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On November 04 2010 09:51 overt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2010 09:46 domovoi wrote:On November 04 2010 09:42 overt wrote:On November 04 2010 09:35 domovoi wrote:On November 04 2010 09:34 overt wrote:
Yes, but at least you have third parties with an actual say in politics. We have two completely incompetent parties with no party to support the rights of the worker or lower class.
Unions overwhelmingly support the Democrats... That doesn't make the Democrats a worker's party, lol. Yeah, I guess the Democrats are more supportive of worker's rights than Republicans but they most certainly don't represent the lower class nor do they ever pass legislation that directly benefits the lower class. Shit, they couldn't even get a public option through Congress. I think in general you will find that the poor of most countries have very little political power. Except for the part where in most European and Latin American countries there are parties that actually represent them. Y'know, like every most of the political parties in Brazil, the Labor Party in the UK, or the FMLN party in El Salvador. We have two parties that are primarily focused on big business and our party that's closest to the lower class rarely, if ever, passes any legislation that directly benefits them. Yeah, individuals have very little power in most countries, but at least in other countries the lower class actually has a party to represent their wants and wishes. @trevabob, honestly our Democrats are more similar to the Tories than Labor.
I'm not familiar with Brazilian or El Salvadoran politics, but the Labor party of the UK represents the poor as much as the Democrats do, which is to say, not much at all.
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On November 04 2010 09:56 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2010 09:51 overt wrote:On November 04 2010 09:46 domovoi wrote:On November 04 2010 09:42 overt wrote:On November 04 2010 09:35 domovoi wrote:On November 04 2010 09:34 overt wrote:
Yes, but at least you have third parties with an actual say in politics. We have two completely incompetent parties with no party to support the rights of the worker or lower class.
Unions overwhelmingly support the Democrats... That doesn't make the Democrats a worker's party, lol. Yeah, I guess the Democrats are more supportive of worker's rights than Republicans but they most certainly don't represent the lower class nor do they ever pass legislation that directly benefits the lower class. Shit, they couldn't even get a public option through Congress. I think in general you will find that the poor of most countries have very little political power. Except for the part where in most European and Latin American countries there are parties that actually represent them. Y'know, like every most of the political parties in Brazil, the Labor Party in the UK, or the FMLN party in El Salvador. We have two parties that are primarily focused on big business and our party that's closest to the lower class rarely, if ever, passes any legislation that directly benefits them. Yeah, individuals have very little power in most countries, but at least in other countries the lower class actually has a party to represent their wants and wishes. @trevabob, honestly our Democrats are more similar to the Tories than Labor. I'm not familiar with Brazilian or El Salvadoran politics, but the Labor party of the UK represents the poor as much as the Democrats do, which is to say, not much at all.
Ok now as a Labour member I am biased, but I think that the Labour party does represent the poor considerably more than the Democrats do in the US. This is partly due to the party history, as you may be able to tell, the party was established to represent the Labour force of the UK (who at the time were not enfranchised) and therefore have a strong identity as the party of the working class while the Democrats were actually the nasty-racist-bastard-slaveowner party until the 20th century.
Also, in the UK political system which is much more to the left than in the US (the Conservatives here are probably slightly to the left of the Democrats) it is much easier to actually push forward 'socialist' policies without being crucified.
Just sayin'
Although if a US style system existed here, they may well be in a similar situation to the democrats, but there's a lot of "what if" involved there which is always dodgy
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Odd things about American national politics from my perspective:
- Only 2 relevant parties.
- Both parties are far to the right of all political parties in Norway.
- More person focused than party focused.
- Religion, family life, religion more talked about than the issues.
- Negative ad campaigns.
- Enormous sums of money needed and spent on campaigns.
- "Winner takes all" system when distributing seats.
- Laws have all kinds of bagage attached to them in order to get them passed.
