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It's impossible to eliminate the electoral college, but it's not very hard to decrease its effect to almost zero.
Set the house of representatives size to 50k people, and there are suddenly 50,103 members of the college. The college is simply # of representatives + 2 for each state and 3 for DC.
That can be done by a simple majority with a trifecta. Sure, it's ridiculous and stupid, but it's doable. Setting the size so massively reduces the effect of geography + states.
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On October 24 2020 00:57 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:28 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:08 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 21:49 Zambrah wrote:On October 23 2020 20:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2020 20:09 Biff The Understudy wrote:
[quote]
Whatever man, this is a loss of time. Go write "Grand socialist revolution!!!!" on your ballot, that's gonna make people's life better. You can be frustrated about your errors if you like, but I'd appreciate you accurately describing what you're arguing against. EDIT: Important note:ACA is not enough, so you won't chose between ACA and nothing. ACA is most likely lost regardless of the outcome of the election. Barrett (who Biden is not opposed to and described as a "very fine person") is set to be confirmed before the election and SCOTUS will take up the related case before inauguration (presuming there is one). This is the sort of thing that makes the "Lul vote dem its all you have" so fucking wretched feeling. They're just NOT as different as theyre made out to be, the differences between them are overblown. Trump has been awful but my life hasnt been that different between a Trump presidency and an Obama presidency. Biden will keep agreeing with Republican shit, things will get a modicum better, and then a Republican will win, and things will get two modicum worse, and then that cycle repeats ad fucking nauseum. But hey, when we get New Hitler vs. Democrat Bland Trump in the probably-not-so-distant-future I look forward to being told how we have to rally around Democrat Bland Trump and that if we wanted someone else we should've... voted for someone else in a primary where the Democrats are legally allowed to pick whoever they want regardless of votes. Compelling. Of course your life hasn't been that different. I bet for many people in Germany life was not so different in 1935 than it was in 1931. For the dozens of millions of people who got coverage because of the ACA, the difference is quite fucking radical though. It's not because YOU are not a gay person in the military, or a woman needing an abortion, or a poor person with pre-existing condition that can't afford an insurance that none of it matters. It's for those we vote. Please, enlighten me, when the Republicans have their 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and Biden refuses to add justices, what has voting accomplished for the women who need access to abortions? To people who rely on the ACA? Fuck all, because your "incremental progress" bullshit obviously is not functioning in America. So yes, keep believing America's problems are solved by the likes of Joe Biden and maybe in 200+ years Americans might be able to get an abortion again after compromising with the Neo-Republican party! The ACA was meaningful incremental progress enacted by a more conservative Democratic bloc than what would be in Congress were the Democrats to win the White House and Senate this year. This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards economic regulations. "When has incremental progress ever helped me?!?!" All the time. Literally all the time. Most legislative gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system. Sure, you can protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen. My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone. Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen. No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. I'm just going to quote myself and highlight the important points in my post that answer your question: Show nested quote +All the time. Literally all the time. Most LEGISLATIVE gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system.
Sure, you can ***protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better***, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. Things like the Civil Rights Act still relied on legislative action and largely working within the system. Protests and riots created public/political pressure. They didn't actually change the system in-and-of-itself. The Civil War is a unique example and is also a war that was instigated by the people trying to maintain the system instead of the people trying to change it, so it is pretty hard to talk about the Civil War in relation to this discussion.
What person in the US Politics Thread has ever said they refuse to work within the system?
Every politically active person in that thread would probably admit to voting, even those of us who believe it means fuck all given what we've seen of US politics in our life time. The difference is whether or not people agree with external action looking more promising.
An example of the kind of "compromise from an initially more progressive stance" is Plessy v. Ferguson. We shouldnt be settling for Plessy v. Ferguson, we should be demanding Brown vs. Board of Education.
Nothing will change the system we have short of another Revolutionary War, which, again, another example of a major change that wasn't done by compromising with the King of England.
As to the Civil War, yes, the Confederacy tried to take their ball and leave, however they likely wouldnt have if they would've been appeased via slavery. Hell, even the slow compromise actions of trying to strangle out slavery had to eventually culminate in violent action to stop it because the people who HAVE power will not let power go as easily as "oops we lost an election or two."
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On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:28 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:08 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 21:49 Zambrah wrote:On October 23 2020 20:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2020 20:09 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 20:07 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
Incorrect. They are the only two with acceptable ranges of outcomes for you (and people that share that belief). Whatever man, this is a loss of time. Go write "Grand socialist revolution!!!!" on your ballot, that's gonna make people's life better. You can be frustrated about your errors if you like, but I'd appreciate you accurately describing what you're arguing against. EDIT: Important note:ACA is not enough, so you won't chose between ACA and nothing. ACA is most likely lost regardless of the outcome of the election. Barrett (who Biden is not opposed to and described as a "very fine person") is set to be confirmed before the election and SCOTUS will take up the related case before inauguration (presuming there is one). This is the sort of thing that makes the "Lul vote dem its all you have" so fucking wretched feeling. They're just NOT as different as theyre made out to be, the differences between them are overblown. Trump has been awful but my life hasnt been that different between a Trump presidency and an Obama presidency. Biden will keep agreeing with Republican shit, things will get a modicum better, and then a Republican will win, and things will get two modicum worse, and then that cycle repeats ad fucking nauseum. But hey, when we get New Hitler vs. Democrat Bland Trump in the probably-not-so-distant-future I look forward to being told how we have to rally around Democrat Bland Trump and that if we wanted someone else we should've... voted for someone else in a primary where the Democrats are legally allowed to pick whoever they want regardless of votes. Compelling. Of course your life hasn't been that different. I bet for many people in Germany life was not so different in 1935 than it was in 1931. For the dozens of millions of people who got coverage because of the ACA, the difference is quite fucking radical though. It's not because YOU are not a gay person in the military, or a woman needing an abortion, or a poor person with pre-existing condition that can't afford an insurance that none of it matters. It's for those we vote. Please, enlighten me, when the Republicans have their 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and Biden refuses to add justices, what has voting accomplished for the women who need access to abortions? To people who rely on the ACA? Fuck all, because your "incremental progress" bullshit obviously is not functioning in America. So yes, keep believing America's problems are solved by the likes of Joe Biden and maybe in 200+ years Americans might be able to get an abortion again after compromising with the Neo-Republican party! The ACA was meaningful incremental progress enacted by a more conservative Democratic bloc than what would be in Congress were the Democrats to win the White House and Senate this year. This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards economic regulations. "When has incremental progress ever helped me?!?!" All the time. Literally all the time. Most legislative gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system. Sure, you can protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen. My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone. Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen. No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. Its a plan that extends into 2050 because you can't fix climate change in 5 weeks.
