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On January 15 2018 04:22 Archeon wrote:
@zlefin
Look for a compromise or do nothing. If the people voted the council red then they are clearly unhappy with the way blue governed so far. A politician is supposed to be a representative and if the people withdrew their trust, he is not representing anymore. "Knowing better" and pushing through is a childish elitist standpoint and a dangerous way of thinking.
And I'm talking about a politician who I think wanted to push many inner reforms that are very necessary, so I'm in no way impartial. Obamacare and clemency of nonviolent drug abuse are definitely things I can stand behind. I still like the guy way more than Trump or Bush.
so, you would do nothing no matter how great the damage? at what point (if any) should a willful abdication of responsibility be worked around using less than legal methods?
your point about blue -> red doesn't fit the actual circumstance, so i'm not sure what your point is there. while your point is correct, it again doesn't fit how the situation is (or at least is asserted to be).
compromise would be nice; but it doesn't work when one side refuses to compromise.
on another note, how to deal with the irrational voting behavior of the electorate which is often provably unsound, is a very difficult question with no good answers; so for now just accepting it is done.
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On January 15 2018 04:10 zlefin wrote:
@archeon what is your preferred method of dealing with a congress/parliament that does not do its job? also your description of an "X" mentality isn't really quite accurate to the case, so not apropos imho.
I'd say "Elect people who do their job".
A big problem with that in the US is that people basically treat the president as a dictator in terms of public reactions to stuff happening. If something happens, the president is the one who did it. If nothing happens though something should happen, that is also the presidents fault.
Another problem is that both sides are happier with nothing happening than with what the other side wants happening, and so they are fine with electing people who don't actually do anything, as long as they prevent the other side from doing something, too.
All of that works fine until something really needs to get done.
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On January 15 2018 04:10 zlefin wrote:
@archeon what is your preferred method of dealing with a congress/parliament that does not do its job? also your description of an "X" mentality isn't really quite accurate to the case, so not apropos imho.
Many parliamentary systems will force an election when the government fails to pass major bills, and public attitude tends to favour the opposition any time that happens.
It can cause issues when the government makeup has no clear leading party, or requires 3 or more parties to reach any majority, but for the most forces governments to actually do shit.
Of course, it helps when elections "only" cost tens of millions instead of billions, and can be wrapped up in a couple months.
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On January 15 2018 04:29 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2018 04:22 Archeon wrote:
@zlefin
Look for a compromise or do nothing. If the people voted the council red then they are clearly unhappy with the way blue governed so far. A politician is supposed to be a representative and if the people withdrew their trust, he is not representing anymore. "Knowing better" and pushing through is a childish elitist standpoint and a dangerous way of thinking.
And I'm talking about a politician who I think wanted to push many inner reforms that are very necessary, so I'm in no way impartial. Obamacare and clemency of nonviolent drug abuse are definitely things I can stand behind. I still like the guy way more than Trump or Bush. so, you would do nothing no matter how great the damage? at what point (if any) should a willful abdication of responsibility be worked around using less than legal methods? your point about blue -> red doesn't fit the actual circumstance, so i'm not sure what your point is there. while your point is correct, it again doesn't fit how the situation is (or at least is asserted to be). compromise would be nice; but it doesn't work when one side refuses to compromise. on another note, how to deal with the irrational voting behavior of the electorate which is often provably unsound, is a very difficult question with no good answers; so for now just accepting it is done.
I would resign if I thought compromise impossible and deem reaction necessary. The way it stands I'm loosing the next election anyways. If I think that some issue is big enough that something needs to be done about it sooner than later, reelections will open a path for a gov that can act. Democracy isn't supposed to be about politicians, it's supposed to be about voters.
There are national crises on a scale that would in my opinion justify working illegally because reelection would take too long (war, civil war). But many countries have emergency laws for precisely those cases. That again is a point where democracy struggles and that sometimes was used in the past by dictators to legitimize their coup (Hitler, Casar to some degree).
