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Thread: Division and the illusion of party

  1. #11
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    Jets's Avatar Senior Member
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    Let’s called it what it is :the Corporate Party System represented by two groups determined to use tribalism to make us attack one another while lining their pockets from SIGs.
    Always agree to disagree.

    Always give the other poster the last word, whether correct or not.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jets View Post
    Let’s called it what it is :the Corporate Party System represented by two groups determined to use tribalism to make us attack one another while lining their pockets from SIGs.
    But the state has a monopoly on power. Corporations can only purchase it.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    I would like to see the Republicans and Democrats forced to pay the total cost of their own primary elections. As it stands, taxpayers shell out millions of dollars so that the leaders of the two major parties can determine which candidate is more popular with the voters. If I, like nearly half of all voters, belong to neither party, why should I be forced to pay to help them make that decision? How does the leadership of all the third parties make the decision of who to run for what office? Questionnaires mailed to all registered members? Let the D's and the R's do that, or whatever. As it stands now, the laws about such things are in the hands of legislators and executives, nearly 100% of whom belong to one of those two parties, so - realistically - figure the odds that they would ever vote for the privilege of paying for what they're getting now at taxpayer expense.
    Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard

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    Offer a binding NOTA where if NOTA wins there's a redo. The cost would kill them.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    I think that people generally tend towards polarization as a social identity. We identify with the place we live, our religions, our color, our morality, and yes, our sports teams. We tend to take all of our woes and project them onto the "others". If we do something that we know is bad, we tend to accuse others of it in some kind of attempt to not be responsible for it ourselves. It is a strange pshycological adaptation we must have developed from thousands of years of having to do things contrary to social norms and our own sense of right and wrong. Look at this forum, treat it like a microcosm of the world's social interactions. For example-
    Poster #1- "You are a moron."
    Poster #2- "No, you are a moron."
    Poster #1- " Wow, I can't believe you would result to name-calling when your argument was questioned. Everything you ever said is discredited. You should be thread-banned for calling me a moron."
    Poster #2- What? You called me a name first!"
    Poster #1- "No I didn't. You are a liar. Prove it."
    Poster #2- "Here's the quote of what you said: "You are a moron."."
    Poster #1- "Your evidence is baseless and proves nothing."

    As long as we share this kind of intelligence, which is really stretching the term "intelligence", we are doomed as a person, a community, a country, and a species. The two-party system we have in place today in politics is just an example of the outcome to this kind of thinking. The 1% of us engaged in politics understand and use this polarization against us. A few really astute politicians create things that polarize us. Most of us are just unwitting victims and we choose sides and get repeatedly mainipulated back and forth.
    I can say nowdays this is way easier than in the past. With state and government monetary awards given to schools who perform better than others, there has been a long-term trend in schools where standardized test score results have overridden learning. Certain subjects get taught at earlier ages than before, like algebra, in order to make a student body seem smarter than another school's. This adds alot of stress on kids who have to learn the basics at a faster rate than we ever had to, and when most kids can't keep up with that faster pace, it gets blamed on bad parenting. So teachers convince parents their student is the only one holding the whole class back, and make the parents hire full-time tutors for their children. Or they enroll them in an after-school tutor program for an extra 2 hours a day.
    This all culminates in the real problem of our education system. We are being taught to memorize tons of things in our short-term memory, then take a test and forget it afterwards, then start memorizing again for the next set of tests. We are not being taught how to think critically. We are told something is the way it is, or that something is a fact. We are never told why something is the way it is, or why something is true.
    This is not isolated to kids in school, either. Adults who watch tv news get it just as bad. And I have no proof, but I do join in with the suspicions of others that things like flouride in our water supplies help drop IQ numbers enough to keep too many people from realizing the full scope of how we have been trained, and how we could be a much more amazing, self-sustaining society than we currently are.
    Personally, I don't vote. Unless someone like Jesse Ventura or Tulsi Gabbard runs, I probably never will. If I were to vote, it's like owning everything that politician does while he/she is in office. To some people, not voting makes me part of the problem in this country. Maybe that is partially true. But if I had voted for Obama, I would be responsible for him passing the Affordable Care Act, which actually cost people more on their health care costs. I would have been responsible for helping him become the drone-strike king. Even worse, I would have been part of his taking the hopes of the entire world and smashing them irrepairably.
    If I had voted for Trump, the same applies. I would be responsible for the establishment of an entirely new level of government corruption by industrial giants. I would be responsible for a level of divisiveness that seems the same or worse than during our Civil War.
    So, I can't, in good conscience, vote. Both parties are wholly corrupt. Both are totally unethical. It's madness. Someday soon, after trade embargoes and our nation collapsing, when half of us are speaking Russian, and the other half speaking Chinese, maybe we can get together and discuss what led to our downfall. In the end, it will be our fake-a$$ education system, our fake-a$$ news, and our fake-a$$ politicians and their polarized party system.
    I live with a profound happiness that can only be achieved by being hated by Mr.Veritis

