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neubejiita

Obama wins the election. More of the same now?

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democrats are always better for the rest of the world, so i approve of this.

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I'm not going to get into some stupid debate (politics debates never go anywhere), but I want to say a few things.

Gez said:

Why? It's the "lesser of two evils" principle. Given the limited choice available, most people vote for the guy they dislike the least. So if they dislike Romney more than Obama, they'll vote Obama.

And inversely, if they dislike Obama more than Romney, they'll vote Romney.


There is no "limited choice".

There are 5 parties outside of the Dems and Republicans with ballot access to 270 electoral votes: the Libertarians, the Greens, Americans Elect, Constitution Party, and the Justice Party. Not to mention the 16 other, smaller parties.

What aggravates me is that people turn this into a black-or-white issue. It's either Dems of Repubs, nothing else exists. God forbid you vote on a third party, your neighbors won't think you're cool or something.

Gez said:

You're being so blinded by your hatred for the man and/or his ideas that you are actively wishing harm on your country. If you were putting your nation's well-being above vindication of your pet ideology, you'd be wishing to be wrong and that the winner's policies will really work and improve things.


It's the stupidity and hypocrisy of statements like that which aggravate me. What do you get out of wishing good on a candidate you don't like? Are you trying to set yourself up for disappointment? Shit, the guy won by being the opposite of what you wanted! What the fuck makes you think it's going to turn out in your favor?

Policies working and improving things? You tell me how ANYTHING in this entire fucking post...

Hellbent said:

"
Both are pro-foreign interventionist policy
Both cater to the military-industrial complex
Both are in the employ of the international banking cartel
Both will expand government
Both will expand anti-liberty/freedom laws
Both will support a war on Internet freedom
Both will continue the war on drugs
Both will continue to support regulatory growth
Both will support FATCA and alienate US Marts
Both will continue current tax structure
Both will support bailouts for corporate elite
Both will suppress militarily any anti-government voices

"


...could EVER be considered a good idea.

Yeah yeah I know, under Obama Roe v. Wade will be upheld, Obamacare will still exist, gay marriage will be supported...none of this is BAD. At all. These are all good things, and I don't disagree with them! I'll admit, saying "I wish EVERYTHING would fail" is pushing the limit.

But look at that list above and you see the real issues at hand. And NONE of those are going away. And that's why I'm so uninterested in elections.

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Mr. Freeze said:

It's the stupidity and hypocrisy of statements like that which aggravate me. What do you get out of wishing good on a candidate you don't like? Are you trying to set yourself up for disappointment? Shit, the guy won by being the opposite of what you wanted! What the fuck makes you think it's going to turn out in your favor?

Y'know... for the general welfare of the common person. Basic human emotions, maybe? Someone who doesn't share your viewpoints getting elected doesn't mean that his failure would imply good things. Basically, having that attitude makes one look like an arrogant douchenozzle whose main goal in life is to say, "Told ya so!" It's pathetic.

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Mr. Freeze said:

There is no "limited choice".

There are 5 parties outside of the Dems and Republicans with ballot access to 270 electoral votes: the Libertarians, the Greens, Americans Elect, Constitution Party, and the Justice Party. Not to mention the 16 other, smaller parties.

go ahead and pretend your electoral system doesn't SUCK and disqualify partisan plurality. you will look edgy and independent.

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dew said:

go ahead and pretend your electoral system doesn't SUCK and disqualify partisan plurality. you will look edgy and independent.


^^^^
THIS!

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Mr. Freeze said:

There is no "limited choice".

There are 5 parties outside of the Dems and Republicans with ballot access to 270 electoral votes: the Libertarians, the Greens, Americans Elect, Constitution Party, and the Justice Party. Not to mention the 16 other, smaller parties.

What aggravates me is that people turn this into a black-or-white issue. It's either Dems of Repubs, nothing else exists. God forbid you vote on a third party, your neighbors won't think you're cool or something.

Nope, you're completely wrong I'm afraid.

The electoral system you have in your country guarantees that you will end up with the situation that you have: ie. the two party system. Using First Past The Post is the main issue, but certain features of the American system (like the electoral college and winner takes all policy) make it even worse than it otherwise would be. For all intents and purposes, there are only two parties, because all those other parties you mention are irrelevant to the outcome of the elections.

You've correctly identified that attitudes like "I voted for him because he isn't Romney" are a really bad reason to choose a candidate. But here's the other thing: it's also a perfectly rational way of acting. When there are only two parties that get any significant number of votes, a vote for a third party is a wasted vote. It makes sense to vote for what you see as the lesser of two evils.

What I'm essentially saying is: don't hate the people who are voting, hate the system. The American electoral system is broken and obsolete. It was designed over 200 years ago, in a time when most countries were still monarchies. America led the world in adopting democracy but the price it's paid is that it's stuck with essentially a prototype designed by people who didn't know the things we knew today - about game theory and how to design fair balloting systems.

Check out the table of voting systems on Wikipedia. You'll see that most European countries have fairer voting systems (the UK unfortunately being one of the few exceptions). Even Afghanistan and Iraq have better voting systems than the US.