Can you explain the way it was? I thought Obama lost the congress majority during his second term and the Republicans just generally declined cooperation. I might have missed how the change in members of parliament actually occurred and what the background story was.
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edit: removed, messed up quote chain
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Edit: removed my answer to Longshank's now removed post.
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It would not surprise me if they didn't tell trump due to knowing how he would react or worse publicly.
A false warning of a missile threat in Hawaii sent White House aides scrambling Saturday, frantically phoning agencies to determine a response and triggering worries about their preparedness almost a year into the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump's Cabinet has yet to test formal plans for how to respond to a domestic missile attack, according to a senior administration official. John Kelly, while serving as secretary of Homeland Security through last July, planned to conduct the exercise. But he left his post to become White House chief of staff before it was conducted, and acting Secretary Elaine Duke never carried it out.
The administration ran the exercise on Dec. 19 at the deputies level, at the behest of Kelly and newly sworn-in Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen. But as of Saturday, when Hawaii residents were taking cover, the federal government had yet to play out the same scenario with Cabinet secretaries at what is known as the principals level.
"The U.S. government hasn't tested these plans in 30 years,” said the senior administration official involved in the White House response. “All the fresh faces sitting around the table in the situation room have little idea what their roles would be in this scenario. The bottom line is that without a principals level exercise, we shouldn’t have any confidence that the Cabinet would know what to do in an attack scenario."
The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment about the exercises.
Saturday morning Hawaii time, people in the state received an emergency alert notification about an incoming missile that read, "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL." The state's governor, Democrat David Ige, attributed the error to a "wrong button" pressed during a shift change — but it took a full 38 minutes for the state to advise residents of the error.
The president, who is in Florida for the weekend, was at his golf course in West Palm Beach during much of the incident, according to a press pool report. His motorcade left the golf course and returned to his nearby private club, Mar-a-Lago, just as Hawaii residents were being told it was a false alarm.
The administration official said there was no military response around the president during the incident — as would be expected during an actual missile attack — because there was no actual threat detected by the military. National security adviser H.R. McMaster later briefed the president on the events, and Trump tasked him with overseeing the administration's response, the official said.
Even though Hawaii’s governor called it a human error during a shift change, a White House spokeswoman said the incident was part of the state of Hawaii's emergency management exercise. "This was purely a state exercise," she said in a statement.
Cable news channels were focused on the false alarm, but the president did not react publicly. Hours after the incident, he sent a tweet focused on “fake news,” the mainstream media and Michael Wolff’s new book about him.
Source
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On January 15 2018 01:58 GreenHorizons wrote:
You know how the NBA used to be 100% white? This may surprise some of you, but that wasn't because all the best players were white. In fact they just took mediocre white players and put them on teams instead of much better players of color.
This is actually an extremely clear example of what you've said before. I'm using this as an example when discussing this with others.
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On January 15 2018 03:31 Archeon wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2018 20:10 Gorsameth wrote:On January 14 2018 16:27 Archeon wrote:On January 14 2018 07:36 Adreme wrote:
Why does it seem like Trumps response to any criticism devolves into the childish "No you" response.
When Hilary said he would said he would become Putins puppet "I'm not the puppet you are the puppet."
