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| The most effective goverment?; What is the best way to manage things? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 4 2006, 08:39 PM (1,407 Views) | |
| Falcon | Oct 10 2006, 12:28 AM Post #31 |
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Apocalyptic Usher
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I find your conspiracy theory a little perplexing considering the history of the last sixty years. You are aware, are you not, that the Republicans only gained control of the executive and legislature consecutively during the last four years (since the senate was tied for the first two years of Bush's administration). I'm not sure how they managed to pull of a massive conspiracy that apparently involves wide spread election fixing when they've only controled the federal governmet for such a scant period of time. It becomes even more befuddling when you recall that the elections are administered by the states. I don't know how it is where you vote, but where I vote people mark their paper ballots with simple pens. Those ballots are counted by a machine run by local citizens of both parties acting as judges. There is a team of over 100 lawyers supplied by the local law school that have spotters on hand at many voting places and will send out an attorney free of charge if there is any issue to take a deposition on the spot. Are all these people colluding with Bush? Any system of government can be corrupted if the people are not vigilent, but a Constitutional Republic has proven itself to be one of the least susceptible because it is difficult to do anything quickly or to do anything at all if it falls outside the bounds of the Constitution. The US has had a problem with creeping unconstitutional changes to the government's power, but it didn't start under Bush, but instead many more decades ago, most prominantly under FDR who literally tried to pack the Supreme Court with his cronies to get unconstitutional legislation approved. Bush hasn't done the Constitution any favors with measures like campaign finance reform and the expansion of the welfare state, but his activities are far from the sudden conspiracy to destroy the Constitution like your characterizatioon suggests. |
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| Tech Junkie | Oct 10 2006, 02:28 AM Post #32 |
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Styx Ferryman
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Confused Query: Isn't democracy of any sort a dictatorship of the fastest talker? Further, as this redefines all democracies as dictatorships, does this not mean that benevolent democracies are benevolent dictatorships? Therefore, are those supporting benevolent dictatorships and deriding democracy not contradicting themselves. Rhetorical Question: Then again, doesn't everyone contradict themselves in discussions of politics, philosophy, or similar matters? Clarifying Statement: In mentioning direct democracy, I was simply using Athens as an example. I was not stating that any government should mirror that one in it's entirety. Rather, the spirit of such should be carried on, the idea of an educated populace deciding what's best for itself. Depressed Statement: However, this would require an educated populace, and one would be hard pressed to find that anywhere save a few shining points such as Japan. A saddening truth, to be sure. Hopeful Addendum: However, there's always the chance of such a populace arrising somewhere with just the right mentality to make such a system work again. Amused Musing: I wonder how many people will recognize this speech pattern.
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| May the blessing of Our Lady of the Workshop be upon you. | |
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| Kalkin | Oct 10 2006, 08:19 AM Post #33 |
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Disgraced Dictator
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Tech Junkie wrote:
No, it is not. In direct democracy the fast talker convinces the majority of the people. In a representative democracy only the parliament. He has a lot less influence on the people. As such the people can always become fed with the parliament and overthrow it without the fast talker being able to stop it.
That is sofism and I don't do that. I do my best not to contradict myself. I'm a sloppy speaker/writer so I have my hands full correcting contradictions that I APPEAR to be making. If I did it for real I'd get so confused I'd have to stop writing alltogether.
Then switch your example to Roussaeus home city. It existed in 18th century Western Europe and had direct democracy. I don't like democracy. Oh, right. I remembered a third reason why it doesn't work. Democracy assumes that the people who run it are just as idealistic and well meaning as the people who created it. If it isn't so the democracy is corrupted (as it usually isn't. This sums up nicely my earlier rant about the process that causes democracy to fail.). Falcon wrote:
You are missing the point. The point is that I explained how a democracy becomes corrupted WITHOUT a conspiracy. It just happens without any kind of purposeful conspiracy from the activities of individuals who do the representing, while a percentige of them is rotten. This development shows how republican activities are bearing their fruit. And culminating to Bush faction era. Diminishing the amount of contested states they have the advantage. That means democrats can still get majority, but it requires them to win 75% of the contested states on every election. Republicans have to do some major screwups before they lose.
