2020 US Election

bill pls

  On 12/5/2020 at 12:48 PM, rhmilo said:

We’ve tried quite a few alternatives. All of them were worse.

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That's just not true.  Look at the USSR.

  On 12/5/2020 at 3:28 PM, chenGOD said:

Yes the American form is outdated, but it's also the longest-standing continuous democracy. It needs reform to better represent the nation as a whole (some sort of federalism similar to what we have in Canada but better please), as well as to provide real options for political parties (like moving to some form of proportional representation voting system), and legislative reform to get rid of money in politics.

But it should be noted that while Trump and his fucking ilk are trying their level best to subvert democracy, the system so far is working as fucntioned - where the courts are putting a check on the attempt to stage a coup. So there must be something to it.

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it doesn't need to better represent the nation as a whole, it needs to be dismantled for its imperialistic tendencies and enforcement of global bourgeois dictatorship.  when the third world masses of proletarian laborers rise up, no longer can the lifestyles of america and its allies be maintained, and there will be no choice but to migrate to socialism, since it is a system that does not depend upon exploitation of workers in the same way capitalism does

haha really? wtf.  based

biden steals the vote a second time in georgia. election fraud is outta control

  On 12/5/2020 at 3:28 PM, chenGOD said:

Yes the American form is outdated, but it's also the longest-standing continuous democracy.

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What do you mean? It's only been a democracy since 1965. Before that large parts of the population didn't even have voting rights.

  On 12/7/2020 at 5:16 PM, Nebraska said:

biden steals the vote a second time in georgia. election fraud is outta control

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are taxpayers still paying for this shit? or is it being paid for 100% by funds grifted through the trump clan?

  On 12/7/2020 at 5:31 PM, dingformung said:

What do you mean? It's only been a democracy since 1965. Before that large parts of the population didn't even have voting rights.

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Large parts of the population still don't have voting rights, like

• Prisoners, which we have more of than any other country in the world per capita
• Felons, which we probably also have more of given the prison population
• Men who refuse to register with the selective services (military draft) and are therefore felons
• Poor people who can't risk leaving their jobs and don't have good transportation options to get to polling places and don't have mail in voting options
• People unrightfully removed from voter registration lists too late for them to re-register
• People who's right to vote is effectively nullified by gerrymandering, typically favoring Republicans
• People who died and therefore can't vote, due to preventable medical conditions
• People who physically cannot vote due to random catastrophes like getting in a car accident on voting day or getting very sick

  On 12/6/2020 at 12:18 AM, cyanobacteria said:

That's just not true.  Look at the USSR.

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Stalin was a really amazing dude, imo. Top quality (there are no bounds to his quality)

He should have tortured his enemies more, though, vivisecting them while questioning them is a bit too humane for my taste.

  On 12/7/2020 at 9:40 PM, dingformung said:

Stalin was a really amazing dude, imo. Top quality (there are no bounds to his quality)

He should have tortured his enemies more, though, vivisecting them while questioning them is a bit too humane for my taste.

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Just imagine what he could have done with drones and military bases spanning the globe

  On 12/7/2020 at 9:25 PM, zero said:

are taxpayers still paying for this shit? or is it being paid for 100% by funds grifted through the trump clan?

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grifting and donations. guiliani is requesting $20,000/day just to keep the charade lawsuits going. 

there's also grifting happening to undo anything big T has done from the other side too coz it's unfair if only the right gets all the money

  On 12/7/2020 at 5:31 PM, dingformung said:

What do you mean? It's only been a democracy since 1965. Before that large parts of the population didn't even have voting rights.

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Democracy as in the government was selected by a vote. Not all citizens need be eligible to vote for it to be considered a democracy. 
Unless you have a lot of 4 year olds running around voting in Germany, large swathes of your population can’t vote either. 
So, semantics aside, my point stands. 

  On 12/7/2020 at 9:31 PM, cyanobacteria said:

Large parts of the population still don't have voting rights, like

• Prisoners, which we have more of than any other country in the world per capita
• Felons, which we probably also have more of given the prison population
• Men who refuse to register with the selective services (military draft) and are therefore felons
• Poor people who can't risk leaving their jobs and don't have good transportation options to get to polling places and don't have mail in voting options
• People unrightfully removed from voter registration lists too late for them to re-register
• People who's right to vote is effectively nullified by gerrymandering, typically favoring Republicans
• People who died and therefore can't vote, due to preventable medical conditions
• People who physically cannot vote due to random catastrophes like getting in a car accident on voting day or getting very sick

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Prisoners can in fact vote in two states, and felons can vote in many states. 
As usual, it’s more nuanced than what you present: https://felonvoting.procon.org/state-felon-voting-laws/

Men under the age of 26 can vote without registering.

Yes voting should be a national or local holiday, depending on the election.

Following the previous point, it should be mandatory to vote, with potential fines if you don’t.

Yes gerrymandering is fucked and needs to be outlawed. This is why voting in local elections matters: http://reclaimtheamericandream.org/progress-gerrymander/

Not going to bother with the last two points, cause you cannot legislate or create policies to mitigate every foreseeable event without creating legislation or policy so stifling that it ends up doing more harm than good.