When the accusations that Russia waa interfering to help him "they were really trying to help Hilary"
Now when the author paints him as mentally unstable his response is again "No, You" which I thought people stopped doing in elementary school Because Donald Trump is mentally stuck in kindergarden or puberty and everyone around him is so used to people trying to look reasonable that they don't know how to deal with it. People immigrating illegally? Build a wall. Don't like that deal? Cancel it. Country supports terrorism? Ban them from coming in. Describe the problem in a void as simply as possible and imagine the simplest solution possible and you have a very good shot at predicting Donald Trump's behavior. "My nuclear missile button is bigger than yours" gotta be my favorite 12-year-old insult turned dark ever. On January 14 2018 07:37 Longshank wrote:
I just watched Obama at Letterman on Netflix and all that I'm left with is this feeling of 'Good Lord, how is it possible for the US to go from this man to Donald Trump'. Now I don't have a say in the matter, americans are free to fuck their nation up in any way they see fit. But as an european, I can't help feeling uneasy over the notion that it could happen here as well. While it was good to see both Obama and Letterman again, the whole thing just made me worried for my own future. To be fair as an European, our media doesn't cover that Obama illegally bypassed congress multiple times. From what I've seen in interviews I agree to Obama's worldview much more than to Trumps, but ignoring division of power because it's impractical for fulfilling the agenda isn't something I can see in a good light under any circumstances. Even the left-winged NYT gave him shit for that. Obama wouldn't have bypassed congress if congress (aka Republicans) had bothered to do their job at any point. Instead they became the party of doing nothing and sat around on their arse and complaining that someone else was doing their job for them. Doesn't matter, if the people vote that you don't have power as a president, it's not your job to claim power that legally isn't yours. Checks and balance are there for a reason, even if from our viewpoint he's doing the right thing. The "my parliament stops me from doing what's necessary so i'm gonna bypass the parliament" mentality is one that fundamentally opposes democracy and supports dictatorship. Also conservatives are people that try to change things only when they get forced to, it's in the name. Preserve the old system as much as possible.
The business of progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.
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On January 15 2018 04:42 Archeon wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2018 04:29 zlefin wrote:On January 15 2018 04:22 Archeon wrote:
@zlefin
Look for a compromise or do nothing. If the people voted the council red then they are clearly unhappy with the way blue governed so far. A politician is supposed to be a representative and if the people withdrew their trust, he is not representing anymore. "Knowing better" and pushing through is a childish elitist standpoint and a dangerous way of thinking.
And I'm talking about a politician who I think wanted to push many inner reforms that are very necessary, so I'm in no way impartial. Obamacare and clemency of nonviolent drug abuse are definitely things I can stand behind. I still like the guy way more than Trump or Bush. so, you would do nothing no matter how great the damage? at what point (if any) should a willful abdication of responsibility be worked around using less than legal methods? your point about blue -> red doesn't fit the actual circumstance, so i'm not sure what your point is there. while your point is correct, it again doesn't fit how the situation is (or at least is asserted to be). compromise would be nice; but it doesn't work when one side refuses to compromise. on another note, how to deal with the irrational voting behavior of the electorate which is often provably unsound, is a very difficult question with no good answers; so for now just accepting it is done. I would resign if I thought compromise impossible and deem reaction necessary. The way it stands I'm loosing the next election anyways. If I think that some issue is big enough that something needs to be done about it sooner than later, reelections will open a path for a gov that can act. Democracy isn't supposed to be about politicians, it's supposed to be about voters. There are national crises on a scale that would in my opinion justify working illegally because reelection would take too long (war, civil war). But many countries have emergency laws for precisely those cases. That again is a point where democracy struggles and that sometimes was used in the past by dictators to legitimize their coup (Hitler, Casar to some degree). Can you explain the way it was? I thought Obama lost the congress majority during his second term and the Republicans just generally declined cooperation. I might have missed how the change in members of parliament actually occurred and what the background story was.
there are many cases where action isn't absolutely vital, it's merely quite harmful to not act; and the problem is a question of accumulative harm vs trying to minimize it. note that I agree that we should strongly try to stick to the law, and I disapprove of several of obama's decisions which I feel go outside the law.
while some of the issues I speak of partisan, some are more to do with congress itself irrespective of party. so I'll add some context later in the post to explain where I'm coming from.
note that as this is not a parliamentary system, resigning doesn't force new elections at all, and the system does not require anyone to have a majority. it's possible for the system to be in complete deadlock, but everyone retains their positions.
some examples of deadlock would be the government shutdowns, where disputes over appropriate spending led to all non-essential federal employees being furloughed (essentail ones were required to show up to work, but wouldn' get paid until funding was passed). there were a couple more notable times where these lasted for half a month.
