Author Topic: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)  (Read 13205 times)

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Offline Dilmah G

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
That's the thing - bicameral parliaments are unnecessarily complicated.
+rest of long post
While I agree to some extent, the lack of a second or upper house of parliament means that the party that has the majority in the lower house can pass whatever legislation they like, for the most part. Example of this being Howard's WorkChoices a few years ago (also contributed to him losing the election), a ****ty piece of legislation that only got through because he had a double majority. Had the Senate functioned as it should (double majorities are generally rare), WorkChoices and other bad pieces of legislation wouldn't have gone through.

There's the argument that 'they're the party we elected into power, sure they should be allowed to do whatever they like within the confines of the law', but apart from complicating the process, the second parliamentary house is also there to keep the lower house of parliament accountable and actually perform the job of scrutinizing legislation and form at least semi-objective committees and such, two things that aren't necessarily well done in a house where one party has a (clear) majority.

The thing is, Finland is a relatively small country. Forming a functional government for five million people is somewhat different from forming a functional government for 300 million people. Proportional direct election would be problematic in USA. What would be the "block" of population that would have one representative? Would it be the 65,628 people in American Samoa? Or maybe the 544,270 people in Wyoming?
I agree. Too complicated. :P

 

Offline Bob-san

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
That's the thing - bicameral parliaments are unnecessarily complicated.
+rest of long post
While I agree to some extent, the lack of a second or upper house of parliament means that the party that has the majority in the lower house can pass whatever legislation they like, for the most part. Example of this being Howard's WorkChoices a few years ago (also contributed to him losing the election), a ****ty piece of legislation that only got through because he had a double majority. Had the Senate functioned as it should (double majorities are generally rare), WorkChoices and other bad pieces of legislation wouldn't have gone through.

There's the argument that 'they're the party we elected into power, sure they should be allowed to do whatever they like within the confines of the law', but apart from complicating the process, the second parliamentary house is also there to keep the lower house of parliament accountable and actually perform the job of scrutinizing legislation and form at least semi-objective committees and such, two things that aren't necessarily well done in a house where one party has a (clear) majority.

The thing is, Finland is a relatively small country. Forming a functional government for five million people is somewhat different from forming a functional government for 300 million people. Proportional direct election would be problematic in USA. What would be the "block" of population that would have one representative? Would it be the 65,628 people in American Samoa? Or maybe the 544,270 people in Wyoming?
I agree. Too complicated. :P
Then the other thing is, if there would be (for example) 600 representatives that run the entire Legislature, how would you fairly elect them so that they both represent their electors and their geographic areas? A district having 49% Republicans, 48% Democrats, and 3% Left-leaning Independents would have 1 representative who only represents half their electors. What it seems to me should happen is that the Electoral College be disbanded and direct election be the method for electing the nation's president. That way, Reps support individual districts, Senators individual states, and the President the popular opinion.

If that was the case, Al Gore would have been elected in 2000 with a split House (221r-212d) & Senate (50r-50d).
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Offline Herra Tohtori

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
That's the thing - bicameral parliaments are unnecessarily complicated.
+rest of long post
While I agree to some extent, the lack of a second or upper house of parliament means that the party that has the majority in the lower house can pass whatever legislation they like, for the most part. Example of this being Howard's WorkChoices a few years ago (also contributed to him losing the election), a ****ty piece of legislation that only got through because he had a double majority. Had the Senate functioned as it should (double majorities are generally rare), WorkChoices and other bad pieces of legislation wouldn't have gone through.

There's the argument that 'they're the party we elected into power, sure they should be allowed to do whatever they like within the confines of the law', but apart from complicating the process, the second parliamentary house is also there to keep the lower house of parliament accountable and actually perform the job of scrutinizing legislation and form at least semi-objective committees and such, two things that aren't necessarily well done in a house where one party has a (clear) majority.

