A Radical Departure From Politics As Usual?

[Charles Stucker]

raise income and capital gains taxes.

capital gains taxes lead to the nonsense structure of current companies wherein they aspire to either be bought up by someone bigger or grow "to large to fail" so they can receive a government bailout, all because the capital gains tax creates a bizarre sort of tax gamesmanship wherein that mind-numbingly idiotic business plan is seen as a way to maximize after tax earnings.

A radical departure would be to abandon a two party system by outlawing political parties, or at least removing party identification from the ballots. No straight ballots allowed either; you have to know who you want in office or you're just randomly pulling a lever; which will be balanced statistically by some other fool randomly pulling a lever.

 

[Oscar Wao]

Stucker, that will never happen. It's human nature to associate and "label." Political parties are like "labels" and are definitely associations.

We're social beings.

 

[Stephanie]

You, Steph, are part of the problem.

well that was so friggen big of you.
thanks for the chat.

 

[Charles Stucker]

Stucker, that will never happen. It's human nature to associate and "label." Political parties are like "labels" and are definitely associations.

All that would be required is to eliminate the labels from the ballot box and people would at least be forced to learn the name of their "preferred" candidate, rather than using party as a litmus test.
How many people do you know who can name their city council representative? How many voted based purely on the party?
More knowledge required to effectively cast a vote is a good thing.

You may be right, ending political parties will never happen unless the two party system is first broken.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

well well, now go figure. how the Tea Party got brought up in this.

It is mentioned in the title to the article.

well hell I know I'm getting old, but I don't see it anywhere in this TITLE of the thread...

A Radical Departure From Politics As Usual?

Title of Article. post # 6..or just go to the article.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

What about "a radical departure from politics as usual"?

"Politics as usual" as defined by how and by whom?

How about "...raising taxes to close our budgetary shortfalls, but doing so with a spirit of equity and social justice;

So, controlling spending is off the table?..."A spirit of equity and social justice" as defined how and by whom?

that every American is covered by health insurance, but with market reforms to really bring down costs;

What if I don't want insurance?....What happens if your "market reforms" drive up costs?

...legally expanding immigration to attract more job-creators to America’s shores; increasing corporate tax credits for research and lowering corporate taxes if companies will move more manufacturing jobs back onshore; investing more in our public schools, while insisting on rising national education standards and greater accountability for teachers, principals and parents; massively investing in clean energy, including nuclear, while allowing more offshore drilling in the transition? You get the idea?"

And a chicken in every pot, a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, and children who don't mouth off to their parents?

What if worms had machine guns?...Would robins ever screw with them again?

Like I said....Grow up.

For a start, politics as usual as mentioned in the article we are talking about and in one of the posts you passed over in your zeal to ass talk. Did you see my name and decide to talk out of your ass, again? too funny

Never participated in one.

Now that we're past talking about me, how do you propose to suspend human nature and the laws of economics by any other means than aggression and compulsion?

I don't think your framing of the issue is rational or reasonable. But there is something I've left out:

Larry Diamond, a Stanford University democracy expert, put it best: “If you don’t get governance right, it is very hard to get anything else right that government needs to deal with. We have to rethink in some basic ways how our political institutions work, because they are increasingly incapable of delivering effective solutions any longer.”

My definition of broken is simple. It is a system in which Republicans will be voted out for doing the right thing (raising taxes when needed) and Democrats will be voted out for doing the right thing (cutting services when needed). When your political system punishes lawmakers for the doing the right things, it is broken. That is why we need political innovation that takes America’s disempowered radical center and enables it to act in proportion to its true size, unconstrained by the two parties, interest groups and orthodoxies that have tied our politics in knots.

Op-Ed Columnist - A Tea Party Without Nuts - NYTimes.com

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

First, let every state emulate California’s recent grass-roots initiative that took away the power to design Congressional districts from the state legislature and put it in the hands of an independent, politically neutral, Citizens Redistricting Commission. It will go to work after the 2010 census and reshape California’s Congressional districts for the 2012 elections. Henceforth, districts in California will not be designed to be automatically Democratic or Republican — so more of them will be competitive, so more candidates will only be electable if they appeal to the center, not just cater to one party.

