Millennial generation
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@thecreativeone91 I hate quoting the man, but he wasn't wrong - just a war criminal
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials -
@thecreativeone91 said:
Hitler, Case in point. He was even able to manipulate his people into thinking he was good, and he was helping them. Protecting them from the enemy that's trying to come hurt them. Sound familiar?
Well, he was only a dictator for a little bit and even then only kind of. Remember he was voted in via party politics. That was a country just coming out of a stable monarchy and floundering with democracy while being occupied. Doesn't make for a good example. They were only not an acting democracy during a war, never while peaceful.
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@MattSpeller said:
@thecreativeone91 I hate quoting the man, but he wasn't wrong - just a war criminal
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trialsJust remember, the leaders of a democracy are the poor. They choose the people on top.
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@Dashrender said:
Yes, but short of the gun from @thecreativeone91 how do you remove a dictator?
How do you remove the voters?
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@Dashrender said:
At least with a democracy you can vote people out.
No, you can't, because you are thinking of the person in power as the president, but the person in power is the polis. You can't vote out the polis. The polis is the group dictator, but without the social obligations or even the ability to assassinate!
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It's a weird time to be alive.
Netflix may be cheaper than cable, and "unlimited minutes" is standard for cell phones instead of being an unbelievable sales pitch nowadays, but a 15 minute ambulance ride can cost $1770 versus $0 thirty years ago.
For me it's not about whether or not we're "entitled" to receive healthcare or whatever. When a large part of my income goes directly to our defense budget in order to build tanks we don't need and ensure other nations don't ruin our lives, I'm left wondering why we can't collectively scrounge up enough to make sure an ambulance ride or getting a bachelor's degree can't do the same thing to someone living paycheck to paycheck.
I'm hoping that 10 years from now, there will either be major changes to the healthcare and educational systems in America or I will be an expat. It doesn't seem right for me to raise my children in one of the few developed countries where either one of these necessities can financially decimate them.
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@WingCreative said:
Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people on medicaid are against the idea of taxpayers paying for others' healthcare....
I think you got that backwards most people on medicaid are wanting it free. They are the ones that have been getting reduced cost items for years.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@WingCreative said:
Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people on medicaid are against the idea of taxpayers paying for others' healthcare....
I think you got that backwards most people on medicaid are wanting it free. They are the ones that have been getting reduced cost items for years.
Medicaid is for the poor, Medicare is for the retired (generally) - so I'd agree that those on Medicare don't want to see taxpayers paying for other's healthcare - because the believe is that they've paid into Medicare their whole working lives and are now receiving the benefit of their payments.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@WingCreative said:
Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people on medicaid are against the idea of taxpayers paying for others' healthcare....
I think you got that backwards most people on medicaid are wanting it free. They are the ones that have been getting reduced cost items for years.
@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@WingCreative said:
Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people on medicaid are against the idea of taxpayers paying for others' healthcare....
I think you got that backwards most people on medicaid are wanting it free. They are the ones that have been getting reduced cost items for years.
Medicaid is for the poor, Medicare is for the retired (generally) - so I'd agree that those on Medicare don't want to see taxpayers paying for other's healthcare - because the believe is that they've paid into Medicare their whole working lives and are now receiving the benefit of their payments.
Oops - removed the incorrectly assigned snarkiness. Let these quotes stand as a testament to me being the latest one to get them confused
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The US was better off when the law allowed for landowners to vote (and excluded non-landowners). It weeded out the people who didn't read and write, and those who had made no long-term physical investment in prosperity... and all the whiners who were too lazy to get off their duff and contribute. If we could go back to that model, all the people with their hand out wouldn't need to be bought by the politicians, and the balance of power would move more to the middle of the field.
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@art_of_shred said:
The US was better off when the law allowed for landowners to vote (and excluded non-landowners).
This was something that it was designed for and planned around. The whole system only works conceptually when the voting pool is limited in this way. The idea of democracy was considered crazy and tantamount to anarchy by the founding fathers. Those who want democracy today either don't like what American was founded on (which is fine, I'm not promoting that as the only opinion) or haven't taken the time to study it at all and just assume that where we are today was what American was built on.