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I seriously don't understand why most nations are so liberal. I would have thought they would have learned the lesson by now that government isn't good at anything except taking your money, regulating your life and getting rich. Seriously.
United states does have something unique though, it is the largest democracy in the world and as such it is significantly harder to manage than a smaller nation like the UK. Conditions and environments are so diverse across the united states because of ethnicity (i'm half middle eastern), location, and economics. To try to set a standard is almost impossible. I might be an advocate for small federal government, but i believe that individual states and cities should be able to regulate themselves freely to attract people or businesses. If one state has high taxes, then people will leave to another state.
As far as the moral issues in the united states, politicians can't do anything anyway. Most of the major moral decisions have been made by the supreme court. The only thing the legislative branch can do is force the issue. Judicial opinion changes over time depending on the overall feeling of the nation, but in general it is a slow process. Many americans themselves simply don't care about politics to even understand the issues. About 80% of them (which was the percentage in california that voted against a 0.1% tax increase on cars to pay for parks just 2 days ago) just say "don't increase my taxes and you have my vote".
The best way for foreigners to think about the united states is imagine if the EU decided to have a government that had the power to override the individual nations. Each nation would be looking out for its own best interest and there would be tons of ethical conflicts everywhere. That is basically the united states in a nutshell.
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On November 04 2010 10:22 darmousseh wrote:
I seriously don't understand why most nations are so liberal. I would have thought they would have learned the lesson by now that government isn't good at anything except taking your money, regulating your life and getting rich. Seriously.
United states does have something unique though, it is the largest democracy in the world and as such it is significantly harder to manage than a smaller nation like the UK. Conditions and environments are so diverse across the united states because of ethnicity (i'm half middle eastern), location, and economics. To try to set a standard is almost impossible. I might be an advocate for small federal government, but i believe that individual states and cities should be able to regulate themselves freely to attract people or businesses. If one state has high taxes, then people will leave to another state.
As far as the moral issues in the united states, politicians can't do anything anyway. Most of the major moral decisions have been made by the supreme court. The only thing the legislative branch can do is force the issue. Judicial opinion changes over time depending on the overall feeling of the nation, but in general it is a slow process. Many americans themselves simply don't care about politics to even understand the issues. About 80% of them (which was the percentage in california that voted against a 0.1% tax increase on cars to pay for parks just 2 days ago) just say "don't increase my taxes and you have my vote".
The best way for foreigners to think about the united states is imagine if the EU decided to have a government that had the power to override the individual nations. Each nation would be looking out for its own best interest and there would be tons of ethical conflicts everywhere. That is basically the united states in a nutshell.
Stopped reading right there. No, its not, ever heard of India?
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On November 04 2010 06:06 KwarK wrote:
I find it absurd to the point of amusement until I remember the global position of the US and then I die a little inside. The importance of religion in American politics (how is abortion an important issue for anyone anywhere ever?!?!?!) and a Cold War fear of socialism are rather quaint from a European perspective.
Americans certainly are different from Europeans and from Canadians and whoever else may be shocked by us and our values. But maybe it is in part our values or principles or "American-ness" or whatever it is that you find quaint that allowed us to obtain and continue the "global position" we are in anyway.
We don't have as strong of a social safety net, but that is partly because we strongly believe in individual responsibility and self-sufficiency. That belief may make our safety net weaker, but may add a strength of character to society that you don't find to the same extent in other countries.
But, in the end, we will still be mocked by other counties and we will continue to not care and to keep loving our country the way it is and not want it to become more like Europe or any other country.
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Uuh isn't the liberals that want small government, deregulation, laws that favour corporations over people, free markets and privatizing public things? And the labour parties or socialists that are on the other side of the spectrum?
Also, doesn't the US favour a big government? I heard they spend more on the military then all other countries together. Also, the US government has more power in some countries than the local government there has. You need a pretty big government to do that.
And isn't a problem with small government that you get too big a private sector, who can't at all be held accountable for their actions, degrading how democratic as opposed to authoritarian a society is?
