US Politics October: This is how we roll in the Hussein Clown Posse

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Politics October: This is how we roll in the Hussein Clown Posse

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

Xenocidebot posted:

Apologies for the but I'm curious how goons would address some poo poo I butt heads with regularly.

A lot of people unironically making the argument for legislative term limits (Libertarians/Tea Partiers/Objectivists/assholes actually reading the opinion pieces in Forbes) don't see this as a problem with those term limits in and of themselves. The entire motivation for a legislative term limit is to prevent careers in politics from being desirable, which term limits could do very well. In these schools of thought a career in politics is inherently crooked (because, you know, the government obviously feeds on created wealth while creating nothing) and keeping a person from stewing in one for too long is a worthy goal in and of itself.

Most of your complaints would be read as a demonstration of the Iron Law of Oligarchy in effect. If the inner workings of our democracy are so convoluted that regular citizens cannot possibly function as representatives without years of work experience, then regular citizens certainly cannot be expected to vote intelligently for representatives to fill these positions. If partisan and special interest concerns will rule over any congressperson until a golden age past which they have the requisite experience to play for real, then it is unrealistic to expect they will ever make a meaningful deviation later in life from what partisan and special interest concerns conditioned them to focus on in their formative period. The whole thing becomes an argument that legislative term limits are insufficient reform alone and additional action is needed to tackle the monster Congress has become.

I never figured out a way to argue against this. Obviously you can brush the whole load of horseshit off as standard wingnut thinking- bludgeon the government, if it didn't work it's because you didn't bludgeon it hard enough- but if you do actually try discussing it, most things end up backfiring. Citing, say, state legislatures losing power relative to governors and an increase in legislative-executive conflict just nets the response that state governors need their own type of kneecapping. Trying to argue politics is like any other skilled profession in terms of on-the-job learning tends to turn into "if they're professionals they'd run the government like professionals" and that's one step from government-as-business crap.

Maybe there's no good way of trying to talk to these people, but it's not a thing I want to give up on.

VVVVVV "Party bosses and lobbyists" don't make these people angry like "parasitic congresspeople" do, so that shift isn't always perceived negatively.

This, like most right wing things in America is an argument whose logical conclusion is that Republics/Democracies don't work given that the leadership of the right wing in this country would be leading an oligarchy it's not surprising they support it.

Radish posted:

Personally I'd want some sort of cap on the amount of years a SCOTUS judge can serve. The idea that they are there until they decide to quit or literally die in the chair is crazy and those nine have a huge amount of personal political power. It just feel's wrong that a guy put into power by a President over twenty years ago is still making rulings on things that are highly political or if you screw up and that guy turns out to be terrible and incompetant you just have to deal with it until he drops dead.

I think that something like you serve through four presidential terms would be fair.

Blame Hamilton and having to compromise on his stupid as hell President for life idea.

AlternateNu posted:

A majority of Americans know dick-poo poo about political balance. Surprise, surprise.

It's not like their schools are any good.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 16:22

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 17:53

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

GlyphGryph posted:

Hey now, I support replacement of the 17th amendment (I'd prefer to see Senate elections handled by professional elector pool system in a manner similar to jury duty, where the people pegged are pulled at random from the voter pools and paid well for their service, but actually expected to research the candidates before voting), and I don't think I'm that stupid.

But then, maybe I am. It's possible. (It doesn't matter, it will never happen)

I still don't think legislative term limits are a good idea.

People don't have time and it government stuff usually pays less than working so people won't do it. You'd have to do something about the amount of hours people work and the pay. This is why how we currently run our country doesn't work with a republic/democracy.

edit: Also education would have to be way better.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 16:45

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

DemeaninDemon posted:

Then half the body would half-rear end their way through the term.

The whole loving point of government is to take care of things no one has time/money for.

