[Canna_Bis]

Nemesis you have the Church Tax. We have to pay it due to out "traditiojnal" way of life... I really admire what the John Paul II did to the world, but also I hate the decisions our goverment made.... Like the Pope supported Augusto Pinochet as he was " fighting  the communism". We all know what the "Death Squadrons" did. The same as Pius XII did. The first man that congratulated Hitler his becoming of a Fuhrer.

About the tax. Poland is a 98% Catholic country. Most of these people are paying the Church Tax just because they were christened. If you'tr born here, you get christened at the age of a month-two. Just because of a tradition. And later? I signed out. Everyone of  my neighbours calles me a  "heretic" "satanist" etc...

 Check which counry was the most tolerant int let's say XVI century... Where the Protestants, JWeish, Muslims took shelter during the Tomás de Torquemada's "Holy War" ?

The democracy is what will destroy our world. Look at your country... Do any of the goverments fullfill the nations' desires? Democracy was good. Back in Greece. If any1 iss intrested in ancient histiry, will know what I mean.

And again, sorry for my English. I'm from Poland.

Edit:
I'll definitely get banned....

[Scotty]

Nah, not banned.  You should have seen some of the arguments that don't get people banned in here.

[Liberator]

The democracy is what will destroy our world. Look at your country... Do any of the goverments fullfill the nations' desires?

On this I will completely and totally agree.  Unfortunately, Democracy is also the only hope we have of reversing the trend.  We need harsh term limits and limits on a politicians ability to be involved in policy decisions other than the same single vote we all get.  What I mean is NO 6 or 7 figure jobs in the Capital to take your old cronies to a steak dinner or 10,000 dollar a hole golf game. 

NO MORE GAMING THE GODDAMN SYSTEM WHILE THE WORLD ****ING BURNS!

[Mars]

The democracy is what will destroy our world. Look at your country... Do any of the goverments fullfill the nations' desires? Democracy was good. Back in Greece. If any1 iss intrested in ancient histiry, will know what I mean.

It is not enough to suggest what does not work, an alternative must be suggested. Perhaps Fascism?

[Canna_Bis]

Someone said that democracy is not an ideal system... But we don't have anything better...

[Scotty]

Benevolent dictatorship!

Or maybe constitutional monarchy.

[Mars]

Benevolent dictatorship!

Who would keep the dictator benevolent?

Or maybe constitutional monarchy.

Constitutional monarchies tend to result in parliamentary democracies, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Luxembourg, Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Sweden. All of those are all examples of Constitutional Monarchies.

 

[Mongoose]

I always seem to forget at least half of the European countries that still have monarchies, so I'm continually surprised when I see a random news article about the queen of Sweden or something.

[LordMelvin]

Benevolent dictatorship!

Who would keep the dictator benevolent?

The Author! because the only time that ever works for very long is in a work of fiction. Specifically, the kind of fiction written by dictators. And involving Unicorns and Kittens. And Rainbows.

Back towards the starting topic, I'd venture that the dearth of lefties and/or dearth of political sanity and/or dearth of doubleplusgood politicians in the US can be traced directly to the supreme court's 1886 ruling in 'Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad,' which, well, indirectly enabled a whole lot of very rich people to completely evade personal responsibility for their actions. That then led to things like lobbying, communications monopolies, thalidomide babies, and top 40 radio stations. (all of which are equally horrible and deserve to be listed together. Because I said so.)

[Canna_Bis]

It is not enough to suggest what does not work, an alternative must be suggested. Perhaps Fascism?

GTVA!

There will be a Great War soon... as we're slowly running out of oil... We fortunately won't live long enough 2 witness it, but our kids or grandchildren will...

[Mars]

I am convinced that the reason there are so many people in the US who are so far skewed right and authoritarian is that we are a nation of useless facts, but not real information. Student have learned to copy information verbatim without actually understanding it, and most students probably don't even have any political science background at all.

I'm quite certain that if you asked EVERY American in the US what system of government Nazi Germany had, the majority would say "Socialism" instead of "Fascism."

If you asked them what system of government the UK, the progenitor of our nation and historically one of our greatest allies, most would be able to say "Democracy" few would be able to say "Parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy" nor would most they know what either of those terms meant.

And if you asked what a 'theocracy' was, well actually I really want to find out.

The horrifying thing is that the longer this goes on, the more relevant it is to everyday life, because the worse our government fails.

What has successfully been sold to many:

Evil ~ Hitler ~ Nazi ~ Socialism ~ Socialized programs

[TopAce]

Most Americans cannot reliably place themselves or the parties on a left/right spectrum along with their various positions. In any given election the voters generally have trouble doing the same thing with the candidates.