Things like this can be mostly avoided if you have a set of supermajority rules for really important things and - ahem - if you have more than two parties.

Having more than two meaningful parties will make a situation where one party has more than half the votes extremely unlikely. It has happened only once in the history of Finnish Parliament - in 1916, when the Social Democratic Party of Finland secured 103 seats out of 200. Note that Finland was not even a sovereign country back then, but a Grand Duchy under Russian Empire.

One party majorities are very likely to happen with only two dominant parties.

When the number of dominant parties increases by even one, the odds of one of them scoring more than half the votes decreases dramatically. In case of Finland, there are four options by and large - the National Coalition Party, Centre Party, Social Democratic Party, and the rest (which includes minority parties like the Greens, Swedish People's Party, Christian Democratics and the populist party called "True Finns" which sadly seems to be gaining more and more support and seats lately). And considering how the parties co-operate to form governments and appoint positions in committees, even the smaller parties typically still have some influence.


Then the other thing is, if there would be (for example) 600 representatives that run the entire Legislature, how would you fairly elect them so that they both represent their electors and their geographic areas? A district having 49% Republicans, 48% Democrats, and 3% Left-leaning Independents would have 1 representative who only represents half their electors. What it seems to me should happen is that the Electoral College be disbanded and direct election be the method for electing the nation's president. That way, Reps support individual districts, Senators individual states, and the President the popular opinion.

If that was the case, Al Gore would have been elected in 2000 with a split House (221r-212d) & Senate (50r-50d).

Finnish presidents were chosen by an Electoral College until the 1994 elections, in which Martti Ahtisaari was elected the president on the second round in a direct election.

The problem of representatives having "split loyalties" depends on how many seats you have in the parliament, but a parliament's ability to function is inversely correlated with the number of seats in it.

There's also a possibility where each state elected a committee of representatives, and they would choose a spokesman from their midst who would be responsible of casting the votes on behalf of that group. For example, in a committee of nine representatives, you could have for example four Republicans and five Democrats, and the committee would have a number of votes to give; either so that each state's committee would have an equal amount of votes (like now), or so that the votes for each committee would be representative of their state's population.

The number of representatives selected for each committee would be up to the individual states; only one of them would appear in the senate and cast the votes as decided by the committee.

Of course, it would be an incredible hassle. However, in a country with a de facto two-party system, having two representatives of the state in the Senate has all likelyhood to be representative of the State's division - provided the division is close to 50% and both senators come from different parties. In a case where both senators come from the same party, the minority party's supporters are essentially unrepresented in the Senate. The committee system or whatever you want to call it would resolve that issue, at least to some extent.


But all this political talk is taking us further and further from the original topic. Not that I mind, it is the nature of conversations to diverge into new areas as they progress, just a remainder that originally we were talking about wikileaks and the related hactivist attacks against both wikileaks and against the financial services that stopped providing their services to wikileaks.
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Offline Dilmah G

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
Things like this can be mostly avoided if you have a set of supermajority rules for really important things and - ahem - if you have more than two parties.

Having more than two meaningful parties will make a situation where one party has more than half the votes extremely unlikely. It has happened only once in the history of Finnish Parliament - in 1916, when the Social Democratic Party of Finland secured 103 seats out of 200. Note that Finland was not even a sovereign country back then, but a Grand Duchy under Russian Empire.

One party majorities are very likely to happen with only two dominant parties.

When the number of dominant parties increases by even one, the odds of one of them scoring more than half the votes decreases dramatically. In case of Finland, there are four options by and large - the National Coalition Party, Centre Party, Social Democratic Party, and the rest (which includes minority parties like the Greens, Swedish People's Party, Christian Democratics and the populist party called "True Finns" which sadly seems to be gaining more and more support and seats lately). And considering how the parties co-operate to form governments and appoint positions in committees, even the smaller parties typically still have some influence.
True, but all the minor parties down here are nutjobs and working with them is akin to taking two steps backward. :P Seriously though, while I agree, I don't think the benefits of having coalitions formed instead of having one major party are really worth it, well, when observing the ridiculousness of parties like 'The Greens' down here, and such.

