If we’re talking fundamentals, I recall a quote from one of our FFs – forget his name – I know the quote was on a preface-page or something to one of the volumes of West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, probably the volume on constitutional law – “A legislature should be as exact a transcript as possible of the people it represents.” Or words to that effect; I know “as exact a transcript as possible” was in there.
That’s pretty fundamental, isn’t it?
In terms of the actual range of political views among Americans, at present Congress and the state legislatures, elected from winner-take-all single-member districts, do not meet that standard very well. An American legislature is more like a distorting funhouse mirror-image of the people, with some parts grotesquely exaggerated and others shrunk to invisibility. A point on which LWs, RWs and even centrists are perennially frustrated – which accounts for this year’s support for Sanders, for Trump/Cruz, and even for what support there is for the notion Bloomberg should run.
PR would produce better, more exact transcripts. And that has to do not with any right of parties to representation, but the right of the people to full and effective representation.
The one thing that’s really heartening about this is that its all about principle, and liberty. i’ll admit, there were moments when I thought it was about political advantages. Shit, maybe the whole voter ID thing really is about voter fraud!
Barkeep! Another tequila and bongwater, if you please…
Right, I’d much rather have the Koch brothers in control. Democratically elected governments are untrustworthy scoundrels. Billionaire industrialists like the Koches are where it’s at. :rolleyes: (Cite: the study in the OP).
It’s amazing that the right actually keeps repeating this bullshit, almost like they really believe it. I keep telling my “world wide platform” that it isn’t true, but no one seems to be listening. Right-wingers all seem to be listening to the Fox News national television network instead. I can’t figure it out.
They forced you to vote a certain way? That doesn’t sound legal. What did they do, give you knock out gas and wear you like a robe into the voting booth?
The fact that you can say more or less as you wish is sufficient for me. Just because you lament the size of your audience is not sufficient to limit others.
Should the Tuscaloosa News be entitled to the same reach as the NYT by government fiat?
I have nothing against good honest conservative values. I understand that Alex Rodriguez takes home a million times what a Nike slave in Bangladesh earns because he contributes more to society.
But the “conservative” babblings in this thread are indefensible. The way you guys defend greed would be like an advocate of fine dining wanting gluttons to over-eat until their stomachs pop open.
Yes, let’s Blame the Victim! [sarcasm] Joe Sixpack has access to the same Internet as Jamie Dimond. If Joe made bad decisions he has only himself to blame. Well, maybe Jamie has a few thousand analysts working for him, but if Joe were a better human being he could have analysts too.
And drug dealers are Job Creators. Someone whose life is ruined by heroin or meth has only himself to blame. And women who wear revealing clothing deserve to get raped.
EPA, FDA, SEC, FBI, public schools, fire departments, police forces – they should all be abolished. If anything goes wrong let’s Blame the Victim![/sarcasm]
Not! 49.9% of Americans have below-average intelligence. And we don’t have to look far to see that average intelligence isn’t much.
Mr. adaher is being sarcastic here. What he means is just the opposite. The housing bubble was so huge it was making headlines in the popular press but the CEO was unaware of the bubble. His company was bundling millions of mortgages but he didn’t know – he figured it was some other bank. The CEO’s company was paying out billions in bonuses for people packaging complex derivative trades on financial derivatives, but it was just some clerk in accounting who was picking the bonus figures and signing the checks. Rating agencies were marking crap as AAA but executives weren’t involved in that: It was a deal hatched when Moody’s janitor and Citibank’s janitor met at McDonald’s in Brooklyn.
One wonders what Mr. adaher guesses that the CEO was doing all day. Oh! adaher needn’t guess. He could read one of the several books written or even watch one of several documentaries discussing the finanical crisis.
So let me ask again. Those blaming the victims and blaming the government for the crisis: What books have you read? I first asked this question sincerely, wondering what authors had put together an apology for Wall St, and wanting to order such a book from Amazon so I can get a broader view. But now I ask as a challenge. I don’t think you apologists have read any books! I think you’re getting your talking points from Glen Beck or right-wing blogs.
Those silly Kochs are spending $900 million on electioneering in the 2016 election cycle. Someone should tell them it’s all wasted money and they are really dumb about failing to understand that money has no influence in politics, because voters have historically proven themselves to be highly intelligent and to have their own impeccable sources of information and opinion and would never be swayed by $900 million worth of propaganda.* Which is why the US has such a terrifically balanced political system that doesn’t favor the rich at all in any way.*
On the planet Neptune. Unfortunately on Earth it’s a different story.
