2010-09-02, 13:43 | Link #61 | |
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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The way we do it in France (I'm not saying it's perfect or anything) is that each party has to raise money (and there are rules on where from and how much). And if the candidate gets more than 5% of votes, they get reimbursed. |
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2010-09-02, 17:04 | Link #62 |
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Campaign finance is a tricky subject. I kinda like what we have now (limits if you use government money), but we just need a few changes.
If you decide to not use government funds, then you have no limits. But also, your finances have to be tracked, and if there is any fraud, then you are dropped from the race. In addition, your largest donors have to be made prominently known; both companies and individuals, right there on the voting sheet. Money from other sources will always be used to help a candidate campaign; the best we can do is have it accurately tracked and made known in a prominent manner. The other thought I had, was to tax people not using the government funds(because you don't want limits), and to use those taxes to help other people's campaigns. Say, 10-20% of what you take in is taxed and put in the general election fund. |
2010-09-02, 20:12 | Link #64 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Age: 35
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It's clear that voters aren't willing to do the due diligence or when confronted with the facts, aren't willing to accept the reality. If you watch the recent video of "Restoring Honor" gathering on the mall, you can see that when confronted with facts people are not willing to accept things that don't fit their world view, the only way to help in the accepting of facts is to promote education. There are probably many people if educated would be more susceptible to the facts but that's just not the case, at least if your voting on something you should make an informed decision. In the end I think we need to stop representative democracy and vote on issues instead of people who represent many different answers for issues. Also they need to fix the ability to add riders to bills, especially if the rider is not even related to the legislation being discussed.
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2010-09-02, 22:31 | Link #65 |
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There are other groups that do track the funding, and to a degree, they have to declare it... but it's not made real prominent. The change I'd make, would be to require a candidate to make it available (such as on their website), and also list the major donors and the amounts right on the voting sheet.
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2010-09-03, 01:27 | Link #67 | |
Zettai Ryouiki Lover
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Bay Area
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2010-09-03, 09:33 | Link #68 |
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Rather than term limits, I'd like to see age limits in politics. If you're older than 60 (or even 50), then you can't run for office. I'm sick of seeing decrepit guys with Alzheimers in office, who don't have a clue about modern technology, or the way culture has changed. "Series of tubes" anyone?
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2010-09-03, 11:05 | Link #69 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Age: 35
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2010-09-03, 11:17 | Link #70 | |
Frandle & Nightbag
Join Date: Oct 2009
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I think the types of people you're really talking about are our esteemed *cough* MBA holders. XD Part of the problem, really, is that even when you strip away the more pragmatic realities about what people vote the way they do, even the ideal core of votership is just that 'people vote on what they care about'...which is good in principle, except that most people don't care about things that are actually relevant to the health or advancement of a nation, and this goes back to the lack of public awareness etc., etc.
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2010-09-03, 11:22 | Link #71 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: East Cupcake
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Realistically, age is not that important to technology. Specifically it is attitude that matters more. Even if a 70 year old Senator has no idea how the internet works, as so long as they are willing to accept that technology is constantly changing, and are willing to hire the proper people to dumb down the issues for them (no one expects any elected official to know everything, but we do expect them to hire those that do), then age is not a factor. What blocks technological progress in Congress is more arrogance and the simple desire to not change with the times ('if it ain't broke, don't fix it'), both qualities of which can be found in the younger generations as well as the older (though, I'll admit the later quality would probably more likely develop with age). |
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2010-09-03, 11:26 | Link #72 | |
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Age: 35
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2010-09-03, 11:31 | Link #73 | |
Frandle & Nightbag
Join Date: Oct 2009
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2010-09-03, 11:41 | Link #74 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Age: 35
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2010-09-03, 11:49 | Link #75 |
blinded by blood
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The electorate is pretty uneducated, because America in general is pretty uneducated. And this isn't that surprising. Primary school isn't designed to teach your kids anything; it's a prison to keep them locked up for half the day so adults can do the things that keep the country going. It's a government-sponsored babysitting service.
