posted
Blayne, exit polls show 80% to 90% of the African-American electorate has been voting for Sen. Obama. That is far more than just the youth rebelling against their parents.
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posted
The inequalities in the primary don't upset me. I don't view them as real elections. The party is deciding who they want to support, not who will actually be president. So, if they believe that giving Austin a larger amount of delegates per person will give them a better candidate for the general, that is there decision. And people who support that party can leave or not. I don't know how the green party comes up with its candidate. If we had a party who wanted to pick the candidate it will support by who wins an ultimate fighting style match, that's their choice. I would like to see reform in the election system that leads to a candidate. I would love to see a third party or independents have a chance.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Blayne, exit polls show 80% to 90% of the African-American electorate has been voting for Sen. Obama. That is far more than just the youth rebelling against their parents.
For once, we agree. The African-American community finally realized that voting for a black man was more in their interests than voting for a white woman.
Now I just wish Obama could convince Hispanic voters of the same thing.
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quote:The greater threat to small parties gaining any control is people's notions that third parties are villainous because they take votes away from THEIR candidate instead of the other candidate. Until people stop smirking at Nadar for his umpteenth candidacy and realize that what he is attempting to do is far more important and precedent changing than electing a woman or minority to office, there will only be so much we can do to foster smaller parties.
As for Bush's two terms proving that stupid people still vote in large numbers, it seems pointless to discuss with you the merits of my ideas when you have such a strong assumptions about certain people amongst your opposition.
I don't see then how electing based on the popular vote has anything to do with third party candidates. In the past, third parties have only been successful at the national level due to major upheavals in the national political dialogue. The American (Know Nothing) party, the formation of the Republican party out of the ashes of the Whigs and Free Soilers (and the Free Soilers themselves for that matter), and TR's Bull Moose party, all of them came out of major feelings of either betrayal by the two main parties on either a regional or nationwide scale, which got a large number of their people into Congress, but other than arguably Lincoln, a third party candidate has never made it to the presidency, and it's been literally a century since a third party candidate was a serious contender.
In other words, I don't think a third party candidacy has anything to do with the electoral college or the popular vote, but, near as I can tell, they haven't had any luck with the electoral college thus far.
I don't believe my particular opinions on Bush's presidency and the ineptitude of those who voted for him has anything to do with your position or its merits. You haven't detailed the merits of your ideas, not that I've seen specifically pertaining to the electoral college being a protection against stupid people anyway. But really, that entire part of the argument is really subjective isn't it? If two people don't already agree on a specific decision being good or bad, it's hard for them to have any sort of discussion on the people who made that decision.
Having said that, if I gave you the impression before that I was dismissing your ideas, then I apologize. I didn't mean to brush you aside, Bush having been elected honestly jumped out to me as a colossal mistake, and to me that seemed like a major lack of judgement on the part of the American people, and that's my opinion. But I'm perfectly willing to have that discussion academically without using specific presidents that have been elected in history who were very, very poor choices.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: There is a problem with awarding delegates proportionally. At first glance, this might seem better than "winner takes all." But the method of determining proportional delegates can be unjust. For example, this year's Texas Democratic caucuses awarded delegates on an unequal method having to do with senate votes that gave more delegates to the predominantly African-American neighborhoods in big cities. So even though Clinton won the popular vote by over three percentage points, Obama won more delegates in the caucuses which followed, since he wins around 90% of African-Americans' votes.
Yes, there are problems with proportional representation. Are you saying that because of this, winner take all is better?
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posted
Mike, awarding delegates proportionally might be better if it were done more fairly without favoring any one voting block. But someone always wants to try to Gerrymander the voting districts. Winner-take-all might be better, if fairness cannot be achieved otherwise.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Mike, awarding delegates proportionally might be better if it were done more fairly without favoring any one voting block. But someone always wants to try to Gerrymander the voting districts. Winner-take-all might be better, if fairness cannot be achieved otherwise.
Relevant question: Were you in favor of Tom DeLay's redistricting of Texas?
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posted
Samprimary, I don't know anything about Tom DeLay's redistricting of Texas. If he did the "Gerrymandering," so that most of the caucuses were held in predominantly African-American neighborhoods, then I don't think he should be praised for it.
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posted
If you want to get rid of the two party system, the only way to do it is Proportional Representation.