I said, it's not a conspiracy, it's a consensus. And fixing an election doesn't have to happen in every state, just in contested states. And it doesn't require control to pull of, just involment, which has been there for decades.
It doesn't require lots of people to know about it. Just a dozen or so people that maintain election machines will do. A little 'mistake' while adjusting the settings is all that's needed. Obviously we are talking of those places where voting doesn't include ballots, just machines. In America the practises of electing vary wildly and there're over 100 different practises in different areas. Electronic voting machines which have no ballots to check have spread widely during the last decade and the companies that maintain them are in control of people who support republicans. I read that from a newspaper article. The point I'm making that with all the contested states being very few and voting practises varying chaotically. You DON'T need a big conspiracy to rig an election. I claim that a dozen well placed people COULD do it and that they ARE in the right places. I claim that if they refraimed from doing a rigged election for some incomprehensible reason, I'd be very surprised. |
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| Falcon | Oct 10 2006, 12:02 PM Post #34 |
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Apocalyptic Usher
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I didn't miss your point, I just didn't think it was relevant to discussing your conspiracy theory. Your point also makes little sense because any type of government can come corrupted. I also want to note that democracy is not synonymous with constitutional republic. Democrats have exerted far more control over the government for far longer and engaged in known election fraud on a much wider scale than the Republicans ever have. The Democrats controlled the executive, legislature with veto proof majorities, the Supreme Court, and the majority of the states back during much of FDR's time in office. Voting fraud in Chicago was widespread and probably allowed Kennedy to beat Nixon. We had voting fraud in Democrat districts during the last two elections as well with them busing in voters, holding polls open past closing time, etc in cities like St. Louis. I'm sure Republicans have their black marks too, but the point is that Democrats are losing elections because the people are not voting for them, not because they're being cheated out of it. If anything, they're the bigger abusers.
So you're upset because a concensus of the people have decided to vote Republican? That clever Republicans are pulling the wool over Democrat election officials in all these contested states? Since we're off in the fairyland of groundless speculation maybe we should explore the idea that Democrats are cheating instead of Republicans, but they are losing by so much in the polls that they just can't pull it off except in the contested states. No one except a few people wearing tin hats are going to believe such things.
How would a dozen people maintaining a simple counting machine accomplish a massive fraud like that? Do you honestly think that only partisans check those settings instead of several different election officials who are handpicked by both parties to look after their interests? Many of those machines produce paper receipts that can be used to double check if an issue arises. Why would states like California, for example, which is typically under heavy Democrat control these days, especially in the legislature where such things are decided, use these devices if they are just Republican trojan horses? Its amazing that all these Democrat legislatures and election officials are being duped, but somehow you pieced together the plot and armed with wild speculation is now ready to inform the world. You can claim anything, but you haven't proved it or even shown plausibly how such a thing could be done. Look at places where election fraud took place historically and you'll notice right away it took a lot more than a dozen people. Even with electronic voting machines it still would, unless you seriously think that they let just anyone go in and monkey with them. |
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| Kalkin | Oct 10 2006, 04:42 PM Post #35 |
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Disgraced Dictator
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Falcon wrote:
Now you are missing my other point. A corrupt dictator can be removed by one bullet, while correcting a corrupt democracy requires a lot more effort, maybe even the total destruction of the state in question. Edited by Kalkin, Sep 2 2011, 01:39 AM.
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| Falcon | Oct 10 2006, 10:16 PM Post #36 |
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Apocalyptic Usher
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You've got to be kidding me. You use the phase 'corrupt dictator' like there is any other kind of dictator out there. There isn't. Dictatorships are overwhelmingly corrupt to the point that it is meaningless to speculate about the 'philosopher king' style of single authority. Killing one tyrant is meaningless when you put another man into absolute power behind him, thus creating yet another tyrant. Furthermore, the notion that you can just take a bullet to an evil dictator is exceedingly problematic in and of itself. Who decides what is an evil dictator? The people getting stepped on or the one's helping the dictator do the stepping? I thought the point of this thread was to speculate on the best form of government in the real world, not in some kind of pie in the sky fantasy.
