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On July 30 2020 00:58 Danglars wrote:I can’t quite square musing about how interesting it would be for them to get acute symptoms, with not wishing them harm in any way. It’s a disease whose symptoms include difficulty breathing, so it just comes across as a exulting in the prospect of a political change from personal trauma. I get the same feeling when I see Democrats clowning on something serious, but I have to stop the impulse because it’s all shit the whole way down.
That is because sadly I see no other way for these guys to acknowledge that maybe it's serious and it warrants a little bit of effort from everyone. If they are willing to die on that hill, I'd rather it impacts them directly that unrelated people who didn't get to decide.
If 150k dead in 4 months didn't move them, do you see any way to change their mind than for it to get close and personal ?
That's what I mean by I don't wish them harm, in that I'd take no joy in anyone dying or getting critically ill, but it might be the only thing that would be able to change their views about it.
Because everytime one gets a mild case, they brag that they were right, which is equally infuriating to other casualties.
@Wegandi : I agree about the debt part, it's gonna HURT. I'd much rather people take precautions and the economy can be reopened quicker, than having those idiots delaying the overall recovery for pitiful reasons like unwillingness to wear a piece of clothing.
I'm usually positioned in the center (though more on the left on healthcare, I mean european center :-D), so all this bullshit from both sides is hard to see.
@Sent. : well Bolsonaro basically pulled the same shit. Seeing as Johnson was in ICU for a while, I'd have thought he was well positioned to petition to other leaders what could happen, but I guess they don't care or he didn't. At least the UK dealt with it more seriously afterwards.
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Ohh right. I remember seeing Bolsonaro in a mask so I thought he's more like Johnson than Trump in this regard. Bold, but not "it's just a flu" bold.
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He was having maskless crowd mingling until June, and after testing negative, he posed next to a hydroxychloroquine bottle. It is expected he starts going to meetings again, but has not yet (it has been only 4 days since he tested negative). He has been outside, but with a mask or a bike helmet.
So I guess the jury is still out on his actions (his discourse has changed *a little*, maybe more due to public pressure than illness)
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On July 30 2020 01:49 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2020 01:23 Wegandi wrote:
I give the US like...12-16 years max before the first state says fuck this shit and leaves. The partisan hysteria is only increasing at an exponential rate with no signs of abating. Our "mainstream" media outlets are no longer thinly veiled arms of either party, but actively reveling in it, stoking ever high tensions (of which we see in societal unrest). Very similar to the 1850s. At this point our bicameral legislature are actively antagonistic against each other and both parties salivate at the prospect of holding complete power to lord it over one another. What a fucking shit show. There's not even a pretense of running on policies outside of the extremes of the parties - living in wackadoo land of the SJW's or the conspiracy nuts of R/TheDonald. No one gives a shit about the hilarious debts. You even have Democrats saying spending trillions and trillions is not enough and still pushing their GOP want you to starve shtick. Blegh. OK, enough ranting. Or they could just put back in the fairness in media rules so your "news" stations were about telling the news instead of chasing ratings by stoking anger and outrage.
Not only would Democrats be apopletic about say, Tucker Carlson being on MSNBC, but the cancel culture folks would be hysterical. The fairness doctrine is DOA lmao. That said, the GOP would be too if say Chris Hayes was on Fox or whatever.
When the zeitgeist of the day is that any institution is necessarily held liable for all views of their staff, well, good luck getting anyone on board that train. Lol. (I find this funny because it was the Democrats not ten years ago going on about getting the fairness doctrine back, but now-a-days they'd be fuming if that ever came to be)
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On July 30 2020 01:28 Nouar wrote:
@Sent. : well Bolsonaro basically pulled the same shit. Seeing as Johnson was in ICU for a while, I'd have thought he was well positioned to petition to other leaders what could happen, but I guess they don't care or he didn't. At least the UK dealt with it more seriously afterwards.
I doubt they fail to take it seriously because they think it's just a flu per se; it's more like strong political pressure to try to minimize economic damage to shore up their popularity, along with poor judgment to think that the damage won't be too bad. Some tens of thousands of death isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things from a pandemic; they just didn't realize that tens of thousands has the risk of turning into millions for this pandemic in particular.
