(February 2, 2018 at 11:54 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:My point is that the thing that's doing us in is unrepentant fractiousness.

I think complacency is the bigger problem.  100 million registered voters could not even bother to get off their asses last time around.  And look at the piece of shit we ended up with.

A fair point. Leaves the diehards the field.

The fundamental affliction killing the formerly United States in my opinion, is neither complacency nor fractiousness. For fractiousness and complacency are but tools and states which partisans calculatingly and successfully deploy by instilling them in different parts of the electorate in the strategic pursuit of their partisan agenda.  

The fundamental affliction is a sense amongst the partisans that there is no great fundamental virtue, such as unbiased informing of the public, public engagement, knowledge, expertise, experience and competence, that can transcend and trumps partisan virtue.  There can be no greater public good than partisan agenda de jour and power.   No fact other than contrived propositions calculated to justify and advance one’s selected cause amongst the uneducated and uninformed.

Amongst the left, this is perhaps somewhat more the result of an unfortunate fixation and obsession. Amongst the right this stems much more from a malevolently calculated technique to advance agenda beneficial to oneself or one’s Doners at any incidental cost to the rest of what is supposedly one’s own country.

Two motivations fatally dovetailed and as a result there is trump, and no longer one union or one United States but in name only.

(February 2, 2018 at 11:54 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:My point is that the thing that's doing us in is unrepentant fractiousness.

I think complacency is the bigger problem.  100 million registered voters could not even bother to get off their asses last time around.  And look at the piece of shit we ended up with.

So would you support mandatory voting? In my opinion it makes sense in a way of getting a better and more balanced sample of the population, but then it seems like more of a surface solution to a much deeper problem of people not caring and being informed about issues.

Meh, I'd just go ahead and be a criminal, whenever I wanted to, if voting were made a law.

(February 2, 2018 at 1:28 pm)shadow Wrote:

(February 2, 2018 at 11:54 am)Minimalist Wrote: I think complacency is the bigger problem.  100 million registered voters could not even bother to get off their asses last time around.  And look at the piece of shit we ended up with.

So would you support mandatory voting? In my opinion it makes sense in a way of getting a better and more balanced sample of the population, but then it seems like more of a surface solution to a much deeper problem of people not caring and being informed about issues.

Making uninformed idiots vote will have only marginal effect on the out come.  All it will do is to ensure more money will be spent on deceptive pandering and disinformation prior to the election.

The lack of high minded sense of civic responsibility and the lack of a sense that independent pursuit of knowledge has indirect and incalculable value is really the fundamental ill.

(February 2, 2018 at 1:32 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Meh, I'd just go ahead and be a criminal, whenever I wanted to, if voting were made a law.

I think the point is that you fine people if they don't vote... so you don't have to, but it gets much, much higher turnout.

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(February 2, 2018 at 1:33 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(February 2, 2018 at 1:28 pm)shadow Wrote: So would you support mandatory voting? In my opinion it makes sense in a way of getting a better and more balanced sample of the population, but then it seems like more of a surface solution to a much deeper problem of people not caring and being informed about issues.

Making uninformed idiots vote will have only marginal effect on the out come.  All it will do is to ensure more money will be spent on deceptive pandering and disinformation prior to the election.

The lack of high minded sense of civic responsibility is really the fundamental ill.

I agree. But do you think Trump would have been elected with mandatory voting? I'd wager that the people who don't care would have voted the other way. It can weaken extremist candidates.

-and then I'd refuse to pay the fine.

(February 2, 2018 at 1:34 pm)shadow Wrote:

(February 2, 2018 at 1:32 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Meh, I'd just go ahead and be a criminal, whenever I wanted to, if voting were made a law.

I think the point is that you fine people if they don't vote... so you don't have to, but it gets much, much higher turnout.

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(February 2, 2018 at 1:33 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Making uninformed idiots vote will have only marginal effect on the out come.  All it will do is to ensure more money will be spent on deceptive pandering and disinformation prior to the election.

The lack of high minded sense of civic responsibility is really the fundamental ill.

I agree. But do you think Trump would have been elected with mandatory voting? I'd wager that the people who don't care would have voted the other way. It can weaken extremist candidates.

Perhaps not. But we should not too narrowly tailor solution to the specific circumstances surrounding the symptom of trump, and not coordinate the solution to the much deeper and more widespread rot that would otherwise ensure america’s Downward trajectory into the ground long after trump himself becomes worm shit.

(February 2, 2018 at 1:28 pm)shadow Wrote:

(February 2, 2018 at 11:54 am)Minimalist Wrote: I think complacency is the bigger problem.  100 million registered voters could not even bother to get off their asses last time around.  And look at the piece of shit we ended up with.

So would you support mandatory voting? In my opinion it makes sense in a way of getting a better and more balanced sample of the population, but then it seems like more of a surface solution to a much deeper problem of people not caring and being informed about issues.

No.  You'd end up with 100 million assholes writing in "Mickey Mouse."

People have to stop pretending that THEY are not the problem.

I do not see that day coming.  I suspect in 2020 whoever gets the Democratic nomination will suddenly be the victim of a Putin-backed report that 20 years earlier they told a joke that the snowflakes will find offensive and run to their safe spaces to hide until it is all over and then they can come out with their signs and marches about how miserable the Orange Turd is.... but once again they will have done nothing to stop him.

This country is fucked.  I'm glad I'm old.  I do feel sorry for the young people but I'm glad I don't have grand children.

(February 2, 2018 at 2:23 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

(February 2, 2018 at 1:28 pm)shadow Wrote: So would you support mandatory voting? In my opinion it makes sense in a way of getting a better and more balanced sample of the population, but then it seems like more of a surface solution to a much deeper problem of people not caring and being informed about issues.

No.  You'd end up with 100 million assholes writing in "Mickey Mouse."

People have to stop pretending that THEY are not the problem.

I do not see that day coming.  I suspect in 2020 whoever gets the Democratic nomination will suddenly be the victim of a Putin-backed report that 20 years earlier they told a joke that the snowflakes will find offensive and run to their safe spaces to hide until it is all over and then they can come out with their signs and marches about how miserable the Orange Turd is.... but once again they will have done nothing to stop him.

This country is fucked.  I'm glad I'm old.  I do feel sorry for the young people but I'm glad I don't have grand children.

Democracy is hard but worth it when do right . Handing everything over to a faceless group of ruthless corporate hoods is easy  but will benefit no one in the long run .