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    I think that people generally tend towards polarization as a social identity. We identify with the place we live, our religions, our color, our morality, and yes, our sports teams. We tend to take all of our woes and project them onto the "others". If we do something that we know is bad, we tend to accuse others of it in some kind of attempt to not be responsible for it ourselves. It is a strange pshycological adaptation we must have developed from thousands of years of having to do things contrary to social norms and our own sense of right and wrong. Look at this forum, treat it like a microcosm of the world's social interactions.
    Because liberal capitalist democracy has undermined all those traditional ties.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Because liberal capitalist democracy has undermined all those traditional ties.
    I can agree with that. I tend to lean toward a more democratic sytem, myself, rather than a representative republic. But liberalism is a system that can only end in outright communism. Just like a representative government ends in no representation for the common citizens. Both cruise towards corruption and inequality until they collapse on themselves. Hell, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe our continual swing between 2 extremes over the last 2 centuries has kept us from disbanding all this time. Settling on one party might have flushed this nation down the toilet long ago.
    I live with a profound happiness that can only be achieved by being hated by Mr.Veritis

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    Quote Originally Posted by RadioGod View Post
    I can agree with that. I tend to lean toward a more democratic sytem, myself, rather than a representative republic. But liberalism is a system that can only end in outright communism. Just like a representative government ends in no representation for the common citizens. Both cruise towards corruption and inequality until they collapse on themselves. Hell, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe our continual swing between 2 extremes over the last 2 centuries has kept us from disbanding all this time. Settling on one party might have flushed this nation down the toilet long ago.
    Socialism/communism leads to the same problem because it replaces community with the state.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Standing Wolf View Post
    I would like to see the Republicans and Democrats forced to pay the total cost of their own primary elections. As it stands, taxpayers shell out millions of dollars so that the leaders of the two major parties can determine which candidate is more popular with the voters. If I, like nearly half of all voters, belong to neither party, why should I be forced to pay to help them make that decision? How does the leadership of all the third parties make the decision of who to run for what office? Questionnaires mailed to all registered members? Let the D's and the R's do that, or whatever. As it stands now, the laws about such things are in the hands of legislators and executives, nearly 100% of whom belong to one of those two parties, so - realistically - figure the odds that they would ever vote for the privilege of paying for what they're getting now at taxpayer expense.
    You're absolutely correct, in my opinion. We need a Constitutional Ammendment outlawing political parties. People could run on their own. They could put forth their own ideas for people to consider when voting. They wouldn't need money to run a campaign, because the news would naturally chase after them for interviews. And debates could be held at local venues supported by communities. A couple hundred dollars in electricity and coffee, I would chip in to see that in my local town hall. But, like you said, the odds of the 2 parties voting yes on an ammendment that would end those same 2 parties is greater than the odds that I would win the State Lotto, Powerball, and Megamillions jackpots all on the same night.
    Any kind of campaign finance reform or changes the parties make internally in their caucus system would only be shameful and condescending lip service meant to placate the citizens. They will always make sure there is a heirarchy in place that they sit at the top of, and they will abuse taxpayers at every opportunity. They could never pay for it themselves. Hell, we can't even pay for it. That sh*t goes on credit.
    I live with a profound happiness that can only be achieved by being hated by Mr.Veritis

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    But the state has a monopoly on power. Corporations can only purchase it.

    And purchase it they do!

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