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On July 29 2020 08:32 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2020 07:40 Nevuk wrote:On July 29 2020 06:44 Danglars wrote:On July 29 2020 06:13 Nevuk wrote:
Anyone watching the Barr hearings? They were a little absurd, from what I've read.
Actual info :
Barr stated that Trump did go to the bunker during the Lafeyette square incident. (I don't see the issue with him doing this - it makes him look ridiculous when he claims he didn't is the only issue).
Main actual highlight was Barr saying it's not illegal to accept election interference from a foreign power.
What people will probably remember is that it was something of a shitshow (Barr being denied breaks, Gym Jordan acting like normal for him, republicans yelling out random stuff). I watched roughly half of it live. Very funny. Tons of grandstanding on both sides. I would recommend watching the Democratic exchanges with Barr in their entirety. It speaks volumes to how unskilled politically the democrats are in general that in the clips I've seen, they mostly looked petulant, whiny, and ineffective. They don't need to do anything other than lay out the issues, as their hand is strong enough with a lot of Barr's worst actions (asking prosecutors to step down, teargassing protestors, being involved in Stone's case for leniency). Instead we get them mulishly denying Barr a bathroom break and yelling at him for having no black people on his staff... Then you should definitely listen to two exchanges on the tear gas issue. To the extent that Democrats have issues with Barr’s involvement in the other two, they sure didn’t show they mattered at all. And the two examples you cite weren’t even the worst ones, although Nadler’s initial refusal of a 5minute recess was overly petty. People voting Democrat this November should watch every exchange so they know both sides of the sleaze in Washington DC. If you only know how bad Trump and Republicans are, you know very little, and I say this even if someone in good faith can look at both and conclude Democrats should be put in power in both houses.
It's a lesser of two evils situation for me. The house has pretty much always been a shit-show throughout history, but the way the GOP has used control of the senate and house (whenever they've had either) over the past decade makes them a non-starter for me as candidates on either (even if I agreed with their politics)
After Trump I also can't support a republican, period, for any office. If they want my vote they need to go start a new party. He's just too incompetent and they tethered themselves too strongly to him for relatively minor gains. In 2014 or so I hated the way the GOP was running the national stage, but might have voted for one in a local office. Not anymore.
I do find most democratic leadership to be pretty repulsive. A lot of it is that they're just so bad at politics. It offends me that they seem to have slept through any study of politics or history in college, as a collective group. They're also sleazy, but to the level that I expect/accept from politicians - that's not my issue with them.
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On July 30 2020 02:32 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2020 08:32 Danglars wrote:On July 29 2020 07:40 Nevuk wrote:On July 29 2020 06:44 Danglars wrote:On July 29 2020 06:13 Nevuk wrote:
Anyone watching the Barr hearings? They were a little absurd, from what I've read.
Actual info :
Barr stated that Trump did go to the bunker during the Lafeyette square incident. (I don't see the issue with him doing this - it makes him look ridiculous when he claims he didn't is the only issue).
Main actual highlight was Barr saying it's not illegal to accept election interference from a foreign power.
