Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: S-99 on December 30, 2013, 10:29:23 pm
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Healthcare.gov still doesn't work. I could make an account. But, like many others, couldn't get my identity verified. Couldn't even get my identity verified when i called the experian tech support number. I was told by them to just go ahead and call the normal healthcare.gov hotline and that those people would take care of me. I sure hope they can. I sort of want to keep being covered for health. Being given a possible run around from experian doesn't do the job.
I just can't believe very well at all that the website was fixed since the bug "experian" is still present for healthcare.gov
Drinking jim beam, got smokes, and hopefully will be able to get health coverage before the new year. Why did i wait? I spent $3000 this month on stuff i needed, stuff i had to do, and people i had to wait on unfortunately. I've been busy to say the least. Either way, something tells me calling on any day in december possibly would have been tied up phone lines and screwing up systems for healthcare.gov with possibly everyone clammering before the dead line (the 31st).
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same, i tried it like a week ago. it wont even let me make an account. after filling out all the usual login stuff i get this your account could not be created message that doesnt tell me what i did wrong, doesnt email, doesnt do anything. ive done this like 20 times, using different user names (some of which were random strings), email adresses, and passwords. it also seems like the email addresses i used were forever logged by the system, so if i try to sign up with those email adresses, they are blocked. i currently have 3 email addresses, and it seems that all 3 of them are seem to be locked out of the system. this is totally unacceptable. seems it would have just been better for them to purchase off the shelf software for this than it would be to write a system that doesnt work from scratch.
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That definitely blows :sigh: Aside from experian being the main problem. I still don't believe the site was anything more than hot fixed for the technical issues as they still happen (perhaps less, perhaps the same amount?).
I finally got my account verified after i ate up 160 minutes on my cell phone (no land line, paid $20 for 200 minutes before this whole thing 3 hours ago; my 406 service days are more valuable to me to keep in favor of paying for a 30 day monthly plan, i need the phone active with or without minutes for long term). After i got verified, i opted for the website again for picking plans. Really, i didn't have much faith in getting through the system. So, i prayed; more or less just asked god "hey i need this, and whatever the hell you'll do anyway". Now part two.
EDIT: UUUURRRGGGG!!! I login, only to come to the you have just logged out page. WTF?
EDIT2: Got an email from healthcare.gov after my phone call. There is a message waiting for me in the market place. Now if i could just get to the market place since the phone call was next to meaningless. But, wasting all of that time finally got me to the upload documents to verify my identity page. Stupid system :banghead:
This site must be after something else. I can't even browse health care plans. I have to apply to apply basically. I don't want to call them up and select a plan because the person on the phone is going to get very impatient with me since i know i will spend some considerable time making the best decision for myself while they are constantly re-reading options for me over and over (this is why it would help if i could just browse for plans at the website).
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THANKS obama
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THANKS obama
(http://mrwgifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Youre-Welcome-Obama-Reaction-Gif.gif)
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even if i get on its unlikely i will be able to afford any plans at all. when it comes right down to it all obamacare really does is make health insurance mandatory. this is so american politicians can say that all their people are covered.
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I've yet to actually attempt creating an account, but from everything I understand from using the estimating tools, I'm currently making too little per year to qualify for any subsidies, which would normally mean I'd fall under the Medicaid expansion...except our utter ass**** of a governor decided to forgo that in an attempt to come up with his own cockamamie system that will never be approved by HHS anyway. So in the meantime, I'm not sure what the hell I'm supposed to do. There was something about an exemption form you can fill out somewhere, so I guess I'll have to look that up now.
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Took me awhile to get an account created. My issue was that adblock plus for firefox was preventing the site from connecting to the login verification site. I had the support person file a ticket with their higher tier support to look into that so not sure if it ever got fixed.
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I got my account created and bought my insurance two weeks after it received bad publicity. Then again, I did it at 6:00 am when nobody was at work besides myself and a few other early birds.
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more random strings and no account. for ****s and giggles i played with the view plans thingie, i told it what my income was and all the plans cost more money than i had to spend. tried killing adblock. that didnt work either. now debating downloading chrome and trying again.
*edit*
chrome worked for some reason and i just got on with a random string user name.
also i finished signing up, not a single plan that costs less than my annual income.
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I'm probably going to have to wait until I have income before going ahead and doing this... Just as long as I stay healthy and don't get hurt!
Yeah there's that penalty thing, but I think we get a year exemption before the IRS will actually dock us whatever fine it is.
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i tried to log back in and it locked me out. omg die. im gonna go out and burn down a hospital.