Vote for your party, then they get as many seats as their portion of the vote.
Then you have the legislature vote for the president.
So long as the people choose the president, we'll always have "Well, I have to vote for X because if I vote my heart, Y will win" situations.
What you get in this type of system, however, is nasty. You get coalitions that will promise anything to get the support of small, but swing parties. This sounds GREAT if you're looking for gay marriage, but not so great when you consider that a small, orthadox party in Israel managed to ban (or very nearly ban, not sure) Gay Pride marches there.
The two party system really really really stinks, but the alternative is every batship crazy voice getting pandered to (even more than it is today.) Believe me, I'd LOVE to have some Libertarians and Constitutionalists in congress. But not at the cost of having the Klan and a ton of Greens in there.
What we NEED to do is a better job of holding our laws up against the Constitution and striking down ones that don't meet it's strict interpretation. And VERY CAREFULLY amending the Constitution in the rare cases where it needs to be fixed.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: If you want to get rid of the two party system, the only way to do it is Proportional Representation. ...
Huh. I think our non-proportional representation form of government missed the memo about only having two parties. Maybe the memo should be re-sent so that they can get right on the task of consolidating into two parties Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Samprimary, I don't know anything about Tom DeLay's redistricting of Texas. If he did the "Gerrymandering," so that most of the caucuses were held in predominantly African-American neighborhoods, then I don't think he should be praised for it.
Boy, you know lots about Texas primaries!
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quote:The two party system really really really stinks, but the alternative is every batship crazy voice getting pandered to (even more than it is today.) Believe me, I'd LOVE to have some Libertarians and Constitutionalists in congress. But not at the cost of having the Klan and a ton of Greens in there.
So you are happy to go without representation of your views in order to deny representation to others.
quote:So long as the people choose the president, we'll always have "Well, I have to vote for X because if I vote my heart, Y will win" situations.
There are many proposed and working solutions to that problem in the world besides which allow for direct election of the president. The most common is run off elections, either with some sort of one ballot instant run off or through multiple balloting. Its done right now in lots of countries so it seems weird that Americans don't even know its possible.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: The Rabbit, I think that, from even the most fleeting glimpse of anything I have written in the political threads, it would be clear that I am neither a conservative or a Republican.
edit to add: and while I have many good reasons to admire Pixiest and Dag, you can be reasonably sure that our agreement on this is not likely because it would favor "our" side.
Sorry kate, I simply hadn't connected pixiest's reference to "boots" clearly with you.
So Rabbit, does your ability to apologize for assuming partisan motives in those who disagree with you only extend to those whose political views you largely agree with?
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posted
Proportional representation is one way to do it, but it is not the only way. See, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting, which is starting to gain popularity, though it would be even better to have a voting system that satisfies the Condorcet Criterion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method).
I wholeheartedly agree that we need to be very careful amending the Constitution, and I don't trust our current leaders to do it well, nor do I expect to at any time in the near future.
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quote:See, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting, which is starting to gain popularity, though it would be even better to have a voting system that satisfies the Condorcet Criterion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method).
Excellent - I'm glad to see alternatives other than instant runoff being discussed. I know they get covered a lot in more academic discussions of voting reform, but instant-runoff seems to get a disproportionate amount of press coverage.
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posted
Rabbit: The purpose of Representation, and of our government in general, is to protect our freedom. Or, as the Constitution put it "Secure the blessings of Liberty."
If you get the whacked out kook fringe a louder voice than their numbers warrant, though the use of coalition building, you give them the power to destroy our liberty. "We'll vote for your Highway bill if... you enact nationwide Blue laws!" "We'll vote for your defense bill if... You make it illegal to fire people!"
This kind of government leads to the anti-gay stuff I mentioned in Israel as well as the disaster of the French economy with it's run-away youth unemployment (If you hire someone, it IS really hard to fire them) and constant strikes.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Dr. Eric Maskin recently gave a talk at my school on voting methods (part of my school's effort to get eligible seniors to vote). Here's a summary of some of his views. It was the first time that I had heard of the Condorcet method and I found the true majority system attractive. As I mentioned earlier it avoids nearly all problems with "tyranny of the majority" and allows for people to vote for fringe candidates without much worry (it does have corner cases). In general, I like the idea of voting for people much more than voting for parties.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: People who voted for Bush may not have been stupid, but I think they were awfully neglectful in their judgement, most especially the second time around, and that's a valid opinion I'm entitled to.