Fuck me what is with this burning need for instant gratification these days. Fixing climate change over the course of 30 years? fuck that.
Incremental change not working by tomorrow? lets have a civil war instead.
You come off like GH in this, "have a riot or civil war and everything will be golden on the other side".
Yes the American system is fucked, yes working within the system is unlikely to actually fix the system because those in charge are the ones that benefit, and electing a 3e party is unlikely to work either because once they are big enough to win they are the ones that benefit from it continuing (not to mention it would probably require a constitutional amendment and LOL gl getting that passed by 3/4 of states).
If you actually want to do something then convince people the system needs to change so that there is a big enough majority that want it to actually put pressure on politicians to do something.
But there is little point preaching here, basically everyone agrees the US system is shit. You need to convince the rest of the US that are not as left leaning or have quite so many Europeans in it.
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On October 24 2020 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:28 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:08 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 21:49 Zambrah wrote:On October 23 2020 20:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2020 20:09 Biff The Understudy wrote:
[quote]
Whatever man, this is a loss of time. Go write "Grand socialist revolution!!!!" on your ballot, that's gonna make people's life better. You can be frustrated about your errors if you like, but I'd appreciate you accurately describing what you're arguing against. EDIT: Important note:ACA is not enough, so you won't chose between ACA and nothing. ACA is most likely lost regardless of the outcome of the election. Barrett (who Biden is not opposed to and described as a "very fine person") is set to be confirmed before the election and SCOTUS will take up the related case before inauguration (presuming there is one). This is the sort of thing that makes the "Lul vote dem its all you have" so fucking wretched feeling. They're just NOT as different as theyre made out to be, the differences between them are overblown. Trump has been awful but my life hasnt been that different between a Trump presidency and an Obama presidency. Biden will keep agreeing with Republican shit, things will get a modicum better, and then a Republican will win, and things will get two modicum worse, and then that cycle repeats ad fucking nauseum. But hey, when we get New Hitler vs. Democrat Bland Trump in the probably-not-so-distant-future I look forward to being told how we have to rally around Democrat Bland Trump and that if we wanted someone else we should've... voted for someone else in a primary where the Democrats are legally allowed to pick whoever they want regardless of votes. Compelling. Of course your life hasn't been that different. I bet for many people in Germany life was not so different in 1935 than it was in 1931. For the dozens of millions of people who got coverage because of the ACA, the difference is quite fucking radical though. It's not because YOU are not a gay person in the military, or a woman needing an abortion, or a poor person with pre-existing condition that can't afford an insurance that none of it matters. It's for those we vote. Please, enlighten me, when the Republicans have their 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and Biden refuses to add justices, what has voting accomplished for the women who need access to abortions? To people who rely on the ACA? Fuck all, because your "incremental progress" bullshit obviously is not functioning in America. So yes, keep believing America's problems are solved by the likes of Joe Biden and maybe in 200+ years Americans might be able to get an abortion again after compromising with the Neo-Republican party! The ACA was meaningful incremental progress enacted by a more conservative Democratic bloc than what would be in Congress were the Democrats to win the White House and Senate this year. This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards economic regulations. "When has incremental progress ever helped me?!?!" All the time. Literally all the time. Most legislative gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system. Sure, you can protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen. My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone. Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen. No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. Its a plan that extends into 2050 because you can't fix climate change in 5 weeks. Fuck me what is with this burning need for instant gratification these days. Fixing climate change over the course of 30 years? fuck that. Incremental change not working by tomorrow? lets have a civil war instead. You come off like GH in this, "have a riot or civil war and everything will be golden on the other side". Yes the American system is fucked, yes working within the system is unlikely to actually fix the system because those in charge are the ones that benefit, and electing a 3e party is unlikely to work either because once they are big enough to win they are the ones that benefit from it continuing (not to mention it would probably require a constitutional amendment and LOL gl getting that passed by 3/4 of states). If you actually want to do something then convince people the system needs to change so that there is a big enough majority that want it to actually put pressure on politicians to do something. But there is little point preaching here, basically everyone agrees the US system is shit. You need to convince the rest of the US that are not as left leaning or have quite so many Europeans in it.
The issue with your framing is that it's based on living in a country that is functional.
You act as if the US is getting incrementally better from a left vs right standpoint, when it's getting incrementally worse. It's getting better on social issues but it's getting worse for humans in general.
You can convince people the system needs to change, and that way they'll put pressure on politicians for things to change! And then the politicians will do nothing about it, like they did when 90+% of Americans wanted more gun control.