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I'm going to be a smarmy Canadian for a moment because you guys are all of voting age and I'd like to illustrate for you a contrast in the hopes that it may make you see the absolute stupidity of the healthcare system you all put up with.
A few days ago, my pregnant wife had a severe pain in her pelvis. She went to the hospital, and was seen by a obstetrician (specialist) in less than an hour, diagnosed five minutes later, and booked in for surgery that day. The surgery occurred 6 hours later (under general anesthetic), and she was discharged and home the next morning. Total cost out of pocket: $18 for parking at the hospital.
Setup required?
1. Canadian resident.
2. Pay taxes - which amounts off my income to about 16% of my gross yearly earnings, after deductions and what not (my marginal tax rate is considerably higher than the actual amount lost from my pay to explicit provincial/federal taxes; my wife's taxes amount to about the same percentage).
3. Apply for provincial healthcare number on becoming provincial resident (for me, after I moved; my son who was born here got it after filling in a quick form and mailing it off).
4. No premiums paid because the wife and I both have additional "extras" coverage through work - so the total bill for her prescription meds required post-op at home was $0. That required filling out a form when I got my job; ditto for my wife. There is no eligibility requirement.
So this lunacy you guys are dealing with over the ACA? It's hilarious. It's hilariously stupid that you have an overcomplicated mess of a system because you can't politically get a single-payer system because too much of your voting population is too brainwashed against anything that has the slightest whiff of collectivism. It's hilariously stupid that in order to extended healthcare coverage eligibility to all Americans, your politicians have fought and fought to cobble together this bastardized exchange system because health care in the United States is about politics, not improving people's lives. And it's hilariously stupid that you all put up with it.
It's New Years' Eve here (for the next 14 minutes). Make a resolution to quit putting up with bull****.
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i dont think our government is effective at all, if a rabble came down the street chanting "revolution" i would grab my shotgun and join them. i dont see anything changing without a violent uprising at this point.
the sad thing is the only way out of this stupid health care law was to vote for republicans (which didnt work out very well in the previous 8 years). we would have at least still had the old system, though we would probibly be involved with 3 more wars. im proud that i never voted for obama, but not that proud. our government will be **** regardless of who we vote for. burn all the things.
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I'm going to be a smarmy Canadian for a moment because you guys are all of voting age and I'd like to illustrate for you a contrast in the hopes that it may make you see the absolute stupidity of the healthcare system you all put up with.
A few days ago, my pregnant wife had a severe pain in her pelvis. She went to the hospital, and was seen by a obstetrician (specialist) in less than an hour, diagnosed five minutes later, and booked in for surgery that day. The surgery occurred 6 hours later (under general anesthetic), and she was discharged and home the next morning. Total cost out of pocket: $18 for parking at the hospital.
Setup required?
1. Canadian resident.
2. Pay taxes - which amounts off my income to about 16% of my gross yearly earnings, after deductions and what not (my marginal tax rate is considerably higher than the actual amount lost from my pay to explicit provincial/federal taxes; my wife's taxes amount to about the same percentage).
3. Apply for provincial healthcare number on becoming provincial resident (for me, after I moved; my son who was born here got it after filling in a quick form and mailing it off).
4. No premiums paid because the wife and I both have additional "extras" coverage through work - so the total bill for her prescription meds required post-op at home was $0. That required filling out a form when I got my job; ditto for my wife. There is no eligibility requirement.
So this lunacy you guys are dealing with over the ACA? It's hilarious. It's hilariously stupid that you have an overcomplicated mess of a system because you can't politically get a single-payer system because too much of your voting population is too brainwashed against anything that has the slightest whiff of collectivism. It's hilariously stupid that in order to extended healthcare coverage eligibility to all Americans, your politicians have fought and fought to cobble together this bastardized exchange system because health care in the United States is about politics, not improving people's lives. And it's hilariously stupid that you all put up with it.
It's New Years' Eve here (for the next 14 minutes). Make a resolution to quit putting up with bull****.
I'm find myself more and more seriously considering making the move. Granted, I don't think I'm legally allowed to until I'm no longer, you know, in the Army, but that's hardly the point. That said, research is never a bad thing. What province do you call home, if I may ask?
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It's New Years' Eve here (for the next 14 minutes). Make a resolution to quit putting up with bull****.
What would you suggest we do, then? In case you haven't noticed, even if one does vote for candidates in favor of sensible reform, there will always be others voting for fringe lunatics to counter it, and the current political situation is so ****ed-up that everyone's being bought off by somebody in the end anyway. I do feel like we'll wind up at single-payer at some point down the road, but there will be kicking and screaming at every step of the way, and the result we wind up with most likely won't be nearly as effective as it should be. It's all well and good to sit back and revel in the great system you have up there, but I don't know that you completely understand the reality of US politics right now, and for the foreseeable future.
