While I don't have any better ideas than democracy, is trusting the general population to govern your life really reasonable? Obviously we need laws against murder, theft, and a plethora of other things. But if a parent doesn't want the government to pry into the lives of their children's social life and online activities, is it okay for the government to do it anyways just because someone who was voted in by someone else chose to allow it? Shouldn't the standard by freedom and privacy? Are our children ours or the government's?
What percentage of the population would you actually trust to govern and control your life?
I don’t want any stranger prying into my personal life, that’s why I take so many precautions to protect the privacy of my family including my own.
If I don’t know you, I don’t trust you. Even like that, there are some people I know personally who I don’t trust at all cause they’ve already proven themselves to be untrustworthy.
@goaded I know, that’s why I’m constantly removing my data from the internet. It’s a never ending process since there are so many shady companies stealing peoples information.
I liked the bit about congress passing a privacy law as soon as they realised anyone could ask for their video rental logs. It's no different to web searches.
Good question. The problem is we want the government to let us do what we want (even if thats illegal) but we want it to stop other people doing stuff we disagree with. Take food as an example, we complain the government shouldn't interfere on what we eat or feed kids. The people who complain the most are usually grossly obese and we have schools full of kids who can't recognise basic vegetables. You question their parents on this and the number one response is "government can't tell me what to feed my kids" What we need is government who listens to the experts more and doesn't just push it's own political agenda and if people don't want to be controlled they should stop acting like children.
Well keep in mind that "what's illegal" doesn't necessarily equate to "what's immoral." Alcohol, sodomy, marijuana, and many other things are or have been illegal throughout history. And our normalcy bias might affect our ability to see whether currently illegal things are actually justly illegal or not.
And I'd say a lot of (in my opinion misguided) people want government to stop people doing stuff they disagree with but that's partially my point. Just because you disagree with something, whether a majority of people agree with you or not, doesn't necessarily mean the government should take action on it. For a period of time a majority of society opposed homosexuality. Whether a majority of people disagree with it doesn't mean it was okay for the government to restrict the rights of gay people. Again, the standard should have been freedom and privacy.
And I'm sure there are a lot of bad parents complaining about a government trying to control what they feed their kids, but plenty of people simply don't believe government should be interfering with their lives to that extent. Quite frankly I think those who encourage this level or governmental interference are very oblivious to the control and oversight they're giving a government in a technologically inclined world. They might be content with it now if government happens to agree with them, but these things have and will be exploited. Just look at history. We gave government the power to outlaw sodomy and gay people were arrested for trying to be intimate with their significant other. I'm sure everyone who opposed homosexuality thought they were doing the right thing at the time.
I'd also point out that "experts" actually is subjective. We have sociology "experts" here in the states that assert it is fundamentally impossible for black people to be racist towards white people. If we listened to the experts, racism towards white people would be effectively legalized (more accurately, legally unrecognized). Experts have and will be wrong. And restricting the rights of people (in most cases) based on what the experts say isn't justified.
People need to be controlled when their stupidity puts others at risk. The excuse "it's my kid, I'll do as I want with it" doesn't hold up. We'd have a lot less problems in society if we stepped in and dealt with shitty parents before they indoctrinated their kids with their questionable beliefs
Education is not indoctrination. Governments have always determined what can and can't be taught. That's why most schools don't have a flat earth map or why European schools promote darwinism and American ones creationism. Kids are never going to escape the political whims of their local politicians.
With all due respect, I think that's a silly remark. "Education" as in math, for example, obviously is not indoctrination. But you can have educational institutions teaching non-educational material. So even if "education is not indoctrination" is true (which I'll combat momentarily), that doesn't refute the notion that governmental institutions can't indoctrinate.
As for whether education can be indoctrination, information can be interpreted incorrectly (and thus, taught on a flawed understanding). And information, even if factual, can be presented in specific ways as to guide a person's thought process.