Uh what? That's not what government is supposed to do? Might be what you want it to do.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 17:08

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

GlyphGryph posted:

Whatever SirKibbles thought I meant, I was just honestly confused by that one

My point being it'd be expensive so no way they get paid a decent amount compared to what they can just work. It's the same reason people don't do jury duty if they can get out of it. Plus you have the same issue you'd have for term limits but worse. Basically:

Berke Negri posted:

This seems like a very byzantine and anti-democratic solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 17:37

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

Fried Chicken posted:

Please define what you think the role of government is, keeping in mind that as a matter of practical fact the government does act as the agency of last resort to issues that are largely no profitable but necessary, and that there are governments other than the american model that your definition would need to encompass

Also if you are going to try and say something like "protect your rights" you will need to define where rights come from and why

Definitely more than poo poo I don't want to do. It's definitely a philosophical question in retrospect in might be objective. So this is pointless.

GlyphGryph posted:

Why would politicians not want them paid well? Do you think they would want it limited to the poors who don't have better alternatives? The incentives don't line up here: Politicians would want the position paid well enough that the middle and upper middle class have at least some say in it. Not to say they wouldn't get super greedy and make them work for free or some bullshit, but it's hardly a given.

The same reason they don't pay for other poo poo that's super cheap to do? You're applying logic to politicians.Louie Gohmert's existence should stop you from ever doing that.

Joementum posted:

Scrap the Constitution and establish Plato's Republic.

I call Philosopher King.

I say we should go with Washingtons bones it's what the Founders would want.

SirKibbles fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Oct 2, 2014

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 17:56

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

GlyphGryph posted:

This isn't even an argument. They don't pay for other poo poo because they benefit from not doing so, and don't benefit much from doing so. the pay ends up at the point where the benefit outweighs the cost.

The incentives for such a jury structure would naturally lead to higher pay than other similar positions, because the wealthy will sure as gently caress want their say and those who are close to them economically to have real pull, and not leave the decisions up to the poors.

But the current system already does that and doesn't have the risk of them getting hosed by the working class/poor/lower middle why would they change it? This is not even going into the fact that you'd have to spend time teaching people how this works and restructuring our entire lobbying system otherwise it just became way easier to bribe people,plus it still has all the problem that term limits have.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 18:06

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

Petr posted:

Do you really want to slog through a dissertation on the role of government written in SK's bizarre, happyelf-esque pidgin?

What the gently caress is your issue use the ignore button you baby.

SubponticatePoster posted:

Where's that Whiskey brand whiskey?

Moonshine will do for this no need to waste alcohol,but we're doomsaying too soon maybe it'll work out.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 21:45

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

Sir Tonk posted:

Hopefully.

edit

Thanks to the GOP, a Texan in El Paso will have to travel through the equivalent of ten Rhode Islands to get to the nearest clinic.

But they're killing babies *ignores all the dead kids in places they bomb.*

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 03:10

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

Fried Chicken posted:

We've all gotten poorer in this recovery so that the top of the heap could get richer, what part of that should people be happy about?

This basically, unemployment is 6% but the jobs that have replaced the old ones pay less. Not to mention all the people who stopped looking for work.

RoboChrist 9000 posted:

That was going to happen no matter what. The hosed up truth is that we basically had two scenarios; no recovery with the poor getting much poorer and the rich getting richer, or a recovery where the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. We got the latter and, maybe it's just me, but that seems better than the former.

This is America. Our choices are always between bad and worse.

It's all the indian burial grounds. Curses man curses. But seriously on a global scale the rich got richer and the poor got poorer,the only places the middle class grew are developing nations whose growth depends on 1st world nations economies from not imploding so lets hope we don't.

SirKibbles fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Oct 3, 2014

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 15:36

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

Honestly it's more that they think asking the rich to pay taxes is stealing from them if we're being serious.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 16:08

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

ReindeerF posted:

That's the political reality, it's just annoying because it's become cyclical. Elect Republicans who pilfer the poo poo out of the public coffers, pass tax breaks and basically destroy the country's finances, then elect Democrats who are Rockefeller Republicans, but who at least see it as their duty to try to balance the checkbook, then 8 years later when the poo poo is barely getting back in order the Republicans start screeching again and the public elects another of their people, who does the same thing. It's been going on since Reagan. I'm not sure how much more the country's (or world's) economy can stand.