What people will probably remember is that it was something of a shitshow (Barr being denied breaks, Gym Jordan acting like normal for him, republicans yelling out random stuff). I watched roughly half of it live. Very funny. Tons of grandstanding on both sides. I would recommend watching the Democratic exchanges with Barr in their entirety. It speaks volumes to how unskilled politically the democrats are in general that in the clips I've seen, they mostly looked petulant, whiny, and ineffective. They don't need to do anything other than lay out the issues, as their hand is strong enough with a lot of Barr's worst actions (asking prosecutors to step down, teargassing protestors, being involved in Stone's case for leniency). Instead we get them mulishly denying Barr a bathroom break and yelling at him for having no black people on his staff... Then you should definitely listen to two exchanges on the tear gas issue. To the extent that Democrats have issues with Barr’s involvement in the other two, they sure didn’t show they mattered at all. And the two examples you cite weren’t even the worst ones, although Nadler’s initial refusal of a 5minute recess was overly petty. People voting Democrat this November should watch every exchange so they know both sides of the sleaze in Washington DC. If you only know how bad Trump and Republicans are, you know very little, and I say this even if someone in good faith can look at both and conclude Democrats should be put in power in both houses. It's a lesser of two evils situation for me. The house has pretty much always been a shit-show throughout history, but the way the GOP has used control of the senate and house (whenever they've had either) over the past decade makes them a non-starter for me as candidates on either (even if I agreed with their politics) After Trump I also can't support a republican, period, for any office. If they want my vote they need to go start a new party. He's just too incompetent and they tethered themselves too strongly to him for relatively minor gains. In 2014 or so I hated the way the GOP was running the national stage, but might have voted for one in a local office. Not anymore. I do find most democratic leadership to be pretty repulsive. A lot of it is that they're just so bad at politics. It offends me that they seem to have slept through any study of politics or history in college, as a collective group. They're also sleazy, but to the level that I expect/accept from politicians - that's not my issue with them.
I still dont quite understand the sentiment in the first paragraph, and it's one I've seen often. At least, I assume you refer to the iron fist the leaders in Congress have been using more and more. The centralization of power in these institutions, and the related slip into irrelevance, are trends reaching back decades. The last senate majority leader was one of the most iron-fisted ever (obviously not decades ago, but within the last decade).
imo the problem is a lack of competing power centers within a party, with Democrats and Republicans across the country sharing more and more traits it becomes more two-sided instead of three or four sided. The end of the Southern Democrats was really the beginning of the end on that score, at least in my opinion. I see this as institutional, mainly. although those participating obviously bear responsibility for their own actions.
This is why I like the idea of expanding the House, more granular interests represented while at the same time making it harder for the leaders to herd all the cats. Hr downside to this I think would be the continued growth, inefficiency, and general suckitude of our bureaucracy, but that's an American tradition at this point, and a story for another time.
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On July 30 2020 04:35 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2020 02:32 Nevuk wrote:On July 29 2020 08:32 Danglars wrote:On July 29 2020 07:40 Nevuk wrote:On July 29 2020 06:44 Danglars wrote:On July 29 2020 06:13 Nevuk wrote:
Anyone watching the Barr hearings? They were a little absurd, from what I've read.
Actual info :
Barr stated that Trump did go to the bunker during the Lafeyette square incident. (I don't see the issue with him doing this - it makes him look ridiculous when he claims he didn't is the only issue).
Main actual highlight was Barr saying it's not illegal to accept election interference from a foreign power.
What people will probably remember is that it was something of a shitshow (Barr being denied breaks, Gym Jordan acting like normal for him, republicans yelling out random stuff). I watched roughly half of it live. Very funny. Tons of grandstanding on both sides. I would recommend watching the Democratic exchanges with Barr in their entirety. It speaks volumes to how unskilled politically the democrats are in general that in the clips I've seen, they mostly looked petulant, whiny, and ineffective. They don't need to do anything other than lay out the issues, as their hand is strong enough with a lot of Barr's worst actions (asking prosecutors to step down, teargassing protestors, being involved in Stone's case for leniency). Instead we get them mulishly denying Barr a bathroom break and yelling at him for having no black people on his staff... Then you should definitely listen to two exchanges on the tear gas issue. To the extent that Democrats have issues with Barr’s involvement in the other two, they sure didn’t show they mattered at all. And the two examples you cite weren’t even the worst ones, although Nadler’s initial refusal of a 5minute recess