Regardless of where one stands on issues such as abortion, what you post does not seem to describe a particularly healthy democracy, but instead one where non-mainstream views can be summarily dismissed by unelected functionaries.
I’m not so sure that the rough-and-tumble American approach is inferior to our conformism.
when there are finite amounts of time and resources available for national legislation, it becomes unhealthy to engage all non–mainstream views. it’s even worse to manufacture views to detract from the actual substance of the debate.
regardless, it’s not like there aren’t many issues laying around this country which have been summarily dismissed by the people who control the message.
Networks owned by different people, and generally less profit driven compared to now ( they were considered “loss leaders” ). Instead, now we have a false diversity of many outlets overwhelmingly owned by a few people speaking in chorus. And motivated primarily by profit and a right wing agenda from the top.
The only thing I’m concerned about is a government telling me I have to buy into their health insurance system. I didn’t read the bill(s) but is this a possibility? If you don’t buy into it will you will be fined/jailed?
This may be a bit of a tangent–but it’s an important one (as I think it shows how the debate gets acrimonious–because some parties are willing to throw facts by the wayside to win).
In the case you are posting about, intelligent design, the question isn’t to me one defined by democracy–but a question of what the science is. That isn’t a democratic question any more than it is a democratic question as to whether the earth is round or flat. It’s a question that should be decided by experts.
To put it another way, if we took a vote, and it came out 60% in favor of the earth being flat, should our geography textbooks be altered accordingly?
To stay with my hypothetical example of a flat earth with 60% support, that insight would be useful in a sociology or social studies class (showing the shocking lack of education). Whether it is science is a different question. Your post seems to suggest that we should decide that there is a scientific debate over the shape of the earth based on a majority vote. Do you really mean that? Voters should decide policy, should decide many things–but they don’t get to create their own facts.
And that is why I have no problem with “unelected functionaries” (or as I like to call them, experts), deciding whether there is a “controversy” to teach. For example, I’m going to go out on a limb, and suggest that Illuminatiprimus has a better understanding of science, than, say, the Chairman of the Texas School Board (who is one of the supporters of teaching Intelligent Design there), a dentist who thinks the earth is thousands of years old? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/education/22texas.html?_r=1&ref=education
His argument is actually a useful example–in the article I cite, the Chairman is supporting a reference to “problems” with evolutionary theory based on the incomplete fossil record–and ignoring the fact that giving any weight to the fossil record is fundamentally incompatible with his belief that the earth is thousands of years old.
Similarly, I think this is a good case about how one side is willing to ignore facts to create a “debate.” The “political debate” only exists because one side is willing to ignore the vast weight of evidence in support of evolutionary theory, and the absence of evidence in support of intelligent design. But that evidence is in long, complicated papers, and you can find very smart people to debate both sides–so what the public sees on TV is a debate between two smart people–and that suggests that there really are two sides to the argument.
One of the promises of the new President was complete transparancy. Are the bill(s) available to read online? Have any of the good folk Dopers read it?
At a national level then yes it’s experts in charge of the curriculum. But the content of the curriculum, the assessment of it and exams aren’t set by the government of the day, they’re set by the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority - precisely so that a Minister can’t be appointed who, due to his or her flat earth beliefs (for example), completely change the curriculum to suit their beliefs. I’m not an expert, it’s just that my role is in the part of the Department that deals with the curriculum, specifically science (I’m actually only educated up to A level in science 
). I’d like to think I know more about science than someone claiming as a fact that the earth was thousands of years old though, and am extremely familiar with the arguments employed in this area due to them being thrown up regularly.
Still, to say this is all run by unelected functionaries isn’t true - again in the case of intelligent design Ximenean seems to have completely missed the point I made about both Parliament and Ministers being opposed to it being taught, which was the main problem. If your views are too out there that you can’t get anyone elected to fight your corner on an issue you might as well give up, isn’t that democracy? The same with abortion, the majority don’t vote in parties or individuals with a strong anti-abortion stance so there isn’t one. Whilst I’m sure this is something that upsets those with anti-abortion feelings that is, again the way democracy is supposed to work, isn’t it?
