A problem presented by democracy is the need to be the favored candidate in elections………

Moonbeam · Wednesday at 12:13 PM

What do you do if your aim is to be elected for the income, power, and fame, for ego gratification rather than serving the will of the people? And what the fuck do those idiots know about what is in their best interests? How do you prevent any blow back when the public starts to get angry, feeling their needs aren’t being met? How do you protect your political job and keep those morons off your back?

Here’s some news from California focused on how the Democrats are attempting to protect themselves from public contact and operate in the dark.

Democracy in the dark: How California lawmakers are trying to shield themselves from public view - Santa Monica Daily Press

At town halls across the nation, including in California, residents have confronted their members of Congress face-to-face to voice their fears and frustrations over Trump administration policies, from cuts to overseas aid to Medicare. Meanwhile, lawmakers in the state Legislature have...

smdp.com

Some Republican from San Diego, likely because it’s the Democrats who run the state, wants elected officials to be more assessable to the public.

Elsewhere it’s Republicans who are doing their best to hide.

I’m thinking this clown show is a permanent feature of a political system that combines personal ambition with competition which creates a public full people too afraid of losing out to somebody else to vote for the common good.

“Thank God Trump will save me. Fuck all of you.”

Wait, I take that back as wasted emotional venting. No need to hope you get fucked. You’ll manage that nicely all by yourselves.

Am I right? How do you feel?

biostud · Wednesday at 2:05 PM

While not the only problem in modern politics, bipolar political systems are really not that democratic IMHO. Too many voters who are not represented in the legislative branch.

HomerJS · Wednesday at 2:14 PM

biostud said:
While not the only problem in modern politics, bipolar political systems are really not that democratic IMHO. Too many voters who are not represented in the legislative branch.

Once again I bring up my push to end gerrymandering. This will fix or start to correct a great many problems with out political system.

No more drawing districts to benefit a party. Have it all done by borders. Primaries will be less polarized

Moonbeam · Wednesday at 5:03 PM

biostud said:
While not the only problem in modern politics, bipolar political systems are really not that democratic IMHO. Too many voters who are not represented in the legislative branch.

A very good point, and thinking about it, I wonder though, if it does not insure that, if my opinion about political parties is correct, that there really is an objective reality in which some ideas are good and others lead to say, fascism, that any party that was really on the right track wouldn't remain always boxed in as a minority. At least in a two party system, if one party becomes known to be dangerous, there is only one alternative, not a bunch of them that might split the vote and dilute the chance of reform.

Moonbeam · Wednesday at 5:10 PM

HomerJS said:
Once again I bring up my push to end gerrymandering. This will fix or start to correct a great many problems with out political system.

No more drawing districts to benefit a party. Have it all done by borders. Primaries will be less polarized

I think sometimes the qualification for public office should be an reluctance to take the job but obligatory out of a moral sense of duty to do what is right.

biostud · 2025-04-03T03:10:07-0400

Moonbeam said:
A very good point, and thinking about it, I wonder though, if it does not insure that, if my opinion about political parties is correct, that there really is an objective reality in which some ideas are good and others lead to say, fascism, that any party that was really on the right track wouldn't remain always boxed in as a minority. At least in a two party system, if one party becomes known to be dangerous, there is only one alternative, not a bunch of them that might split the vote and dilute the chance of reform.

The problem with two party systems and "building" firewalls against right wing parties like they have done in Sweden and Germany is that a large part of the population are not "allowed" to participated and being represented in legitimate political work.

In Denmark we also had a right win political party which were allowed to participate, and while many were against it, myself included, I have later changed opinion about it, because over time it will show that they are typically no better than the mainstream parties.

But it does need a strong constitution than prevents abuse of power as we now see in the US, Hungary and Turkey.

Through history we've had "landslide" elections where old parties got close to obliterated and new ones erupted, than back to "normal", old parties splitting up in several new parties etc.