As one example, we've had publishes that regard some people's view of illegal immigrants have an increased crime rate, and in response to this view on illegal immigrants, they post data regarding immigrants. There is a difference between immigrants and illegal immigrants. The following is just an example, I'm not stating it as fact. But if illegal immigrants commited crime 100% of the time, and legal immigrants commited crime 0% of the time, and illegal immigrants make up 30% of immigrants while legal immigrants make up 70% of immigrants, then the data would show "immigrants commit crime 30% of the time" and they state this information in response to "illegal immigrants have an increased crime rate." To that average, non-thoughtufl viewer, this would appear to imply that the view "illegal immigrants have an increased crime rate" as false or unsubstantiated.
In America, many schools right now are teaching white children that they are complicit in the mistreatment of minorities, and that due to the color of their skin they are in the wrong. This is not "education" this is indoctrination.
Not to mention, mass psychosis, group-think, and many other psychological phenomenon that can affect large quantities of people are real. You act like these things can't possibly affect government employees, or significant portions of the population.
I'm not sure if you're referring to my remark or gguy767's remark, but any reasonable person would know Trump lies. To what extent could be debated, though.
I think we'll agree that it's a fact (one of many) he's unwilling to admit, no?
@gguy767 Obama came into office near the peak of a recession (unemployment 7.8%), Biden came into office at the peak of a pandemic, Clinton came into office at the peak of a recession.
GW Bush came into office at a time the debt was being paid off (no deficit at all), Trump came into office when unemployment was 4.7% and dropping.
Possibly, I know there are a lot of die-hard Trump fans out there who may not outwardly admit it, but they all know he, as well as a vast majority of people, lie at LEAST sometimes (ESPECIALLY politicians, or people in polticial positions). So even if he is unwilling to admit it, which we have no evidence to support, the likelihood of him knowing he does is still incredibly high.
@gguy767 You know I answered that question, and that you not only didn't answer mine but claim he "lies more than Trump ever has". Which is obviously not true.
@gguy767 No, Trump was the worst POTUS in my lifetime, which is more than twice yours (actually history; no other president refused to peacefully accept the results of an election in 233 years). Clinton was the best in your lifetime; he left Bush with a county paying off its debt and a good idea of the threats against it. Then Bush gave that money to rich Americans, ignored the warnings and started a 20 year war (ended by Biden).
None. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The individual is best suited to take care of themselves. The government is there to defend borders, resolve conflicts and ensure fair and equal trade. That’s it.
100%. I'd like 100% of the people to have a say, and an election system that ensures that the candidate finally chosen is always acceptable to an absolute majority (i. e. the "middle" 51%).
Isn't that just mob rule, though? A lot of Americans opposed slavery from the beginning but let's say for a moment they didn't, wouldn't the majority, 51% or more, just rule over the minorities, without the minorities ever having a chance or a say in anything? Like back when most of society opposed homosexuality, it wasn't okay for government to restrict their freedom just bevause 51% or more opposed homosexuality.
It's how democracy works. Or how it should work. The beauty of a instant runoff system is it makes it very unlikely you get an extremist, and more likely that you'll get someone who will look out for the common people. You need multiple options from the various parties (primaries should whittle the numbers down, but not to 1 for each party).
There were only a few years in the last 45 years or more when most of society opposed homosexuality (or at least wanted it to be illegal), and that was during the AIDS epidemic. I think most people tend towards live and let live, most of the time.
I'd like to think that's not what you're saying. But I mentioned that people's rights should be protected, even if the majority of people think (as an example) homosexuality should be illegal. I mentioned how mob rule can exploit the minority. And your response was "it's how democracy works" followed by "it makes it very unlikely you get an extremist."
So you were acknowledging that it can happen (and likely acknowledged that it has happened) but didn't (at least explicitly/outwardly) agree with me by saying something like "in the event extremism is attempted to be made law, and they attempt to restrict the rights of decent civilians, the rights of citizens should be protected even in opposition to the majority of voters." If I misunderstood, my apologies, and please clarify. But to me it seemed as though you were willing to accept occasionally restricting the rights of innocent, decent people in the name of democracy.
It's blindingly obvious that that's not what I was saying.
It's far worse to have a government run by a minority, because the majority of people will stand up for minorities. If a government disgusts the majority of people, they're not going to get re-elected in a hurry. That is, unless the minority corrupts the system by gerrymandering, propaganda, and breaking their oaths of office to protect the constitution.
You know. Republicans.
Mitch McConnell knew about Russia's interference before the 2016 election and that Trump was plotting to overturn the 2020 election. He did and said nothing.