We don't have as strong of a social safety net, but that is partly because we strongly believe in individual responsibility and self-sufficiency. That belief may make our safety net weaker, but may add a strength of character to society that you don't find to the same extent in other countries.
This is basically the definition of liberalism in the modern day if you ask me. It's the neo-libeeral ideology that came over from the US that harmed the rest of the world and caused the financial crisis. It wasn't just US consumer debt and the housing market. Banks from all over the world bought into it. Iceland was destroyed by it.
Why is the US so liberal on economic issues and so absurdly conservative on social issues? And how can they even be combined without double think? All these real issues aren't the government's business but it is the government's job to enforce subjective and often factually wrong morality?
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Savio, you can't be serious. The social security system sucks. It's not because Americans think "we have the individual strength to hack it without social security," it's because the social security system was mismanaged.
Are these the same Americans who put metal detectors in public schools? Trust the individual, my ass.
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There is also a serious gross misunderstanding of the role of the president from other countries. In other countries the leaders can write legislation and even enact it by themselves in some cases. In the united states the president is little more than a spokesperson for the government. He can control the army and directs the course of the legislation but can only sign bills into law if passed by the 2 branches of congress. This is why at things like the environment meetings, obama can only promise that he will try to pass legislation.
As far as bush, everyone needs to realize that bush also inherited a mess. In his first year of office the united states went through the stock bubble and the economy dropped significantly. What bush failed at was not running the economy (since that's the job of the federal reserve....which by the way is still run by the same guys), but by going into a war without a justifiable cause. Almost 90% of americans still support efforts to find and kill bin laden, however, our engagement with iraq had some other motives. There are many reasons he likely declared war and americans at the time were inclined to believe him.
What obama inherited was not bushes economic policy but his foreign policy and guess what....war is expensive. War directed trillions of dollar of investment not into machines capable of increasing production, but into weapons which are consumed once and destroyed leaving behind no investment. On top of that, the united states didn't have any money to fund the war so this caused the government to borrow from the federal reserve. Borrowing depreciates the dollar which in turn makes investments less valuable. In many cases banks make risky loans in the hopes that they will come out ahead because of inflation. However, the federal reserve (like it always does) went too far in lowering interest rates, along with some legislation increasing the demand for houses caused a giant bubble which had to be burst.
I personally have not voted for any of the top 2 candidates in many years and am very unlikely to unless someone magical comes along.
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On November 04 2010 10:27 theinvisiblePLER wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2010 10:22 darmousseh wrote:
I seriously don't understand why most nations are so liberal. I would have thought they would have learned the lesson by now that government isn't good at anything except taking your money, regulating your life and getting rich. Seriously.
United states does have something unique though, it is the largest democracy in the world and as such it is significantly harder to manage than a smaller nation like the UK. Conditions and environments are so diverse across the united states because of ethnicity (i'm half middle eastern), location, and economics. To try to set a standard is almost impossible. I might be an advocate for small federal government, but i believe that individual states and cities should be able to regulate themselves freely to attract people or businesses. If one state has high taxes, then people will leave to another state.
As far as the moral issues in the united states, politicians can't do anything anyway. Most of the major moral decisions have been made by the supreme court. The only thing the legislative branch can do is force the issue. Judicial opinion changes over time depending on the overall feeling of the nation, but in general it is a slow process. Many americans themselves simply don't care about politics to even understand the issues. About 80% of them (which was the percentage in california that voted against a 0.1% tax increase on cars to pay for parks just 2 days ago) just say "don't increase my taxes and you have my vote".
The best way for foreigners to think about the united states is imagine if the EU decided to have a government that had the power to override the individual nations. Each nation would be looking out for its own best interest and there would be tons of ethical conflicts everywhere. That is basically the united states in a nutshell. Stopped reading right there. No, its not, ever heard of India?
I said MOST and i meant to say "not libertarian". India is authortarian.