Now the Republicans are trying to engage in a coup? Are you always this loose with terminology? Or is a swift change in government now inclusive with mutli-decade long subtle tampering with marginal elections? You may have never explicitly limited corruption to Republicans, but I've only ever seen you mention them in your posts up until now. Saying something abstract like there have always been crooked politicians is a far cry from accusing Republicans writ large of staging a coup over a period of two decades by way of massive election fraud. Of the proven corruption, historically, the vast majority has been in big city machines run by Democrats. Corruption doesn't just include Democrats, as if there are always a few bad apples in each barrel, corruption was synonymous with Democrat in places like Chicago.
You're obviosly upset on some level if you felt the need to address it as your first point. Anyway, let me get this straight. The Republicans aren't clever, but they've managed to pull off massive electorial fraud under the noses of the entire nation, including Democrat polling officials, attorney's, numerous state secretaries of election, etc for decades? What would you call clever if not that? I'd call it dilusional paranoia actually. The Republicans didn't "lure" the Democrats into anything and the "secure states contest" as you phrase it isn't a new phenonem. State legislatures draw up the districts for House of Representatives seats. Those legislatures are controlled by one partisan group or another. Unsurprisingly those partisans draw the districts in ways that benefit their parties. When the Democrats were in control they did it and it took sixty years for the Republicans to wrest back control at least in part because of it, though the big reason was because the people simply voted that way. Now the demographics have shifted and the people want Republicans in control for a change. People also tend to like their incumbant representatives, Republican or Democrat, and unsurprisingly the House changes very little, very slowly. It isn't new, its the way its always been. The only difference is that now when Republicans are benefitting you see a conspiracy and when the Democrats benefitted for sixty years you apparently saw nothing.
I don't think you understand the size of the undertaking that you are contemplating here. Pick any contested state you want. Missouri for example, the iconic bellweather of the nation. Its rural areas all vote overwhelmingly Republican, mostly over 70% concentration or higher. The two main cities, Kansas City and St. Louis on the other hand vote overwhelming Democratic. How would the Republicans go about stealing this state for Jim Talent in his tight race with challenger McCaskill? Missouri will only certify ballots using paper receipts and the bulk of the voting apparatus, especially in the rural areas, use paper ballots outright. With the bulk of the Republican votes coming from precincts with small numbers of registered voters, voters who already mostly vote Republican, it is going to take a huge conspiracy spanning the entire state to rig the tens of thousands of votes necessary to swing an election in a state with 4.1 million registered voters. I suppose it would be easier to throw in some votes in a county like St. Louis county with its over three quarters of a million voters, but its heavily Democrat with a history of cheating for the Democrats if any cheating occurs, not the Republicans. http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/registered....asp?rvmID=0004 You said that California isn't a contested state, but there are probably contested House seats or at least potential contested seats if enough fraud were committed. California is the state that elected Ronald Reagan governor twice in a row after all. Of course shifts in demographics have turned the state into a Democrat stronghold, but there are two open seats that were held by Republicans. Then, the grand crowning bout of paranoia, no matter how safeguarded the process is the Republicans will simply divert attention and all the local Democrats who live and breath their election will forget to raise the issue. They'll all be glued to the TV watching CNN instead of paying attention to the voting machines, right? I'm sorry, but your scenario just doesn't make any sense. There just isn't any plausible way that such a large fraud, and yes it is too large to be pulled off by twenty guys in a few polling places, would go undiscovered for two decades. Even more devistating to your theory is the overwhelming lack of proof. Its possible that our government was taken over by space aliens in the 1950s, but without proof its just material to line your tin hat with. |
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| 严加华 | Oct 10 2006, 11:04 PM Post #37 |
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Magister Ludicrous
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Japan? Educated?!