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On October 24 2020 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:28 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:08 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 21:49 Zambrah wrote:On October 23 2020 20:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2020 20:09 Biff The Understudy wrote:
[quote]
Whatever man, this is a loss of time. Go write "Grand socialist revolution!!!!" on your ballot, that's gonna make people's life better. You can be frustrated about your errors if you like, but I'd appreciate you accurately describing what you're arguing against. EDIT: Important note:ACA is not enough, so you won't chose between ACA and nothing. ACA is most likely lost regardless of the outcome of the election. Barrett (who Biden is not opposed to and described as a "very fine person") is set to be confirmed before the election and SCOTUS will take up the related case before inauguration (presuming there is one). This is the sort of thing that makes the "Lul vote dem its all you have" so fucking wretched feeling. They're just NOT as different as theyre made out to be, the differences between them are overblown. Trump has been awful but my life hasnt been that different between a Trump presidency and an Obama presidency. Biden will keep agreeing with Republican shit, things will get a modicum better, and then a Republican will win, and things will get two modicum worse, and then that cycle repeats ad fucking nauseum. But hey, when we get New Hitler vs. Democrat Bland Trump in the probably-not-so-distant-future I look forward to being told how we have to rally around Democrat Bland Trump and that if we wanted someone else we should've... voted for someone else in a primary where the Democrats are legally allowed to pick whoever they want regardless of votes. Compelling. Of course your life hasn't been that different. I bet for many people in Germany life was not so different in 1935 than it was in 1931. For the dozens of millions of people who got coverage because of the ACA, the difference is quite fucking radical though. It's not because YOU are not a gay person in the military, or a woman needing an abortion, or a poor person with pre-existing condition that can't afford an insurance that none of it matters. It's for those we vote. Please, enlighten me, when the Republicans have their 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and Biden refuses to add justices, what has voting accomplished for the women who need access to abortions? To people who rely on the ACA? Fuck all, because your "incremental progress" bullshit obviously is not functioning in America. So yes, keep believing America's problems are solved by the likes of Joe Biden and maybe in 200+ years Americans might be able to get an abortion again after compromising with the Neo-Republican party! The ACA was meaningful incremental progress enacted by a more conservative Democratic bloc than what would be in Congress were the Democrats to win the White House and Senate this year. This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards economic regulations. "When has incremental progress ever helped me?!?!" All the time. Literally all the time. Most legislative gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system. Sure, you can protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen. My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone. Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen. No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. Its a plan that extends into 2050 because you can't fix climate change in 5 weeks. Fuck me what is with this burning need for instant gratification these days. Fixing climate change over the course of 30 years? fuck that. Incremental change not working by tomorrow? lets have a civil war instead. You come off like GH in this, "have a riot or civil war and everything will be golden on the other side". Yes the American system is fucked, yes working within the system is unlikely to actually fix the system because those in charge are the ones that benefit, and electing a 3e party is unlikely to work either because once they are big enough to win they are the ones that benefit from it continuing (not to mention it would probably require a constitutional amendment and LOL gl getting that passed by 3/4 of states). If you actually want to do something then convince people the system needs to change so that there is a big enough majority that want it to actually put pressure on politicians to do something. But there is little point preaching here, basically everyone agrees the US system is shit. You need to convince the rest of the US that are not as left leaning or have quite so many Europeans in it.
We can and should attempt to better than zero emissions by 2050, we shouldn't accept that the climate plans of someone like Joe Biden are good enough, we should absolutely push for better. I don't need instant gratification I need some fuckin' hope that theres gratification coming AT ALL. As I've said, a 2050 timeline almost assuredly isn't accounting for all of the Republican interference thats going to happen. If Democrats were displaying even an ounce of the ruthlessness Republicans display on a daily basis I might have some faith in the plans their milquetoast candidates claim to want to implement, instead I see things like Nancy Pelosi declaring we need a strong Republican party, I see Joe Biden thinking of tapping Republicans for cabinet positions (yes I know its how it usually goes, how things usually go in the US sucks and we need to stop playing ball with fucking Republicans period), Joe Biden dunking on a Bernie who is actively campaigning for him, clips of Harris insulting young people, Joe Biden saying he doesn't empathize with the struggles of millenials. I mean come on how am I supposed to have any faith in Democrats to do anything when they seem actively contemptuous towards young people, and poor people, and POC?
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On October 24 2020 00:59 Nevuk wrote:
It's impossible to eliminate the electoral college, but it's not very hard to decrease its effect to almost zero.
Set the house of representatives size to 50k people, and there are suddenly 50,103 members of the college. The college is simply # of representatives + 2 for each state and 3 for DC.
That can be done by a simple majority with a trifecta. Sure, it's ridiculous and stupid, but it's doable. Setting the size so massively reduces the effect of geography + states.
The part where it's ridiculous and stupid makes the "it's not very hard" a lie.
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On October 24 2020 00:08 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2020 21:49 Zambrah wrote:On October 23 2020 20:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2020 20:09 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 20:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2020 20:04 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 19:50 GreenHorizons wrote:Like, it's not worth choosing between Democrats and Republicans on climate change be because the improvements democrats are aiming for are not enough and so anyway the planet is doomed and it makes no difference. "Significant improvement that might not be enoughwhAtever" or "the worst you can possibly do" are worth the same when you have abandoned all nuances and disregard all constraints. The actual argument is that "not enough" and "worse than that" aren't acceptable for obvious reasons. Yes and the reality is that right now those are the only options. Incorrect. They are the only two with acceptable ranges of outcomes for you (and people that share that belief). Whatever man, this is a loss of time. Go write "Grand socialist revolution!!!!" on your ballot, that's gonna make people's life better. You can be frustrated about your errors if you like, but I'd appreciate you accurately describing what you're arguing against. EDIT: Important note:ACA is not enough, so you won't chose between ACA and nothing. ACA is most likely lost regardless of the outcome of the election. Barrett (who Biden is not opposed to and described as a "very fine person") is set to be confirmed before the election and SCOTUS will take up the related case before inauguration (presuming there is one). This is the sort of thing that makes the "Lul vote dem its all you have" so fucking wretched feeling. They're just NOT as different as theyre made out to be, the differences between them are overblown. Trump has been awful but my life hasnt been that different between a Trump presidency and an Obama presidency. Biden will keep agreeing with Republican shit, things will get a modicum better, and then a Republican will win, and things will get two modicum worse, and then that cycle repeats ad fucking nauseum. But hey, when we get New Hitler vs. Democrat Bland Trump in the probably-not-so-distant-future I look forward to being told how we have to rally around Democrat Bland Trump and that if we wanted someone else we should've... voted for someone else in a primary where the Democrats are legally allowed to pick whoever they want regardless of votes. Compelling. Of course your life hasn't been that different. I bet for many people in Germany life was not so different in 1935 than it was in 1931. For the dozens of millions of people who got coverage because of the ACA, the difference is quite fucking radical though. It's not because YOU are not a gay person in the military, or a woman needing an abortion, or a poor person with pre-existing condition that can't afford an insurance that none of it matters. It's for those we vote.