That's a welcome feature in a healthy democracy. Perfectly predictable elections are no real elections. That means that either party must botcher up very seriously to make elections sensible again.

wat

Elections are still completely predictable. In fact political scientists generally call them months in advance. All that you really need to have is data about the economy and wartime/peacetime status. Campaigns don't matter mch.

And it's a very unwelcome feature that voters don't know what the candidates are advocating or what they believe in.

So basically, you'd like to live in a country where all elections are fixed. Since everyone's party affiliations are unchangeable (in your hypothetical idealistic society), it doesn't matter what kind of two candidates run. You can pick a peanut farmer to run for your party - if your party has the largest voter base, he'll win. He can say whatever he wishes on TV, he can have any kind of incompetent campaign staff, it would account for nothing. In this case, the elections wouldn't be predictable by experts months in advance, but a decade in advance by laypersons too. That's unwelcome. If your country's elections are predictable, and one party is 100% to win everywhere (White House, Congress, mayors, governors, etc) that would practically establish a one-party rule. You wouldn't like that, do you?

It's welcome, in my view, that there's always a second/third/fourth party in opposition. If the incumbent party does something very stupid, or their candidate is clearly incompetent, people must be aware that there is more than one party in the country. If there were no swing states, anyone could get into the White House simply based on party affiliation.

About campaigns: If they didn't matter at all, then how come your mailbox gets overwhelmed with junkmail during elections? Then how come the candidates are bombarding the nation with all sorts of ads - TV, printed, Internet? Do you think that a candidate who airs three different ads twenty times altogether on eight different TV channels during a six-month campaign is gonna win? Uncertain voters must be fought for. They must be convinced that x party's program is better than y party's or at least that x party's candidate is better than y party's.

It seems to me that you'd like to see a utopian society where everyone is completely aware of every bit of each party's political view, can predict how well x candidate will fare in the White House perfectly well.

[Hades]

So basically, you'd like to live in a country where all elections are fixed. Since everyone's party affiliations are unchangeable (in your hypothetical idealistic society), it doesn't matter what kind of two candidates run. You can pick a peanut farmer to run for your party - if your party has the largest voter base, he'll win. He can say whatever he wishes on TV, he can have any kind of incompetent campaign staff, it would account for nothing. In this case, the elections wouldn't be predictable by experts months in advance, but a decade in advance by laypersons too. That's unwelcome. If your country's elections are predictable, and one party is 100% to win everywhere (White House, Congress, mayors, governors, etc) that would practically establish a one-party rule. You wouldn't like that, do you?

The country is hardly idealistic or hypothetical since he's talking about the US elections.

[BengalTiger]

Back towards the starting topic, I'd venture that the dearth of lefties and/or dearth of political sanity and/or dearth of doubleplusgood politicians in the US can be traced directly to the supreme court's 1886 ruling in 'Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad,' which, well, indirectly enabled a whole lot of very rich people to completely evade personal responsibility for their actions. That then led to things like lobbying, communications monopolies, thalidomide babies, and top 40 radio stations. (all of which are equally horrible and deserve to be listed together. Because I said so.)

Sometimes precedential law sucks I guess.

PS- And Kwasniewski was president for 10 years.

[TopAce]

So basically, you'd like to live in a country where all elections are fixed. Since everyone's party affiliations are unchangeable (in your hypothetical idealistic society), it doesn't matter what kind of two candidates run. You can pick a peanut farmer to run for your party - if your party has the largest voter base, he'll win. He can say whatever he wishes on TV, he can have any kind of incompetent campaign staff, it would account for nothing. In this case, the elections wouldn't be predictable by experts months in advance, but a decade in advance by laypersons too. That's unwelcome. If your country's elections are predictable, and one party is 100% to win everywhere (White House, Congress, mayors, governors, etc) that would practically establish a one-party rule. You wouldn't like that, do you?

The country is hardly idealistic or hypothetical since he's talking about the US elections.

Tell that to the Floridans.

[Ghostavo]

So basically, you'd like to live in a country where all elections are fixed. Since everyone's party affiliations are unchangeable (in your hypothetical idealistic society), it doesn't matter what kind of two candidates run. You can pick a peanut farmer to run for your party - if your party has the largest voter base, he'll win. He can say whatever he wishes on TV, he can have any kind of incompetent campaign staff, it would account for nothing. In this case, the elections wouldn't be predictable by experts months in advance, but a decade in advance by laypersons too. That's unwelcome. If your country's elections are predictable, and one party is 100% to win everywhere (White House, Congress, mayors, governors, etc) that would practically establish a one-party rule. You wouldn't like that, do you?

1. Just because a result is predictable doesn't make it fixed. Modern polling techniques grant us a pretty good safety margin when applied correctly.
2. I have no idea what you mean by one-party rule, since that has nothing to do with predictable elections.
3. Running a campaign influences the voters (up to a certain point) and that influences the polling data which...

