How did USA become such a messed up country?

[TommyB]

It's not their fault the majority of Americans are too retarded to know what they're voting for.

How sure are you of that? And does "failure to render assistance" count?

[Keller*]

That's not what I said. I said you have a vote and they have a vote. Bill Gates doesn't vote 20,000 times. He votes once, just like you. But while you're bringing it up, why is having more influence not fair? It's not fair that Obama was a better public speaker than Romney? Of course it's fair. Much like utopia, we're all playing the same game.


As noobium pointed out, the founders were very ok with the rich dominating the poor. Here's a fun fact, the income tax was originally illegal.


So let me get this straight. We have two kinds of voters here:
a.) The educated, well-informed voter that knows all the political campaign ads are bull**** and is determined to fight.
b.) The idiot that thinks George Bush was one of the greatest presidents of all time because that wolf ad he ran was so damn cool. Honestly surprised s/he can tie their own shoes.

You're telling me that Voter ID laws and less early voting is going to turn more away voter a than voter b?

1) No we are not playing the same game. When a billionaire or corporation buys an election or bribes a politician (sadly most of it legal) he is essentially making himself the only vote that counts. Its hardly ever blatant, they are smart enough to keep it under the radar. That stuff happens all the time whether its straight donations or more often financing from the PACs and think tanks. How can Joe Shmo citizen compete with that? How is that a level playing field? Theres no way u can honestly say it is.

2) So we've had elections in the country for 200 years and no ID was ever needed (unless u were black in the south before 1965, not ID exactly but plenty of other tricks) and now we suddenly need all these new laws to protect from the 0.001% of voter fraud out there? Really? ID laws may not change every election but they can have a big impact on close elections and many are close these days. And ID laws have been shown to affect minorities, young people and poor people more then anyone else, and guess which way those people vote most the time.

And no a misinformed or uninterested voter is not stupid, they probably have a lot going on in life and just dont have time to invest in paying attention. Unfortunately these are the people easily persuaded by ads and propaganda. There are many types of voters who vote for many different reasons I just want them to all be as informed as possible regardless of who they vote for.

[noobium]

So let me get this straight. We have two kinds of voters here:
a.) The educated, well-informed voter that knows all the political campaign ads are bull**** and is determined to fight.
b.) The idiot that thinks George Bush was one of the greatest presidents of all time because that wolf ad he ran was so damn cool. Honestly surprised s/he can tie their own shoes.

You're telling me that Voter ID laws and less early voting is going to turn more away voter a than voter b?

Yes, that is how it plays out. It's a barrier that is more likely to affect, for example, a black man living in an inner city project who might not have his own transportation and has to travel further to file the necessary paperwork, than a white yahoo who wants to vote Bush because it gives him a boner.

I'd be more worried about gerrymandered districts which guarantee republican seats in congress, voter intimidation, and outright vote fraud, but it's a valid concern...

Your right that some of the founders had a more aristocratic point of view and democracy has had to grow since then with universal suffrage and direct election of senators. But why give that all away now that we have it. Things may not be unacceptable for you now but this is a dangerous slippery slope here (and I dont use that argument that much) and eventually it will hit u if it hasnt yet.

Oh, things are definitely unacceptable to me already. I would be naive to think that change can occur through this system, but I can strike no on all the proposals I hate and make protest votes against the few politicians I've had the misfortune of meeting in person, and for a while I think I'm accomplishing something. That, and I can raise property taxes on all the middle-class punks so they can pay for public transportation or something they really hate, that really gets their craw.

[Palem]

Because those people made a concious choice to do so, most people doesn't, they make a passive one and buy from whoever is cheaper. Their morals or political leanings usually play very little part in that decision, convenience does.(which is why capitalism is as much of a utopia as communism is, neither can work in reality, communism because people are inherently selfish and capitalism because no consumer has the time or energy to weigh all the variables and pick the perfect choice when buying something)


For the same reason people could keep rubberstamping papers ordering the mass murder of jews during WWII, because there's a distance from you and the act.
To you it's just numbers/letters on a paper and you don't actually connect to said wrongful act in any meaningful manner.
You would hardly condone it when it happened in your face next door but when it's on the other side of the planet it's just numbers and letters on a paper and to most people it then becomes more important how the shoes or smartphone looks or how much it costs.
So said act is not a concious political or moral choice, it's a passive one, you simply don't care enough to make a stand(which is arguably a choice in and of itself).
It's also why natural disasters that hit tourist resorts get 100 times the relief funding of a natural disaster that affects a more rural area even if it kills a lot more people.
If you can easily imagine something happening to you or to a place you know then it becomes a lot more emotionally charged.

A passive choice is still a choice. Ignorance and laziness aren't good excuses.