Second, get states to adopt “alternative voting.” One reason independent, third-party, centrist candidates can’t get elected is because if, in a three-person race, a Democrat votes for an independent, and the independent loses, the Democrat fears his vote will have actually helped the Republican win, or vice versa. Alternative voting allows you to rank the independent candidate your No. 1 choice, and the Democrat or Republican No. 2. Therefore, if the independent does not win, your vote is immediately transferred to your second choice, say, the Democrat. Therefore, you have no fear that in voting for an independent you might help elect your real nightmare — the Republican. Nothing has held back the growth of independent, centrist candidates more, said Diamond, “than the fear that if you vote for one of them you will be wasting your vote. Alternative voting, which Australia has, can overcome that.”

Op-Ed Columnist - A Tea Party Without Nuts - NYTimes.com

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

What about "a radical departure from politics as usual"? How about "...raising taxes to close our budgetary shortfalls, but doing so with a spirit of equity and social justice; guaranteeing that every American is covered by health insurance, but with market reforms to really bring down costs; legally expanding immigration to attract more job-creators to America’s shores; increasing corporate tax credits for research and lowering corporate taxes if companies will move more manufacturing jobs back onshore; investing more in our public schools, while insisting on rising national education standards and greater accountability for teachers, principals and parents; massively investing in clean energy, including nuclear, while allowing more offshore drilling in the transition? You get the idea?"

What about it?


note: I will add to this if the response is serious.

I think the problem with your question is you fail to define "politics as usual."

See as I see it, politics as usual is trying to raise taxes to close budgetory shortfalls. You seem to think it isnt. But it's what politicians always do. What they never do is cut spending to match appropriate funds. They could do that without burdening the people and killing jobs as they currently do it.

So since we clearly disagree on the fundamental premises and definitions here, don't see how we can possibly have a condusive conversation on this topic. If you'd like to define "politics as usual" the way you see it, then perhaps I could make a better attempt. Till then its a bit of a waste.

I apologize. Before I had a chance to lay out the beginnings of the thread, the thread was spammed with troll posts by Dude (a maude no less) and Steph, with hostile attacks on Dante personally.

Here below in the 6th post, is where what you ask about is defined. I was trying to get somebody to pay attention to an idea, before leading them to following a link to a source. I started the thread this way in order to possibly avoid an attack and denigration the link source. Small minds validated my caution, and Dude came along threw a thread off track because of his obsession with Dante as a personality as opposed to replying to the content of a post.

Never participated in one.

Now that we're past talking about me, how do you propose to suspend human nature and the laws of economics by any other means than aggression and compulsion?

I don't think your framing of the issue is rational or reasonable. But there is something I've left out:

Larry Diamond, a Stanford University democracy expert, put it best: “If you don’t get governance right, it is very hard to get anything else right that government needs to deal with. We have to rethink in some basic ways how our political institutions work, because they are increasingly incapable of delivering effective solutions any longer.”

My definition of broken is simple. It is a system in which Republicans will be voted out for doing the right thing (raising taxes when needed) and Democrats will be voted out for doing the right thing (cutting services when needed). When your political system punishes lawmakers for the doing the right things, it is broken. That is why we need political innovation that takes America’s disempowered radical center and enables it to act in proportion to its true size, unconstrained by the two parties, interest groups and orthodoxies that have tied our politics in knots.

Op-Ed Columnist - A Tea Party Without Nuts - NYTimes.com

I would've posted more of the source, but I received an infraction (public knowledge) earlier (from Dude no less), for posting more of a source so I could avoid what Dude went and caused...hijack and throw a thread off track, because of personality vs content.

again, I apologize for the confusion.

dD

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

What about "a radical departure from politics as usual"? How about "...raising taxes to close our budgetary shortfalls, but doing so with a spirit of equity and social justice; guaranteeing that every American is covered by health insurance, but with market reforms to really bring down costs; legally expanding immigration to attract more job-creators to America’s shores; increasing corporate tax credits for research and lowering corporate taxes if companies will move more manufacturing jobs back onshore; investing more in our public schools, while insisting on rising national education standards and greater accountability for teachers, principals and parents; massively investing in clean energy, including nuclear, while allowing more offshore drilling in the transition? You get the idea?"