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I'm find myself more and more seriously considering making the move. Granted, I don't think I'm legally allowed to until I'm no longer, you know, in the Army, but that's hardly the point. That said, research is never a bad thing. What province do you call home, if I may ask?
I live in Alberta, but each province has its strengths and weaknesses. I grew up in British Columbia and would love to move back, but its not feasible for a number of reasons.
What would you suggest we do, then? In case you haven't noticed, even if one does vote for candidates in favor of sensible reform, there will always be others voting for fringe lunatics to counter it, and the current political situation is so ****ed-up that everyone's being bought off by somebody in the end anyway. I do feel like we'll wind up at single-payer at some point down the road, but there will be kicking and screaming at every step of the way, and the result we wind up with most likely won't be nearly as effective as it should be. It's all well and good to sit back and revel in the great system you have up there, but I don't know that you completely understand the reality of US politics right now, and for the foreseeable future.
I understand that your political system is even more broken than ours, and that's saying something.
The point is that there are a huge number of Americans that are very dissatisfied with the way your country is going, and yet most people are content to sit back and complain. Do something about it. Get involved in politics, activism. Individuals have a lot of power when they work together, particularly in the US - several major movements have proved that. That's what I mean when I say quit putting up with bull****.
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Single payer is not required, many successfull countries have universal coverage achieved with less socialist multiple payers, both public and private, and such system would have bigger chances to pass in the US than single payer ever could.
I think what the US needs is a good public alternative that would be best funded as a % of income + subsidies if required and provide a solid baseline in both price and coverage against which private insurers will compete. Or something like that.
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Single payer is not required, many successfull countries have universal coverage achieved with less socialist multiple payers, both public and private, and such system would have bigger chances to pass in the US than single payer ever could.
Emphasis mine.
I have no trouble whatsoever with the idea that multiple payer is also a feasible alternative. However, the attitude that single-payer is inherently socialist, and further that such is a bad thing is kind of the entire reason this mess exists to begin with. Stop it.
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Furthermore, single payer does not mean single provider. Even Canada's single-payer system has public and private delivery; the difference is that my ability to receive both preventative care and active treatment is not dependent on my ability to pay for it - so whether I make $30,000 a year or $300,000 a year, I get the same quality and availability of treatment.
There are some that argue that people willing to pay extra should be able to receive care faster at private sites and I don't have a fundamental problem with that, so long as private delivery options don't reduce the quality and availability of public care.
The United States pays the most of any country in the world on a per capita basis for health care, yet it has nowhere near the best median and mean health outcomes. Individualist for-profit delivery of health care is both expensive and inefficient, and can be financially crushing for serious illness.
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I understand that your political system is even more broken than ours, and that's saying something.
The point is that there are a huge number of Americans that are very dissatisfied with the way your country is going, and yet most people are content to sit back and complain.
I think americans don't do something because the angles for tackling this situation are being miffed out as options all in the name of national security, terroriststerroriststerrorists, and now home grown terrorists being popularized. The continuance of removing rights with a bull**** smoke screen. I have a saying, the government has everybody where they want them to be. It would be better if this were backward.
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im not even totally against socialization at this point. america stopped being america when we gave the lobbyists all the power.
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I think americans don't do something because the angles for tackling this situation are being miffed out as options all in the name of national security, terroriststerroriststerrorists, and now home grown terrorists being popularized. The continuance of removing rights with a bull**** smoke screen. I have a saying, the government has everybody where they want them to be. It would be better if this were backward.
I've not met a single American who talked about politics and didn't complain about the system being broken. I don't think the system is so broken that you couldn't solve the problems with it. MP-Ryan is quite correct, when people get sick of complaining about the government they start complaining about how broken the system is and then don't do anything to fix it!
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Speaking out of my political science background here, that's a vast oversimplification. Political change doesn't work by bootstraps any more than economic success. There are structural forces at play that make American politics a special kind of dysfunctional, and fixing them's more than a matter of trying hard every day.
Any given political system is a set of rules for a game. The payoff for the game is power. When people play the game long enough, they become very good at optimal strategies. The optimal strategies in American politics are very, very effective at creating tactical dysfunction and legislative gridlock, and anyone playing the game - no matter how well intentioned, no matter how deadset on fixing the rules - has to beat the players using those strategies. In order to beat them, you've got to join them...and that's where a lot of good intentions die.