Are you sure you're not just hyping up token improvements and ignoring larger negative trends, because doing so preserves a status quo that is comfortable to you personally? This entire line of argument reeks of hypocrisy.
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It is the height of ignorant privilege to just say ...
This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards ...
Imagine my surprise that the leftist Democrats against far-left "the two party system is corrupt and must be abandoned now" is rancorous.
When you stop having Republicans to talk down to, I guess you do that to each other.
For every 8 years Democrats might be in office they accomplish maybe half of what a Republican would accomplish in 4 years.
Can't even get rid of Obamacare almost a decade later, but somehow the Democrats are bad at wielding power. Your side just has too many dreams that can't be sold to the American people. The multitudinous number of your dreams is an incredibly poor basis for pretending Democrats suck at wielding power compared to Republicans. Your ideas just suck and your movement sucks at selling those ideas to the American people.
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On October 24 2020 01:11 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:28 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:08 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 21:49 Zambrah wrote:On October 23 2020 20:12 GreenHorizons wrote:[quote] You can be frustrated about your errors if you like, but I'd appreciate you accurately describing what you're arguing against. EDIT: Important note:ACA is not enough, so you won't chose between ACA and nothing. ACA is most likely lost regardless of the outcome of the election. Barrett (who Biden is not opposed to and described as a "very fine person") is set to be confirmed before the election and SCOTUS will take up the related case before inauguration (presuming there is one). This is the sort of thing that makes the "Lul vote dem its all you have" so fucking wretched feeling. They're just NOT as different as theyre made out to be, the differences between them are overblown. Trump has been awful but my life hasnt been that different between a Trump presidency and an Obama presidency. Biden will keep agreeing with Republican shit, things will get a modicum better, and then a Republican will win, and things will get two modicum worse, and then that cycle repeats ad fucking nauseum. But hey, when we get New Hitler vs. Democrat Bland Trump in the probably-not-so-distant-future I look forward to being told how we have to rally around Democrat Bland Trump and that if we wanted someone else we should've... voted for someone else in a primary where the Democrats are legally allowed to pick whoever they want regardless of votes. Compelling. Of course your life hasn't been that different. I bet for many people in Germany life was not so different in 1935 than it was in 1931. For the dozens of millions of people who got coverage because of the ACA, the difference is quite fucking radical though. It's not because YOU are not a gay person in the military, or a woman needing an abortion, or a poor person with pre-existing condition that can't afford an insurance that none of it matters. It's for those we vote. Please, enlighten me, when the Republicans have their 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and Biden refuses to add justices, what has voting accomplished for the women who need access to abortions? To people who rely on the ACA? Fuck all, because your "incremental progress" bullshit obviously is not functioning in America. So yes, keep believing America's problems are solved by the likes of Joe Biden and maybe in 200+ years Americans might be able to get an abortion again after compromising with the Neo-Republican party! The ACA was meaningful incremental progress enacted by a more conservative Democratic bloc than what would be in Congress were the Democrats to win the White House and Senate this year. This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards economic regulations. "When has incremental progress ever helped me?!?!" All the time. Literally all the time. Most legislative gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system. Sure, you can protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen. My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone. Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen. No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. Its a plan that extends into 2050 because you can't fix climate change in 5 weeks. Fuck me what is with this burning need for instant gratification these days. Fixing climate change over the course of 30 years? fuck that. Incremental change not working by tomorrow? lets have a civil war instead. You come off like GH in this, "have a riot or civil war and everything will be golden on the other side". Yes the American system is fucked, yes working within the system is unlikely to actually fix the system because those in charge are the ones that benefit, and electing a 3e party is unlikely to work either because once they are big enough to win they are the ones that benefit from it continuing (not to mention it would probably require a constitutional amendment and LOL gl getting that passed by 3/4 of states). If you actually want to do something then convince people the system needs to change so that there is a big enough majority that want it to actually put pressure on politicians to do something. But there is little point preaching here, basically everyone agrees the US system is shit. You need to convince the rest of the US that are not as left leaning or have quite so many Europeans in it. The issue with your framing is that it's based on living in a country that is functional. You act as if the US is getting incrementally better from a left vs right standpoint, when it's getting incrementally worse. It's getting better on social issues but it's getting worse for humans in general. You can convince people the system needs to change, and that way they'll put pressure on politicians for things to change! And then the politicians will do nothing about it, like they did when 90+% of Americans wanted more gun control. Because I don't think they actually care all that much.
Shandy Hook showed me that, 20 dead children age 6-7 shot at school. The country cried for a minute, shrugged and went on with their lives.
When classrooms full of dead children don't cause a country to rise up and say "this far and no further" then I don't know how to react to that other then "apparently they don't care that much".
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On October 24 2020 01:30 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 01:11 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:28 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:08 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 21:49 Zambrah wrote:
[quote]
This is the sort of thing that makes the "Lul vote dem its all you have" so fucking wretched feeling. They're just NOT as different as theyre made out to be, the differences between them are overblown. Trump has been awful but my life hasnt been that different between a Trump presidency and an Obama presidency.
Biden will keep agreeing with Republican shit, things will get a modicum better, and then a Republican will win, and things will get two modicum worse, and then that cycle repeats ad fucking nauseum.
