system. That IMO is the most viable way to patch our democracy.
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And? It would be fairer, who cares about pissing people off. I'm not for absolute majority rule but the amount of seats guatanteed to state xyz is enough to dimish this problem. FPTP is just ridiculous.
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On March 30 2017 00:39 LightSpectra wrote:
Only asking because there was a proposal floating around a few months ago about each state choosing to pledge all of their EC delegates to whichever presidential candidate won the popular vote, so I wasn't sure if you were referencing that or talking about FPTP.
When people vote for the POTUS, they are using FPTP (in most states). The EC does a simple-majority vote, which is ingrained in the Constitution. My proposal is that for both selecting their EC delegates, and their Congresspeople, every state should opt to switch to a preferential voting system. That IMO is the most viable way to patch our democracy.
It's not just a proposal, there's already 165 electoral votes pledges to do just that once more than 270 electoral votes join the pact.
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United States43262 Posts
It wouldn't reduce the power of the state. Quite the opposite. Right now nobody campaigns for electoral college votes in California or Texas. There's no point. If they went PR then they'd actually become relevant. However it would reduce the power of the party currently dominating the state and so the group with the power to make the change could only do it by putting democracy before party.
It'd be irrational in an adversarial contest unless you paired off with a comparable state from the other side and both did it but it'd be beneficial for democracy as a whole and for the citizens of your state. A few states have actually gone the other route though and just said that they'll award their electoral college delegates to the winner of the national vote. The residents of those states effectively no longer exist in terms of representing their interests.
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EPT
