How does the voter control those opaque internal movements?Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
How does the voter control those opaque internal movements?
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
How do you control all the parties you've never voted for? Or the ones you have voted for? How do you control policy so that your goals get implemented? How do you control education so that the results of your research get disseminated? How do you control anything besides your own two hands?
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Good job talking me out of supporting a parliamentary democracy. The point was, it's easier for the voters to punish an errant or misbehaving party than it is for them to mobilize factions within a party in a two-party system. But of course the single voter doesn't matter at all, so why don't we all embrace Bolshevism?
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
No, it's not. That's not a matter of how political interests are organized but of how people elect their governments *and you might regard this as a nitpick, but the US is NOT a parliamentary democracy which ALSO has an impact in both how political interests are organized and in how people elect their government* What you say is true, ONLY if the electoral system is one of voting for a party list as is common in some, but not all, parliamentary systems. It's near meaningless in the US where you vote for a specific candidate directly, and typically have already made a selection from a group of party candidates in a pre-election winnowing system like the primaries. In the US it's actually easier to affect intra-party factions than it is to move the party as a whole.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
It's not a nitpick, it's an important observation of a thing that had completely slipped my mind (or me using the wrong words out of ignorance, either way). I do wish your posts weren't so god-damned hard to de-crypt, but let's give this a go:
Voting for a party list as in what we do over here? I vote directly for a candidate of a party (you can run as an independent but let's ignore them for now), but each party within each voting district is given the number of seats that reflects their % of the votes cast, and then the parties fill these seats in the order of which individual candidates got most votes. Or do you mean something else?
I'm having trouble with the next sentence, too; what is "it" that is nearly meaningless? What I said? Party lists?
Given that all one can do in the US is try and affect intra-party factions, it's a good job that it's easy then! But let's look at this for a bit. An example of a very poor showing are the "log cabin Republicans", they're pretty much loathed by the rest of the GOP and don't really have a say in what the GOP drives forward. Another, more successful movement within the GOP was the take-over by the Evangelicals, sainting of uncle Reagan and all that good stuff. But I've been of the impression that it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing; did the grass-roots evangelical nut-jobs, individual Joe Six-Pack voters cause this, or was it engineered from above? To anoint uncle Reagan, and all that good stuff. I'm not sure what exactly you mean when you say it's easier to affect intra-party factions, and I sure as Hell don't know how that relates to running your nation.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
That is a type of party list, yes, albeit a type that gives voters more control than the basic concept.
What you said.I'm having trouble with the next sentence, too; what is "it" that is nearly meaningless? What I said? Party lists?
It is a chicken-and-egg problem because the answer is both. It was engineered by leaders within the party and those leaders were leaders because they had strong grassroots support. And then there were charismatic leaders who didn't have major movements backing them who threw their support his way, and grassroots movements without leadership who did the same, like the Democrats for Reagan. Reagan was elected because had broad appeal, across partisan lines. He appealed to the Middle. The rise of a major evangelical faction within the party *which did not then and has not now taken it over* started well into his first term. It happened because a bunch of long-standing Republicans let themselves be organized by religious leaders into a semi-focused voting bloc in reaction to this broad Middle vote which had the potential of drowning out their voices. Either led organizations, unorganized grassroots movements, or both can create significant change. The Tea Party is *or was* entirely a grassroots movement, it doesn't have focal leaders nationally. It created change according to what those grassroots want *and not what co-opting interests want* when it elected a number of freshmen Congress-critters, a number of whom the GOP might not have embraced if it had a choice, and who certainly aren't paying much attention to attempts to exercise party discipline by GOP congressional leaders.Given that all one can do in the US is try and affect intra-party factions, it's a good job that it's easy then! But let's look at this for a bit. An example of a very poor showing are the "log cabin Republicans", they're pretty much loathed by the rest of the GOP and don't really have a say in what the GOP drives forward. Another, more successful movement within the GOP was the take-over by the Evangelicals, sainting of uncle Reagan and all that good stuff. But I've been of the impression that it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing; did the grass-roots evangelical nut-jobs, individual Joe Six-Pack voters cause this, or was it engineered from above? To anoint uncle Reagan, and all that good stuff. I'm not sure what exactly you mean when you say it's easier to affect intra-party factions, and I sure as Hell don't know how that relates to running your nation.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
The NYT had a piece today that shows that the GOP has a relatively high number of congressional districts that are considered 'safe'. Which would make me think that the influence of the voter on those inner party workings are declining.
Isn't California a bit of an example for what all of America is turning into?
Congratulations America
Since GGT bumped the thread and I didn't see this before. . . there are two different definitions of safe seats. A seat that is safe for the person holding it and a seat that is safe for one of the parties. There is, naturally, a whole lot of overlap in these two definitions. In neither case, though, does it indicate the above. When a seat is safe because no one is getting the incumbent out, the incumbent is more or less immune to the internal party movements. S/he is still influenced by the voters though because it is invariably their local responsiveness that makes them so safe in the first place. When the seat is safe for one of the parties, then the only real function it has on inner-party workings is to make them less opaque. Because those workings are the only thing behind any changes with the seat. See what GGT is commenting on with her bump. Cantor's district hasn't voted Democrat since the party lost its southern-conservative wing.
And yeah, it looks like the country has been moving in the incredibly incumbent-protective direction we've been a national leader on
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
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