was overly petty. People voting Democrat this November should watch every exchange so they know both sides of the sleaze in Washington DC. If you only know how bad Trump and Republicans are, you know very little, and I say this even if someone in good faith can look at both and conclude Democrats should be put in power in both houses. It's a lesser of two evils situation for me. The house has pretty much always been a shit-show throughout history, but the way the GOP has used control of the senate and house (whenever they've had either) over the past decade makes them a non-starter for me as candidates on either (even if I agreed with their politics) After Trump I also can't support a republican, period, for any office. If they want my vote they need to go start a new party. He's just too incompetent and they tethered themselves too strongly to him for relatively minor gains. In 2014 or so I hated the way the GOP was running the national stage, but might have voted for one in a local office. Not anymore. I do find most democratic leadership to be pretty repulsive. A lot of it is that they're just so bad at politics. It offends me that they seem to have slept through any study of politics or history in college, as a collective group. They're also sleazy, but to the level that I expect/accept from politicians - that's not my issue with them. I still dont quite understand the sentiment in the first paragraph, and it's one I've seen often. At least, I assume you refer to the iron fist the leaders in Congress have been using more and more. The centralization of power in these institutions, and the related slip into irrelevance, are trends reaching back decades. The last senate majority leader was one of the most iron-fisted ever. imo the problem is a lack of competing power centers within a party, with Democrats and Republicans across the country sharing more and more traits it becomes more two-sided instead of three or four sided. The end of the Southern Democrats was really the beginning of the end on that score, at least in my opinion. I see this as institutional, mainly. although those participating obviously bear responsibility for their own actions. This is why I like the idea of expanding the House, more granular interests represented while at the same time making it harder for the leaders to herd all the cats. Hr downside to this I think would be the continued growth, inefficiency, and general suckitude of our bureaucracy, but that's an American tradition at this point, and a story for another time.
The refusal to compromise is the sentiment I'm referring to. Everyone hates when it happens, but if it doesn't happen, then nothing happens. Blindly following the Hastert rule is my biggest complaint. McConnell managing to implement something similar in the senate flew in the eye of everything about how that chamber is envisioned to work.
I fully agree expanding the house is honestly the best idea - to maintain the original vision it'd be about 4k members. That's a bit nutty, but expanding it so that all congressional districts are the same as the smallest population state expands it to about 950 iirc, which is more manageable. Would they all fit in the house at once? No, but it's not like we don't know how to enlarge a building. And they've already approved remote sessions and voting due to covid.
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I mean if you want alternate centres of power, the way to do it is get rid of FPTP so multiple parties can exist.
The politicians would obviously fight it, but if you're talking about thousands of members of congress then we're not exactly dealing in political realities anyway.
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On July 30 2020 06:55 Belisarius wrote:
I mean if you want alternate centres of power, the way to do it is get rid of FPTP so multiple parties can exist.
The politicians would obviously fight it, but if you're talking about thousands of members of congress then we're not exactly dealing in political realities anyway.
It's remarkable how many of these things come down to "the system is bad, we all agree it needs to change, it's not possible because of how it is designed but I hope it gets better"
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It's a lot easier to get thousands of members of congress than to get rid of FPTP : all you have to do is repeal the reapportionment act of 1929. Sidenote : It's somewhat whacky to me that congress can set its own size : why would a house member ever vote to reduce their own power?
FPTP abolishment requires either a constitutional amendment or each state to pass their own law and probably amend their constitution(see Maine, where their RCV was found unconstitutional for non-Federal elections).
There's even been discussion of doing away with the 1929 act anyways, as it is also what allows state congresses to draw national congress districts.
From 1929 act on wiki :
As a result, the average size of a congressional district has tripled in size—from 210,328 inhabitants based on the 1910 Census, to 710,767 according to the 2010 Census.
(Going back to 1910 standards would mean 1471 members of the house. OG rules (max allowed - 1 per 35k people) would mean 8,877 members of the house. That would be nuts, but it should still be a bit higher if all you care about is fairness rather than diluting house power. 527,624 (RI) is the smallest district now, making that the size of all districts would mean 573 reps instead. None of this considers what would happen if Guam, PR, or DC ever became states - that would make the 435 math even harder).