What? “Free market” is a term that applies to trade – to the supply and demand of goods and services. In the realm of propaganda, in the absence of regulation the only thing that matters is money. The terms that are usually applied to this phenomenon are things like “corruption”, “lying”, “influence peddling” and “shady backroom deals for political favors”. The only safeguards against it are public campaign financing, public information systems like public broadcasting with free equal air time for competing candidates, limits on spending and laws against political corruption – all of which, you might note, are functions of government and not of the Koch brothers.
As if the parties reflect their members? Each of the two major parties is an unholy coalition that bands together in an attempt to gain some form of the pork. The evangelical wing of the Republican party is pretty damn far from my point of view but they are useful.
For one thing politics is not a single left right axis. It’s multi-dimensional. And people join parties quite often for no good reason. So to claim that a party represents a person and thus proportional representation for parties means proportional representation for people is just illogical.
That’s like claiming blacks, whites, males, females, and other must be proportionally represented as if a particular belief system is intrinsic to ethnicity or gender.
This is the fundamental. Our government is chartered by us to do things for us with a Constitution that explicitly empowers the government in certain areas. The Constitution also explicitly and redundantly enumerates certain rights. Up until the point this Constitution is amended to empower the government to restrict those rights speech, assembly, etc are not to be messed with for political gain by a shortsighted group.
You honestly want a future Cheney or W to be able to choose which speech is to be regulated? You honestly believe that government is not full of self-serving corrupt people? No the free market isn’t the panacea but the free market doesn’t write law, hear evidence, sentence people, execute people, etc. The government does. The government won’t even constrain it’s rapists and murderers unless it’s so egregious they have no choice but to do so or lose what credibility they have left.
Why the left is so anti-freedom nowadays is baffling. Until you realize that the words that left-wing politicians use are nothing more than a means to fool the gullible. They are no different than a medieval priest selling indulgences. And the sheep now are as stupid as the sheep then.
You do have a world wide platform. It’s no ones fault but one’s own that your audience is small. You aren’t entitled to an audience.
I’m right wing and I listen to NPR far more than I watch Fox. I also spend more of my time on left leaning sites than I do right leaning. I think it’s healthy to see what other people have to say. My views have even changed on certain topics.
I don’t know precisely how to fix the problem of the echo chamber. I do know the solution isn’t government regulation of fundamental rights.
Not even “almost”, not yet. But there are hints. Also, there are questions. First and foremost, what the fuck happened? Campaign money and advertising used to be The Bomb, now it isn’t? Jeb(!) spent a metric buttload, more than $20 million, and got nothing! Nothing! Not even a nudge or a blip. Zero, zilch, nada damn thing!
Did someone pass around a video of him eating a baby? With $20 million, used to be you could get Hannibal Lecter some poll numbers, at the very least. I don’t want the guy elected, but he’s not painful rectal itch, fer cryin’ out loud!
Campaign finance prospects were the very meaning of the Clintonista business-friendly “centrism”. The One True God of American politics! And suddenly…gone?
I struggle to see how anyone can view Sanders as someone who represents a “revolution” or “real change”.
His policies are very simplistic amendments to policies already started with the New Deal and Great Society.
His ideas are even older than him in many cases: Universal college education, a continuation of 19th century Prussian stuff. He’s basically a mothball for old ultra-statist policies.
[shrug] By present U.S. standards, all of that – just bringing us up to the level of the other industrialized democracies, and nothing more – is revolutionary. And so is CFR.
If you’re a politician, there are certain problems that can be fixed with money. If you’re an unknown, money can get you exposure and people will know your name. Jeb Bush’s problem is that people already knew his.
Well, except that you pretty much can. I’m sure that the authors of the Gilens-Page study cited in the OP, or the authors of any of the books I cited, would be most amused to hear your theory that money doesn’t buy influence in politics to such an extent that it dominates the entire political system. The only thing your Jeb Bush example illustrates is that money on one side doesn’t necessarily prevail against money on the other side in exact dollar-for-dollar proportion in every single instance. If you look a little further you’ll find a Congress whose makeup has been overwhelmingly determined by money and the moneyed interests that they serve, as discussed in detail in the above cited documents. And state governors like Scott Walker in Wisconsin or Sam Brownback in the Kochs own state, both elevated by the Kochs to positions of destructive influence.
Or take the case of Bernie Sanders, a social democrat who has pitted himself directly against the interests of big money. His standing right now is the result of populist appeal, democracy at its finest. Big money will ensure that he has almost zero chance at the nomination, but in the very unlikely event that he does get nominated through some twist of fate, big money will go into high gear and rain down fear and damnation in such unceasing fury that his chances of actually being elected will be zero. For the same reason that the US remains the only country in the civilized world that still doesn’t have universal health care, even though it’s the richest and best able to afford it. For the same reason that health care reform turned out to be a great big handout to the insurance industry, and the public option had no chance of being passed. For the same reason that Congress cuts taxes for the rich and caters to their every need.