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I have never understood those who criticize Americans because they do not separate political life from personal life. If you accept that politicians serve common people, that the end of politics is not merely politics, why is it any more ridiculous that political life in America is treated not independently from non-political life, but ancillary to it? Normal Americans have a somewhat more realistic understanding of the state as an organ of a greater social organism; and not as the organism itself. No society can be made healthy merely by good government and wise policy, no more than a person can maintain health merely by having good genetic programming.
Personalized politics in America may produce bad results, because of the cult of celebrity, but it's not clear that bureaucratized politics is healthier for a society.
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On November 04 2010 10:33 BottleAbuser wrote:
Savio, you can't be serious. The social security system sucks. It's not because Americans think "we have the individual strength to hack it without social security," it's because the social security system was mismanaged.
Are these the same Americans who put metal detectors in public schools? Trust the individual, my ass.
It also could be that social security is a ponzi scheme.
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Im american. the two party system sucks because there are 4 political spectrums, (social and economic) control and freedom respectively. for example:
libertarian = social freedom and economic freedom
republican/conservative = social control economic freedom
democrat/liberal = social freedom economic control
socialism/fascism/communism = social control economic control
the two party system is caused by a majority (plurality) rule election process. Thus our elections may look stupid because someone may have a most important issue and they vote for the rep/dem who holds that issue (or at least lies about it campaigning) even though they are different our neutral about all the other issues. abortion comes to mind. If we had a representative rule-electoral process i think this would change.
That being said America is/was largely about freedom from government, since our revolution. This (and the cold war) is why were hostile to the socialism most of the world puts up with. This is, to my dismay, changing.
Lastly, i pay little to no attention to the rest of the worlds politics. IMO we should mess with countries around the world, except for trade. For example, military bases should be removed from places like South Korea and Germany, do with your country what you want (again imo). I do pay attention to other countries economics (Greece for example).
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On November 04 2010 06:10 Tempest186 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2010 06:05 SichuanPanda wrote:
Living in Canada I see all of the US news and politics, and I'll tell you right now the way I and most Canadians see US politics is quite simple - generally the same as ours, except the campaigns run for eons *when compared to a Canadian campaign*. Most campaigns here are about 1-3 months depending on election type, in the US it seems as though the campaigning goes on for about 18 months. I'm going to have to disagree with you champ...Canadian politics is nothing like that of the US. The extreme partisanship in the US, with both the far right and left constantly mudslinging each other is fairly foreign to a country like Canada, whose entire culture is based on feigning politeness lol. The major Canadian political parties are almost both moderate, with slight left and right leaning tendencies. They in no way reflect the deep political divide that is currently destroying the fabric of American government. Meh, just my two sense...
Until you've lived in Canada and seen that the exact same kind of mudslinging goes on in our politics I really don't think you're qualified to say what our politics is like. Canada gets all US TV stations I can see on a daily basis what your politics, my politics, and even two or three other major countries politics is. US does not get nearly as many CA TV stations - much less CA news stations. A similar divide in Canadian politics exists which can't really be seen unless you live here. Our sides of the spectrum though revolve mostly around spending, one side spends a lot, the other doesn't, and the other (third) party somewhere in the middle never gets voted significantly enough to win anyways.
Besides when I said 'generally the same' I meant just that. I didn't mean the party systems were laid out exactly the same or agendas were exactly the same. While the power that the US Congress far exceeds the Canadian equivalent we do have two different legislation groups, the Senate and the House of Commons. These correspond to the US Senate and House of Representatives, respectively. We vote for our leader democratically and votes are tallied based on a number of different regions across the country, similar to a US state distict (we literally call them regions). Also like the US the winning party does not necessarily have to obtain 50% of the vote or more (however since the US does only have two major parties it basically means that the winner will be above 50% most of the time). So the particular interactions of Canadian and US politicians may not be the exactly the same, nor the method in which voting below the federal level occurs, however like I said they are generally the same.