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America isn't gona change anytime soon. Not without something super drastic happening, too many special interest groups with way too much money. This is weird coming me because I actually follow politics and currents events, but I feel like trying to change the system is futile (yet I still vote). The power structures need to be nuked and then we can start over (not gonna happen). Until them, I plan on becoming an ex-pat. America is going nowhere but down.
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Speaking out of my political science background here, that's a vast oversimplification. Political change doesn't work by bootstraps any more than economic success. There are structural forces at play that make American politics a special kind of dysfunctional, and fixing them's more than a matter of trying hard every day.
Any given political system is a set of rules for a game. The payoff for the game is power. When people play the game long enough, they become very good at optimal strategies. The optimal strategies in American politics are very, very effective at creating tactical dysfunction and legislative gridlock, and anyone playing the game - no matter how well intentioned, no matter how deadset on fixing the rules - has to beat the players using those strategies. In order to beat them, you've got to join them...and that's where a lot of good intentions die.
I'm not saying it's easy, but when did you last see anyone make a grass roots attempt to change the rules of the game? It simply doesn't happen. Everyone is so certain the system can't be changed that no one even tries.
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I also think that this idea that the system is so convoluted and entangled in political mess is just another of those really useful myths that serve as the perfect excuse for the intelligent middle class people to just sit on their couches, see some sportscenter or read a book and bitterly complain that no one will ever do anything about it.
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I'm not saying it's easy, but when did you last see anyone make a grass roots attempt to change the rules of the game? It simply doesn't happen. Everyone is so certain the system can't be changed that no one even tries.
Not only does it happen, it's actually fairly common. 2008 and 2011 were both marked by major grassroots movements targeting fundamental change...and I suppose 2009, even if I'd disagree pretty strenuously with their aims. All of these movements have been compromised or marginalized.
I also think that this idea that the system is so convoluted and entangled in political mess is just another of those really useful myths that serve as the perfect excuse for the intelligent middle class people to just sit on their couches, see some sportscenter or read a book and bitterly complain that no one will ever do anything about it.
The middle class doesn't engage in empirical analysis of outcomes or cross-national comparisons. The American governmental system has some deep design flaws.
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Yes they do. The smarter ones anyway. Hell I'm barely middle class and I think I am able to see how ****ed up the US healthcare system is.
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I do not for one second believe the middle class sits around running Monte Carlo simulations or building Excel spreadsheets of executive branch staff size since the FDR administration. :p
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You don't need any of that fancy stuff to make a simple comparison between Canadian and USofA healthcare systems. People might not know the details, but it's fairly easy to just see what is working and what is a mess.
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Oh, totally, but I do think it requires some higher-level analysis to see how ****ed our institutional problems with solving problems have gotten.
That or you watch ~THE WIRE~ :smuggo:
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You don't need any of that fancy stuff to make a simple comparison between Canadian and USofA healthcare systems. People might not know the details, but it's fairly easy to just see what is working and what is a mess.
Ah, but that requires educating yourself.
The vast majority of the American populace would be hard-pressed to name more than 2 Canadian provinces, nevermind give a basic summation of the differences in the health care systems. It comes out regularly during their elections - the misinformation, and the amount that politicians get away with is astounding.
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Americans are low-information drones who know basically nothing, but this is arguably a pretty rational reaction to the American system, since the ability-to-influence-policy payoff for investing time in gathering political information is minimal and you're better off just taking cues from elites while you continue to desperately armor yourself against financial and physical hardship. America needs a social safety net in order to foster an informed, prosperous populace, but it can't create that safety net until its populace picks up a little more information and prosperity.
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2008 and 2011 were both marked by major grassroots movements targeting fundamental change...and I suppose 2009, even if I'd disagree pretty strenuously with their aims.
Not only do I disagree "pretty strenuously with their aims", I disagree pretty strenuously that they can be classified as "grassroots."
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I'm not saying it's easy, but when did you last see anyone make a grass roots attempt to change the rules of the game? It simply doesn't happen. Everyone is so certain the system can't be changed that no one even tries.
A good example for an area americans can use that is potentially snuffed out as an option. How long before that grass roots movement gets considered to be a terrorist group and a bunch of militarized police come to screw everybody over? Options for what americans can do everyday are getting removed from the people. Americans should do something about it. Perhaps there are other issues that are more pressing.
I know if i were wanting to do something, or anything...i'd make sure before hand if i have enough money and will even produce enough money to simply keep myself alive. Something tells me that this is one big pressing matter for anyone american who wants to change how bad my government is. And what a great strategy, make sure your people can't revolt. It's sad to think of the idea of americans who think that the system can't be changed. I just think it's being made more difficult daily, but that change is not impossible.
