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CE&P social thread: why do the people I disagree with hate freedom so much?

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Care said:
I may check those out. Im planning on taking a class on middle eastern history next semester with one of my favorite professors at my uni. Its crazy to think about how far ahead of the game the middle east was before the enlightenment era and how they have regressed so much compared to the rest of the world in the last century. Its kinda sad how many history classes ive taken in my life and I have almost no knowledge of Middle Eastern history.
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This was my text, and it was excellent.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Middle-East/dp/0813340489
 
Escher's Waterfall said:
"I understand the basic point of the Republican presidential primary: get the party members out to pick a candidate from the shortlist of folks with a budget to run for president. And I understand that the candidates therefore need to appeal to the base. And I get that Romney is utterly unacceptable to one sub-group (due to not being a Real Christian) and to another sub-group (due to being the policy equivalent of silly putty), and that Gingrich is in there to deliver a big fat Fuck Off to the RNC over his past treatment (not to mention the narcissistic personality disorder). Rick Santorum I'm at a loss to explain unless he turns out to be Sasha Baron Cohen's greatest ever and longest running parody act: I'm waiting for him to either call for the reintroduction of the ducking stool for witches, or to be caught in an airport toilet cubicle with an underage [male] page and a couple of lines of cocaine.

But what's with the whole race to the bottom over racism and sexism?

I mean, these guys seem to be competing to shit all over the latin-American vote. And the whole ludicrous insanity of their anti-abortion and anti-contraception stance looks like they're actively trying to get every female of child-bearing age to vote against them. (It's like they've read "The Handmaid's Tale" and think it's a road map, not a warning.)"

- Charles Stross.

I have to say, the Sasha Baron Cohen idea is the best I've heard to explain Santorum.
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because i'm reveling in the chance to be malicious, i can't wait to tell some reporter at my polling place that i'm voting for Rick Santorum because i'm a miscegenated half breed lesbo demon witch whore who eats aborted fetuses morning noon and night while getting free health care and being a welfare queen and harboring illegal socialist communist anarchist MUSLIM immigrants in my Solyndra Terror Mosque!111!!

and demand he quote me in full.
 
Rebel-James-james-dean-11920372-301-450.jpg

James Dean just called...he wants his "Rebellion Without a Cause" back!
 
Wow... just found out that one of my professors died yesterday. Ive had him for multiple classes and we knew each other reasonably well. He was one of the more knowledgeable professors ive had and was only 46...... RIP Dr. Anderson.
 
^sorry, mate.

my 49 y/o boss pass when i was overseas recently. too damn young.

superelephant said:
^The link I posted is definitely worth it.
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sorry i expected youtube and i can't do that at work. ... you're absolutely correct. superb :D
 
Liberalism has failed to give us real freedom. It has only replaced traditional concepts of order with "popularity." We are beholden to "popularity" and it is anything but free.
 
Im doing a report in my comparative politics class on democratization. I have to pick a country and analyze its level of democratic development taking into consideration factors that are pro and anti democracy. I'm thinking I want to do a pseudo democracy like Russia or a total non democracy like Vietnam or Cuba. Any suggestions?
 
My first thought was to choose a country with high democratization, say Norway or Sweden. Although I'm not sure how strong your anti-democratic factors within northern europe will be.
 
it's interesting to see what has been passed as democracy (both before and now)
 
Sweeden/Denmark/Switzerland are all great examples of the best type of democratic system, so I was also thinking of those if I wanted to go that route.

L2R: There are certain specific criteria that determine exactly how democratic a state is. Some factors increase the level of democracy and some decrease it. Things like the type of economy, voting legitimacy, freedom of press/speech and wealth distribution are some of the more important factors to look for.

A big reason the US is less democratic than some other systems is because we still have a lot of the old traditions handed down by the constitution. In the US the presidency is not a popular vote mainly because it wasn't feasible during the time the constitution was written, election by delegates is markedly less democratic than by popular vote. Also written into the constitution is a law that makes it very difficult to change the constitution. Not only do you need massive public support for a constitutional amendment, you also need 2/3 of both the house and senate and the president behind it. The process is designed to be nigh impossible which is the reason why things like election by delegates still exist today.

You Aussies use open ballot preferential voting system, one of the best systems in the world in my opinion. You get to rank candidates by your preference and choose from any party. Its downfall is that it requires voters to be knowledgeable enough to rank candidates accurately. It is very different than states like the US where you can only chose one candidate, or like in the UK where you choose a party and the party chooses the Prime Minister.
 
Care said:
Im doing a report in my comparative politics class on democratization. I have to pick a country and analyze its level of democratic development taking into consideration factors that are pro and anti democracy. I'm thinking I want to do a pseudo democracy like Russia or a total non democracy like Vietnam or Cuba. Any suggestions?
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I feel any discussion of democratic maturity must touch on the issue of the media as a bureaucratic means of controlling information to the 'obtuse' masses, in effect shaping public opinion and critical in the process creating domestic & foreign policy. In essence, the role of the propaganda model in contemporary 'democracies'.
 
Actually, we also have the Westminster dealio with parties and PMs. See what happened to Rudd a couple years back.

What I was getting at earlier, didn't the soviets hype themselves as democratic?
 
L2R said:
Actually, we also have the Westminster dealio with parties and PMs. See what happened to Rudd a couple years back.

What I was getting at earlier, didn't the soviets hype themselves as democratic?
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Yea most former British colonies are majoritarian/westminster which is less democratic than plurality vote, but not by much.

Max Power said:
I feel any discussion of democratic maturity must touch on the issue of the media as a bureaucratic means of controlling information to the 'obtuse' masses, in effect shaping public opinion and critical in the process creating domestic & foreign policy. In essence, the role of the propaganda model in contemporary 'democracies'.
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I think that the main reason the media in america is so fucked up is money.

The point of news in america isn't to deliver good news, its to make money. Im a huge fan of government funded media (BBC is a great example) that is mostly autonomous from government. It makes it so they don't have to sell out for advertising. When you are making a news show for money it pays to target your news at a specific demographic so that advertising can be aimed at that demographic and be more effective. The attempt to appeal to, rather than inform people is a big problem and creates nonobjective media.

I don't really see how government can stop that without taking drastic measures. Its part of our culture now, so the culture has to change more than anything. Social media and the internet will save us and sink cable news and talk radio, hopefully.
 
Care said:
You Aussies use open ballot preferential voting system, one of the best systems in the world in my opinion. You get to rank candidates by your preference and choose from any party. Its downfall is that it requires voters to be knowledgeable enough to rank candidates accurately. It is very different than states like the US where you can only chose one candidate, or like in the UK where you choose a party and the party chooses the Prime Minister.
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The reality of the situation is (now correct me if I am wrong as it has been about 10 years since I voted) that nobody can be bothered listing 30 or so individuals in order of preference so you vote "above the line" and the parties swap preferences and your vote can end up going to someone you totally oppose.
Also, the party picks a candidate to stand during an election but they can and have been replaced at any time by their own party.
 
From what I know the way preferential voting works is you list your preferences (1-10 or whatever) and then count the "1's". The person in last place gets eliminated, then all the eliminated votes "2's" are now counted as ones. Repeat until someone reaches 51% to gain a majority.

Isnt that how it works? Isn't the above the line/below the line thing for people who essentially aren't familiar with politics to choose their preferences?

Oh, and you should vote.
 
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