I think a part of it stems from the very nature of political campaigns in the US vs. in the UK/Europe.
ISTM that in the rest of the world, politicians court voters by saying “When I’m elected, I’m going to do this, this, and THIS !”. Which is, of course, bullshit.
In the US, politicians court voters by saying “If my opponent is elected, he will do this, this and THIS !”. Which is, of course, bullshit
But the latter doesn’t even need to be remotely connected to the truth, whereas the thises of the regular politician have to be ideal magical solutions to a problem (whether the problem is real or not is another story 
)
It makes its assessment based on the bill before Congress. What else should it use? It might have been a cleaner bill if a few Republicans cared more about the uninsured and under-insured than crying socialism, but we have to take what we can get.
Remember what inspired Her Mooseness to mention them? It was simply the proposal to have the system pay doctors for discussing end of life decisions with patients, well before anyone got sick. Exactly what I talked about with my lawyer. Calling that a death panel was a lie and a despicable one. The rest is your paranoid fantasy. I remember before this the Republicans were whining about healthcare reform spending without limit, now they are whining about it not spending without limit - not that there is anything in the plan that would cut off care for anyone. Maybe you think the Hawkin would be dead if he were English. :rolleyes:
You really trust someone whose main allegiance is to the stockholders rather than someone whose main allegiance is to voters? You might want to search for cases where Dopers have been screwed by insurance companies, if you think we are living in paradise.
Not their health insurance system (no such thing exists, alas) but rather some insurance. This is necessary to spread the pool as wide as possible, and to include those who will probably not need insurance now, but will later.
The real problem is that biased 24 hour networks allow people to get only one side. There were a lot fewer TV outlets for news when I was growing up, but they all tried to be reasonably unbiased. Many newspapers still do, but the young are no longer reading them. The net makes it worse, because even with thousands of news sites it is easy for someone who wants to hear just one side to do so. It is a lot easier for someone with a bias to not be challenged.
Politics is not about policy. At least on the level most of the people in this thread are talking about. But the so called people (you know, the majority who give their consent and all that claptrap) don’t make policy decisions. That would be a major upset to the system. At best they are another metric to be massaged for one purpose or another. It just takes the right prompting and the right actors, I mean, candidates. There is no there, there, in these United States.
I guess you’re missing the point I was trying to make … I believe the whole thing has been a dishonesty “analagous to the death panels,” to put it in your terms. This has been sold to the American people as necessary to lower costs and insure the uninsured. It does neither. And if you point me to a report that says it does lower costs, I’ll point you to the political tricks, gimmicks and dishonesty that tortured the numbers to make them say what they say. Then I’ll point you to all of the large federal bureaucracies that grew endlessly, cost far more than projected, and failed to stay out of the red.
This, I believe, is why the longer this process went on and the more the American people knew about the Democrats’ plans, the less popular they became. Find me a poll from the last three or four months – any nationally recognized poll – in which a majority supports what Democrats are attempting to do to health care.
Because there’s nowhere to turn after the government makes the decisions, and has made its decision. And I’m not sure medical decisions being made for political reasons is some vast improvement over profit motive. Perfect example: the brouhaha last fall when a government panel came out and said women don’t need to have mammograms until age 50. The political blowback was severe, and the decision was immediately backed off of. It’s either an appropriate medical determination or it’s not, but it absolutely was changed because of political heat.
Under the Democrats’ health care plans, decisions by government panels like those would have far more influence in the care people receive.
I’m aware the government wouldn’t be the only game in town, at first. I presume that the sizeable numbers of Democrats who embarked on this health care “reform” specifically to have government take it all over haven’t given up on their goal.
The government can backfill any losses and subsidize any inconvenient costs with taxpayer money. That’s why the idea that the government would make the private sector “more competitive” was always ludicrous. They will create a system in which private insurance, except for a few gold-plated private plans for the rich, wither and die over time.