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I'm not saying it's easy, but when did you last see anyone make a grass roots attempt to change the rules of the game? It simply doesn't happen. Everyone is so certain the system can't be changed that no one even tries.
A good example for an area americans can use that is potentially snuffed out as an option. How long before that grass roots movement gets considered to be a terrorist group and a bunch of militarized police come to screw everybody over? Options for what americans can do everyday are getting removed from the people. Americans should do something about it. Perhaps there are other issues that are more pressing.
I know if i were wanting to do something, or anything...i'd make sure before hand if i have enough money and will even produce enough money to simply keep myself alive. Something tells me that this is one big pressing matter for anyone american who wants to change how bad my government is. And what a great strategy, make sure your people can't revolt. It's sad to think of the idea of americans who think that the system can't be changed. I just think it's being made more difficult daily, but that change is not impossible.
I'm pessimistic about our system, but I don't think the government is out to get us and that we are turning into a police state. Ironically our federal gov system has been designed to dilute power and have groups at loggerheads in order to prevent one group having sole power and doing just as you said. Ironic how well it worked out, and how little we can get done now. I need to re-read the federalist papers...
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Not only does it happen, it's actually fairly common. 2008 and 2011 were both marked by major grassroots movements targeting fundamental change...and I suppose 2009, even if I'd disagree pretty strenuously with their aims. All of these movements have been compromised or marginalized.
All of them started out with deep, deep flaws in their ideology which made them pretty easy to marginalise. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about simply realising that the system is so deeply ****ed that you can't bring a list of changes you want from your side and tilt at windmills. Instead you need to draw up a bi-partisan, inclusive list of the things everyone agrees on and do something about those first.
I'll give you a for instance, everyone knows that corporate lobbying is one of the major reasons the system is ****ed. When did you see a grassroots campaign to ban corporate lobbying with no other left or right wing goals. You don't see that, everyone always adds other goals which they know the other side are against and the system doesn't change. Revolution happens because of simple ideas everyone agrees with. Not because of a list of demands about what will happen once the revolution is complete.
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thats hard to do in a 2 party system. especially with both parties are heavily funded by the lobbyists. ive heard republicans (and probibly democrats too) say flat out that lobbying is the american way, and will probibly not vote it down ever. we cant even kill the filibusterer because the republicans love that little strategy. its just a waste time and do nothing until we get our way strategy. government shutdown same thing. you try to take away such a well established political strategy and they give you that american way speech and keep on doing what they were. i for one am sick of these do nothing strategies.
if i remember my history right, strategies similar to these is how the nazis managed to take over germany. at least give me some jack boots and black uniform and tell me to kill arbitrary sections of society.
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Not only does it happen, it's actually fairly common. 2008 and 2011 were both marked by major grassroots movements targeting fundamental change...and I suppose 2009, even if I'd disagree pretty strenuously with their aims. All of these movements have been compromised or marginalized.
All of them started out with deep, deep flaws in their ideology which made them pretty easy to marginalise. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about simply realising that the system is so deeply ****ed that you can't bring a list of changes you want from your side and tilt at windmills. Instead you need to draw up a bi-partisan, inclusive list of the things everyone agrees on and do something about those first.
I'll give you a for instance, everyone knows that corporate lobbying is one of the major reasons the system is ****ed. When did you see a grassroots campaign to ban corporate lobbying with no other left or right wing goals. You don't see that, everyone always adds other goals which they know the other side are against and the system doesn't change. Revolution happens because of simple ideas everyone agrees with. Not because of a list of demands about what will happen once the revolution is complete.
I just don't think historical evidence bears out the main axis of your argument here, whether in America or anywhere else. I don't think this is the mechanism of political change.
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I think you're very, very wrong there. Many wars of independence have been followed by civil wars precisely because the the simple goal of independence was then immediately followed by dispute over the complex issue of what to do with it.
Most large political change has come about precisely because of people coming together for a common cause.
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I think that civil wars are the kinds of vehicles for political change that are the least optimal way to accomplish the objective. They're "effective", not "efficient" or even "a good thing".
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So have the revolution but don't have the civil war then. :p
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I think you're very, very wrong there. Many wars of independence have been followed by civil wars precisely because the the simple goal of independence was then immediately followed by dispute over the complex issue of what to do with it.
Most large political change has come about precisely because of people coming together for a common cause.