But all this political talk is taking us further and further from the original topic. Not that I mind, it is the nature of conversations to diverge into new areas as they progress, just a remainder that originally we were talking about wikileaks and the related hactivist attacks against both wikileaks and against the financial services that stopped providing their services to wikileaks.
This is true.

Kind of on-topic.

 

Offline Mars

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
True, but all the minor parties down here are nutjobs and working with them is akin to taking two steps backward. :P Seriously though, while I agree, I don't think the benefits of having coalitions formed instead of having one major party are really worth it, well, when observing the ridiculousness of parties like 'The Greens' down here, and such.

If the population who believes them is small, their vote will be small. That's the thing, it would be proportional.

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
Not to further from the topic at hand, but in response to that, there's widespread disapproval with both major parties, and the more extreme parties are the ones perceived as the group with the ability and the will to enact positive change, rather than pussyfooting around major issues and such.

If you're still up for discussing it, I'd suggest we take it to PM's so as not to clutter/derail the thread.

 

Offline redsniper

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
Not to further from the topic at hand, but in response to that, there's widespread disapproval with both major parties

Er... what? Not enough disapproval to actually give any other parties a shot though....

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Offline Klaustrophobia

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
approval is not required to maintain power.  our congress has a FIVE percent approval rating.  (or did at one point somewhat recently)
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
I am a big believer in the one man, one vote rule, by way of the Vetinari variation.

 

Offline Bobboau

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
I think it should be 1 man 2 votes.
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Offline Dilmah G

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
That voting system Churchill or someone proposed was brilliant. :D

 

Offline Nuclear1

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
UPDATE:   Fox News' Glenn Beck has recently started going after Anonymous...and here's their reply:

Quote
Mr. Beck,

We have no problem with those who criticize us. We understand that freedom of speech includes the right to speak out in criticism of those whom you may not agree with. We have many critics, and we respect their first amendment rights.

However, in your recent comments, it seems that you and/or your editing team have mixed up a few details during your research on us. We at Anonymous wish to set the record straight, so that you and your audience will be better informed about us and our objectives. Hopefully, this will reduce some of the anxiety you may feel towards us in the process.

You see, Mr. Beck, we are not an organization. We have no leaders. We have no official spokesperson. We have no age, race, ethnicity, color, nationality, or gender. Anyone who claims to speak for all of us is, quite frankly, a liar. To be clear, the gentleman known as Coldblood was not sanctioned by anyone but himself to speak on our behalf.

Your attempts to formally link Anonymous to Wikileaks were misguided. We are not formally linked to Mr. Assange, to Wikileaks, or the break-off operation, Openleaks. To reiterate, we are not an organization of any kind.

You spoke of revolution as though it is necessarily a bad thing. Let us remind you that America was founded upon revolution. Furthermore, the world we live in today is the result of numerous revolutions that have occurred throughout human history – many of them being positive, and resulting in advancements for all of humanity.

You seem to imply that we are revolutionaries. We do not object to this - in fact, it pleases us.

Neither Wikieaks nor its founder have been charged with any crime in connection to any of the published leaks. Thus, we at Anonymous see any actions directed at silencing Wikileaks as an assault on our freedom of information and the freedom of those at Wikileaks to publish as they see fit.

Whether young or old, political or apolitical, moderate or hard-liner, the issue of freedom of speech and information affects us all. Please do not aspire to make the Wikileaks issue more divisive than it already is, Mr. Beck.

We embrace everyone from all walks of life, from all corners of the earth, to join us in our quest to protect and further enhance not only our rights to freedom of information and freedom of speech, but all of our human freedoms.