But hey, when we get New Hitler vs. Democrat Bland Trump in the probably-not-so-distant-future I look
forward to being told how we have to rally around Democrat Bland Trump and that if we wanted someone else we should've... voted for someone else in a primary where the Democrats are legally allowed to pick whoever they want regardless of votes. Compelling. Of course your life hasn't been that different. I bet for many people in Germany life was not so different in 1935 than it was in 1931. For the dozens of millions of people who got coverage because of the ACA, the difference is quite fucking radical though. It's not because YOU are not a gay person in the military, or a woman needing an abortion, or a poor person with pre-existing condition that can't afford an insurance that none of it matters. It's for those we vote. Please, enlighten me, when the Republicans have their 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and Biden refuses to add justices, what has voting accomplished for the women who need access to abortions? To people who rely on the ACA? Fuck all, because your "incremental progress" bullshit obviously is not functioning in America. So yes, keep believing America's problems are solved by the likes of Joe Biden and maybe in 200+ years Americans might be able to get an abortion again after compromising with the Neo-Republican party! The ACA was meaningful incremental progress enacted by a more conservative Democratic bloc than what would be in Congress were the Democrats to win the White House and Senate this year. This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards economic regulations. "When has incremental progress ever helped me?!?!" All the time. Literally all the time. Most legislative gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system. Sure, you can protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen. My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone. Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen. No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. Its a plan that extends into 2050 because you can't fix climate change in 5 weeks. Fuck me what is with this burning need for instant gratification these days. Fixing climate change over the course of 30 years? fuck that. Incremental change not working by tomorrow? lets have a civil war instead. You come off like GH in this, "have a riot or civil war and everything will be golden on the other side". Yes the American system is fucked, yes working within the system is unlikely to actually fix the system because those in charge are the ones that benefit, and electing a 3e party is unlikely to work either because once they are big enough to win they are the ones that benefit from it continuing (not to mention it would probably require a constitutional amendment and LOL gl getting that passed by 3/4 of states). If you actually want to do something then convince people the system needs to change so that there is a big enough majority that want it to actually put pressure on politicians to do something. But there is little point preaching here, basically everyone agrees the US system is shit. You need to convince the rest of the US that are not as left leaning or have quite so many Europeans in it. The issue with your framing is that it's based on living in a country that is functional. You act as if the US is getting incrementally better from a left vs right standpoint, when it's getting incrementally worse. It's getting better on social issues but it's getting worse for humans in general. You can convince people the system needs to change, and that way they'll put pressure on politicians for things to change! And then the politicians will do nothing about it, like they did when 90+% of Americans wanted more gun control. Because I don't think they actually care all that much. Shandy Hook showed me that, 20 dead children age 6-7 shot at school. The country cried for a minute, shrugged and went on with their lives. When classrooms full of dead children don't cause a country to rise up and say "this far and no further" then I don't know how to react to that other then "apparently they don't care that much".
But it did cause the country to rise up. It's just that when Americans rise up, the system doesn't care.
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On October 24 2020 01:19 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 00:59 Nevuk wrote:
It's impossible to eliminate the electoral college, but it's not very hard to decrease its effect to almost zero.
Set the house of representatives size to 50k people, and there are suddenly 50,103 members of the college. The college is simply # of representatives + 2 for each state and 3 for DC.
That can be done by a simple majority with a trifecta. Sure, it's ridiculous and stupid, but it's doable. Setting the size so massively reduces the effect of geography + states. The part where it's ridiculous and stupid makes the "it's not very hard" a lie.
It's not harder than passing any other legislation. I'm sure we've passed dumber things.
Regardless, it's totally feasible to dilute the power somewhat, and it probably should be. I gave the most ridiculous example to illustrate how it works at diluting the electoral college's power. There's many proposals out there about how large the house should be. I think the wyoming plan sets it so that no congressional district can be larger than wyomings and would increase it by 200 or so people.
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On October 24 2020 01:20 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 00:08 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 21:49 Zambrah wrote:On October 23 2020 20:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2020 20:09 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 20:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 23 2020 20:04 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 23 2020 19:50 GreenHorizons wrote:Like, it's not worth choosing between Democrats and Republicans on climate change be because the improvements democrats are aiming for are not enough and so anyway the planet is doomed and it makes no difference. "Significant improvement that might not be enoughwhAtever" or "the worst you can possibly do" are worth the same when you have abandoned all nuances and disregard all constraints. The actual argument is that "not enough" and "worse than that" aren't acceptable for obvious reasons. Yes and the reality is that right now those are the only options. Incorrect. They are the only two with acceptable ranges of outcomes for you (and people that share that belief). Whatever man, this is a loss of time. Go write "Grand socialist revolution!!!!" on your ballot, that's gonna make people's life better. You can be frustrated about your errors if you like, but I'd appreciate you accurately describing what you're arguing against. EDIT: Important note:ACA is not enough, so you won't chose between ACA and nothing. ACA is most likely lost regardless of the outcome of the election. Barrett (who Biden is not opposed to and described as a "very fine person") is set to be confirmed before the election and SCOTUS will take up the related case before inauguration (presuming there is one). This is the sort of thing that makes the "Lul vote dem its all you have" so fucking wretched feeling. They're just NOT as different as theyre made out to be, the differences between them are overblown. Trump has been awful but my life hasnt been that different between a Trump presidency and an Obama presidency. Biden will keep agreeing with Republican shit, things will get a modicum better, and then a Republican will win, and things will get two modicum worse, and then that cycle repeats ad fucking nauseum. But hey, when we get New Hitler vs. Democrat Bland Trump in the probably-not-so-distant-future I look forward to being told how we have to rally around Democrat Bland Trump and that if we wanted someone else we should've... voted for someone else in a primary where the Democrats are legally allowed to pick whoever they want regardless of votes. Compelling. Of course your life hasn't been that different. I bet for many people in Germany life was not so different in 1935 than it was in 1931. For the dozens of millions of people who got coverage because of the ACA, the difference is quite fucking radical though. It's not because YOU are not a gay person in the military, or a woman needing an abortion, or a poor person with pre-existing condition that can't afford an insurance that none of it matters. It's for those we vote. Are you sure you're not just hyping up token improvements and ignoring larger negative trends, because doing so preserves a status quo that is comfortable to you personally? This entire line of argument reeks of hypocrisy.
It's not oppressed younger Black folks trying to shame people into supporting Biden. It's almost exclusively the affluent white (/white adjacent) liberals. Speaking on their behalf (and usually over them when they disagree).
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On October 24 2020 01:25 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +It is the height of ignorant privilege to just say ...
This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards ...