what would you say if a half a year passed with no budget agreement? a year? two?
fortunately that hasn't happened yet; in part because the budget is a big enough, and clear enough, issue that it's hard for politicians to dodge entirely.
an example of what I would call problematic inaction is the AUMF - the authorization for the use of military force. It was passed right after 9/11 to allow the president to send troops where needed to deal with al qaeda. And at the time, that was a reasonable thing to do; that the authorization is very broad (not limited in geographical scope or time) didn't matter so much, as those oculd be revisited later, and the set of locations wherein terrorists were would not be fully known. however it is now 2018, and that same vague aumf is the governing instrument for US actions in yemen and a dozen other countries today. al qaida of course is not what it once was; the aumf was also used to cover the fight against isis, and a wide variety of other targets. The aumf should really be updated and clarified in terms of objectives/scope/oversight etc.
congress does talk about reforming/updating the aumf, but they do not take action - which is the general pattern, they talk about the issue to claim they're looking at it, but they never actually make/agree to a decision, leaving the issue unresolved.
this is in many ways strategic inaction - when you make a decision, you're held responsible for the outcome, by not making a decision, and lettin the president deal with it instead, they can then criticize the president's decision (if they're of the other party/regardless of what it was) and avoid culpability at any rate.
obama lost the majority after the midterms in his first term; so the election in 2010, for which congressfolk take their seats in 2011.
republicans had opposed him even before that. As to what happened before and after: each side has their narratives, the Dem one would be that the Republicans were actively obstructionist, and choose to oppose Obama regardless of the issue, and specifically chose to avoid compromise, as that would leave Obama with a legislative victory (and if it were bipartisan, they wouldn't be able to leverage the issue against him in elections). That Obama tried to include republicans in the design/drafting of the ACA (aka obamacare), and the republicans refused to take part; that the ACA itself is based in considerable part on conservative principles and its precursor was designed by conservative think tanks and put forth by Romney (a republican who was the governor of massachusetts, a fairly Dem area who's republicans tend to be reasonable); and that the republicans were staunchly opposed to it not because of some principles, sinc eit was a heavily conservative idea, but that they opposed it out of pure politics. The republicans, onc ethey had congress, did try to remove obamacare; passing some 50-60 bills to remove it (all of which were vetoed of course, but they wasted time having votes on it over and over again anyways). And thus many dems feel that the republicans are not willing to compromise at all, they're not lookin to make a deal, they're looking to oppose, and win by being the opposition. The republican narrative is of course quite different; and truth, nearer to the dem narrative than the republican one, but not quite at either.
There is no question (among reasonable people) that the republicans have engaged in some unprecedented and/or barely precedented and definitely bad behavior for governance. such as leaving the Supreme court short one justice for an entire year in the hopes that they could win the election and get to appoint one of their own. which is related to a generalized pattern of not voting on nominees that has occurred for some time (though again more from republicans, though some from dems as well).
Some of the shifts in congress would be a result of opposition to obamacare (in part because takin gaction costs votes compared to inaction), others are simply standard structural factors (republicans do better in midterm elections, the party of the president tends to lose seats)
various links added for reference I looked at and at least partially used in the creation of this post, but have not read in their entirety:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdowns_in_the_United_States
https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2011/10/20/how-a-conservative-think-tank-invented-the-individual-mandate/#7f1dcee16187
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/waiting-for-next-president-confirmations-of-federal-trial-judges-stall/2016/06/05/9b626aa4-222f-11e6-9e7f-57890b612299_story.html?utm_term=.f6334b24e19e
post was getting too long and unwieldy so I stopped here to catchup on the thread, as I've been slowly writing it over awhile.
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On January 15 2018 01:58 GreenHorizons wrote:
Politics is probably one of the most popular (as in highly observed) fields where you still see a bunch of mediocre white men expecting the system to fit them in like it has before.