Well, gosh. Thanks for deciding I might not be stupid after all.
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I don't really know why anyone ever says that, though, since no one is ever entitled to freedom from criticism of their expressed opinions.
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I expressed an opinion and was then told that the discussion should end because my opinion somehow made me incapable of fairly considering Blackblade's ideas.
Frankly my opinion had absolutely nothing to do with what we were even discussing, as my opinions on Bush have nothing to do with an academic discussion on the merits and faults of the electoral college. So when I said that, I guess I was really just asking not to be summarily dismissed because of my opinion. I consider that to go beyond simple criticism, which I can handle.
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quote:So when I said that, I guess I was really just asking not to be summarily dismissed because of my opinion.
You don't want to be summarily dismissed because you summarily dismissed half the electorate as either stupid or neglectful?
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posted
In what way did I dismiss them? I didn't say they should shut up, I didn't say they shouldn't vote, I wasn't actively engaged with any of them on the subject of the election. I expressed an opinion on a single vote they made in one election and that's all, nothing further.
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In the same way that Rabbit dismissed Pixiest and me in this thread - you made up a reason for their actions rather than considering the reasons they actually have.
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First off, and I only browsed over some parts of your exchange with Rabbit, but from what I gather, you held an opinion and she said something to the effect of 'well of course you'd think that, you're a Republican and thus benefitting from the system you support,' which assumes your positions and assigns motive.
Yeah, I didn't do that. I didn't even come close to doing that. I don't know what the political leanings are of Bush voters, I don't know what they hoped to gain out of it, and I've made no claim to the contrary here in this thread or anywhere else. I know that in my opinion they made a very, very poor choice in voting for him the second time around. Admittedly the more I think about it, I don't blame them for the first vote, becuase they had no idea what they were getting, so that's not fair. But I'm sticking with the second vote. So where have I assumed intent or made up a reason for what they did? If I want to say people lacked judgement in voting for someone, that too is an opinion, and has nothing to do with 'making up a reason.'
Second, I didn't dismiss them. Dismissal implies in this instance that you're shutting down all debate for whatever reason. I didn't do that, especially because there wasn't even a debate going on at the time about that subject.
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quote:I know that in my opinion they made a very, very poor choice in voting for him the second time around.
And that the reason they made that choice is either because they lack intelligence or because they didn't bother to investigate:
quote:Besides, Bush was elected TWICE. I don't see any proof at all that the electoral college protects us from stupid voters. If anything, it's proven that stupid voters in the right geographic locations have MORE power than smart ones.
quote:People who voted for Bush may not have been stupid, but I think they were awfully neglectful in their judgement
***
quote:If I want to say people lacked judgement in voting for someone, that too is an opinion, and has nothing to do with 'making up a reason.'
You didn't just say they lacked judgment. You gave REASONS why they lacked judgment: stupidity or neglect.
quote:Second, I didn't dismiss them. Dismissal implies in this instance that you're shutting down all debate for whatever reason. I didn't do that, especially because there wasn't even a debate going on at the time about that subject.
Dismissal implies that you took all the possible reasons that intelligent people who took time to investigate and make their choice and ... dismissed them. There's really no other way to say it. They're either stupid or neglectful in your world.
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It seems to me that calling everyone who voted for Bush either stupid or neglectful in their decision making is rejecting serious consideration of their reasons and motives.
posted
...Is there a point to this, other than the grinding of axes of righteous indignation? There was a discussion going on here that was actually kind of interesting for a while.
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You just made that part up, and your quotations don't make it true.
quote:You didn't just say they lacked judgment. You gave REASONS why they lacked judgment: stupidity or neglect.
So what you're saying is, the reasons I gave for lacking in judgement is that they...lack judgement? You're construing neglect in this case as me saying that they didn't bother to find out any of the facts and just voted blindly. That isn't what I said at all. That's making a lot of assumptions about what I'm saying. You're misinterpreting what I said, and I'll clarify further to help. They could have a thousand reasons for voting for him, I don't know what those reasons are, but regardless of the reasons, whatever they may be, they brought the voters to the same choice that I think was wrong. "Neglectful in their judgement" was me saying they exercised poor judgement or none at all, in this specific instance. If that's the sticking point then I hope it's clarified, I am not talking about anything further than this one choice, as the rest of you are assuming.