What we also have is "negative parliamentarianism" which means as long as the government doesn't have a majority against it it can continue. So we typically has either a center right or center left government, which is supported by the left or right and freely can find it majority in both sides in the parliament, as long as their supporting parties doesn't pull their overall support for the government. This has build a system were both sides are actively trying their best to gain influence and co-operate to find common ground, because when the tides turn and the power shifts, the new government will once again need to make political agreements with both sides of the parliament.

As known in other parliamentary systems of government, the executive (the Cabinet) is accountable to the parliament (the Folketing). Under the Danish constitution, no government may remain in office with a majority against it. This is called negative parliamentarianism, as opposed to the principle of positive parliamentarianism—as in Germany and some other parliamentary systems—a government needs to achieve a majority through a vote of investiture in parliament.[citation needed] It is due to the principle of negative parliamentarianism and its proportional representation system that Denmark has a long tradition of minority governments. Nevertheless, minority governments in Denmark sometimes have strong parliamentary majorities with the help of one or more supporting parties.[2]

The current government of the Social Democrats is stable due to their support by the Social Liberal Party, Socialist People's Party, and the Red–Green Alliance and informally supported by The Alternative. The previous government coalition between Venstre (the Left), the Liberal Alliance, and the Conservatives had support from the Danish People's Party despite not being an official member of the government.[24] This system enables minority parties to govern on specific issues through an ad hoc basis, selecting partners for support based on common interests instead of legislative need. As a result, Danish laws are born of extensive negotiations and compromise. It is common practice for both sides of the Danish political spectrum to cooperate in the Folketing.

Politics of Denmark - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

dank69 · 2025-04-03T06:50:25-0400

Moonbeam said:
A very good point, and thinking about it, I wonder though, if it does not insure that, if my opinion about political parties is correct, that there really is an objective reality in which some ideas are good and others lead to say, fascism, that any party that was really on the right track wouldn't remain always boxed in as a minority. At least in a two party system, if one party becomes known to be dangerous, there is only one alternative, not a bunch of them that might split the vote and dilute the chance of reform.

Instant runoff fixes the dilution problem.

Greenman · 2025-04-03T10:19:08-0400

Moonbeam said:
What do you do if your aim is to be elected for the income, power, and fame, for ego gratification rather than serving the will of the people? And what the fuck do those idiots know about what is in their best interests? How do you prevent any blow back when the public starts to get angry, feeling their needs aren’t being met? How do you protect your political job and keep those morons off your back?

Here’s some news from California focused on how the Democrats are attempting to protect themselves from public contact and operate in the dark.

Democracy in the dark: How California lawmakers are trying to shield themselves from public view - Santa Monica Daily Press

At town halls across the nation, including in California, residents have confronted their members of Congress face-to-face to voice their fears and frustrations over Trump administration policies, from cuts to overseas aid to Medicare. Meanwhile, lawmakers in the state Legislature have...

smdp.com

Some Republican from San Diego, likely because it’s the Democrats who run the state, wants elected officials to be more assessable to the public.

Elsewhere it’s Republicans who are doing their best to hide.

I’m thinking this clown show is a permanent feature of a political system that combines personal ambition with competition which creates a public full people too afraid of losing out to somebody else to vote for the common good.

“Thank God Trump will save me. Fuck all of you.”

Wait, I take that back as wasted emotional venting. No need to hope you get fucked. You’ll manage that nicely all by yourselves.

Am I right? How do you feel?

What they're doing is codifying conditions that already exist.
I was once asked to run for a low level political position, I explained to the people asking me to run that I didn't have the time, knowledge, or desire to do the job. It was explained to me that none of that mattered. Every aspect of the campaign and duty's would be handled by others, the only requirement was that I cast a yes vote on an upcoming issue. Beyond that they didn't care what I did, at least that's what was said.
All of this came about because I knew a guy that knew a guy that wanted to achieve a goal without his name being attached to it. It was an unpleasant lesson in political manipulation.