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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LC Sez:
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| Zer0 | Oct 10 2006, 11:17 PM Post #38 |
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LOEV 2 KONSOLE
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You beat me to it. |
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| Kalkin | Oct 11 2006, 01:25 AM Post #39 |
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Disgraced Dictator
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Falcon wrote:
No, it's not. Corruption is a human trait caused by flawed cultural elements. Once you take a homo sapiens and install him a different, less flawed cultural elements, you get a creature less corrupt (I'm not sure what to call that new creature, though. That creature might not fit a tight definition of a human.). Anyway it is impossible to say how such a creature would perform, since there has never been one on a throne. Edited by Kalkin, Sep 2 2011, 01:41 AM.
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| Tom Joad | Oct 11 2006, 02:04 AM Post #40 |
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Gap tooth so my dick's got to fit.
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Well that is how a democracy works. It is not always fair. If Republicans control most of the states then they should win. It is due to a good campaign by the Republicans or a bad campaign by the Dems (probably the latter). Don't put down the straw man. He is one of the best tricks in the bag. Notice how EVERYBODY thinks Dubya has an IQ of 4, but in actuality he was smart enough to win a presidential election. |
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| Falcon | Oct 11 2006, 02:25 AM Post #41 |
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Apocalyptic Usher
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Which goes back to my point that its meaningless to speculate on some mythical creature that has not been, nor perhaps ever could be created. You're coming at this from a purely theoretical standpoint while I'm coming at it from a historical standpoint. When you devise some practical way to create this perfect culture let me know. We probably won't need any ruler then, since with the proper culture men can be angels, right?
I don't agree with your premise that America can be characterized by an oligarchy of oil and weapons industry backed persons. Of course, an oligarchy is a different form of government from a democracy. FYI, America is a Constitutional Republic, though I admit it has been greatly democratized in the last hundred years or so.
A subtle shift, but it doesn't address my point. It doesn't matter when they started their mass conspiracy, be it ten years ago or last week, its an outlandish theory wholly unsupported by any evidence. Rank speculation doesn't count.
Society is run on popularity contests no matter what system you have. Even a dictator can be overthrown by a large enough portion of the population aroused against him, though disparities in force may make that percentage higher than the 50.1% necessary in a representative system. Popularity contests extend beyond people to individual programs even. If your desire is to eliminate popularity contests then I fear you will forever search in vain. My point in the quoted passage was to decry the unfair attention on corrupt Republicans, as if their behavior were somehow extraordinary, rather than, in historic terms, much more subdued than the other side.
You're still sounding upset. I used it as a throw away line, to characterize an intellectual affront at the Republican's alleged activities at most, but now it sounds like your emotions are bubbling over. Though I'm not sure why using the word upset was so, upsetting, I meant nothing by it.
So up to this point the Republicans haven't committed any fraud, the current state of the government is an accurate representation of the people's will? I know you said that the fraud wasn't massive (heck, it hasn't happened yet apparently). My point was that it is impossible to change the outcome of the elections, even in swing states, without massive fraud. Even narrow elections are not usually "that" narrow and even when they are, like in Florida, there is no way to know ahead of time. When the Daily machine stuffed ballots in Chicago they didn't want to win by a measly thousand votes, they wanted a sure thing landslide. There's too much risk that you'll miscalculate otherwise and electronic voting just isn't widespread enough in places like Missouri, for instance, nor are the nature of electronic voting machines such that they lend themselves to subtle manipulation. These things are watched, carefully, by both parties and government officials. You'd have to rig hundreds of machines across the state and it would simply require too many people in the know to make this scenario realistic.
If the voter goes into the polling place of their own free will and by exercise of that free will cast their deliberate ballot then yes, they made their own decision, regardless of how poor that decision might have been or what information they might have made it off of. The positions of both sides are out there. Each voter is responsible for their own state of mental prepardedness to vote. If they fail to inform themselves and make a good decision that's not for you or I to judge. I'm not sure how anything I said led you to the conclusion that Democrats were lured into the contest (since the contest is a result of the electorial structure, not to some recent creature that has arisen). I'm also not sure how you guage the collective ruthlessness of the two parties, especially after you just got through saying that the Republicans were basically idiots who stumbled into this conspiracy that they have not yet, but are now preparing to unleash in 2008.