I'm from the UK so it's not really my place to campaign for change in the government of a foreign country. But if you really care about this then campaign to change the system, don't just complain about people voting in a way that makes perfect sense for them to vote. A simple change to a preferential voting system like AV or even just a two round system would probably be enough to demolish the two party system. As an outsider looking in at the US and seeing the hostility and downright hatred between the two sides (and crazy events like the debt ceiling crisis last year), I really wonder if the two party system is possibly behind some of the biggest problems America faces, and it seems like nobody ever really seems to talk about it.

Educate yourself and campaign for change. Nobody else will do it for you.

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Not to mention that the popular vote is a pretty pointless vote and has no effect in the outcome of a campaign. So when people tell me "YOU DIDN'T VOTE?\?! SOME AMERICAN YOU ARE!!!", I respond to them with "I am not going to waste my time voting when my vote does not even count anyway.". Too much headache going to the poll for nothing and filling out a voters registration form. It is like spending 5 hours in a supermarket pushing a shopping cart around the store looking for items to buy but you do not actually have any money and do not even intend to buy anything.

The popular vote is like the amount of friends you have on Facebook, pointless.

Also with winner takes all, nobody is going to vote for a third party because that would be pointless. The electoral college members compromise on which guy they like the most.

Plus, most of the EC guys are paid off to vote a certain way anyway.

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GhostlyDeath said:

Also with winner takes all, nobody is going to vote for a third party because that would be pointless. The electoral college members compromise on which guy they like the most.

The electoral college makes it worse, but don't think that abolishing it is the solution to the problem: the two party system is ultimately based in the fact that you use First Past The Post.

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Caffeine Freak said:

despite winning, Obama received 10 million fewer votes than he did in 2008, and Romney received nearly 3 million fewer votes than McCain did in 2008.

Shouldn't they wait until all votes have been counted before making those judgements?

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Yeah, I've been reading about this wave of layoffs going across the workforce, as companies prepare for the added expense of Obamacare. I think Boeing was the most prominent name I saw. But smaller companies as well.

Jodwin: what makes you think they haven't been all (or mostly) counted?

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Caffeine Freak said:

Jodwin: what makes you think they haven't been all (or mostly) counted?

Numbers? You can check pretty much any American news site that has an "election center" like CNN or NBC: http://edition.cnn.com/election/2012/results/main

By the time I wrote my post Obama was at 60.8 million votes and California was at 67 % votes counted of which 5.4 million were for Obama. With simple arithmetic you can count that once all the votes have been counted it'll be more than 59 million votes for Obama (which would be "10 million less than 2008", since he got 69 million that time). In fact, at the time of this writing, Obama has 61.164 million total, which is closer to 8 million less than in 2008.

Just from the uncounted California and Washington votes alone you could estimate Obama getting ~3.5 million votes more before all have been counted. That'll bring him much closer to 2008 than what the article you cited said. What a wonderful piece of internet journalism. :D

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Caffeine Freak said:

Yeah, I've been reading about this wave of layoffs going across the workforce, as companies prepare for the added expense of Obamacare.

That's pretty fucked. I hope all of those people are pursuing wrongful termination suits. Somehow, I doubt "preemptive downsizing" will hold water in court.

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Caffeine Freak said:

Yeah, I've been reading about this wave of layoffs going across the workforce, as companies prepare for the added expense of Obamacare. I think Boeing was the most prominent name I saw. But smaller companies as well.

Jodwin: what makes you think they haven't been all (or mostly) counted?

Walmart has an alternative to lowering wages.

You still get your raise each year, but they'll further cut your hours to match.

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dew said:
go ahead and pretend your electoral system doesn't SUCK and disqualify partisan plurality.

He didn't do that, but rather thought there is such thing in the US.

Mr. Freeze said:
There is no "limited choice".

There are 5 parties outside of the Dems and Republicans with ballot access to 270 electoral votes: the Libertarians, the Greens, Americans Elect, Constitution Party, and the Justice Party. Not to mention the 16 other, smaller parties.

What aggravates me is that people turn this into a black-or-white issue. It's either Dems of Repubs, nothing else exists. God forbid you vote on a third party, your neighbors won't think you're cool or something.

There's a difference between a hypothetical or absolute limit and practical possibilities. You're reacting with an "it's the customer's fault" response. The majority of those people that have to choose belong to loose and mostly disassociated masses that, when faced with the media and publicity related to the two parties, feel it's pointless to try to vote for something else, especially when not voting at all is also an encouraged practice.

Why do people drink Coca-Cola more often than other soft drinks? Among additional factors, it's because of the dominant position of the company, that can pump out copious amounts of publicity and has an infrastructure that allows its products to get anywhere at a good price. Likewise, the two parties can get their ideas and their candidates into millions of people's minds in ways other parties can't equal.

fraggle said:
For all intents and purposes, there are only two parties, because all those other parties you mention are irrelevant to the outcome of the elections.