  On 12/8/2020 at 3:45 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 12/7/2020 at 5:31 PM, dingformung said:

What do you mean? It's only been a democracy since 1965. Before that large parts of the population didn't even have voting rights.

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Democracy as in the government was selected by a vote. Not all citizens need be eligible to vote for it to be considered a democracy. 
Unless you have a lot of 4 year olds running around voting in Germany, large swathes of your population can’t vote either. 
So, semantics aside, my point stands. 

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Votes are only one aspect of democracies, though. I think racial segregation and the praxis that political participation opportunities are determined by ancestry/genealogy (not even indirectly but directly) are against core principles of democracy and it's fair to not call such a place a democracy. Iran has elections but isn't a democracy, either.

The comparison to 4 year olds voting is a bit weak, but yes, voting age should be reduced. In my state it's 16, but could go down to 14 imo (would mostly help progressive parties) but that's an entirely different topic.

  On 12/8/2020 at 6:56 AM, dingformung said:

Votes are only one aspect of democracies, though. I think racial segregation and the praxis that political participation opportunities are determined by ancestry/genealogy (not even indirectly but directly) are against core principles of democracy and it's fair to not call such a place a democracy. Iran has elections but isn't a democracy, either.

The comparison to 4 year olds voting is a bit weak, but yes, voting age should be reduced. In my state it's 16, but could go down to 14 imo (would mostly help progressive parties) but that's an entirely different topic.

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I think voting needs to be expanded significantly to include everyone, and I mean quite literally 1 year olds should vote.  Except for those incapable of voting, a very well understood set of voting behaviors most beneficial to that small subset of life must be somehow created.  I guess this alone just becomes once again old people voting on the topics since they choose this framework of benefit to that subset of people.  Birds should also get to vote through some type of scientific analysis of ecological processes which affect them to dictate policy decisions.  But once again that just is determined by the political will of voting-capable humans so that's the same issue.  But if the democratic public interface were made to look at voting from this perspective it might be easier to have a more educated voting base

  On 12/8/2020 at 3:58 AM, chenGOD said:

1) Prisoners can in fact vote in two states, and felons can vote in many states. 
As usual, it’s more nuanced than what you present: https://felonvoting.procon.org/state-felon-voting-laws/

2) Men under the age of 26 can vote without registering.

3) Yes voting should be a national or local holiday, depending on the election.

4) Following the previous point, it should be mandatory to vote, with potential fines if you don’t.

5) Yes gerrymandering is fucked and needs to be outlawed. This is why voting in local elections matters: http://reclaimtheamericandream.org/progress-gerrymander/

6) Not going to bother with the last two points, cause you cannot legislate or create policies to mitigate every foreseeable event without creating legislation or policy so stifling that it ends up doing more harm than good.

 

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• 1) Fair point but barely worth mentioning, it's just 2 states out of 50
• 2) Fair point but the majority still cannot
• 3) It should go further than that and be continuous and fine-grained.  You should be able to vote on a variety of issues ahead of time through strictly defined cost/benefit tradeoffs you want your voting pattern to follow which allows auto-selection of a vote in elections you somehow miss or died before getting to vote in, as a backup for voting directly
• 4) Yes
• 5) Yes
• 6) Yes you can I mentioned it in point 3

  On 12/8/2020 at 6:56 AM, dingformung said:

  On 12/8/2020 at 3:45 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 12/7/2020 at 5:31 PM, dingformung said:

What do you mean? It's only been a democracy since 1965. Before that large parts of the population didn't even have voting rights.

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Democracy as in the government was selected by a vote. Not all citizens need be eligible to vote for it to be considered a democracy. 
Unless you have a lot of 4 year olds running around voting in Germany, large swathes of your population can’t vote either. 
So, semantics aside, my point stands. 

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Votes are only one aspect of democracies, though. I think racial segregation and the praxis that political participation opportunities are determined by ancestry/genealogy (not even indirectly but directly) are against core principles of democracy and it's fair to not call such a place a democracy. Iran has elections but isn't a democracy, either.

The comparison to 4 year olds voting is a bit weak, but yes, voting age should be reduced. In my state it's 16, but could go down to 14 imo (would mostly help progressive parties) but that's an entirely different topic.

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Your original argument was based on the ability to vote, which is why I didn't expand further. I think your point of racial segregation is a good one, but that is a matter of human rights, and not democracy per se. The intersection between democracy and human rights is an important nexus, of course, and one that needs to be improved still further.

I suppose you will have to define democracy first before we can agree on core principles. From my point of view, a democracy allows for people to change leaders without the need for a revolution (as opposed to a dictatorship). This obviously ties in with the concept of what defines a person, but again, that is an issue of human rights.

Yes, I was a bit facetious with my point (and god no, 14 year olds shouldn't be allowed to vote), but again, the original point is that the US is the longest standing example of a democracy (democratic republic to be more accurate) that exists at the moment.