We'll always have a dumb electorate if we don't educate our kids, and a lot of politicians, a lot of corporate overlords, don't want a smart citizenry. They want dumb, materialistic worker drones that gobble up whatever they excrete as long as they keep their bank accounts filled to the brim. School isn't strict enough, they focus too much on the NCLB testing to keep the funding flowing. The lefty "everyone's a winner" and "self-esteem" attitudes are a big part of the problem. They've got it backwards! Confidence and self-esteem are results of being successful and competent, not causes of success and competence. We all know what a failure at life with too much confidence/arrogance is--a douchebag. When people suck at something, they should be told they suck at something. It's hard to correct a problem if you don't even know you have it. Plus, kids growing up in a school system that's afraid to even tell them they're stupid--much less properly discipline them for being stupid--are going to grow up thinking that they're the cat's ass and the world is their oyster, only to discover the harsh reality fairly quickly--meanwhile annoying the hell out of everyone else with their whiny-emo behavior. tl;dr version: Primary school needs to be a lot more like college, America could use a massive dose of meritocracy.
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2010-09-03, 11:56 | Link #76 |
Komrades of Kitamura Kou
Join Date: Jul 2004
Age: 39
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Meritocracy has been dead for years, even more so now when personal worth is measured as a direct proportion to the amount of Ben Franklins in your wallet, regardless of whether they were used to sniff cocaine or whatever.
In whatever case, kids are pretty much being taught in the US and in many parts of the world that money is all you need to succeed and get what you want and stuff. A downside of the capitalist mentality? Probably, but I'll chalk it up to the notion that to become rich (materially and monetarily) you have to throw away the rest of your humanity to the altar of currency. I guess being rich in character has lost its place in a world where money works and human kindness does not.
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2010-09-03, 11:59 | Link #77 | |
blinded by blood
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Sometimes I feel angry and upset that here I am, busting my ass and going into debt for a degree in electrical engineering, with lots of hard science and math--to get a career in which I'm actually going to try and do something, create something that advances the human race as a whole... ... yet I'll make far less money than people who argue with other people for a living. I tell my friend Becky (who is in law school) this all the time, and she just laughs at me.
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2010-09-03, 12:03 | Link #78 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Age: 35
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I've heard the platitude so often that it makes me sick: "I'm American so I don't have to work harder, I'm already the best" This isn't just a "lefty" ideal, this is just the populace influenced by the warhawks and the politicians who constantly reinforce into us that we are the best. Being the best comes from competing, clawing from the bottom to the top, fighting the pyramid to prove your the best, but look at what the conservatives are trying to do, dismantling science and math that have strict ways to measure ourselves. Oh well keep being delusional and keep blaming the left for the lack of competition, your wrong but you can still do that because it is your pejorative. Actually you can even put some blame on the structure of society into this too, you no longer have to be the best crafter, you have to the best seller, the best man/woman able to manipulate money, instead of producing a tangible or useful product. Instead the brokers far out make the creators/innovators. What value is there to be a leader in anything? Hell, why do I love sports? it's still relatively a meritocracy compared to all the other pyramids that people have to climb, as long as you have innate skill and are a hardworker you can make it, same goes for the creative works although it's still sad how much publishing makes. In the end, as long as scientists are making 80k tenured at college institutions and a publisher makes 5 billion more people will gravitate to publishing than actually producing science. |
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2010-09-03, 12:08 | Link #79 | |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Hamburg
Age: 54
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Please excuse me for being late to the party, but this was too much to simply overlook...
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How can any human being, endowed with reason, honestly believe that "the tax cuts pay for themselves", aka "due to the (alleged) stimulation of the tax cuts, the generated extra revenue is as high as the tax revenues lost or even more". Naturally, this is obviously bullshit. But somehow people are successfully being convinced that this is the case. Can you explain to me how you do it? |
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2010-09-03, 12:11 | Link #80 | |
Frandle & Nightbag
Join Date: Oct 2009
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But on the point of education and the politics surrounding it, I agree that emulating the collegiate model is good whenever possible. A school functions best, I feel, when it is an entity unto itself, responsible for its results with its individual students in order to obtain the money it needs to survive. State-sponsored schools that are evaluated mostly on a district-by-district basis using broad, generic standards are generally going to be either pretty terrible, or wildly imbalanced. The one year of public High School I attended was a real shocker because I ended up in the latter type of school. The upperclassmen prestige was all that was valued there, so the Advanced Placement teachers were in most cases multiple doctorate holders, and worked the asses off of the students that made the cut for their class. The district office passed it along to the state that our school had amazing performance on the AP exams and SAT IIs--which incidentally are both far too easy--and that was all they needed to know. They didn't hear about the 25% freshman drop-out and failure rate, or the 13% delinquency rate in underclassmen, or any of that stuff. If the schools were subjected to individual scrutiny, you bet your ass that would be dealt with swiftly.
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