The TV News is tabloid journalism now. With 24 hour news stations you would think they could run long and informative programs. They do not. They repeat a half hour news program 24 times and fill the time with pretty faces and rich old men talking in circles.
And yet, for all the hustle and bustle and outrage that fuels US politics, the UK has a significantly higher voter turnout than the US. That suggests that voter apathy is much higher over here; we just like to argue more.
I’m really tired of hearing this. Obama ran what was probably the cleanest campaign in the history of US presidential politics - he talked to people like they were adults, didn’t engage in lies or scaremongering, largely wasn’t negative… and on the other side of things you have absolute hysteria from mainstream republican voters about how he’s a secret muslim sleeper agent and other such ridiculous over the top bullshit. “Pallin’ around with terrorists”?
I can’t speak to you personally as I don’t know much of your history or beliefs, but in general this sort of statement comes from people who just want to blow off these accusations and not examine them critically because they know the result will not be favorable to their side. I’m starting to think that if there were a presidential debate in which the democratic candidate calmly and respectfully talked about logical plans to the audience while the Republican candidate raped his own mother on stage while eating an infant alive, there’d be people who said “well, you know, both sides lie and do nasty shit, so it’s a wash”.
I mean - look at snopes.com’s section on politics. It’s almost all republican talking point lies - and often very extreme ones. There are very few if any democrat/liberal ones in a similar vein. I don’t think this is because the people who run snopes.com debunk selectively - I think there simply isn’t much liberal glurge over the top lie e-mail spam. Whereas it seems like the favorite activity amongst a significant fraction of the republican base is to stir up each other into a perpetual state of outrage through passing over the top lies back and forth.
Is that like “The Hoff”? Awesome.
Shoot, that’s easy. That Sarah Palin fired the town Librarian for refusing to ban a certain list of books.
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The list was bogus- many of them were published after that time. That one is an out and out lie. No list.
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Fired? Well, a letter went out to that effect, but the Librarian never lost a day of work or an hour of pay as she was “hired back” the next day. Ok, maybe that’s obfuscation, concealing, or misdirection.
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“Librarian”- it was an appointed political office. Obfuscation, concealing, or misdirection ?
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The reason for the firing was the refusal of that Officeholder to combine her Office with the Office which oversaw the town Museum. Once she agreed, she was “rehired”.obfuscation, concealing, or misdirection ?
Overall, it was pure BS.
And, come on, like we needed a lie to detest Palin?
And I really sick of hearing that everyone that doesn’t drink the Loony Left Kool-Aid is the moral equivalent of Hitler. But that sort of drivel is posted here with nauseating frequency.
People that disagree over politics are not necessarily evil, ignorant, immoral, or otherwise unpleasant. Rational minds can differ. Both sides have their faults, and mindless partisanship adds to the problem.
Haha, you nailed me, “mindless partisanship” indeed. To the extent that anyone on this board has tried to pigeonhole my politics, I’ve only been described as “conservative”. Indeed, I’ve definitely voted for more Republicans in my life than Democrats. So indeed, my statements if anything prove that I am not a mindless partisan. I see what the Republican party has become - a big government group that shills for the powerful, a party that uses and celebrates the anti-intellectual tendencies of its base, that attempts to control the political discourse with lies and thought terminating cliches. And in response to that, I don’t say “well, my party right or wrong! I picked my tribe and now I’ll stick with them no matter what!” - I became thoroughly disgusted with them, their actions, and their tactics.
I did not say that people that disagree over politics are evil or ignorant. I said that the Republicans clearly have a lower level of discourse than the democrats. They lie more, they embrace ignorance, they fire up their base with phantom threats, meanwhile they act against their actual best interest. So the attitude of “oh, both sides have done bad stuff, therefore they are just as bad” is actually the attitude of mindless partisanship - it’s a defense against critically analyzing what the side you support has actually done, and instead just brush off the idea that all sides are equal in that regard so we can just brush that issue aside.
You might want to step into the Pit, where right now you can find SenorBeef denouncing “the loony left’s” gun control policies, and, IIRC, the Democratic health reform plans.