The problem is that Republicans won't know until after the election how many of those contested seats that they're going to lose. To be safe they'd have to cheat in every state or else risk losing them all. When cheating inside a state you can't dump 20,000 votes in a single district and 20,000 votes won't be enough to win anyway in all probability. In 2004 the close elections were generally much higher. State election spread \ total votes \ % CO - 100,520 \ 2,107,554 \ 4.76% FL - 802,663 \ 7,429,894 \ 10.8% KY - 22,622 \ 1,724,362 \ 1.3% NC - 158,923 \ 3,472,082 \ 4.57% SC - 152,783 \ 1,597,221 \ 9.56% SD - 4,508 \ 391,188 \ 1.15% As you can see only two states out of these in 2004 could have been won on the basis of 20,000~ votes. In SD 20,000 votes was over 5% of the total votes which is significant so really your only candidate would be kentucky. Even if you could predict before hand which contested states would be safe and which ones would not, an impossible task, you would still be unable to swing hardly any on the basis of 20,000 hard to implant votes. Even in Kentucky I suspect you would have to spread those 20,000 votes out over almost the entire state to prevent it from looking suspicious because the state is mostly rural and would thus defy large vote stuffing in one area. http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2004/tables.pd...ote%20totals%22
You can claim that, I'll let the readers decide who has characterized who properly for themselves.
The flaw is that your premise doesn't lead to the conclusion we've seen here in your extended rant against Republicans. Of course there are other flaws as well, such as the nature of elected office defying most individuals long term access to power (incumbant advantage aside, you've not demonstrated that more than a few politicians are "lifers"), especially when term limits are in effect, the limits of the law on the influence of bad actors, and the limits created by the public themselves once they discover the ill will of the official.
Bold claims, but no evidence to support them. Nothing but rank speculation based on who owns controlling shares in a few companies (although I've not seen any evidence to show that those persons are republicans come to think of it) and the misapplication of a political phenomenon that is the result of the structure of the electorial process as outlined in the Constitution rather than a plot by partisans, either devised or stumbled upon. |
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| 严加华 | Oct 11 2006, 04:58 AM Post #42 |
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Magister Ludicrous
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Business as usual? Oh, and if you want to be persuasive as an ESL type, you'd best not try to pass yourself off as one to an ESL teacher. A polyglot ESL teacher, no less, who can spot ESL types from about a dozen different linguistic backgrounds at 50 paces with both hands tied behind his back. Or at least do some research on how to act as one. (I've successfully passed myself off as an Iranian immigrant and as a Chinese native in various places for amusement. It takes effort, though, that you haven't bothered to spend.) |
LC Sez:
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| Kalkin | Oct 11 2006, 07:48 PM Post #43 |
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Disgraced Dictator
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Ja jos et muuten usko niin yritäpä löytää joku amerikanenglantia äidinkielenään puhuva tulkkaamaan näin harvinaista kieltä. Neil Hardwick ei kelpaa, koska hän on britti. Jos todella olet englannin opettaja niin kyllä sinun olisi pitänyt huomata käyttämäni sanavarastoni kapeus. Toisekseen vain englantia toisena kielenä puhuvat/kirjoittavat jäykkää kirjakieltä. Luonnostaan sitä puhuvat käyttävät kieltä joustavammin. If you couldn't read that on your own, find a SECOND finn to translate it. Edited by Kalkin, Sep 2 2011, 01:42 AM.
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| piercehawkeye45 | Oct 11 2006, 08:13 PM Post #44 |
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Franklin Pierce
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What is that? Doesn't look like a Latin or Germanic based so is it a Slavic language? Edit-The funny thing is that even though I knew Kalkin was ESL because he lived in Europe and obviously wasn't British, he has a lot better English than a majority of Americans (not necessarily from this site but in general). |
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Dropped the atomic bomb let them know that it's real Speak soft with a big stick do what I say or be killed I'm America! I have found the enemy and he is us. | |
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| Flamingo | Oct 11 2006, 08:24 PM Post #45 |
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Penis goes in here
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For some reason, It looks like Icelandic to me, but i don't think it is. |
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