Moonbeam · 2025-04-03T14:17:27-0400

Greenman said:
What they're doing is codifying conditions that already exist.
I was once asked to run for a low level political position, I explained to the people asking me to run that I didn't have the time, knowledge, or desire to do the job. It was explained to me that none of that mattered. Every aspect of the campaign and duty's would be handled by others, the only requirement was that I cast a yes vote on an upcoming issue. Beyond that they didn't care what I did, at least that's what was said.
All of this came about because I knew a guy that knew a guy that wanted to achieve a goal without his name being attached to it. It was an unpleasant lesson in political manipulation.

How can you say such a thing? You are supposed to be an evil Nazi and not a person in whom those conditions do not appeal, a person whose moral character would reject such a wonderful opportunity to advance your ego status and the economic opportunities and the social standing all the ass kissing from others might bring. But no worries, you are safe here in a Moonbeam thread. The information won’t spread and ruin your reputation that you eat babies for breakfast. Nobody reads my threads or pays attention to what I say. Love you.

Greenman · 2025-04-03T14:45:10-0400

Moonbeam said:
How can you say such a thing? You are supposed to be an evil Nazi and not a person in whom those conditions do not appeal, a person whose moral character would reject such a wonderful opportunity to advance your ego status and the economic opportunities and the social standing all the ass kissing from others might bring. But no worries, you are safe here in a Moonbeam thread. The information won’t spread and ruin your reputation that you eat babies for breakfast. Nobody reads my threads or pays attention to what I say. Love you.

I wish I could say I had thought through all of that before deciding, but the reality is I never got beyond "that ain't right".

Moonbeam · 2025-04-03T15:11:09-0400

Greenman said:
I wish I could say I had thought through all of that before deciding, but the reality is I never got beyond "that ain't right".

Yesterday I listened to a long AI generated discussion about making AI ethical. It was interesting to see how humans are trying to create an ethical AI. In my opinion they were trying to do something like what you wish you did, find a way to cause AI to think through things before deciding. But all of that is an afterthought in my opinion. All that is needed is to know without thinking but by feeling is that it isn’t right. Without that, in my opinion, there is no such thing as real character and that is what real character is.

Character depends on ineffable intuition, beyond the understanding of reason and is present at the ground of our being but can be buried by negative programming, but never lost.

Greenman · 2025-04-03T15:48:59-0400

Moonbeam said:
Yesterday I listened to a long AI generated discussion about making AI ethical. It was interesting to see how humans are trying to create an ethical AI. In my opinion they were trying to do something like what you wish you did, find a way to cause AI to think through things before deciding. But all of that is an afterthought in my opinion. All that is needed is to know without thinking but by feeling is that it isn’t right. Without that, in my opinion, there is no such thing as real character and that is what real character is.

Character depends on ineffable intuition, beyond the understanding of reason and is present at the ground of our being but can be buried by negative programming, but never lost.

Well said.

hal2kilo · 2025-04-04T12:19:49-0400

HomerJS said:
Once again I bring up my push to end gerrymandering. This will fix or start to correct a great many problems with out political system.

No more drawing districts to benefit a party. Have it all done by borders. Primaries will be less polarized

Doubling the amount of representatives would help take a lot of pressure off, increases granularity in representation. One party who has all of the power in the house is just hiding out hoping that maybe Trump will have a stroke and they won't have to face the music in the next election. Cowards!

A problem presented by democracy is the need to be the favored candidate in elections………

Moonbeam

Elite Member

Democracy in the dark: How California lawmakers are trying to shield themselves from public view - Santa Monica Daily Press

biostud

Lifer

HomerJS

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Moonbeam

Elite Member

Moonbeam

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biostud

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Politics of Denmark - Wikipedia

dank69

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Greenman

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Democracy in the dark: How California lawmakers are trying to shield themselves from public view - Santa Monica Daily Press

Moonbeam

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Greenman

Lifer

Moonbeam

Elite Member

Greenman

Lifer

hal2kilo

Lifer

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