Yet why doesn't one or the other suffer huge electoral beatings in the long term, possibly being replaced by a third party? Why do third parties conveniently play the roles of niche extremes or specialized parties instead of tending to replace one or the other at certain points? Why not a period where one of the two wins by a good margin for more than one election and where the other is gradually replaced by a third party? (Like Libertarians or Constitutionalists overtaking Republicans). What I'm saying might be happening anyway, with Obama beating the Republicans nortwithstanding the ongoing crisis: I've read that, by following previous examples in history, Obama should probably have lost now. The Duverger's law Wikipedia article mentions the Republican Party replacing the Whigs before the Civil War, and something like this could be occurring again, with Republican policy becoming progressively more out of touch with reality.

Using First Past The Post is the main issue, but certain features of the American system (like the electoral college and winner takes all policy) make it even worse than it otherwise would be.

Other factors to consider:

  • A historical policy to divide and limit mass or popular organization, by a heavy hand on protesters and restrictions on the power of workers unions and other massive organizations.
  • The weight of the "military-industrial complex" on power and the president, and the contribution of the media here.
  • Legislation that gives free rein to concentrated financing in elections, such as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, heightened by vote value targeting because of the electoral college.
  • Term limits that don't give any administration long-term chances to set up ambitious political projects.

As an outsider looking in at the US and seeing the hostility and downright hatred between the two sides (and crazy events like the debt ceiling crisis last year), I really wonder if the two party system is possibly behind some of the biggest problems America faces, and it seems like nobody ever really seems to talk about it.

Perhaps if in Europe you also had some of this hostility, you'd wouldn't have driven so recklessly down the road of austerity. The EU is in some senses in worse conditions than the US, or is at least moving in a worse direction, and its traditional left is a joke in many countries, even compared to Democrats.

A simple change to a preferential voting system like AV or even just a two round system would probably be enough to demolish the two party system.

That is not a simple change and you're only looking at the surface because the voting system is not an accident. Factors I listed above arguably need to be faced for that change to avoid being blocked. More room for popular expression, more labor rights, restrictions on media control of information and on big money influencing elections, and reforms in the security apparatus that threatens whoever speaks up against the issue.

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honestly Obama was the greater choice, and there was no other popular candidate exept Romney, and he is even more right wing than Obama is so this story should maybe stop now, if Obama screws up these four years then we can discuss Romney again.

back here in sweden the politics are all the same: its like a farm where the hens and cocks fight over ranks, whitout even thinking about which choice is the best. Shall the rich squeal in pain because they have left 4000$ instead of 6000$ after taxes every month? (if they do, they are assholes, its still a fuckload of money) Shall the poor nag about how much more they want in economical support? - I personaly hate the bible, but there are some things I like about it, it do promote the rich to support the poor and Mitt Romney just might hate that encouragement

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rf` said:

Walmart has an alternative to lowering wages.

You still get your raise each year, but they'll further cut your hours to match.


Wal-Mart wasn't one of the companies I've seen mentioned so far, though. The most prominent names (or at least the ones I'm most familiar with) so far were Boeing and Pepsi.

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Hell NO! Obama Won. This sucks!
Novak Djokovic should be president of US.
This guy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novak_Djokovic

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LakiSoft said:

Hell NO! Obama Won. This sucks!
Novak Djokovic should be president of US.
This guy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novak_Djokovic


This post makes zero sense.

Ditto to the one I quoted.

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Bucket said:

That's pretty fucked. I hope all of those people are pursuing wrongful termination suits. Somehow, I doubt "preemptive downsizing" will hold water in court.


I'm usually of the mindset that lawsuits are a waste of time and energy, but I wonder if I'd be tempted to reconsider, were I in the same desperate circumstances as some of these people surely are. The thing is, (from the quick research I've done) I'd be doubtful that this would qualify as wrongful termination. That has more to do with age/gender/race discrimination, retaliatory firing, or the employer not following the proper termination procedure. I really don't think you could make a strong case for wrongful termination simply because they could no longer afford to have you.

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I think they're all the same everywhere. They all work for the same secret government. And if someone who didn't work for them somehow managed to become a president, or the one who became started doing things different than what the secret government wanted.. they would shoot him/her and make it look like it was some random moron who did the shooting.

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Jimi said:

I think they're all the same everywhere. They all work for the same secret government. And if someone who didn't work for them somehow managed to become a president, or the one who became started doing things different than what the secret government wanted.. they would shoot him/her and make it look like it was some random moron who did the shooting.


Also, we didn't land on the moon, jews did 9/11, and the comedian killed JFK.

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Jimi said:

I think they're all the same everywhere. They all work for the same secret government. And if someone who didn't work for them somehow managed to become a president, or the one who became started doing things different than what the secret government wanted.. they would shoot him/her and make it look like it was some random moron who did the shooting.

I'm citing poe's law on this.

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eargosedown said:

and the comedian killed JFK.

That's what they want you to believe. It was actually the mime, but no one could prove anything, because the weapon was invisible!

rf` said:

I'm citing poe's law on this.

I think I was half serious about it. So it just feels like it's that way. Not that I really care what some president/whatever/secret government does or doesn't do, as usually it doesn't affect my life in any way.

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