Tell you what, imagine you live in a community with the same political ideas you have, and that you are running an election for mayor or something. And that Hitler decides to run against you (Yay for semi-Godwin!) and somehow the voters don't really like him (maybe it was the kill all the jews joke at the beginning of the campaign). Is that election predictable or not?

[TopAce]

If a given party advocates Hitler to run for a position, something's wrong there. How "big" is this community we're competing for? What country, what economic status? If you've brought up Hitler: Even in poverty-struck Germany, he won by a small margin. He didn't win the majority of seats in Parliament, just the elections. He had to take further actions (the burning of the Reichstag, blaming communists, a long history of Goebbelsian rhetorics, anti-Jewish sentiments etc) to dissolve Parliament and establish a dictatorship.

Fortunately, in a US context, nothing like that is at all possible to happen. Your democracy works a lot better than in most parts of the world. I guess you'd have to live in an actual dictatorship for a long time, then return to your "failed" democracy to realize it.

[General Battuta]

Most Americans cannot reliably place themselves or the parties on a left/right spectrum along with their various positions. In any given election the voters generally have trouble doing the same thing with the candidates.

That's a welcome feature in a healthy democracy. Perfectly predictable elections are no real elections. That means that either party must botcher up very seriously to make elections sensible again.

wat

Elections are still completely predictable. In fact political scientists generally call them months in advance. All that you really need to have is data about the economy and wartime/peacetime status. Campaigns don't matter mch.

And it's a very unwelcome feature that voters don't know what the candidates are advocating or what they believe in.

So basically, you'd like to live in a country where all elections are fixed. Since everyone's party affiliations are unchangeable (in your hypothetical idealistic society), it doesn't matter what kind of two candidates run. You can pick a peanut farmer to run for your party - if your party has the largest voter base, he'll win. He can say whatever he wishes on TV, he can have any kind of incompetent campaign staff, it would account for nothing.

Jesus **** no, this has nothing to do with my personal preference, this is how things are right now. In most cases campaigns and candidates do not matter. (I work in a political science lab at MIT right now.)

The only way the candidate could seriously **** things up is by causing some kind of major scandal. Otherwise it doesn't really matter. And party affiliations aren't unchangeable, per se, but they tend to be pretty sticky.

In this case, the elections wouldn't be predictable by experts months in advance, but a decade in advance by laypersons too. That's unwelcome. If your country's elections are predictable, and one party is 100% to win everywhere (White House, Congress, mayors, governors, etc) that would practically establish a one-party rule. You wouldn't like that, do you?

I have no idea where this is coming from. Elections are generally predictable months but not years in advance.

It's welcome, in my view, that there's always a second/third/fourth party in opposition. If the incumbent party does something very stupid, or their candidate is clearly incompetent, people must be aware that there is more than one party in the country. If there were no swing states, anyone could get into the White House simply based on party affiliation.

I've never said anything to disagree.

About campaigns: If they didn't matter at all, then how come your mailbox gets overwhelmed with junkmail during elections? Then how come the candidates are bombarding the nation with all sorts of ads - TV, printed, Internet? Do you think that a candidate who airs three different ads twenty times altogether on eight different TV channels during a six-month campaign is gonna win? Uncertain voters must be fought for. They must be convinced that x party's program is better than y party's or at least that x party's candidate is better than y party's.

There are two different views on this. One is that it's all a giant illusion, and people simply do it because they think it's necessary. The other is that campaigns generally cancel each other out.

It seems to me that you'd like to see a utopian society where everyone is completely aware of every bit of each party's political view, can predict how well x candidate will fare in the White House perfectly well.

I haven't said anything about my own personal preferences.

[Ghostavo]

If a given party advocates Hitler to run for a position, something's wrong there. How "big" is this community we're competing for? What country, what economic status? If you've brought up Hitler: Even in poverty-struck Germany, he won by a small margin. He didn't win the majority of seats in Parliament, just the elections. He had to take further actions (the burning of the Reichstag, blaming communists, a long history of Goebbelsian rhetorics, anti-Jewish sentiments etc) to dissolve Parliament and establish a dictatorship.

Not that this has any connection with what I was proposing but, the community is of 10000 people who were born from cloning vats using your genetic material, followed by being brainwashed into thinking as you do (hey, crazy scenario asks for crazy measures). Oh, and everyone is filthy rich.

The example I am proposing is one that makes you say "Hitler can't win!", basically a predictable outcome.

From there we'll adjust Hitler's and your position and the communities characteristics ever so slightly until the scenario resembles, or becomes, the real world. When can we say it's not a predictable outcome? And why?

Oh, please note that Hitler here is not an attempt at ad-hominem. He's just a place holder for a candidate.

[Mobius]

IMHO, not all the people who have the right to vote should have it. I know it may seem weird, but I wish there were serious exams all citizens should pass if they want to vote.