Imagine my surprise that the leftist Democrats against far-left "the two party system is corrupt and must be abandoned now" is rancorous. When you stop having Republicans to talk down to, I guess you do that to each other. Show nested quote +For every 8 years Democrats might be in office they accomplish maybe half of what a Republican would accomplish in 4 years.
Can't even get rid of Obamacare almost a decade later, but somehow the Democrats are bad at wielding power. Your side just has too many dreams that can't be sold to the American people. The multitudinous number of your dreams is an incredibly poor basis for pretending Democrats suck at wielding power compared to Republicans. Your ideas just suck and your movement sucks at selling those ideas to the American people. They Republicans could have gotten rid of the ACA at any point but that would mean they needed something to replace it with that was not worse on every front. And they don't want to make a better plan then the ACA because that would be socialism.
Leaving the ACA is not a sign of impotence, its a deliberate choice because now they get to complain about how the ACA is bad, instead of having to defend why their own system is worse.
Other then that I actually agree with your point that the far left gets lost in their own dreams. They focus to much on the unreachable and end up fighting those who for the most part agree with them because they are not willing to be radical enough.
GH does it almost all the time.
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On October 24 2020 00:17 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't know how you guys manage to have this discussion over and over again without ever discussing how we escape the neoliberal political framework.
They don't have or want to build a plan to do that. They want to vote for the status quo and hope things get better, but expect they'll be alright even if they don't.
Gor:Other then that I actually agree with your point that the far left gets lost in their own dreams. They focus to much on the unreachable and end up fighting those who for the most part agree with them because they are not willing to be radical enough.
GH does it almost all the time.
No. I totally would have accepted a Sanders nomination while still finding it inadequate. Biden is unacceptable for dozens of reasons I've mentioned.
It's not about dreams, it's about not ignoring that the science Democrats allegedly listen to when it rejects their plan (which they literally have no plan to get past Republicans) as inadequate.
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On October 24 2020 01:32 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 01:30 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 01:11 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:28 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:08 Biff The Understudy wrote:
[quote]
Of course your life hasn't been that different. I bet for many people in Germany life was not so different in 1935 than it was in 1931.
For the dozens of millions of people who got coverage because of the ACA, the difference is quite fucking radical though.
It's not because YOU are not a gay person in the military, or a woman needing an abortion, or a poor person with pre-existing condition that can't afford an insurance that none of it matters. It's for those we vote. Please, enlighten me, when the Republicans have their 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and Biden refuses to add justices, what has voting accomplished for the women who need access to abortions? To people who rely on the ACA? Fuck all, because your "incremental progress" bullshit obviously is not functioning in America. So yes, keep believing America's problems are solved by the likes of Joe Biden and maybe in 200+ years Americans might be able to get an abortion again after compromising with the Neo-Republican party! The ACA was meaningful incremental progress enacted by a more conservative Democratic bloc than what would be in Congress were the Democrats to win the White House and Senate this year. This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards economic regulations. "When has incremental progress ever helped me?!?!" All the time. Literally all the time. Most legislative gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system. Sure, you can protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen. My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone. Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen. No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. Its a plan that extends into 2050 because you can't fix climate change in 5 weeks. Fuck me what is with this burning need for instant gratification these days. Fixing climate change over the course of 30 years? fuck that. Incremental change not working by tomorrow? lets have a civil war instead. You come off like GH in this, "have a riot or civil war and everything will be golden on the other side". Yes the American system is fucked, yes working within the system is unlikely to actually fix the system because those in charge are the ones that benefit, and electing a 3e party is unlikely to work either because once they are big enough to win they are the ones that benefit from it continuing (not to mention it would probably require a constitutional amendment and LOL gl getting that passed by 3/4 of states). If you actually want to do something then convince people the system needs to change so that there is a big enough majority that want it to actually put pressure on politicians to do something. But there is little point preaching here, basically everyone agrees the US system is shit. You need to convince the rest of the US that are not as left leaning or have quite so many Europeans in it. The issue with your framing is that it's based on living in a country that is functional. You act as if the US is getting incrementally better from a left vs right standpoint, when it's getting incrementally worse. It's getting better on social issues but it's getting worse for humans in general. You can convince people the system needs to change, and that way they'll put pressure on politicians for things to change! And then the politicians will do nothing about it, like they did when 90+% of Americans wanted more gun control. Because I don't think they actually care all that much. Shandy Hook showed me that, 20 dead children age 6-7 shot at school. The country cried for a minute, shrugged and went on with their lives. When classrooms full of dead children don't cause a country to rise up and say "this far and no further" then I don't know how to react to that other then "apparently they don't care that much". But it did cause the country to rise up. It's just that when Americans rise up, the system doesn't care. Did the country get crippled by strikes and protests for weeks until politicians relented or the economy burned to the ground to the point where corporations made the politicians listen, when the gun reform bills died in Congress?
I don't think that happened, so no I don't think Americans "rose up".
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On October 24 2020 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 01:32 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:30 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 01:11 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:28 Zambrah wrote:
[quote]
Please, enlighten me, when the Republicans have their 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and Biden refuses to add justices, what has voting accomplished for the women who need access to abortions? To people who rely on the ACA?
Fuck all, because your "incremental progress" bullshit obviously is not functioning in America.