How sure are you of that? And does "failure to render assistance" count?

I'd be pretty comfortable making a claim that at least 51% of Americans have little to no understanding of current political issues and policies.

1) No we are not playing the same game. When a billionaire or corporation buys an election or bribes a politician (sadly most of it legal) he is essentially making himself the only vote that counts. Its hardly ever blatant, they are smart enough to keep it under the radar. That stuff happens all the time whether its straight donations or more often financing from the PACs and think tanks. How can Joe Shmo citizen compete with that? How is that a level playing field? Theres no way u can honestly say it is.

2) So we've had elections in the country for 200 years and no ID was ever needed (unless u were black in the south before 1965, not ID exactly but plenty of other tricks) and now we suddenly need all these new laws to protect from the 0.001% of voter fraud out there? Really? ID laws may not change every election but they can have a big impact on close elections and many are close these days. And ID laws have been shown to affect minorities, young people and poor people more then anyone else, and guess which way those people vote most the time.

And no a misinformed or uninterested voter is not stupid, they probably have a lot going on in life and just dont have time to invest in paying attention. Unfortunately these are the people easily persuaded by ads and propaganda. There are many types of voters who vote for many different reasons I just want them to all be as informed as possible regardless of who they vote for.

1. You are playing the same game. You want X to win. Mr Moneybags wants Y to win. You'll both campaign fair and square within the rules. That's as fair as it needs to be. There's nothing unfair about the fact that Mr. Moneybags is just much more effective at helping a campaign than you are.
2. The latest reliable data I could find on illegal immigrants was from 2011, where ~11.5 million people were illegal immigrants. That's roughly 3.7% of the country. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a "lock up the borders" nut by any means, but I do believe that only citizens should be voting.

And yes, misinformed and uninterested voters who insist on voting are stupid. If you're life is so busy that you can't possibly find time to get informed on the issues you'll be voting on, don't vote. You blindly checking a box could have disastrous effects on people's lives.

[Elldallan]

A passive choice is still a choice. Ignorance and laziness aren't good excuses.

True but it's oh so human. And it's not simply out of ignorance, most ppl ought to know about apple/shoemaker etc sweatshops by now, but nobody could possibly keep up with ALL the factors they need to keep up with to make an informed choice on everything. And hence the notice of informed choice is more or less an illusion. Sure you can get more informed on a given issue but it'll mean you're ignoring something else somewhere else because there's more information being created on a monthly basis than we could hope to process in our entire life.

1. You are playing the same game. You want X to win. Mr Moneybags wants Y to win. You'll both campaign fair and square within the rules. That's as fair as it needs to be. There's nothing unfair about the fact that Mr. Moneybags is just much more effective at helping a campaign than you are.

Sure it is, that means he is voting with his money and your vote will be more or less worthless because when the only ppl who are able to run for office are the ones who have already been bribed by Mr.Moneybags it's irrelevant where you cast your vote, Mr.Moneybags win either way.
A government where the wealthy rule isn't called a democracy, it's called a Timocracy and is a form of authoritarian rule where the few rule the many, it's essentially the same as an aristocracy, the definition of the aristocrats are just slightly different.
So hence, if you want to maintain a democracy you can't allow the rich to bribe elected officials or it'll cease to be a democracy. It differs only in name from what Iran is doing with a religious council deciding who can run for office, and would you call Iran or China a democracy?... I don't think so.

[TommyB]

It's not their fault the majority of Americans are too retarded to know what they're voting for.

How sure are you of that? And does "failure to render assistance" count?

I'd be pretty comfortable making a claim that at least 51% of Americans have little to no understanding of current political issues and policies.

Certainly, but how sure are you that "They" are not to blame?

[Palem]

A government where the wealthy rule isn't called a democracy, it's called a Timocracy and is a form of authoritarian rule where the few rule the many, it's essentially the same as an aristocracy, the definition of the aristocrats are just slightly different.
So hence, if you want to maintain a democracy you can't allow the rich to bribe elected officials or it'll cease to be a democracy. It differs only in name from what Iran is doing with a religious council deciding who can run for office, and would you call Iran or China a democracy?... I don't think so.

We don't run a democracy though. We run a representational democracy that's really more of a republic than anything. Also, for what it's worth, I think democracy is one of the least efficient forms of government.

[Elldallan]

We don't run a democracy though. We run a representational democracy that's really more of a republic than anything. Also, for what it's worth, I think democracy is one of the least efficient forms of government.

A representational democracy is a form of democracy, just like the US definition of a republic, that is, the rule of the people(in the case of a representational democracy through elected officials).
Republic comes from Res Publica which is just another word public affairs or "for from the people", aka democracy, the separation of terms might have meant something in greek/roman times when there were also absolute democracies where the people ruled directly but nowadays the difference is non-existent.
There is a whole ****load of nations claiming to be republics in the world and they mostly lack common denominators and the "Kingdom" of Sweden(or Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, United Kingdom etc.) is more democratic than most all of them, so the word is mostly meaningless today.