What about it?


note: I will add to this if the response is serious.

Most of those come in the form of government mandates that invalidate our own control over our own lives. The only thing I agree with you is changing the federal tax code to keep manufacturing onshore like removing the income tax in favor of a national sales tax. That would give domestic manufacturing a huge advantage and a reason to stay here.

see my last few posts above, and maybe we could continue a conversation..?

 

[Stephanie]

Man, this stuff has become a real yawner.

 

[Cecilie1200]

What about completely suspending human nature and the laws of economics, so that everyone could have everything they want without having actually do anything to obtain it?

What about monkeys flying out my butt?

The monkeys are actually more likely than the fantasy bullshit Dante spouts off about.

 

[Cecilie1200]

"Social Justice" is not a job of a government. Not just the US government but any government.

Such an avenue is meant to be done by us.

Any time someone starts talking about "achieving social justice", my skin starts to crawl and I get a cold chill. There ain't no such thing, not to mention that I really doubt it would truly be anything we would want even if it DID exist.

 

[Oddball]

What about "a radical departure from politics as usual"?

"Politics as usual" as defined by how and by whom?



So, controlling spending is off the table?..."A spirit of equity and social justice" as defined how and by whom?


What if I don't want insurance?....What happens if your "market reforms" drive up costs?



And a chicken in every pot, a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, and children who don't mouth off to their parents?

What if worms had machine guns?...Would robins ever screw with them again?

Like I said....Grow up.

For a start, politics as usual as mentioned in the article we are talking about and in one of the posts you passed over in your zeal to ass talk. Did you see my name and decide to talk out of your ass, again? too funny

I don't think your framing of the issue is rational or reasonable. But there is something I've left out:

Larry Diamond, a Stanford University democracy expert, put it best: “If you don’t get governance right, it is very hard to get anything else right that government needs to deal with. We have to rethink in some basic ways how our political institutions work, because they are increasingly incapable of delivering effective solutions any longer.”

My definition of broken is simple. It is a system in which Republicans will be voted out for doing the right thing (raising taxes when needed) and Democrats will be voted out for doing the right thing (cutting services when needed). When your political system punishes lawmakers for the doing the right things, it is broken. That is why we need political innovation that takes America’s disempowered radical center and enables it to act in proportion to its true size, unconstrained by the two parties, interest groups and orthodoxies that have tied our politics in knots.

Op-Ed Columnist - A Tea Party Without Nuts - NYTimes.com

The entire piece is peppered with all the *ahem* usual slew of platitudes, truisms, slogans and completely unquantifiable hairy-fairy wouldn't-it-be-nice concepts like "social justice", which are the standard fare of leftist flower child weenie boilerplate....All of which completely ignore human nature and the most rudimentary of economic cause/effect dynamics.

Like I said before, grow up Peter Pan.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Stucker, that will never happen. It's human nature to associate and "label." Political parties are like "labels" and are definitely associations.

All that would be required is to eliminate the labels from the ballot box and people would at least be forced to learn the name of their "preferred" candidate, rather than using party as a litmus test.
How many people do you know who can name their city council representative? How many voted based purely on the party?
More knowledge required to effectively cast a vote is a good thing.

You may be right, ending political parties will never happen unless the two party system is first broken.

Why do we want to "end political parties", or prevent people from voting by party? What, precisely, is so damned evil about the concept, anyway? You ever consider the possibility that some people consider it a GOOD thing to have a general, overall platform and agenda as a basic foundation from which to work? It saves a lot of frigging time to not have to memorize EVERY goddamned individual candidate from the inside out on a ten-page ballot, especially since a lot of them share the same basic policy info anyway, which is WHY they fall into neat categories to begin with.

I despise having to do the judicial elections in my area precisely because they have no identifiers to give me a hint, requiring me to research every single one from scratch. I thought one of the points of representative government was so that the general public didn't have to make a full-time job out of politics on top of living their lives.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

"Politics as usual" as defined by how and by whom?



So, controlling spending is off the table?..."A spirit of equity and social justice" as defined how and by whom?