You are welcome to talk to us at anytime. We will answer any further questions you may have. After further dialogue, perhaps then you will see that you and we are not so different. Anonymous can be anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and that includes you and your audience as well, Mr. Beck. We simply wish to see the freedoms of all Americans and all citizens of Earth to be at the very least maintained, and wherever possible, strengthened and enhanced to their fullest extent.

Signed,

Anonymous
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Offline Herra Tohtori

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
UPDATE:   Fox News' Glenn Beck has recently started going after Anonymous...and here's their reply:

Quote
Mr. Beck,

We have no problem with those who criticize us. We understand that freedom of speech includes the right to speak out in criticism of those whom you may not agree with. We have many critics, and we respect their first amendment rights.

However, in your recent comments, it seems that you and/or your editing team have mixed up a few details during your research on us. We at Anonymous wish to set the record straight, so that you and your audience will be better informed about us and our objectives. Hopefully, this will reduce some of the anxiety you may feel towards us in the process.

You see, Mr. Beck, we are not an organization. We have no leaders. We have no official spokesperson. We have no age, race, ethnicity, color, nationality, or gender. Anyone who claims to speak for all of us is, quite frankly, a liar. To be clear, the gentleman known as Coldblood was not sanctioned by anyone but himself to speak on our behalf.

Your attempts to formally link Anonymous to Wikileaks were misguided. We are not formally linked to Mr. Assange, to Wikileaks, or the break-off operation, Openleaks. To reiterate, we are not an organization of any kind.

You spoke of revolution as though it is necessarily a bad thing. Let us remind you that America was founded upon revolution. Furthermore, the world we live in today is the result of numerous revolutions that have occurred throughout human history – many of them being positive, and resulting in advancements for all of humanity.

You seem to imply that we are revolutionaries. We do not object to this - in fact, it pleases us.

Neither Wikieaks nor its founder have been charged with any crime in connection to any of the published leaks. Thus, we at Anonymous see any actions directed at silencing Wikileaks as an assault on our freedom of information and the freedom of those at Wikileaks to publish as they see fit.

Whether young or old, political or apolitical, moderate or hard-liner, the issue of freedom of speech and information affects us all. Please do not aspire to make the Wikileaks issue more divisive than it already is, Mr. Beck.

We embrace everyone from all walks of life, from all corners of the earth, to join us in our quest to protect and further enhance not only our rights to freedom of information and freedom of speech, but all of our human freedoms.

You are welcome to talk to us at anytime. We will answer any further questions you may have. After further dialogue, perhaps then you will see that you and we are not so different. Anonymous can be anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and that includes you and your audience as well, Mr. Beck. We simply wish to see the freedoms of all Americans and all citizens of Earth to be at the very least maintained, and wherever possible, strengthened and enhanced to their fullest extent.

Signed,

Anonymous

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Offline Bobboau

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
I would not be surprised if there were a lot of Anon beck fans.
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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
My local newspaper did a piece on all the E-attacks amazon and paypal and the other companies that cut off wikileaks are getting. It was hilarious, since they talked about how it was a 'mysterious group of hackers calling themselves Anonymous'. The way they put it, it sounded like Anonymous was a group of ex-KGB hackers hiding somewhere within a Swiss bank hell bent on destroying the west and rebuilding the soviet union. It's like they did their research by reading another paper that didn't do THEIR research.
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Offline achtung

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/16/wikileaks-anonymous-hierarchy-emerges

Hahaha, oh wow.

Looks like the Guardian got the "scoop."
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
I love Anonymous and want them to be around forever. It's like cyberpunk come to life.

 

Offline Thaeris

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
Indeed. We salute thee, Anon.

:D
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Offline redsniper

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Re: Crap, 4chan's at it again (Wikileaks related)
As long as there are ways to preserve anonymity on the internet, Anonymous will exist. Just like they say, it's not any kind of formal organization, it's just the collective will of bunch of folks who are in it for the lulz.
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The future makes happy, if you make it yourself.
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