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On November 04 2010 10:36 darmousseh wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2010 10:33 BottleAbuser wrote:
Savio, you can't be serious. The social security system sucks. It's not because Americans think "we have the individual strength to hack it without social security," it's because the social security system was mismanaged.
Are these the same Americans who put metal detectors in public schools? Trust the individual, my ass. It also could be that social security is a ponzi scheme.
hell ya social security is a ponzi scheme. i wish i could opt out SO BAD.
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On November 04 2010 10:36 methematics wrote:
That being said America is/was largely about freedom from government, since our revolution. This (and the cold war) is why were hostile to the socialism most of the world puts up with. This is, to my dismay, changing.
Lol. Do you really believe this? We were only a holy crusade to end socialism? That all of a sudden this holy crusade is over?
hahahahaha! Lord I love public schooling, may it live forever!
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After reading more of this thread, my only thought is that I am so glad that non-Americans have absolutely no say on the course of my country. There are some real whacky views in here from people who must have access to some horrible (or at least extremely liberally biased) media or something.
I remember while spending some time in Ecuador during the Iraq war, someone once asked me if I was worried that the Iraqis would bomb my home. I was shocked that they were so uninformed about reality and I realized that they had been hearing crazy stuff on the news.
I feel that same feeling reading this thread. People view "reality" so differently from the way we see it here in the states that I don't even know where to begin to explain where they got confused.
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American politics is a broad term, nevertheless I'll give my opinion.
- I think the amounts of money involved during any elections are disturbing to say the least, not to mention the sources it is coming from. The lobbyist culture in the states worries me, too much dabbling in politics by people/companies who don't belong there. Not that that's not the case in other countries, far from it, but its rather extreme in the US.
- The way the elections are being conducted is absurd as well, all those mud fights. Not to mention the gigantic, and ridiculous, media wars. Every time it seems as if its more about aesthetics than policy.
- Influence of religion isn't any worse in the US than in many other countries I think. There are quite a lot of African nations, for example, who have a 'minister of religion'. And what to think about a lot of Islamic countries, where religion is very important in politics. In fact, in the Netherlands one of the biggest parties since the '60 has been a christian party (Christian Democratic Call), and still is. Its just the religious fanatics on the tele who give us a bad impression. And that goes for every other religion/country.
- What I regard as being highly dangerous in the current US political domain is a starting fear mongering to the adress of China. Its not very articulate as of yet, but I sincerely hope this won't be picked up by a growing crowd of people and starts to snowball into another war/conflict of projected fear, like Iraq has been.
- Imo there seems to be a certain taboo in the US about bringing over other forms of politics other than their own. I cannot say I am surprised as the US, originally, is a refuge for people who were tired of the ways (aristocracy, kolonialism, industrialism to name but a few) in the 'old world', but the 'old world' has been around longer and it might have some concepts which are worth looking into. It's not just fascism and communism we have brought forth on this continent.
I can think of a few more, but let's not add another wall of text. Anyway, my 2 cents,
-M
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I despise all politicians no matter where they're from. Politics are all f'ed up everywhere, but especially in the US 
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Canada11367 Posts
I see US politics as being crazy. I vote for right of centre parties in Canada, but when I listen to the debates in US, I can't at all agree with the Republicans idea of the right. (That and fiscal responsibility seems completely passe in the US. They're not tax and spend. They're just cut and spend.) The insane polarization, posturing, and aggressive rhetoric I find comical (hence my enjoyment of Jon Stewart.) For instance the healthcare debate sounded as though the commys had finally landed in America. Given the length of time Canada has had public healthcare, I think we can rule out a communist revolution, but you wouldn't know if you listen to the American rhetoric. (I knew our flag is red for a reason.)
I think there are a lot of Canadians that feel Obama is being wasted in the States and would swap Harper for Obama in a heartbeat.
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EPT