So yes, keep believing America's problems are solved by the likes of Joe Biden and maybe in 200+ years Americans might be able to get an abortion again after compromising with the Neo-Republican party! The ACA was meaningful incremental progress enacted by a more conservative Democratic bloc than what would be in Congress were the Democrats to win the White House and Senate this year. This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards economic regulations. "When has incremental progress ever helped me?!?!" All the time. Literally all the time. Most legislative gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system. Sure, you can protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen. My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone. Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen. No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. Its a plan that extends into 2050 because you can't fix climate change in 5 weeks. Fuck me what is with this burning need for instant gratification these days. Fixing climate change over the course of 30 years? fuck that. Incremental change not working by tomorrow? lets have a civil war instead. You come off like GH in this, "have a riot or civil war and everything will be golden on the other side". Yes the American system is fucked, yes working within the system is unlikely to actually fix the system because those in charge are the ones that benefit, and electing a 3e party is unlikely to work either because once they are big enough to win they are the ones that benefit from it continuing (not to mention it would probably require a constitutional amendment and LOL gl getting that passed by 3/4 of states). If you actually want to do something then convince people the system needs to change so that there is a big enough majority that want it to actually put pressure on politicians to do something. But there is little point preaching here, basically everyone agrees the US system is shit. You need to convince the rest of the US that are not as left leaning or have quite so many Europeans in it. The issue with your framing is that it's based on living in a country that is functional. You act as if the US is getting incrementally better from a left vs right standpoint, when it's getting incrementally worse. It's getting better on social issues but it's getting worse for humans in general. You can convince people the system needs to change, and that way they'll put pressure on politicians for things to change! And then the politicians will do nothing about it, like they did when 90+% of Americans wanted more gun control. Because I don't think they actually care all that much. Shandy Hook showed me that, 20 dead children age 6-7 shot at school. The country cried for a minute, shrugged and went on with their lives. When classrooms full of dead children don't cause a country to rise up and say "this far and no further" then I don't know how to react to that other then "apparently they don't care that much". But it did cause the country to rise up. It's just that when Americans rise up, the system doesn't care. Did the country get crippled by strikes and protests for weeks until politicians relented or the economy burned to the ground to the point where corporations made the politicians listen, when the gun reform bills died in Congress? I don't think that happened, so no I don't think Americans "rose up".
You have integrated at the same time that in order to get something that you want in America (a democracy), you need riots, otherwise you aren't even trying, AND that the people who are doing the riots, who are mainly to your (far) left, are crazy people who want unreachable things and are getting in the way of incremental progress. This is legit magical thinking.
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On October 24 2020 01:45 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 01:32 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:30 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 01:11 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:
[quote]
The ACA was meaningful incremental progress enacted by a more conservative Democratic bloc than what would be in Congress were the Democrats to win the White House and Senate this year.
This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards economic regulations.
"When has incremental progress ever helped me?!?!"
All the time. Literally all the time. Most legislative gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system.
Sure, you can protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen. My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone. Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen. No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. Its a plan that extends into 2050 because you can't fix climate change in 5 weeks. Fuck me what is with this burning need for instant gratification these days. Fixing climate change over the course of 30 years? fuck that. Incremental change not working by tomorrow? lets have a civil war instead. You come off like GH in this, "have a riot or civil war and everything will be golden on the other side". Yes the American system is fucked, yes working within the system is unlikely to actually fix the system because those in charge are the ones that benefit, and electing a 3e party is unlikely to work either because once they are big enough to win they are the ones that benefit from it continuing (not to mention it would probably require a constitutional amendment and LOL gl getting that passed by 3/4 of states). If you actually want to do something then convince people the system needs to change so that there is a big enough majority that want it to actually put pressure on politicians to do something. But there is little point preaching here, basically everyone agrees the US system is shit. You need to convince the rest of the US that are not as left leaning or have quite so many Europeans in it. The issue with your framing is that it's based on living in a country that is functional. You act as if the US is getting incrementally better from a left vs right standpoint, when it's getting incrementally worse. It's getting better on social issues but it's getting worse for humans in general. You can convince people the system needs to change, and that way they'll put pressure on politicians for things to change! And then the politicians will do nothing about it, like they did when 90+% of Americans wanted more gun control. Because I don't think they actually care all that much. Shandy Hook showed me that, 20 dead children age 6-7 shot at school. The country cried for a minute, shrugged and went on with their lives. When classrooms full of dead children don't cause a country to rise up and say "this far and no further" then I don't know how to react to that other then "apparently they don't care that much". But it did cause the country to rise up. It's just that when Americans rise up, the system doesn't care. Did the country get crippled by strikes and protests for weeks until politicians relented or the economy burned to the ground to the point where corporations made the politicians listen, when the gun reform bills died in Congress? I don't think that happened, so no I don't think Americans "rose up". You have integrated at the same time that in order to get something that you want in America (a democracy), you need riots, otherwise you aren't even trying, AND that the people who are doing the riots, who are mainly to your (far) left, are crazy people who want unreachable things and are getting in the way of incremental progress. This is legit magical thinking. I would not equate decent gun control or police not murder blacks when they feel like it to wanting, to abolish the Electoral collage or changing Capitalism for a Communist utopia.
And if the majority of the country would support the latter in the way they seemingly support the former, it wouldn't be an unreachable goal. But last I checked GH's Communist utopia is a little less popular then he might hope.
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On October 24 2020 01:45 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 01:32 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:30 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 01:11 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:
[quote]
The ACA was meaningful incremental progress enacted by a more conservative Democratic bloc than what would be in Congress were the Democrats to win the White House and Senate this year.
This is the same kind of historical ignorance that people show towards economic regulations.
"When has incremental progress ever helped me?!?!"
All the time. Literally all the time. Most legislative gains in terms of rights for women, POC, workers, education, healthcare access, environmental regulations, etc. etc. etc. were compromises from an initially more progressive stance that were enacted within the system.