The problem is that when you get bipolar agreement on an issue in American politics (and you get this agreement on most issues - the parties, as well as the American electorate, have the same policy preferences in most domains) then that issue gets handled in a new president's first term or a new legislature's first session.
The really hard problems (like the role of money in politics) stick around because there's a structural disincentive to deal with them even in the face of apparent bipartisan consensus. We just had a huge popular groundswell in part about getting money out of politics, and, well, it didn't make much headway at all, even though major figures in both parties have been putting effort into this topic for years. And when progress is made - like when my home state recently put mandatory caps on campaign spending - it's often defeated by institutionalized features of the American political landscape: in this case, the Supreme Court struck the law down as unconstitutional.
(Interestingly, the real players in terms of political money aren't corporations but individual donors. The efficacy of political donations in altering campaign outcomes is a whole separate analytical problem on top of that..)
A bipartisan grassroots movement to get big money out of politics is a lovely idea in theory. It's the praxis that always trips these things up.
To be clear, if progress here is made I think it'll occur through a constitutional amendment. But make no mistake, the American electorate is already essentially unanimous on this topic - you can get Tea Party and Occupy members to agree on the problem of corporate spending in elections. This is now a matter of structural incentives for the electorate vs. the powerholders.
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@General Battuta :
You are mostly speaking about getting money out of the election process. What about other parts of the political decision process ?
I don't know much about American politics, but, the EU for example relies a lot on semi independent advisers (coming from the corporate world, national administrations, and some NGOs) to prepare its directives and regulations.
In 2001, the EU Commission (a board responsible for proposing new directives and regulations and applying them, after they are approved by both the Council of the EU and the European Parliament) published a White Paper, a set of guidelines, regarding how to participate in the decision process.
This White Paper is designed for use by what they call "Civil Society", but it turns out the only way to "participate" efficiently, according to this WP, is to publish high grade studies about highly technical topics. The only groups of people who can afford (time, money, HRs) to do this work are big corporations, and a few NGOs...
I can't say it's really good for the public interest. Everybody in the EU "work groups" think what they are doing is something technical (free market regulations, food or water safety...), but in the end it's still politics... If they want to be on par with companies, trade unions and NGOs have to pay their social scientists and lawyers on the same level as corporate lawyers, so they pick their battles. The EU tries to encourage transparency by registering private interest representatives, publishing their sources of income, but it's not enough yet.
Once you know that big chunks (if not all) of economic sovereignty (including free market, taxes, commercial law, money) of 28 countries making together the first GDP in this world have been transferred to the EU and its post-democratic shared beliefs, it gets somehow scary.
I don't know how it's evolving in Washington, but it has to be somehow similar. So, to me, big money in the election process is only one issue among many others in our political systems...
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But make no mistake, the American electorate is already essentially unanimous on this topic - you can get Tea Party and Occupy members to agree on the problem of corporate spending in elections.
Unanimous in complaining about it. But no one is willing to do anything beyond hoping that the policy makers actually do something about it.
Let me ask you this question. What percentage of people do you believe have personally done anything to change this issue? Even something as simple as writing a letter? Hell, how many of the people reading this thread have personally done anything about it?
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Do you really think writing a letter would do jack ****? You'll most likely get a lovely form response from a congressional staffer, and that's about it.
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I don't think one person writing a letter would do anything. I think everybody writing a letter would. But this basically highlights my entire point. Everyone knows the system is broken. Everyone spends an enormous amount of time *****ing about how the system is broken. No one does anything to fix it.
It's quite hilarious actually. Even despite proof that when people actually do something the system is fixed (e.g when the entire internet rose up to complain about SOPA) everyone is so convinced that nothing can be done that they do nothing.
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That is why Battuta's diagnosis irks me so much. Not that it isn't true, it might well be and I believe he can make a very complete case about it, but that it is especially true if everyone believes in it (or in a simple variation of it). It's absolutely self-defeating and that kind of tone makes my blood boil. A bit.
What percentage of people do you believe have personally done anything to change this issue? Even something as simple as writing a letter? Hell, how many of the people reading this thread have personally done anything about it?
Hey that's not fair! I'm not an american! I have my own country to deal with.
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im stockpiling ammo.
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That is why Battuta's diagnosis irks me so much. Not that it isn't true, it might well be and I believe he can make a very complete case about it, but that it is especially true if everyone believes in it (or in a simple variation of it). It's absolutely self-defeating and that kind of tone makes my blood boil. A bit
Hell, I'll go further and say that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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You guys are hilarious. 'Here's a structural and empirical analysis of the gridlock in American politics.' 'If you just WORKED HARDER it wouldn't be an issue!' It's the libertarian fallacy - no amount of bootstraps political activism is going to fix this problem. It's no more a self-fulfilling prophecy than that homeless schizophrenic man's failure to find work: there are externalities in the way.