As for the last part I'll quote Winston Churchill "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
Technically a benevolent dictator or oligarchy could be better, it's just that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[Palem]

I'm quite aware of government types and all that. Others may not draw the distinction, but I do. If we ever get rid of the electoral college, I may consider dropping the distinction. Our government was designed to be slow and inefficient, for the sole reason of power corrupting. I'm simply pointing out the obvious. One of my favorite founding fathers' quotes :)

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
-Jefferson

[khronosschoty]

As for the last part I'll quote Winston Churchill "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
Technically a benevolent dictator or oligarchy could be better, it's just that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It is funny that the Greeks and the Romans said the total opposite, they said Democracy is the worst form of government, and although Monarchy has flaws, it is the least bad. Furthermore to ignore the importance of what the Romans said or did, one must, if one desires to not be a hypocrite, equally ignore all governments based on civil and common law traditions. No matter what one may think, those governments who are built on common law and civil law, must always respect the Roman view, much more could be said about that.

[Zug]

For profit prisons.

[Elldallan]

It is funny that the Greeks and the Romans said the total opposite, they said Democracy is the worst form of government, and although Monarchy has flaws, it is the least bad. Furthermore to ignore the importance of what the Romans said or did, one must, if one desires to not be a hypocrite, equally ignore all governments based on civil and common law traditions. No matter what one may think, those governments who are built on common law and civil law, must always respect the Roman view, much more could be said about that.

Yes the Romans and the Greeks said that, according to Plato Aristocracy > Timocracy > Oligarchy > Democracy > Tyranny. But one must also keep in mind that the Greek/Roman definition of democracy is very much different from most modern democracies which have much more in common with Plato's definition of an Aristocracy, with the difference that the "Aristocrats" are elected for a term, rather than appointed by some other mean. The Greek/Roman definition of a democracy would be the direct democracy and onlythe direct democracy, they would not consider our modern democracies a democracy at all. Their definition of democracy was the direct rule of the people in every matter.

The Romans also had legal slavery and many other things that are generally viewed as wrong or morally repugnant today so no, you must not necessarily respect the Roman view.
Sure, people should be aware of where the roots lie but just because something is old doesn't mean it's right. And nor does it mean that a system can't evolve over time.
Civil law originates from Roman law which I assume is the point you're trying to make. But Roman law also had a lot of oddities which we have done away with these days, for example if I remember correctly religion had supremacy over mundane law, something no sensible modern democracy would accept today.

[khronosschoty]

This post ignores so much reality, because it is out of context, you cannot judge todays idea of slavery with the Roman one. In the Roman idea of Slavery you left with a total portion of your master's goods after a period of like 7 years, moreover he was obliged to not over work you. That is contrasted with the pseudo Roman slavery of the Germans, who were, as always, barbaric and cruel.

[Elldallan]

This post ignores so much reality, because it is out of context, you cannot judge todays idea of slavery with the Roman one. In the Roman idea of Slavery you left with a total portion of your master's goods after a period of like 7 years, moreover he was obliged to not over work you. That is contrasted with the pseudo Roman slavery of the Germans, who were, as always, barbaric and cruel.

Maybe after the Christification of the Roman Empire but during it's height they were just as hard on slaves as the Greeks, sure some owners allowed their slaves a small "pay" with which they could eventually buy their freedom.
It was a good way to insure obedience since the owner could withhold that pay or remove the possibility if the slave misbehaved. The owner could also conveniently set the pay so that the slave could buy his freedom roughly when he got too old to work, insuring that you didn't have to pay sustenance for a useless slave and you didn't incite your slaves into rebellion by just killing off those too old to work.

The only slaves who had any sort of rights where Roman citizens who sold themselves into slavery to pay off a debt since once the debt was paid off they would eventually regain their freedom.
Because they were legal citizens they were also at least in theory exempt from corporal punishment(implying that other slaves weren't)

A slave could also be made(sold off) Damnati in metallum if they were too troublesome or for as a punishment for citizens(if you were a plebeian) for severe crimes, it essentially meant you were sent off to work yourself to death in a mine, you could not buy or otherwise earn your freedom, you would be worked hard in the mine until you died.

[pathetic sheep]

Where did it go wrong?...

In the beginning the united states was 13 states. Over time more and more random territories became states. By the 1860s there were 33. Some suggested fixing this and making a separate country with 11 states. There was a big fight. The developers in Washington insisted that secession was not allowed.

...

Phbbbt :P