I fail to see how the white men are any more mediocre than the non-white men they're running against. In fact, when one of the main attractions of candidates in Democratic primaries is "he/she is not a white man", it weakens the argument that non-white males politicians are now breaking in solely due to their lesser mediocrity.
Actually, I'd take it farther and say this argument makes little sense at all in politics because competence as a politician almost certainly isn't well-correlated with electoral prospects--which are largely a function of one's ability to grab voters' attention and whatever other popular whims (racism, populism, reverse-racism, handouts, fiscal conservatism, etc.) happen to be widespread among voters during the time period where the election takes place.
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@zlefin:
Thank you for the summary and the clarification. Many democracies I know have direct elections of most/all members of the parliament and let the parliament vote the leading members of the government. I didn't know that the USA's vote of parliament and president are fairly independent, but the USA are one of the oldest modern democracies and afaik didn't reform their voting processes since forever, so deadlocks don't come as a complete surprise. Not that other systems are necessarily more stable or active.
So I guess Obama couldn't force reelections. I read that the reps went pretty partisan, but as mentioned before I've started to doubt most of what I read in our media about republicans.
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On January 15 2018 06:29 Archeon wrote:
@zlefin:
Thank you for the summary and the clarification. Many democracies I know have direct elections of most/all members of the parliament and let the parliament vote the leading members of the government. I didn't know that the USA's vote of parliament and president are fairly independent, but the USA are one of the oldest modern democracies and afaik didn't reform their voting processes since forever, so deadlocks don't come as a complete surprise. Not that other systems are necessarily more stable or active.
So I guess Obama couldn't force reelections. I read that the reps went pretty partisan, but as mentioned before I've started to doubt most of what I read in our media about republicans.
Out of curiosity, why do you doubt your media's reporting on Republicans?
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On January 15 2018 06:26 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2018 01:58 GreenHorizons wrote:
Politics is probably one of the most popular (as in highly observed) fields where you still see a bunch of mediocre white men expecting the system to fit them in like it has before. I fail to see how the white men are any more mediocre than the non-white men they're running against. In fact, when one of the main attractions of candidates in Democratic primaries is "he/she is not a white male", it weakens the argument that non-white males politicians are now breaking in solely due to their lesser mediocrity. Actually, I'd take it farther and say this argument makes little sense at all in politics because competence as a politician almost certainly isn't well-correlated with electoral prospects--which are largely a function of one's ability to grab voters' attention and whatever other popular whims (racism, populism, reverse-racism, handouts, fiscal conservatism, etc.) happen to be widespread among voters during the time period where the election takes place.
While I somewhat agree I'd say from his point of view it makes a lot of sense though.
To him, the whole issue with systematic racial discrimination (in some cases/places) is perhaps an awful lot more important than to you. And no I don't want to start a discussion on wether or not it exists or in which cases, we can both probably agree that at the very least to GH it's a mighty important topic.
I mean, just look at what GH is usually posting about and I get the idea of it being one of the most important if not the utterly most important aspects of US politics as of today, for him. So it comes to no surprise that if you have that as a viewpoint even a mediocre non-white person would probably be better to him because that person might have experienced what's so important to GH himself.
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On January 15 2018 06:29 Archeon wrote:
@zlefin:
Thank you for the summary and the clarification. Many democracies I know have direct elections of most/all members of the parliament and let the parliament vote the leading members of the government. I didn't know that the USA's vote of parliament and president are fairly independent, but the USA are one of the oldest modern democracies and afaik didn't reform their voting processes since forever, so deadlocks don't come as a complete surprise. Not that other systems are necessarily more stable or active.