I've worked full-time as a political operative in the past and I still get involved pretty regularly...in addition to my past professional work doing data analysis for political scientists, of course, which is the position I'm coming from when I talk about these issues. Step it up! :p Believe me when I say that American politics has a lot of analogs with a homeless schizophrenic guy.
Rocket scientists aren't falling victim to a self-fulfilling prophecy when they write delta-V budgets for their missions. Mental health patients aren't hampered by self-fulfilling prophecy when they recite the symptoms of clinical depression. The American electorate's struggles with a structurally recalcitrant system that cannot, in many cases be repaired by anything short of a constitutional amendment - an insanely difficult process that people are, nonetheless, campaigning for right now - is not a case of self-fulfilling prophecy.
There's a push for a campaign finance reform constitutional amendment going on right now. Its success is probably going to be predicated on the incentives available to the powerholding elite, so I'm not super optimistic.
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To make a tacit point more explicit, I guess - getting involved in politics at even a basic level is an expense. Even realistically myopic agents can calculate the payoff for that expense. The payoff is particularly low in the American system, since we use first-past-the-post and we have very unstructured campaigns that are often easily gamed, and on top of that we have an awful social safety net. This means that an individual agent in the system has to dedicate more resources to short-term survival than to long-term low-payoff investments like, say, working a phone bank for a grassroots organization...which of course, makes it harder to fix the long term problems.
I worked door to door and as an organizer for Obama, but, tellingly, the only reason my candidate made it past the primaries was because his political operatives were able to game the primary elections in several key states to outmaneuver Hillary. If it hadn't been for that maneuver, I'd have been working for her.
In general it seems like there's some concern that this understanding is paralytic, that it prevents mass collective action. I'm not too worried about that. I don't think the problem would go away even if we didn't understand it and I was, instead, posting about the value of Calling Your Congressman. Broadly speaking I think we should prefer understanding systemic issues to not understanding them.
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Broadly speaking I think we should prefer understanding systemic issues to not understanding them.
Except if you consider understanding these issues should not be considered a decent job, which is an alarmingly spreading opinion these days.
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Batts, I have a pretty nuanced understanding of American politics, and what you're missing is what you mentioned in the Constitutional amendment process.
In 2012, there were 211,000,000 people in the voting age population in the United States. Of that, 121,000,000 voted; a turnout of 57.5%.
Yet, if I walked down an average street in an average American town and asked each and every person over 18 their top 3 "political" problems in the United States, I would get a remarkable consensus. However, if I polled them on if they voted or not, at least 1/3 of them statistically had not.
This is the problem plaguing democracies generally - everyone can tell you what the major problems in any political system are; only 1/2 to 2/3 are motivated enough to get off their asses and vote - nevermind get more involved than that. Yes, there are structural reasons why it makes more sense to focus on bare survival than lofty political concepts, but there is also a point to be made that the problems people talk about are the things that affect their very survival.
This was my point back on page 1: HLP membership are reasonably well-educated, articulate, and clearly not just focusing on survival-level social issues - so why are so many people set to contently gripe about political problems and do nothing about it?
Moreover, while Canada does not have the structural gridlock feature built into the US system, we do have quite a series of our own democratic problems (and a first-past-the-post electoral system), yet many relatively large changes are still possible when people get involved. For the first time, we have progressed beyond merely talking about reforming part of our system; a query has been referred to the Supreme Court to ask how we can structurally go about doing it (whether we'll be able to is an open question).
While Canadians are becoming more politically cynical, one big difference between the way we manage things and the way the US manages things is that people of all socioeconomic stripes still get personally invested in the political process when an issue becomes important enough. This happens in the US too, but with an increasingly alarming lack of frequency.
Apathetic defeatism, even in the face of huge structural problems, is a sure way to get nothing done.
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Sure, but in this case I think it is the rational response from the ground-level perspective. Americans aren't cynical, undereducated, ignorant, and passive for completely acausal reasons: we have a system that pushes them that way. You're absolutely right to say that we can't fix the system without overcoming these issues - but that's exactly the catch-22 I'm trying to point out.
I could start Positive Posting about Americans in politics right now and it would not change the underlying problems, even if it'd probably end this thread. I could say that I think getting American HLPlites involved in politics would make a difference, but I don't think that's true either, and I don't think altering that belief will alter any outcomes.
