The US would be wise to have a Stable Majority Party whose planks:
do right by the common "bottom" 90% of us
forbid/discourage grifters, victim cults & SIGs
forbid lies & liars
forbid traitors & criminals
NEITHER the Dem or Repub parties of today meet these criteria. so we need something to replace them. but do it in a "safe" way, like by only running in "ranked choice voting" elections. that way you vote for Ideal Choice &
Lesser Evil
@synlogic
> "ranked choice voting" elections. that way you vote for Ideal Choice & Lesser Evil
Having a non-partisan body that manages electoral processes could be a step towards democratising US elections too. In Aotearoa we have the Electoral Commission, which is totally independent from political parties. They do everything from registering candidates and running elections to setting electorate boundaries (so no gerrymandering to benefit incumbents).
In Aotearoa we use STV (ranked choice) for some local body elections. In hindsight, it's a shame we chose MMP over STV, when we moved from FPP to proportional representation for national elections. Having participated in elections using both, I think ranked choice is the better system.
A few months back I was proposing a bicameral system for Aotearoa, where Parliament is elected only by a party vote, and an upper house is elected by a ranked choice electorate vote. So electorate MPs could focus mainly on bringing local issues to national attention, but also serve as a check-and-balance on the (currently supreme) power of Parliament, with the power to veto legislation (maybe a supermajority in the case of government bills).
the toot above is a taste of one of the lessons Slartboz will try to teach and promote
because something like it is clearly needed if the US is to remain a democracy much longer
we cant go thru 4 years of a President Trump nightmare & then have nearly 50% of voters say they want MOAR of that (?!) without something being deeply broken with the political ecosystem in our country
Dems part of it. GOP the Greater Evil, obvs. but Lesser Evil is still evil
@screwtape@synlogic @mara and I have been talking about how much your country (where she's from) is beginning to resemble the US in all the wrong ways.
Re: the current US political duopoly... I don't see how we can expect to get RCV through under the circumstances, & voting Dem isn't safe. Seems to me the best way forward is to encourage 3rd party votes. If everyone who says they would if they thought there was a chance did (incl. those who don't vote due to 2 evils), we'd be well on our way.
@fstateaudio@synlogic@mara@strypey I think people should communicate their ideas in open forums, including economic and social intents. Checking a box in a multiple choice form implies a level of endorsement of political acters which seems unlikely to exist. Lesser of two evils is being reframed as a positive endorsement. The greens did an okay job at saying blandly alright things, but it reads as missing out on National being paid off by these groups, Labour being paid off by those groups..
@fstateaudio@synlogic@mara
But maybe biasing against people sensitive to embarrassment is unkind when unnecessary. @strypey instead of "fact-checking" what about facilitating individuals making private notes of their ideas, and then being able to check how their beliefs about what was being supported synced up in hindsight to other things the person they chose to support had said, and went on to do, without this data being collectable in any way.
@screwtape
> instead of "fact-checking" what about facilitating individuals making private notes of their ideas, and then being able to check how their beliefs about what was being supported synced up in hindsight to other things the person they chose to support had said, and went on to do, without this data being collectable in any way
I like this idea, but it doesn't have to be an either/or. Maybe one web platform could even do both.
@strypey pitching me on the web, eh ;p. Imagine a sumo tarball knowledge graph of collected context, and people could keep notes strictly on their personal device in an interface such that their personal notes get matched to new additions of context to the sumo tarball. People could (and I imagine will) opt to submit their questions for public view, and the pool of public questions would be direction for gathering of context. I guess there could be news columns. @fstateaudio@synlogic@mara
@screwtape@synlogic@mara@strypey I know politicians here act/speak as though they have a "mandate from the people" even when it is a lesser-evil situation, but I don't know if they truly (naively) believe that or if it's just more attempts at manufacturing consent. Tempted to believe the latter.
@strypey@screwtape@synlogic@mara Re: EYE... not to derail the convo, but they are awesome! A band I was in way back was on a compilation with them once, been a fan ever since.
I downloaded that Mandate song with Napster. Love it. Haven't listened to much of their other music, but now that I found them on BC, I'll be rectifying that.
Add comment