Sure, you can protest outside of the system to create external pressure, you can push to reshape the system so that it is better, but you can't just throw a temper tantrum and refuse to work within the system. People's lives are actually affected every day by that system, regardless of your moral stance on working within it or not. All that time that you sit comfortably in your privilege, refusing to act within the system because you don't like it, results in countless people's lives being deeply affected or ended when working within the system could have helped them. I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen. My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone. Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen. No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. Its a plan that extends into 2050 because you can't fix climate change in 5 weeks. Fuck me what is with this burning need for instant gratification these days. Fixing climate change over the course of 30 years? fuck that. Incremental change not working by tomorrow? lets have a civil war instead. You come off like GH in this, "have a riot or civil war and everything will be golden on the other side". Yes the American system is fucked, yes working within the system is unlikely to actually fix the system because those in charge are the ones that benefit, and electing a 3e party is unlikely to work either because once they are big enough to win they are the ones that benefit from it continuing (not to mention it would probably require a constitutional amendment and LOL gl getting that passed by 3/4 of states). If you actually want to do something then convince people the system needs to change so that there is a big enough majority that want it to actually put pressure on politicians to do something. But there is little point preaching here, basically everyone agrees the US system is shit. You need to convince the rest of the US that are not as left leaning or have quite so many Europeans in it. The issue with your framing is that it's based on living in a country that is functional. You act as if the US is getting incrementally better from a left vs right standpoint, when it's getting incrementally worse. It's getting better on social issues but it's getting worse for humans in general. You can convince people the system needs to change, and that way they'll put pressure on politicians for things to change! And then the politicians will do nothing about it, like they did when 90+% of Americans wanted more gun control. Because I don't think they actually care all that much. Shandy Hook showed me that, 20 dead children age 6-7 shot at school. The country cried for a minute, shrugged and went on with their lives. When classrooms full of dead children don't cause a country to rise up and say "this far and no further" then I don't know how to react to that other then "apparently they don't care that much". But it did cause the country to rise up. It's just that when Americans rise up, the system doesn't care. Did the country get crippled by strikes and protests for weeks until politicians relented or the economy burned to the ground to the point where corporations made the politicians listen, when the gun reform bills died in Congress? I don't think that happened, so no I don't think Americans "rose up". You have integrated at the same time that in order to get something that you want in America (a democracy), you need riots, otherwise you aren't even trying, AND that the people who are doing the riots, who are mainly to your (far) left, are crazy people who want unreachable things and are getting in the way of incremental progress. This is legit magical thinking.
Black people in the US have been listening to this from liberals since always. Then we tell them to stfu, riot, and they coincidentally get their shit together enough to at least stop the riots for a bit. Then they write some swiss cheese legislation, claim credit for any progress won by those on the streets, and white wash history.
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On October 24 2020 01:50 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2020 01:45 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 01:32 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:30 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 01:11 Nebuchad wrote:On October 24 2020 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:On October 24 2020 00:52 Zambrah wrote:On October 24 2020 00:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 24 2020 00:42 Zambrah wrote:
[quote]
I'll be frank, this is fucking stupid, I vote, I've always voted, and I'll continue to vote on the extremely off chance something might actually happen.
My issue is pretending that that lone simple fucking action is going to do anything, its ignorant as hell, rights for POCs is a great example, where would we be if, say Lincoln said, "well, we have to work with the Confederates! We'll slowly fade out slavery over time," or if MLK just didn't happen. War. Riots. REAL action that didn't rely on duplicitous politicians finding it within their hearts to throw the average person a bone.
Hell we'd still be living under a god damned MONARCHY if working within the system was the only way to make change happen.
No one here has said it is the only way. Literally no one. This is a lazy, half-assed strawman you made to try to shift the goal posts. Does it change my point that even in some of your examples the way change actually happened was through things like riots and the bloodiest war in American history? American history is full of examples where action had to be taken beyond voting, if youre pro-riots, etc. in order to accomplish things like more pro-active climate change, dealing with police brutality properly, making sure people are paid living wages, everyone have proper actual healthcare, etc. then we probably don't disagree on much more than how effective voting is. That being said voting is relying on AMERICAN POLITICIANS to do things for the betterment of the populace, and when we encounter things like Biden's climate plans that extend into 2050 I have to ask how you expect these slow changes to hold up to the swift brutal reprisals they'll experience when the next Republican is in office? 2050 might work out if Biden or a Democrat would be president for 30 years, but let's be honest, that isn't going to happen and Republicans are infinitely more efficient at this back and forth than the Democrats are, so what kind of time scale are we really looking at when we factor in Democrats incremental progress + Republican fuckery? Probably beyond the lifespan of anyone on this forum. Its a plan that extends into 2050 because you can't fix climate change in 5 weeks. Fuck me what is with this burning need for instant gratification these days. Fixing climate change over the course of 30 years? fuck that. Incremental change not working by tomorrow? lets have a civil war instead. You come off like GH in this, "have a riot or civil war and everything will be golden on the other side". Yes the American system is fucked, yes working within the system is unlikely to actually fix the system because those in charge are the ones that benefit, and electing a 3e party is unlikely to work either because once they are big enough to win they are the ones that benefit from it continuing (not to mention it would probably require a constitutional amendment and LOL gl getting that passed by 3/4 of states). If you actually want to do something then convince people the system needs to change so that there is a big enough majority that want it to actually put pressure on politicians to do something. But there is little point preaching here, basically everyone agrees the US system is shit. You need to convince the rest of the US that are not as left leaning or have quite so many Europeans in it. The issue with your framing is that it's based on living in a country that is functional. You act as if the US is getting incrementally better from a left vs right standpoint, when it's getting incrementally worse. It's getting better on social issues but it's getting worse for humans in general. You can convince people the system needs to change, and that way they'll put pressure on politicians for things to change! And then the politicians will do nothing about it, like they did when 90+% of Americans wanted more gun control. Because I don't think they actually care all that much. Shandy Hook showed me that, 20 dead children age 6-7 shot at school. The country cried for a minute, shrugged and went on with their lives. When classrooms full of dead children don't cause a country to rise up and say "this far and no further" then I don't know how to react to that other then "apparently they don't care that much". But it did cause the country to rise up. It's just that when Americans rise up, the system doesn't care. Did the country get crippled by strikes and protests for weeks until politicians relented or the economy burned to the ground to the point where corporations made the politicians listen, when the gun reform bills died in Congress? I don't think that happened, so no I don't think Americans "rose up". You have integrated at the same time that in order to get something that you want in America (a democracy), you need riots, otherwise you aren't even trying, AND that the people who are doing the riots, who are mainly to your (far) left, are crazy people who want unreachable things and are getting in the way of incremental progress. This is legit magical thinking. I would not equate decent gun control or police not murder blacks when they feel like it to wanting, to abolish the Electoral collage or changing Capitalism for a Communist utopia. And if the majority of the country would support the latter in the way they seemingly support the former, it wouldn't be an unreachable goal. But last I checked GH's Communist utopia is a little less popular then he might hope.
You think abolishing the electoral college is an unpopular idea?
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EPT