So I guess Obama couldn't force reelections. I read that the reps went pretty partisan, but as mentioned before I've started to doubt most of what I read in our media about republicans.
there really are some substantial problems with republicans, and the problems started in the 1990's; before then they were reasonable enough.
but they started going crazy then.
that problem is made worse by a general trend sinc ethen of both parties shrinking in terms of ideological territory. so there's less overlap between parties to help smooth thin sover (there's also some entirely unrelated stuff which made the people less chummy and less prone to gettin galong).
https://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2015/04/24/political_partisanship_in_three_stunning_charts_109196.html
edit addin gsome details on the US system:
the US votes for congress and president are quite independent, there's no legal requirement for them to mesh at all; though they do correlate somewhat as the ballots are held on the same day, and people tend to (but don' talways) vote the same party for each of them.
also note that the US congress has 2 parts which are elected separately, and can thus have different composition; and there's no requirement for a majority to exist in either chamber of congress, let alone both of them. it's not that common for a party to control both chambers of congress AND the presidency, which is required to be able to pass legislation readily (i.e. without lots of deal-making).
party discipline/uniformity is also lower in the US than in parliamentary systems, though it has been rising. unlike parliamentary systems where the party's vote as a bloc, there's often a lot of votes other ways in the US, moreso on some issues than others.
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On January 15 2018 06:37 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2018 06:26 mozoku wrote:On January 15 2018 01:58 GreenHorizons wrote:
Politics is probably one of the most popular (as in highly observed) fields where you still see a bunch of mediocre white men expecting the system to fit them in like it has before. I fail to see how the white men are any more mediocre than the non-white men they're running against. In fact, when one of the main attractions of candidates in Democratic primaries is "he/she is not a white male", it weakens the argument that non-white males politicians are now breaking in solely due to their lesser mediocrity. Actually, I'd take it farther and say this argument makes little sense at all in politics because competence as a politician almost certainly isn't well-correlated with electoral prospects--which are largely a function of one's ability to grab voters' attention and whatever other popular whims (racism, populism, reverse-racism, handouts, fiscal conservatism, etc.) happen to be widespread among voters during the time period where the election takes place. While I somewhat agree I'd say from his point of view it makes a lot of sense though. To him, the whole issue with systematic racial discrimination (in some cases/places) is perhaps an awful lot more important than to you. And no I don't want to start a discussion on wether or not it exists or in which cases, we can both probably agree that at the very least to GH it's a mighty important topic. I mean, just look at what GH is usually posting about and I get the idea of it being one of the most important if not the utterly most important aspects of US politics as of today, for him. So it comes to no surprise that if you have that as a viewpoint even a mediocre non-white person would probably be better to him because that person might have experienced what's so important to GH himself.
If you have a bunch of mediocre people in power, you'd be surprised to what lengths they will go to in order to ensure their peers remain comparably mediocre, rather than intentionally welcoming people significantly better than them.
It was really easy to see in things like basketball or baseball, but people struggle to see it in other fields such as politics or middle management (or they only see the nepotistic side).
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On January 15 2018 07:19 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2018 06:37 Toadesstern wrote:On January 15 2018 06:26 mozoku wrote:On January 15 2018 01:58 GreenHorizons wrote:
Politics is probably one of the most popular (as in highly observed) fields where you still see a bunch of mediocre white men expecting the system to fit them in like it has before. I fail to see how the white men are any more mediocre than the non-white men they're running against. In fact, when one of the main attractions of candidates in Democratic primaries is "he/she is not a white male", it weakens the argument that non-white males politicians are now breaking in solely due to their lesser mediocrity. Actually, I'd take it farther and say this argument makes little sense at all in politics because competence as a politician almost certainly isn't well-correlated with electoral prospects--which are largely a function of one's ability to grab voters' attention and whatever other popular whims (racism, populism, reverse-racism, handouts, fiscal conservatism, etc.) happen to be widespread among voters during the time period where the election takes place. While I somewhat agree I'd say from his point of view it makes a lot of sense though. To him, the whole issue with systematic racial discrimination (in some cases/places) is perhaps an awful lot more important than to you. And no I don't want to start a discussion on wether or not it exists or in which cases, we can both probably agree that at the very least to GH it's a mighty important topic. I mean, just look at what GH is usually posting about and I get the idea of it being one of the most important if not the utterly most important aspects of US politics as of today, for him. So it comes to no surprise that if you have that as a viewpoint even a mediocre non-white person would probably be better to him because that person might have experienced what's so important to GH himself. If you have a bunch of mediocre people in power, you'd be surprised to what lengths they will go to in order to ensure their peers remain comparably mediocre, rather than intentionally welcoming people significantly better than them. It was really easy to see in things like basketball or baseball, but people struggle to see it in other fields such as politics or middle management (or they only see the nepotistic side).