What if I don't want insurance?....What happens if your "market reforms" drive up costs?



And a chicken in every pot, a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, and children who don't mouth off to their parents?

What if worms had machine guns?...Would robins ever screw with them again?

Like I said....Grow up.

For a start, politics as usual as mentioned in the article we are talking about and in one of the posts you passed over in your zeal to ass talk. Did you see my name and decide to talk out of your ass, again? too funny

I don't think your framing of the issue is rational or reasonable. But there is something I've left out:

The entire piece is peppered with all the *ahem* usual slew of platitudes, truisms, slogans and completely unquantifiable hairy-fairy wouldn't-it-be-nice concepts like "social justice", which are the standard fare of leftist flower child weenie boilerplate....All of which completely ignore human nature and the most rudimentary of economic cause/effect dynamics.

Like I said before, grow up Peter Pan.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

The entire piece is peppered with all the *ahem* usual slew of platitudes, truisms, slogans and completely unquantifiable hairy-fairy wouldn't-it-be-nice concepts like "social justice", which are the standard fare of leftist flower child weenie boilerplate....All of which completely ignore human nature and the most rudimentary of economic cause/effect dynamics.

Like I said before, grow up Peter Pan.

and your solution is to continue to be a dupe and a dope. go for it.




these are platitudes?

First, let every state emulate California’s recent grass-roots initiative that took away the power to design state electoral districts from the state legislature and put it in the hands of an independent, politically neutral, Citizens Redistricting Commission. It will go to work after the 2010 census and reshape California’s state legislative districts for the coming elections.

Henceforth, districts in California will not be designed to be automatically Democratic or Republican — so more of them will be competitive, so more candidates will only be electable if they appeal to the center, not just cater to one party. (There is a movement pressing for the same independent commission to be given the power to redraw Congressional districts.)

---

Second, get states to adopt “alternative voting.” One reason independent, third-party, centrist candidates can’t get elected is because if, in a three-person race, a Democrat votes for an independent, and the independent loses, the Democrat fears his vote will have actually helped the Republican win, or vice versa. Alternative voting allows you to rank the independent candidate your No. 1 choice, and the Democrat or Republican No. 2. Therefore, if the independent does not win, your vote is immediately transferred to your second choice, say, the Democrat.

Therefore, you have no fear that in voting for an independent you might help elect your real nightmare — the Republican. Nothing has held back the growth of independent, centrist candidates more, said Diamond, “than the fear that if you vote for one of them you will be wasting your vote. Alternative voting, which Australia has, can overcome that.”

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

...

Cicilie and Dude vs "...an op-ed contributor to The New York Times, whose column appears twice weekly." Somebody who has "...written extensively on foreign affairs including global trade, the Middle East and environmental issues." and who "...has won the Pulitzer Prize three times, twice for International Reporting (1983, 1988) and once for Commentary (2002). Yep, C&D are sure to be more credible than somebody who"...has been a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 2004 until the present."

Thomas Friedman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

who's ass are the monkeys flying out of?

 

[Charles Stucker]

Why do we want to "end political parties", or prevent people from voting by party?

Because the "Two Party" system in the US is, for want of a better phrase, COMPLETELY BROKEN
Both sides point fingers to avoid responsibility for their actions, yet the moronic system continues and becomes more acrimonious with each passing year. Meanwhile the USA devolves into debt and a stagnant economy because nothing is done to effectively limit federal spending.

That is why we should abolish political parties.

 

[Defiant1]

Why do we want to "end political parties", or prevent people from voting by party?

Because the "Two Party" system in the US is, for want of a better phrase, COMPLETELY BROKEN
Both sides point fingers to avoid responsibility for their actions, yet the moronic system continues and becomes more acrimonious with each passing year. Meanwhile the USA devolves into debt and a stagnant economy because nothing is done to effectively limit federal spending.

That is why we should abolish political parties.

Abolish political parties? What other amendments in the Bill of Rights don't you agree with?

 

[Charles Stucker]

Abolish political parties? What other amendments in the Bill of Rights don't you agree with?

All I truly want is the party labels removed from Ballots so voters have to LEARN something about the candidates.
Oh the humanity.