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On July 30 2020 01:23 Wegandi wrote:
I give the US like...12-16 years max before the first state says fuck this shit and leaves. The partisan hysteria is only increasing at an exponential rate with no signs of abating. Our "mainstream" media outlets are no longer thinly veiled arms of either party, but actively reveling in it, stoking ever high tensions (of which we see in societal unrest). Very similar to the 1850s. At this point our bicameral legislature are actively antagonistic against each other and both parties salivate at the prospect of holding complete power to lord it over one another. What a fucking shit show. There's not even a pretense of running on policies outside of the extremes of the parties - living in wackadoo land of the SJW's or the conspiracy nuts of R/TheDonald. No one gives a shit about the hilarious debts. You even have Democrats saying spending trillions and trillions is not enough and still pushing their GOP want you to starve shtick. Blegh. OK, enough ranting.
I like this post for its long term outlook.
Its an idea that has crossed my mind as well but taking everything into consideration i dont think its all that likely for at least another 50 years and probably never.
Overall the trend is still towards further unification in the world,albeit slowly and with its ups and downs.
There is to much at stake.
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On July 30 2020 08:56 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2020 07:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 30 2020 06:55 Belisarius wrote:
I mean if you want alternate centres of power, the way to do it is get rid of FPTP so multiple parties can exist.
The politicians would obviously fight it, but if you're talking about thousands of members of congress then we're not exactly dealing in political realities anyway.
It's remarkable how many of these things come down to "the system is bad, we all agree it needs to change, it's not possible because of how it is designed but I hope it gets better" Not enough agree on how it should be changed, so it is not.
Enough of the 'right' people maybe? Part of the "system is bad" critique is that it's obviously apparent on things like background checks at gun shows that popularity of policy itself isn't what determines its enactment into law.
You have to turn to a critique of the system itself and its failure to do the will of the people due to something beyond the popularity and practical soundness of the change.
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Merkel must be freaking out.
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On July 30 2020 01:23 Wegandi wrote:
I give the US like...12-16 years max before the first state says fuck this shit and leaves. The partisan hysteria is only increasing at an exponential rate with no signs of abating. Our "mainstream" media outlets are no longer thinly veiled arms of either party, but actively reveling in it, stoking ever high tensions (of which we see in societal unrest). Very similar to the 1850s. At this point our bicameral legislature are actively antagonistic against each other and both parties salivate at the prospect of holding complete power to lord it over one another. What a fucking shit show. There's not even a pretense of running on policies outside of the extremes of the parties - living in wackadoo land of the SJW's or the conspiracy nuts of R/TheDonald. No one gives a shit about the hilarious debts. You even have Democrats saying spending trillions and trillions is not enough and still pushing their GOP want you to starve shtick. Blegh. OK, enough ranting.
The federal government would have to completely fall before it would let any state leave the union.
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On July 30 2020 10:57 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2020 09:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 30 2020 08:56 JimmiC wrote:On July 30 2020 07:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 30 2020 06:55 Belisarius wrote:
I mean if you want alternate centres of power, the way to do it is get rid of FPTP so multiple parties can exist.
The politicians would obviously fight it, but if you're talking about thousands of members of congress then we're not exactly dealing in political realities anyway.
It's remarkable how many of these things come down to "the system is bad, we all agree it needs to change, it's not possible because of how it is designed but I hope it gets better" Not enough agree on how it should be changed, so it is not. Enough of the 'right' people maybe? Part of the "system is bad" critique is that it's obviously apparent on things like background checks at gun shows that popularity of policy itself isn't what determines its enactment into law. You have to turn to a critique of the system itself and its failure to do the will of the people due to something beyond the popularity and practical soundness of the change. Nope it is that saying the system is broke is easy and almost everyone can agree to that. But fixing it is hard, it is a massive system with ever changing rules (technology, population, so on), knowing what will work better is hard, and people can't agree. Once they cant agree they on how to fix it nothing changes. Think about you me Danglars and wegandi you can all agree it is broken but what are the chances of you guys agreeing on the new one? Now imagine way more people with way more opinions. It is way easier to convince enough people for a minor change then a full system change.
I used a simple example because it demonstrates that even if we agreed (like the overwhelming majority of Americans do on background checks) we can't do it because of the system (which you're agreeing with). So even if we agreed on how to change the system itself, we'd bump into the same barrier that prevents the changes we already agree on, yet allows things we don't.
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EPT