America was built on a very small voting pool of the elite (white, male, landed gentry) and only those tied to the land rather than business could vote (business didn't discount you, it just didn't count on its own.) The people voting were the equivalent of a nobility, they had nobles oblige, they had money, they had responsibilities, they were invested and they were tied to a location.
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It's funny that democracy is so fundamentally against everything American was built on, yet people always seem to think that being democratic is somehow pro-American.
In Europe there was a vote just last week where Turkey was considering going to a US form of government and the EU was freaking out because they were "leaving democracy behind" and on the verge of "dictatorship."
Perspective.
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I definitely see the point benefits of moving to a voting based on land ownership - I wonder if that's one of the founding pillars why the push to own your own home instead of renting came about.
How would a situation like that apply to say some place like NYC? How many apartments are owned by the people who live in them? Though maybe it doesn't matter, because the whole point is to give voting rights only to those who care enough to have a stake, i.e. own land.
Oh.. and I agree that businesses should have NO voting rights!
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@Dashrender said:
I definitely see the point benefits of moving to a voting based on land ownership - I wonder if that's one of the founding pillars why the push to own your own home instead of renting came about.
Most cultures have that. Home ownership has always been a status symbol and a mark of people who look to accumulate wealth rather than investing it (a problem that brought Ireland and Spain to their financial knees in recent years.)
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@Dashrender said:
How would a situation like that apply to say some place like NYC? How many apartments are owned by the people who live in them? Though maybe it doesn't matter, because the whole point is to give voting rights only to those who care enough to have a stake, i.e. own land.
It effectively doesn't. The move was to placate the agrarian powers that owned the colonies at the start of the American era. Virginia was the powerhouse then, not the backwater that it is today. The people who lives in cities, even in the big ones like NYC, Philly and Boston, were considered mostly poor or undesirables (bankers, tradesman, traders, merchants) and not worth of voting. Only rich land holders were considered valuable enough to vote. No different than traditional European politics up to that time. England was exactly the same before a certain point with only the landed gentry having any input in politics. Landed being the key word, meaning you weren't just a gentlemen, but a land holder.
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Re instituting voting based on land ownership then begs the question, do you get more votes based on the amount of land you own?
All those fat cats on wallstreet who don't own their apartments, but instead rent them would have to find some land to own so they could vote.
Which also asks - in a highrise, even if you own your residence.. how does that work? is that the same as owning 'land'?
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The real issue at the heart of ANY governing body is that is consists of people. People are weak and selfish. That's why "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". At least in an autocratic system, you have a 50/50 shot at the guy in charge being aligned with your personal ideals. In a democratic republic (US), the real rule is by the political class. You can say whatever you want, but that's the real truth. The whole Republican/Democrat struggle is just a ruse, while those in power all smoke cigars and sip brandy together in the back room. I think the best line I've heard quoted (forgive me, I can't credit the originator of the quote properly) is "If voting made any real kind of difference, they would have outlawed it a long time ago." It's the dialectic process in action D/R = thesis/antithesis, while the pre-ordained synthesis happens right under our noses, while everyone bickers about the figureheads representing each side of the aisle. Oh, but "we can vote them out"... if you believe the accuracy of the voting process, the tallying, etcetera. The whole thing is a game, and the populace is at the mercy of the political class. The only way to change that, in all honesty, is through revolution, and those are messy. Nobody wants war, as was so accurately stated previously. Until we get mad enough to DO something about the state of things, the decay will continue.
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@Dashrender said:
Re instituting voting based on land ownership then begs the question, do you get more votes based on the amount of land you own?
You could, the US never did that. It was about having a ruling class, not tying dollars directly to voting power.
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@Dashrender said:
All those fat cats on wallstreet who don't own their apartments, but instead rent them would have to find some land to own so they could vote.
Yes, that's how it always was and it was because the even fatter cats on the farms had enough power to shut them out.
Of course, today, buying land is so trivial that this seems like a ridiculously silly requirement.