Jon -
What am I rejecting serious consideration of? We're talking about a single issue, a single issue, and that is the vote for Bush. Dag, and apparently you, seem to be turning that into some sort of blanket dismissal of everything involving those people. Where you got that beats the hell out of me, but it assumes a heck of a lot about me that you certainly didn't get from this thread.
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quote:Where you got that beats the hell out of me, but it assumes a heck of a lot about me that you certainly didn't get from this thread.
Lyrhawn, this is pretty simple. They 'got that' from the part where you said voters for Dubya the second time may not have been stupid, but were at best very seriously neglectful in their vote.
You're writing them off as stupid or at best incompetent.
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quote:You just made that part up, and your quotations don't make it true.
Neglectful means failure to take appropriate care. I'll gladly expand "did not investigate" to "failed to take appropriate care before making their selection for President in 2004."
quote:"Neglectful in their judgement" was me saying they exercised poor judgement or none at all, in this specific instance. If that's the sticking point then I hope it's clarified, I am not talking about anything further than this one choice, as the rest of you are assuming.
I never said or implied you were talking about more than this one choice.
quote:What am I rejecting serious consideration of?
The reasons for voting for Bush that don't amount to neglect or stupidity. No one accused of dismissing everything about these people.
quote:...Is there a point to this, other than the grinding of axes of righteous indignation? There was a discussion going on here that was actually kind of interesting for a while.
And that discussion can still occur. If this particular discussion is too distracting for you ignore while participating in the other conversation, then you can imagine how hard it is to ignore people dropping insults in the midst of the discussion.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Rak, rivka, Dag, Jon and anyone else who wants this to be addressed to them -
Let me try this and see if it comes off differently: I'm not dismissing them. If I were to dismiss them, it would mean that I don't want to have a discussion about this issue. I think I've proven six ways from Sunday from the debates on this board that I have no problem at all with discussing the failures of the Bush White House, and if that conversation has to be specified to failures made during his first term and thus made into a specific argument on why he didn't deserve reelection and how I think people were wrong in giving it to them, then I will. You all keep using the word "dismissed" like what I said precludes the possibility of discussion automatically. It doesn't. I can think you're horribly wrong and still be open to discussing an issue with you. Maybe they are to you, but thinking someone is wrong, and not wanting to talk to them about it at all are not automatically paired to me.
quote:Neglectful means failure to take appropriate care. I'll gladly expand "did not investigate" to "failed to take appropriate care before making their selection for President in 2004."
Change that to "failed to take appropriate care IN making their selection..." and you're a lot, lot closer.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Change that to "failed to take appropriate care IN making their selection..." and you're a lot, lot closer.
OK, so the reasons anyone voted for Bush are either 1) stupidity or 2) failure to take appropriate care in making the decision. Where does that leave room for discussing whether someone's reasons for voting for Bush were good or not?
quote:I can think you're horribly wrong and still be open to discussing an issue with you. Maybe they are to you, but thinking someone is wrong, and not wanting to talk to them about it at all are not automatically paired to me.
This isn't about your thinking the decision horribly wrong. It's about the reasons you've assigned to the decision.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: You're writing them off as stupid or at best incompetent.
QFT
You're assuming that an intelligent informed person who thinks things through cannot come to a different conclusion than you did.
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quote:OK, so the reasons anyone voted for Bush are either 1) stupidity or 2) failure to take appropriate care in making the decision. Where does that leave room for discussing whether someone's reasons for voting for Bush were good or not?
I've said multiple times that they could have any number of reasons. Do I have to say it again? Do I have to put it in bold or italics? I don't get what that has to do with discussing their reasons. If they have reasons, present them, we'll discuss it. What's your issue there? I've said I'll discuss it, I've said they could have any number of reasons, but you keep harping on two things I never said were what I assumed their reasons even were. Stupidity and poor decision making aren't even conscious choices. They're things that affect the final outcome, your final choice, and are taken into account when considering any number of reasons, none of which I've listed or gotten into at all.
You're presenting some sort of all or nothing approach that is baffling me.
Threads -
Thanks, and, I'm a he.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:...Is there a point to this, other than the grinding of axes of righteous indignation? There was a discussion going on here that was actually kind of interesting for a while.