Yeah I get that example but quite frankly I'm not knowledgeable enough to really judge wether those 3 people really are any better or worse than the one white guy in the race. So I didn't want to approach it from that point of view,
But I thought that EVEN IF they're on the same level of mediocracy there could still be a reasonable argument to be made to support them over the other guy simply because that one issue is so important to you specifically.´
I mean, with politics it's really hard to make that judgement in general unless someone is seriously bad. A lot of people have a lot of different opinions on what's important in politics and even if they agree on what issue would be the most important that doesn't mean they agree on what policies would be best to deal with whatever it is they agree is a problem. So the judgement on what's a "good" politician is really specific to that one person who is casting the vote.
As long as we don't get too absurd with people being plain bad rather than mediocre.
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On January 15 2018 07:31 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2018 07:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 15 2018 06:37 Toadesstern wrote:On January 15 2018 06:26 mozoku wrote:On January 15 2018 01:58 GreenHorizons wrote:
Politics is probably one of the most popular (as in highly observed) fields where you still see a bunch of mediocre white men expecting the system to fit them in like it has before. I fail to see how the white men are any more mediocre than the non-white men they're running against. In fact, when one of the main attractions of candidates in Democratic primaries is "he/she is not a white male", it weakens the argument that non-white males politicians are now breaking in solely due to their lesser mediocrity. Actually, I'd take it farther and say this argument makes little sense at all in politics because competence as a politician almost certainly isn't well-correlated with electoral prospects--which are largely a function of one's ability to grab voters' attention and whatever other popular whims (racism, populism, reverse-racism, handouts, fiscal conservatism, etc.) happen to be widespread among voters during the time period where the election takes place. While I somewhat agree I'd say from his point of view it makes a lot of sense though. To him, the whole issue with systematic racial discrimination (in some cases/places) is perhaps an awful lot more important than to you. And no I don't want to start a discussion on wether or not it exists or in which cases, we can both probably agree that at the very least to GH it's a mighty important topic. I mean, just look at what GH is usually posting about and I get the idea of it being one of the most important if not the utterly most important aspects of US politics as of today, for him. So it comes to no surprise that if you have that as a viewpoint even a mediocre non-white person would probably be better to him because that person might have experienced what's so important to GH himself. If you have a bunch of mediocre people in power, you'd be surprised to what lengths they will go to in order to ensure their peers remain comparably mediocre, rather than intentionally welcoming people significantly better than them. It was really easy to see in things like basketball or baseball, but people struggle to see it in other fields such as politics or middle management (or they only see the nepotistic side). Yeah I get that example but quite frankly I'm not knowledgeable enough to really judge wether those 3 people really are any better or worse than the one white guy in the race. So I didn't want to approach it from that point of view, But I thought that EVEN IF they're on the same level of mediocracy there could still be a reasonable argument to be made to support them over the other guy simply because that one issue is so important to you specifically.´ I mean, with politics it's really hard to make that judgement in general unless someone is seriously bad. A lot of people have a lot of different opinions on what's important in politics and even if they agree on what issue would be the most important that doesn't mean they agree on what policies would be best to deal with whatever it is they agree is a problem. So the judgement on what's a "good" politician is really specific to that one person who is casting the vote.
Makes sense.
As long as we don't get too absurd with people being plain bad rather than mediocre.
I live in a country that elected Donald Trump president.
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On January 15 2018 08:42 GreenHorizons wrote:
I live in a country that elected Donald Trump president.
Seriously, it's an embarrassment and there's nothing any citizen of the US can say to deflect that point.
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EPT