What proportion of the country's population are represented by the Republican members of the Senate? What proportion of the population voted for Trump? How many of the Republican members of the House supported Trump's attempt to nullify the election? How many Republican Senators voted against impeaching Trump for Jan 6th? How many presidents have been elected while losing the popular vote?
No, I don't. You're skewing things. Firstly, regarding "calling an election result into question and then calling for an investigation" as "attempting to nullify the election" is a semantic trick and a technicality. Hillary did precisely the same thing and I'm rather confident you didn't regard that as attempting to nullify the election.
And while electoral votes often can align with minority votes, that isn't supporting minority rule. Because electoral votes can align with majority rule, minority votes and the electoral college are not correlated. Saying supporting the electoral college is the same as supporting minority rule is like saying supporting hiking is the same as supporting life endangerment. Like, yeah, you can endanger your life when hiking, but clearly the point of hiking isn't to endanger life, even if endangering life can by a byproduct of hiking. So just because I support hiking doesn't mean "I'm supporting life endangerment."
And speaking of which, the electoral college is justified (I might even argue it's insufficient). In the same way that if a community of houses banded together and said "us 8 houses should stick together," that doesn't mean the two houses with 10 people (20 total) should have more say than the 6 houses that cumulatively have 12 people, especially when it comes to in-house rules. If the two houses with 10 people want to ban the use of orange juice, they can, but in their own houses. They don't get to tell the other houses they can't drink orange juice. They should have no right to do that. They're free to do it on their own property. Quite frankly it's weird, controlling, and arrogant for them to even WANT to impose their will and beliefs onto other unconsenting individuals.
Like, as for my gay example, do you think supporting the liberties of gay people was me "supporting minority rule" or do you think it's more accurately described as "supporting people's liberties"?
What Trump's people did was not just "calling an election result into question and then calling for an investigation"; that was just one of many approaches to overturn the election. They knew they'd lost, they wanted to find ways around it by lying and cheating. The texts from Rep. Chip Roy's and Sen. Mike Lee to Mark Meadows show that they were initially willing to listen to the claims of fraud, but they were given absolutely no evidence that the election was stolen. 147, iirc, Republican representatives still went along with the lies, along with a few senators. All of them should have been drummed out of their positions immediately, but the Republican part of the the House and Senate wouldn't do it, because they have no honour and don't respect their oaths of office, as shown during the two Trump impeachments.
And people follow their leaders. Do you think Trump hasn't been charged with crimes because he's innocent, or because there's a too high chance of one of the jury being willing to nullify it?
In answer to my questions: "What proportion of the country's population are represented by the Republican members of the Senate?":
There absolutely is evidence. One off the top of my head was the glitches that switched Republican votes to Democrat votes (or didn't count Republican votes, I can't remember which it was doing, it was a while back and not in recent memory). Quite frankly there is evidence (not necessarily proof) in each and every single election we've had probably ever, but most certainly in recent years. It's a near-gauranteed statitic. For someone to say "we've had 200 million votes cast and in those 200 million votes, nothing weird, questionable, or fishy ever happened" is just silly. Like you expect a vote to be cast 200 million times it for it to go perfectly?
Firstly, someone inevitably is going to circumvent the system. It probably won't be too effective but that won't stop people from trying. Secondly, accidents and mistakes happen. Especially with the electronic systems we're using. Bugs happen. Hardware failure happens.
And I could be mistaken but didn't you mention Russian intervention in one of our recent conversations (or possibly even this conversation)? You seem to be willing to admit there's evidence of questionable things if its against conservatives but if don't seem to (outwardly) think questionable things could feasibly happen in the other direction?
And Trump has been charged with crimes, he just hasn't been convicted of it. And you can say that about any leader of this caliber. I'm certain you believe if Obama was in that position, there'd be some die-hard Obama supporters who'd be perfectly fine nullifying it.
And no, as I already explained minority rule can be a common by product, but the system isn't "minority rule." I welcome debate but you're not addressing my refutation, you're simply trying to reinforce statements you've already made (that I've already refuted).
And your response about my stance on homosexuality didn't answer my question. I want to remain civil but I also have to be honest and say that I think you're trying to derail in an attempt to avoid admitting that my stance isn't "minority rule" and is instead "supporting people's liberties."