And that discussion can still occur. If this particular discussion is too distracting for you ignore while participating in the other conversation, then you can imagine how hard it is to ignore people dropping insults in the midst of the discussion.
Ah, that sounds suspiciously like a 'no'.
...But seriously... We've gone through this over and over again. It doesn't seem to help. Every time there's one of these "assuming motivations" brouhahas there's a ton of recriminations and one more ancient topic for someone to quote when they want to accuse someone of not coming to the discussion in good faith or being capable of rational discourse. Having everyone walking on eggshells because their words might be interpreted as assuming a motivation isn't helpful to communication.
Or to take it from another angle, is there any real likelihood of those who perceive themselves as wronged coming out of this feeling vindicated?
There are those who feel that voting for Bush was a stupid or neglectful decision. At this point, that should come as a surprise to no one. Given the numbers currently coming out of polls, I think there are some people who voted for Bush who, if pressed, might even agree.
Smart people are also capable of making decisions that are- at least to others' eyes- stupid or neglectful. Would that it were not so.
I don't see this becoming a dialogue about whether such a decision was actually justifiable.
And, yes, I'm sure we can go through the joy of infinite quote loop and say, "but that's not what he said! He said people who voted for Bush were stupid or neglectful!"
...But, really... Why? For the love o' Mike, Why?
When whole pages go by without the original subject being breached, that discussion is really for all intents and purposes over. This is not an evolution in this case. It's more of a devolution.
Again, if the "wronged" aren't going to get satisfaction out of this, is there any possibility of those "wronged" accepting that they've made plain that they're unhappy with what has been said and moving on? Rather than having this turn into what's happened before on a few hundred other threads?
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quote:Again, if the "wronged" aren't going to get satisfaction out of this, is there any possibility of those "wronged" accepting that they've made plain that they're unhappy with what has been said and moving on?
Is there any possibility of the "wrongor" simply dropping it?
Why only poke at one side of this?
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posted
I give up Dag. You're dead set on pushing a position on me that I don't hold, and I don't know any other way to explain it to you.
You don't seem willing to take me at my word, only the words that you want to pick out and assign meaning to.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Rabbit: The purpose of Representation, and of our government in general, is to protect our freedom. Or, as the Constitution put it "Secure the blessings of Liberty."
The US constitution describes the purpose of our Federal Government in General as being to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty. "
It is only your opinion that "securing the blessing of liberty" is a legitimate function of government but "promoting the general welfare" is ill-legitimate. Both are enshrined in our constitution and both are legal, legitimate and in my opinion desirable purposes of government.
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quote:You're dead set on pushing a position on me that I don't hold, and I don't know any other way to explain it to you.
You don't get it: every time you've explained it, you've confirmed my initial understanding of what you said: "People who voted for Bush may not have been stupid, but I think they were awfully neglectful in their judgement."
If you don't get why that's a problematic thing to say, I can't help you.
As it is, you've assigned things to me I didn't say ("turning that into some sort of blanket dismissal of everything involving those people").
In essence, you've repeatedly denied doing something I didn't accuse you of and totally missed what it is I've accused you of.
Regardless, your original sweeping generalization wasn't needed in this thread and was rude. I ignored it until you decided to state why BB's response wasn't warranted.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
You're right, I don't get it. I apologize for initially calling people stupid, that was a very poor choice of words. Some of them might have been stupid, or made a stupid choice for whatever reasons, I don't know, so I can't rule it out. But the people who are left, many of whom I imagine are smart people who think they have good reasons still came to a poor conclusion. You keep saying that I think they didn't have any reasons, none at all, except that they were stupid or lacked judgement. That makes no sense. What exactly were they judging? Nothing? But the thing is, I have never, ever actually addressed their actual reasons, just their final conclusion. You keep going back to reasoning, and I was never there to begin with. I've formed an opinion on their final choice, regardless of the reasons they made.
And I still don't think Blackblade's response was warranted. Nor do I think your continual responses are warranted. You don't get what I'm saying, and I, at this point, have little idea as to what you're actually accusing me of beyond what I've already apologized for. So I don't know what the hell you want from me.
I apologized right off the bat for it, I just did it again, and that's all you get. I guess that isn't enough for you, and that'll have to be that.
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