People make rules for games, and then they learn to play the games. Badly designed games fall into degenerate strategies: thus the collapse of the global economy after the rules changes of the late 90s/early noughts. American politics may well be one of those games too. Like it or not, I think that if a rules change does come, it will be conducted like most other power transactions right back to the founding of American government: by a self-interested elite, not amoral, but wary of divesting themselves of their influence.
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Sure, but in this case I think it is the rational response from the ground-level perspective. Americans aren't cynical, undereducated, ignorant, and passive for completely acausal reasons: we have a system that pushes them that way.
This forever. The state of things is by design. We're brainwashed by the news, given a worthless compulsory education, encouraged to accrue obscene debt to get an actual education (and even that's dubious at best for most), then told to work work work! consume consume consume! Told that not having money is morally wrong and that getting rich is the only way to have some kind of security in your life. Everyone is kept distracted so that being able to wake up and see the bigger picture is pretty damn hard, and even if you, do trying to win anyone else over is usually futile. Too many easier excuses and scapegoats out there.
Having said all of that, I did vote in '08 and '12 in districts where I had no chance of making a difference just to "scream into the storm," and I donate a few bucks here and there to causes that interest me. I just don't think it will matter. :blah:
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Where you're wrong Battuta is in assuming that people need to keep playing the game. History is full of examples of cases where people decided not to.
But in the end people do. Cause they prefer to complain then to actually get off their arses and do something about it. If everyone who complains about politics actually spent the same amount of time trying to change things that they do arguing on forums about changing things, then things would have to change.
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I agree that the potential for change is still there. I don't agree that the problem with America is that Hard Light Productions members complain on forums about America's political problems. I'm well above the median American in terms of political involvement and I don't think I've made a whit of difference.
People's behavior is the product of causal factors. The poor aren't unemployed and impoverished because they're lazy. Americans aren't cynical, undereducated and politically disengaged because they just lack that political go-getter revolutionary je ne sais quo. Systems need to be disentangled, variables altered.
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I think you miss my point. I'm not complaining about individual behaviour. I'm not saying that people on HLP could make a difference. But as a country, it's another matter.
If everyone on every forum did something at the same time stuff would change. So it's hilarious to watch everyone complain simultaneously about something and then give up cause they can't change anything. Even though the numbers are quite clearly there to do so.
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Right, of course, it's a collective action problem. The payoff for an individual strategy change is low so nobody changes, even though the payoff for a mass strategy change would actually be hugely positive.
But, look, this is what I've been saying all along: the reason I'm pushing back on your points is that you aren't going deep enough. You don't get poor people into work by reminding them that, boy, if they just all got up and send out more applications they'd probably find something. You need to figure out why people aren't more politically engaged. You've got to get into the structural factors and look there.
If Americans aren't turning out en masse for change then there's a reason. You have to get a causal map.
Right now the explanations I'm hearing don't go deeper than 'Americans sure are ignorant, cynical, and disengaged!' (this is true) But that's not a useful diagnostic. If Americans are dispositionally disinclined to ever asking for change, well, end of story, right? But we all know that's not the case. There are causal factors that can be identified.
As ever what I'm pushing for here is recognition that the situation is more complicated than a massive failure of individual will.
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I don't doubt that that is the case.
The point I was making is that the solution is simple. It's execution may be complex but that's a rather different issue. By painting it as a ridiculously difficult problem to solve you actually demotivate people and make it harder to solve.
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I don't think pretending that a complex implementation is simple is ever going to help anyone, because I don't think it's fundamentally a problem of motivation or morale. It's the sociopolitical equivalent of the mythical man-hour.
And yeah, I do think it's a ridiculously difficult problem, a colossal problem.
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I'm going to have to simply disagree with you then.
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Well it is a monumental gigantic impossible effort if you are trying to overcome every single possible structural problem in sociopolitics.
Aim lower and more precisely and perhaps a lot more efficiency and a lot less frustration might come your way.
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I don't really see where the solution is "simple" and that just throwing political activism at the problem is going to fix it. For one thing the United States isn't one ideological entity, its a vast tableau of often conflicting ideologies. Its not even as simple as red vs blue, within those divisions are multiple different groups. While a large portion of Americans probably would agree that things are broken they certainly won't agree on the solution. Even with full investment of the populace the response would be very fractured.
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I'll just put this the easy way for most people to understand.
If it is the type of people who will do something to fix the situation, all of those people have been left not knowing what to do.
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your easy way does... not actually make sense, grammatically
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your easy way does... not actually make sense, grammatically
QFT; rephrase plox
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Alrighty.
The people who are capable of doing something about the situation have been left not knowing what to do.