No, there isn't evidence. Evidence can be produced, and it hasn't been. Don't try to pretend I'm saying there was zero voter fraud in 2020, I'm saying there was nothing unusual and certainly nothing that would overturn tens of thousands of votes. There was a Republican who probably murdered his wife and voted on her behalf for Trump, for example. Or Mark Meadows (Trump's Chief of Staff) and his wife lying about where they lived.
The Russian interference was by misinformation, not by changing people's ballots. You and Trump are pretending that multiple states (including many Republican ones) can't be trusted to do their jobs and count the ballots impartially. In which case, Congress should probably call in UN observers to ensure impartiality.
Obama hasn't been charged with crimes. Trump has. Only one is going to face a jury trial, and that's the only one nullification is important for. (Don't forget, Trump's convinced more than 2 in 12 citizens that the election was stolen; the chance of one of them being on the jury is worrying.)
If you don't support minority rule, do you support abolishing the electoral college? I mean, the states are protected by the Senate. The president is supposed to be president of the whole country. (If you've refuted something I said, would you quote it, please, so I'll remember.)
It's nice that you believe in personal liberties and that that applies to LGBTQ+, but you have to realise you're in a minority in the Republican party, and that's the party passing all the laws against them.
For you to say there inevitably is voter fraud (not to mention voter impropriety, rather than fraud specifically) but there is no evidence is just odd. But I really don't care to debate that, I don't have the numerous accusations on me right now but maybe we can discuss that later. There may even be some sort of documentary-like film coming out about it soon, we might discuss it then. (Also, I wasn't referring to Russian interference about vote changing, for example one instance happened in Texas where votes from both sides were sometimes switched. Snopes, while biased, though I'm sure you'd disagree, wrote about this if you're curious).
And while I'm inclined to believe most big names in business partake in shady things (Trump included), I can't say I support you seeming to ridicule someone for something they were not convicted of in court. We have the "innocent until proven guilty" standard for a reason.
And interestingly enough, I could use similar logic to assert that you support minority rule because you supported the minority, that being gay people, and not the majority when the majority of society opposed homosexuality. Unless I'm mistaken, you don't think that the majority should have been able to enact laws that opposed homosexual lifestyles (such as partaking in sodomy), and instead, you think the minority's will should have been able to nullify the will of the majority. Thus, you support minority rule.
But we both know you're not actually "supporting minority rule." Just because what you support happened to align with what minority rule COULD have resulted in doesn't mean you support minority rule.
And no, I support the electoral college. In fact, I may even be inclined to say there should be 1 vote per state. The logical behind that has already been explained. Conveniently enough, that explanation also happens to be the refutation you're asking me to quote. So here it is:
"While electoral votes often can align with minority votes, that isn't supporting minority rule. Because electoral votes CAN align with majority rule too, minority rule and the electoral college are not correlated. Saying supporting the electoral college is the same as supporting minority rule is like saying supporting hiking is the same as supporting life endangerment. Like, yeah, you can endanger your life when hiking but not always, and clearly the point of hiking isn't to endanger life, even if it CAN be a byproduct of hiking. So just because I support hiking doesn't mean 'I'm supporting life endangerment.'"
And why I'm not in favor of abolishing the electoral college (my support for it having already been explained) is mentioned here:
"The electoral college is justified (I might even argue it's insufficient). In the same way that if a community of houses banded together and said 'us 8 houses should stick together,' that doesn't mean the two houses with 10 people (20 total) should have more say than the 6 houses that accumulatively have 12 people, especially when it comes to in-house rules. If the two houses with 10 people (20 total) want to ban the use of orange juice, they can, but in their own houses. They don't get to tell the other houses they can't drink orange juice. They should have no right to do that as it's not their house. Though they're free to do it on their own property."
(I'm also not of the opinion that the states are adequately protected by the senate)
If the United States was "The State" instead of "The United States" then maybe the electoral college would have less merit. But because states are individual, yet united, the electoral college (at least conceptually, I'd disagree with how it was implemented) is a reasonable system.
