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RE: Who has killed more people? Nazis? or Communists?
The ballot box isn't a solution. Politics is the problem. We don't need politicians of any stripe.
The ballot box isn't a solution. Politics is the problem. We don't need politicians of any stripe.
Precisely, it's a big stage show to keep us focused and occupied on irrelevant things while they rob us blind.
Wrong
Thank you for your well thought, informative and constructive post. I definitely learnt a lot.
Did you read the subthread below you?
No
read down below right beneath you
@davebrewer can help you as well
Wrong
You just need to start electing the RIGHT people and get JUSTICES appointed. Get Shelby overturned, get citizens united overturned, get democracy back to being about the constituents.
And how's than been working out for the past couple centuries? Democracy is not virtuous.
You know why? Because Conservative media panders out to cinics like yourself to spread misinformation to make fewer incentives to actually go vote.... HMMM I wonder what mechanism helped incentivize voting? Maybe VRA??? When was that overturned??? Oh yeah, in SHELBY.
Your cinical "Oh voting is pointless and voting is dumb"
is the EXACT narrative that keeps you being a non voting sheeple as elites slowly shift money upwards. You know why democracy isn't "vitruous" as you are complaining it to be? Because you and every cinic about democracy is refusing to vote and spreading toxic misinformation to also drag other.
YOU HAVE TO VOTE! EVERY TIME! EVERY ELECTION!
You can't just wait for the national election to start whinning that you can't get your way! You have to actually vote in local and state elections (you know, the ones that start pooling people for electors???).
YOU HAVE DEMOCRACY AT YOUR PALMS AND YOU REFUSE TO ACTUALLY GO OUT AND USE IT
Then complain that it doesn't work???
VOTE! EVERY! ELECTION!
Vote for candidates that are willing to make the election on a holiday. Vote for candidates that promise to fight against citizens united. Stop making this a choice between "two evils" and start bringing in options that are actually good at every level.
Voting is usurped authority. I do not have the right to govern you directly, so how could I have the right to delegate such rulership to someone else by any process whatsoever?
You are too theoretical. Practical issue - how would you provide for the common defense? Or is it going to be every man, woman, and child for themselves?
If it is everyone for themselves, not much more to talk about. Hope it works out for you, and you never come up against an evil gang that doesnt like the color of your hair
If you agree that we should provide for the common defense, then you need mechanisms to make that happen in practical and efficient ways
hear hear*
You do know it is possible to organize voluntary associations, right? And what military threat do we face that wasn't first riled up by government foreign policy?
WHAT?!? sigh. Some people just prefer to be ignorantly governed and don't want any influence in the government I suppose. Carry on!
Hear hear
Not at all. Some of us reject the presumed legitimacy of government outright. Do you really think a vote every few years gives you real influence? Do you think the authority claimed by government agents is legitimate? If so, why?
I do not have the right to govern you, and you do not have the right to govern me. How can either of us then confer upon some third party the right to govern the other by proxy?
Insert social contact
How does that create a right to govern others? Society works through mutual voluntary consent, which is antithetical to the concept of government.
To get the right people elected, we need to take big money out of politics. I can't see any other way. With real anti-corruption laws that have teeth and send people to jail when someone takes money for government favors.
Or just overturn citizens
I think we need more than overturning Citizens United. There has been a long assault on our politics by wealthy interests through the courts. Citizens United was only one ruling. There are about 20 or so that have chipped away at the protection we once had.
I think that an amendment to the constitution is what it will take to make it clear that corporations are not people and that money is not speech.
You can't take money out of politics. Politics is about power, and especially power to control the economy. Take politics out of money, and you have a real solution. But then, there's no point to politics anyway.
No, you can't take money out of politics, but you can take big money out politics to level the playing field. Consider the work of Larry Lessig and his SuperPAC to end all SuperPACS, mayday.us.
Getting big money out of politics is the first reform. Without that, there can be no other reforms.
The power players don't care about such niceties. Driving the bribery underground doesn't make it go away.
And you can't reform a system that was never designed to work the way you seem to think it can. It has always been about protecting the political class and their cronies at the expense of everyone else.
Well, I think we can find some agreement here. To put it in very plain terms, we're talking about self-dealing.
Corruption is an exchange of dignity for money. Money is a terrible substitute for interpersonal skills, too.
The only remedy that I can see is to raise generations of human beings that do not believe in the idea of imposing their will on other people. There's a good book that shows us how to do this kind of parenting: Raising Human Beings, by Dr. Ross W. Greene. It's a book about raising kids, but to me, it's a book about creating a humane collection of human beings that we can actually call civilization.
Politics isn't about being civilized. It is a system that draws people who want power and that has psychological effects that corrupt those who have good intentions. Check out the Authoritarian Sociopathy series by Davi Barker as re-published on Steemit by @badquakerdotcom. Part 6 is here, and the parts are each linked back to the previous section
Ok, that's heavy. I'll read that again when I'm wide awake. Thanks for sharing though.
I do believe that politics is the practice of large groups of people figuring out how to live together. In that sense, politics is about being civilized. Civilizations don't bomb and kill others. They work it out. They solve common problems so that everyone may live to die of a natural cause.
Hater Dave gettin' his hate on, again.
Nope. Don't think so. Just pointing out that there are groups of people who believe and promote violence. And those types of groups need to be eradicated from civilized society.
KKK is a violent and inherently evil group that provide no value to society, should be obliterated. Do you agree?
Nazis are a violent and inherently evil group that provide no value to society, should be obliterated. Do you agree?
If you agree that these two violent groups should be obliterated, why wouldn't you be willing to extend that thought to violent and evil groups from the left?
You apparently don't like democracy. Certainly not perfect. But I haven't heard of a practical better alternative.
Strawman argument
strawman
You discredit all your previous and future arguments, when you resort to using strawmen as a basis of discussion or debate. Sad.
It's not a strawman argument, it's an analogy to point out the hole in your argument. You appealed to the status quo and your personal incredulity as though it constituted proof that democracy was a good system.