  On 12/8/2020 at 8:12 AM, cyanobacteria said:

• 1) Fair point but barely worth mentioning, it's just 2 states out of 50
• 2) Fair point but the majority still cannot
• 3) It should go further than that and be continuous and fine-grained.  You should be able to vote on a variety of issues ahead of time through strictly defined cost/benefit tradeoffs you want your voting pattern to follow which allows auto-selection of a vote in elections you somehow miss or died before getting to vote in, as a backup for voting directly
• 4) Yes
• 5) Yes
• 6) Yes you can I mentioned it in point 3

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Yes 1 and 2 need work, and access should be improved (although I would argue that certain types of criminal activity - like corruption, child exploitation, human trafficking, and rape for example, should remove that person's ability to participate in society), but attitudes are changing and that is a good step.

Point 3 - how can you vote on issues ahead of time, when the issue may not be defined?

Point 5, great we agree on the importance of voting in local elections (and the fucked-upness of gerrymandering).

  On 12/8/2020 at 1:59 PM, chenGOD said:

  On 12/8/2020 at 6:56 AM, dingformung said:

  On 12/8/2020 at 3:45 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 12/7/2020 at 5:31 PM, dingformung said:

What do you mean? It's only been a democracy since 1965. Before that large parts of the population didn't even have voting rights.

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Democracy as in the government was selected by a vote. Not all citizens need be eligible to vote for it to be considered a democracy. 
Unless you have a lot of 4 year olds running around voting in Germany, large swathes of your population can’t vote either. 
So, semantics aside, my point stands. 

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Votes are only one aspect of democracies, though. I think racial segregation and the praxis that political participation opportunities are determined by ancestry/genealogy (not even indirectly but directly) are against core principles of democracy and it's fair to not call such a place a democracy. Iran has elections but isn't a democracy, either.

The comparison to 4 year olds voting is a bit weak, but yes, voting age should be reduced. In my state it's 16, but could go down to 14 imo (would mostly help progressive parties) but that's an entirely different topic.

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Your original argument was based on the ability to vote, which is why I didn't expand further. I think your point of racial segregation is a good one, but that is a matter of human rights, and not democracy per se. The intersection between democracy and human rights is an important nexus, of course, and one that needs to be improved still further.

I suppose you will have to define democracy first before we can agree on core principles. From my point of view, a democracy allows for people to change leaders without the need for a revolution (as opposed to a dictatorship). This obviously ties in with the concept of what defines a person, but again, that is an issue of human rights.

Yes, I was a bit facetious with my point (and god no, 14 year olds shouldn't be allowed to vote), but again, the original point is that the US is the longest standing example of a democracy (democratic republic to be more accurate) that exists at the moment.

 

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Democracy is tied to human rights, otherwise it's not democracy. That doesn't mean that democracies can't violate human rights, but they have to be integral part of every democracy's state of law, and in the case of the US pre 65 the country's laws directly opposed any modern idea of human rights by being the legal framework for a racial caste system. If the US before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a democracy, then modern Iran is a democracy, too.

Also, causing regime changes where democracies or forming democracies are replaced by dictatorships isn't something particularly democratic. The US actively suppressed democracy in other places of the world, dictatorships are easier to control. But that is another matter.

16 is for local and regional elections here, and I think 14-year-olds should be able to vote in such elections, too. Some of them understand more about politics than some 60-year-olds and their brain is developed enough to think about politics. It also helps politicising them. Sure, they are probably easier to influence and parties would (have to) cater to young people more to get more votes, but that's not a bad thing. Young people have to live the longest with the aftermath of the decisions that are made now. Generally politics are very age-ist because controlled by boomers and giving the new generation some more weight in elections isn't a terrible idea. Not sure about voting age for national elections, though. It should probably be 16, not 14, but I don't know.

    Quote

The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a last-minute attempt by President Trump’s allies to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania, a blow to the president’s continuing efforts to protest his lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

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the presidential steal continues

  On 12/8/2020 at 11:46 PM, Nebraska said:

the presidential steal continues

 

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they didn't want to hear arguments from the Zodiac. People avoid ted cruz at all costs. 

  On 12/9/2020 at 1:06 AM, ignatius said:

they didn't want to hear arguments from the Zodiac. People avoid ted cruz at all costs. 

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zodiac is disappointed

  On 12/9/2020 at 1:06 AM, ignatius said:

People avoid ted cruz at all costs. 

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ha! and he avoids them too...

interesting fact here - the company I work for does access control systems for commercial office buildings, and at one point in time did the system for the building he officed out of in downtown Houston. just for shits n' giggles, I would occasionally run activity reports on his badge to see when he was coming in to the office. almost always, he was coming into the building between 4-4:30am, which is pretty abnormal if you ask me.

it just further cemented in my mind that he's a creeper out there lurking in the shadows, avoids being seen by humanity, scared of being caught for being the man-child coward he totally is... 

  On 12/8/2020 at 11:46 PM, Nebraska said:

the presidential steal continues

 

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i'm kinda in love with the way scotus dismissed this. one sentence. coulda just read RTFM, STFU, GTFO.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/120820zr_bq7d.pdf