Fortunately, they hardly ever do show up to work.
1 Like
I would never say about surveys of the global distrust of politicians as “the funny part of”.
It is not a moral story about the institution… it is a genuine and more often than not deserved utter distrust of what politicians do and have done. I hope I don’t have to explain that the entire history of mankind is full of people who were, are or could be seen as a politician, ■■■■■■■ over other people. Name one, only one current or former political leader in the whole ■■■■■■■ world and world history who has not one way or another ■■■■■■ lots of people over. Every ■■■■■■■ politician lies or lies about his lies.
End of story.
I would start with Cincinnatus and Abraham Lincoln, but there are others…It IS a short list, however.
The approximately 750000 people killed in the us civil war would probably not agree with you about Abe Lincoln.
Cincinnatus was opposed to equal rights and in my opinion the exact opposit of a trustworthy politician. Not to mention he gained his first(?) consulship illegaly.
Well, since I had 2 of my relatives fighting in the American Civil war with one dieing at the hands of the Confederates, I can tell you from saved letters and diaries that the families didn’t blame Lincoln for either causing the war or the deaths. Instead, the blame was firmly in both the institute and supporters of slavery in the South, as well as those sympathizers elsewhere in the world who valued profit over human life (like England and France)
I read other stuf as well, like this:
He was not originally a mythologized face on Mount Rushmore, the perfect president who freed the slaves and saved the Union. He was in no rush to free any slaves at all. He believed the slave problem would best be solved by voluntary deportation, known as colonization.
1 Like
I submit The Buddha as a potential candidate.
I have a hard time seeing Buddha as a politician.
But an example of a great man, he certainly was.
He had a commune sort-of thing going. I guess the people were allowed to come and go as they pleased, so perhaps not really a politician.
1 Like
No summer recess? No winter recess? Sure.
So passes when it benefits the party to maintain a seat.
Uh huh. Its just coincidental that keeping those problems means keeping the power to pretend you want to fix them.
So politicians in the US dont get to change jobs within the cabinet? You dont have reshuffles?
Thats the same way round. A small club controls the power, and you have to be in that club for a share. Im not sure Ive even heard of a political system in modern times where thats not the case.
This is a problem.
Buying votes is also a problem for every voting system, that is a sign not of a bad system but of a poor formation and understanding of democracy, as caused by economics meddling in politics through market mechanisms.
STV can easily be made to fail, as is the case of any voting system, even in spite of laws (or because of carefully crafted loopholes or the like). The biggest problem here is that the principle of “one person, one vote” is being broken, and null blocks just… have ridiculously huge populations, that tend to be wealthy, so they can push for more resources to manufacture votes in a way WH space can’t.
I don’t know of any system that would get Null’s overrepresentation out that is still, well, at least attempting to be a democratic form of guidance. I don’t particularly like it either, and likely will suffer with it having thrown my hat in with lowsec facwar 4ever. But to me, democracy is massively important for reasons far beyond EVE (which really doesn’t matter in the bigger scheme of things), but we should strive for a democratic society in all spheres of life. So I’m open to suggestions, but don’t think the critique as presented is appropriately scoped to the situation.
(Sorry if this has already been covered, I can’t read through all 200 other posts, as I don’t have the time, but I hope this provides some elucidation that the simple structure of a voting system does not a democracy make, and that flaws in democracy should thusly be examined as systemic problems with the entire community in the scope of discussion, not simply one voting system vis a vis another).
1 Like
Yes, there are bad people in every institution created by human beings. There are also good people. Focusing on the bad ones and using those to discredit everybody who has ever been a part of that profession isn’t okay. Folks shouldn’t do that.
What do they do during recess? They go home, take local meetings, march in parades, and do a bunch of other work. These guys can’t even go to the grocery store or to a sporting event without folks walking up and bugging them about stuff. One of my good friends from college was a local city councilwoman nearby here in Virginia and after the second term she quit running because it was an all consuming job. That was being part of a 10 person city council for a city that had 23,000 residents. Now imagine being in a more important body.
There is no such thing as vacation or a day off.
Of course. The party cares about maintaining its majority, and it won’t force people to vote against their constituencies because that causes them to lose seats and thus the majority.
That’s more of an issue with lobbyists than it is with elected officials.
No. Cabinet secretaries are not elected officials, they’re appointed by the president and serve until they quit, the President fires them or there’s a change in administration.
And that’s really the problem, not the person who ends up getting to wear the crown for a while.
How many headlines would you like me to link to showing how they are actually ducking out on meeting constituents and hiding from any public appearances?
You should know by now that your propagandistic American exceptionalism and flag waving is not going to get you a pass in a multinational forum.
1 Like
Most of that’s nonsense, but where it isn’t, those people tend to lose their next election.
If I’ve ever mentioned my country in a way that anybody could remotely call “propagandisitic,” it was tongue in cheek. But I do think it’s interesting that every single person here who has come at me hard about being a politician is not American.
Such hard hard work. And it must be painful to get paid for it.
Yeah thats the theory. Shame thats not how it works in practise. Plenty of unpopular votes are cast, and swept away or spun.
Who is it officials listen to? Thats right, lobbyists and thinktanks.
Well there’s a massive issue with your system right there.
If they are giving him the crown, then of course hes going to support the system. Its not in any political interests to reform the system. Its not in their finacial interests, at the very least.
That term always amuses me.
2 Likes
Most of…but where…tend to. You have all the weasel phrases down pat. I’ll give you that.
1 Like
It’s not for most people. Imagine not being able to go to a restaurant, take a walk with your family, go to a ball game, sit at a bar without having somebody come up to you and want to talk about work, and knowing that you risk your job by blowing them off. You have to guard everything you say and do, because everybody’s got a camera, you can’t afford to have a bad day, get angry in public, or do a lot of stuff that regular people do. And, of course, you don’t even get credit for working 24/7.
It only takes one.
It depends on the official and what role they have. Elected officials listen first and always foremost (to the peril if they don’t) to their constituents. If you’re a lobbyist, you can guarantee that if the guy has to chose between you and his constituent, you are going to lose. And that’s how it should be. You’re an idiot anyway if you put the guy in a position where you’re asking him to choose between you and them.
Not an issue, at all. It allows for experts to do those jobs, not elected officials.
Was it you or somebody else who said poor people don’t run for office? The folks who think getting elected is a path to riches are quickly disabused of that notion, and the ones who try to force it end up in jail. Most of the folks who choose to run, at least at certain levels, have already had successful careers and they aren’t doing it for the money. It’s not a lot of money comparatively anyway (which is one of the problems, when it opens folks up to corruption).
Only a sith deals in absolutes.
1 Like