Makes wonder if we gently caress up again if there won't be talks of not letting us be the worlds reserve currency No one nations currency should be but eh that's reality

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 16:52

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

Fried Chicken posted:

"it could be worse" is not a winning political message.

What I would like to explain to the Democratic party leadership along with the vast majority of the time you should be voting for something not against something.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 19:04

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

Raskolnikov38 posted:

Assuming that 26.4% applies equally to both parties, that's a whole lot of votes that dems are ignoring by not running candidates with policies and ideas they like and I really doubt its the milquetoast wing of the party that's been dissatisfied with their candidates.

This whole argument about the 22 percent that don't vote is kind of missing the point when you look at the 55% that didn't vote because they were sick,or were too busy too,or didn't know about the election,or had an inconvenient polling place or registration problems.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 20:37

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

Raskolnikov38 posted:

And how are you going to address those problems (well except for the illness one) in your favor without winning over the people that wanted to vote but had no strong reason to do so first. Dems, rightly so, want to make voting easier and have to be in political control to do so. The GOP gets their voters fired up, wins and then puts in voter ID laws to tilt voting in their favor.

Look I'm not a Democrat but even I can admit they have more than enough people already who want to help but aren't using them even with their current policies. The issue isn't the lack of manpower it's organization and messaging. I've said it in the Texas thread but the Democrats really need to look at who/how they're raising to future leadership. Pick people who hasn't gone to an Ivy league school or is a lawyer that shits mandatory for the Presidency but not anywhere else.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 20:46

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

fade5 posted:

Maybe if you're comparing Austin to other big cities around Texas, but there is no way on earth that Austin is more segregated than Detroit or cities like Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, New Orleans, or Cleveland.

Of course, almost everywhere in the US fails in comparison to the level of integration in San Antonio.

_{_{(There are still lines here, they're just not as obvious.) Also San Antonio is still in Texas, so we have to deal with the Texas Government being controlled by Republicans.}}

San Antonio :smug:

forever but seriously the most segregated city last time I checked is Milwaukee,Wisconsin my horrible doomed hometown

# ¿ Oct 6, 2014 03:14

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

Boon posted:

What?

Movie villians have always followed the current flavor of the week in America's political/military enemies.

They're talking about poo poo like how the CIA's propaganda department was funding a lot of 80s action movies to build anti Soviet opinions.

Dapper Dan posted:

These are the people that would rather have a violent, paranoid schizophrenic walk into a gun store and buy an AR-15 than to restrict his access because they might be 'next'. All because of some idiotic fantasy that they might be able to hide in the woods and play red-dawn if the government ever becomes tyrannical to overthrow it. Hint: the government has drones with IR and can shove a patriot missile up your rear end before you can shout 'Socialism'. You wouldn't even see a new-world order UN trooper. They'd just kill your stupid, fat red-neck rear end with predator and reaper drones and laugh at you. But this reality does little to dissuade them, keeping their impotent revolutionary fantasies is more important than saving lives. And for the record, I'm not lumping all gun owners in with these assholes. I am for legitimate, responsible ownership. I'm not for idiots who poo poo themselves at their own shadow and need an M-60 to feel safe.

And I wasn't only drawing attention to school and mass shootings, which happen far more than they should, but also to our mental health care system. As in, we don't have one. Since prisons and county jails now hold more mentally ill people than all mental institutions in this country. A lovely consequence of 'tough on crime', fighting health-care spending and our treatment of the homeless.

Anyone who knows poo poo about revolutions in the modern era pretty much understands you need anti air guns and/or a counter air force or you can go the gently caress home.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2014 00:24

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 17:53

SirKibbles: Feb 27, 2011; I didn't like your old red text so here's some dancing cash.

computer parts posted:

No, what they were talking about was how the military (as in, not the CIA but the actual US Army and co) will lend you their equipment to use in films, but they have to sign off on the film's material, so you don't make a movie that makes them look bad.

Fortunately(?) the advent of CGI seems to have made this much less of a factor than previous years.

I honestly didn't know that that's super scummy.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2014 00:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Politics October: This is how we roll in the Hussein Clown Posse