And I'm not familiar with any contemporary laws or policies that I think are unjust that might upset the LGBTQ+ community (might I add that I am technically a part of that community, albeit hardly), though, to be fair, I don't actively look for it either. If there are some, it's likley that I'd oppose it (if they truly are unjust). For example, I don't think many women, or (especially so) young girls, would feel comfortable with males (identifying as women) entering places like women's bathrooms or changing rooms (that are open, rattler than have like individual rooms with doors). For example, there's been some conteoversy with Lia Thomas (professional Transgender swimmer) disrobing in front of biological females in the shared women's changing/locker room. Apparently it's especially an issue because Lia is pre-op and still attracted to females, and in the presence of naked females. I don't believe "in the name of transgender people, they must be allowed to disrobe in front of other women!" I think the better response is to remove shared changing rooms entirely as it was a questionable practice to begin with and it solves all problems. And I don't view opposition to males changing in front of females as unjust to the LGBTQ+ community. I do feel for transgender people, and my response isn't "just got to the men's room" my response is "government/public buildings should have individual unisex bathrooms/changing areas, and private businesses should be encouraged (not forced) to construct buildings that way, too."
But if you'd like to point laws that are apparently against LGBTQ+ people, feel free. But I know some things the left has claimed in this regard aren't accurate representations, like the transgender military thing. It's a complicated legal liability, and that's not solely an outsiders perspective, in fact, a transgender friend of mine is actually the one to inform me of it (and they, too, agreed with Trump's position on it).
"For you to say there inevitably is voter fraud (not to mention voter impropriety, rather than fraud specifically) but there is no evidence is just odd." I might be, but I didn't say that. Like Bill Barr, I said that there is no evidence of sufficient voter fraud to affect the result of the election (not even in one state, let alone the half dozen Trump would have needed to flip in order to win). There may be dozens of cases, but there were 160 million ballots cast. If you could throw out all those millions of votes based on one or two people committing fraud, you'd never finish an election.
"I could use similar logic to assert that you support minority rule because you supported the minority, that being gay people" No, because I support their right to equal treatment, not their right to run the government.
"While electoral votes often can align with minority votes, that isn't supporting minority rule. Because electoral votes CAN align with majority rule too, minority rule and the electoral college are not correlated." Without the EC, there would not be presidents elected by a minority of the population. It doesn't ensure it, but it enables it. The president is supposed to represent the country as a whole, having presidents that aren't wanted by more voters is illogical.
I accidentally clicked on this question, and right now I don't have the time to go over your response. Can you respond to this so I get the notification and I can get to it later?
None. I don't trust any government. I go to some lengths to keep my info private. They don't need to know what I'm doing. They need to stop fucking interferring in our lives.
@gguy767 IDGAF. I hate all politicians. They are useless. The governments are useless. We don't need to be governed. What for? A government is nothing more than a bunch of business men dictating what we can and can't do. Would you allow your local butcher to tell you what to do? Or your dentist? Or the owner of the local IGA or whoever is the boss of whatever company or business? I don't understand why people don't stand up and fight to take back our power. It is ours. Not theirs. They have no right to tell us how to live our lives.
@gguy767 I'm not in the US. I don't know what a libertarian party is. And I don't care to. Who said anything about anarchy. We can live our lives on our own. We don't need some assholes in a government building telling us what to do.
What percentage? I don’t know I guess ~18%? Really the important thing is balance of power in my opinion doesn’t matter if it’s through Democrat or something else
0
0 Reply
Anonymous
(30-35)
+1 y
I thought the world was ruled by a few thousand elites in the highest echelons of business, politics and finance? Surely? 😁
@gguy767 We should ignore them and do what we want. Who cares who is "elected"? They're really selected. Elections are just a dog and pony show to make people think they have a choice. We don't. If voting actually made a difference we wouldn't be allowed to do it.
@gguy767 But voting doesn't change anything. The candidates are already selected before an election is even announced. The numbers on the polls are fabricated. Who you vote for doesn't matter. They are two side of the same coin. Here in my country there is a two party preferred system. Both are the same party. I don't know who allowed this two party preferred system. And I don't know why people keep going along with it. Are they so brainwashed that they can't see the truth? Here is the main problem: https:// www. youtube. com/watch? v=zpnZJ9AvWnE&t=0s
