GOP wins control of US Senate and other 2014 election stufff

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07 Dec 2014, 4:18 pm

I cannot both love this country and support the Congress elected this year.

America is throwing itself away with both hands. Fools.

auntblabby
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07 Dec 2014, 4:22 pm

Persimmonpudding wrote:

I cannot both love this country and support the Congress elected this year.

there has long been a division of expats who left this country because their progressive mindset did not mesh with the retrograde-mindset electorate here. I surely would have been one of them had I only some abundance of fundage to pay for a foreign residence. so what you say makes perfect sense to me.

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07 Dec 2014, 7:48 pm

auntblabby wrote:

BrutalMetalDood wrote:

In my honest opinion, if you think that voting Democrat OR Republican will fix the problem, then you are the problem. The two party system is one of the worst things to ever happen to our political system, and if we ever hope to fully restore this constitutional republic, then the current system has to go.

the problem with the present system is that if one doesn't vote for the lesser of two evils, one will ALWAYS get the greater of two evils. how does one enable a critical mass of voters to opt for better? have long thought that all elections need a "NONE OF THE ABOVE" category that would require a re-vote.

Proportional representation! The voting system needs to change. From wiki:

The term proportional representation (PR) characterizes electoral systems by which divisions in an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. If 30% of the electorate support a particular political party then roughly 30% of seats will be won by that party. The essence of such systems is that all votes contribute to the result, not just a plurality or majority of them.
(If Americans vote for the Libertarian/Socialist/Green Parties, they essentially waste their vote.)

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07 Dec 2014, 7:54 pm

trollcatman wrote:

(If Americans vote for the Libertarian/Socialist/Green Parties, they essentially waste their vote.)

I learned that the hard way when I voted for Anderson after carter pissed me off by reinstituting draft registration. ended up with a far worse hawk [Ronnie Raygun]

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08 Dec 2014, 12:11 am

auntblabby wrote:

trollcatman wrote:

(If Americans vote for the Libertarian/Socialist/Green Parties, they essentially waste their vote.)

I learned that the hard way when I voted for Anderson after carter pissed me off by reinstituting draft registration. ended up with a far worse hawk [Ronnie Raygun]

I think it is very unfair that when you vote for what you believe in, your vote is in reality worthless.
With proportional representation it is very unlikely that a single party could gain 50% of the votes, so they would have to compromise with another party to form a coalition. I'm curious how many people would stop voting for Dem/Rep with proportional representation. There are probably quite a few libertarian, socialists and greens who would stop voting for these parties if their own parties could get elected and possibly take part in coalition governments.

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08 Dec 2014, 12:19 am

trollcatman wrote:

I think it is very unfair that when you vote for what you believe in, your vote is in reality worthless. With proportional representation it is very unlikely that a single party could gain 50% of the votes, so they would have to compromise with another party to form a coalition. I'm curious how many people would stop voting for Dem/Rep with proportional representation. There are probably quite a few libertarian, socialists and greens who would stop voting for these parties if their own parties could get elected and possibly take part in coalition governments.

in countries with parliaments, don't they have to form coalition gov'ts? are they proportionally elected?

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08 Dec 2014, 12:54 am

auntblabby wrote:

in countries with parliaments, don't they have to form coalition gov'ts? are they proportionally elected?

The parliamentary system means that the executive branch of government can only remain in power as long as they have support from the legislative branch (congress, lower house, sejm, the word varies by country). If they lose the majority, new elections will be held.

Most countries on continental Europe are like that, and they have proportional representation as well. With proportional representation it is very unlikely for any single party to gain a majority, so it will usually have to be a coalition government with two or more parties.
Britain has a parliament and since the last election they have something that looks like proportional representation (more or less), but before that had a first past the post system I think.

I found this on wikipedia, a list of countries that currently have a coalition government. Nearly all European countries have one, and some consists of four or more parties. Finland even has six parties in their current government coalition, and Italy seven (! !! !):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_coalition_governments

This is the situation in the Netherlands after the 2010 election (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_(Netherlands))
I think it has changed a little since then, because some elected party members left their party (or were kicked out) but they can retain their seat as independents. The largest party has 41/150 seats so they need another party to get to the required 75+1.

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08 Dec 2014, 1:38 am

^^^
ok, how do we stop people from voting for the status quo? how can we get enough people who will vote for real progress?

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08 Dec 2014, 1:44 am

auntblabby wrote:

^^^
ok, how do we stop people from voting for the status quo? how can we get enough people who will vote for real progress?

I heard that more and more Americans self-identify as independents, instead of D or R. People who would rather support a third party should put proportional representation on the political agenda like they have done in the UK. As far as I know there isn't that much debat about the voting system or the third parties.

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08 Dec 2014, 8:31 pm

I think secession is ultimately the only way things will really change in this country, decentralization and more democracy shouldn't be looked at as a bad thing. It shouldn't be thought of as If you envy all those countries in Europe, just remember that they're about the size of 1 or two US states. Wisconsin is bigger than Norway, Denmark, or Finland for example. Why should we all be joined at the hip by 300+ million other people that don't even live in your state? Instead of going to war with our selves this time, lets have a real dialogue and negotiation. The UK and Scotland had a vote this year for independence and it failed but the UK gave Scotland even more autonomy because of it.

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09 Dec 2014, 1:13 am

auntblabby wrote:

^^^
ok, how do we stop people from voting for the status quo? how can we get enough people who will vote for real progress?

Didn't you just remind us of your straight party-line voting for the "lesser evil"?

Maybe start with yourself?

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09 Dec 2014, 1:30 am

Dox47 wrote:

auntblabby wrote:

^^^
ok, how do we stop people from voting for the status quo? how can we get enough people who will vote for real progress?

Didn't you just remind us of your straight party-line voting for the "lesser evil"?

Maybe start with yourself?

But voting for third parties is not really effective because of the weird voting system.

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09 Dec 2014, 1:35 am

trollcatman wrote:

But voting for third parties is not really effective because of the weird voting system.

not voting for the lesser of two evils [carter] resulted in a greater evil [Reagan] being elected. as long as there are entities in our political system that one has to defend oneself against, we are all trapped into voting for the lesser of two evils. I merely wanted to know what is the way out of this? how can we enter a more enlightened system where voting for who we really want avoids enabling another greater evil from being elected due to lack of support for the lesser evil? how do we get from here [gridlock punctuated by sheer terror] to there [proportional representation agreed upon by the electorate at large]? HOW???

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09 Dec 2014, 1:45 am

auntblabby wrote:

I merely wanted to know what is the way out of this?

Instant Runoff Voting, or IRV, is a good start. Under an IRV system, you don't just vote for a particular candidate, but rank them in order of preference, and as your top pick is eliminated, your vote transfers to the next one, until a winner is chosen. To use the 2000 elections as an example, someone wishing to vote for Nader but afraid to deny Gore their vote could have picked Nader 1 Gore 2, and after Nader was mathematically eliminated, their vote would have gone to Gore, thus allowing them to vote their conscience without fear of enabling the "greater evil". It's simple and effective, and it terrifies the major parties.

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09 Dec 2014, 1:46 am

trollcatman wrote:

But voting for third parties is not really effective because of the weird voting system.

Only so long as people are manipulated by the lesser evil rhetoric, the GOP started out as a third party, after all.

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auntblabby
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09 Dec 2014, 1:57 am

how do we get there? how do we make this happen? how do we make all the political parties agree to this?

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