I will be voting for Bernie Sanders

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I'm just suggesting the process of picking a presidential candidate need not be so painfully brutal. If they made the decision to declare, say Bernie or Warren as the leader of the party, then you have the best part of 2 or 3 years to cement your stance and let the voters understand. Not knowing who the contender will be until the last minute means you have to do a lot of work in a short period of time. Either way, I'm not sure it's the best way of doing it, but the machine lumbers along.

As for civil unrest, you probably can't see the forest for the trees when you live amongst it - but I don't recall any international media about 'America being more divided than ever before' during Obama's time in office. Trump is deliberately goading and taunting, and ultimately helping divide the nation. It will make the place weaker, not stronger.
 
As citizens of the united states, we do not have the ability to chose our nominees. This nonsense is a circus to gauge public approval or disapproval. The deep state just wants to know how bad the civil unrest would be for each candidate.

I am not kidding or exaggerating. Watch how the DNC and RNC conduct themselves, if you haven't already.
 
I listened to 6 years of Obamic hate speech, be it Saturday morning address or much more vitriol about how he openly despises Republicans, etc. He changed his tune when the Republicans took control of the Senate to go with the house. Oh, I pay attention to what's REALLY happening.

I'd say YOU plainly can't see the forest or the trees when you refuse to look at them. So much was also said about the many disenfranchised fighting back was what was getting Trump out front in the primaries, but the effort to ignore was intense.

I think the democratic party, which still sends me the mailers because of the money they got in the past, is best illustrated by Hillary's campaign: Bill telling them there is something wrong, the campaign trying to shut him up even though he won 7 of 8 statewide elections and both of his presidential campaigns. When you're right, the Democrats want to silence you. Which again makes Trump the breath of fresh air to America.

The media may see it as big business to go against him, but it sure proves the fascism of the Obama years is over. As Naomi Wolfe said, they were careful during O Duce's regime, now they are free to say what they want.

And some people want to go back to Obama's fascism. . . .

Oh, I could take having Tulsi around.

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neptronix said:
As citizens of the united states, we do not have the ability to chose our nominees. This nonsense is a circus to gauge public approval or disapproval. The deep state just wants to know how bad the civil unrest would be for each candidate.

I am not kidding or exaggerating. Watch how the DNC and RNC conduct themselves, if you haven't already.
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We don't get to choose ours directly either - we vote for a local member, who is typically in a party. The party chooses their leader based on the (often shallow) pool of talent of those already elected to parliament. Look, I'm not saying our system is better, but at least we know who will be running for the entire duration of the parliamentary term.
 
Are you saying there is no way someone else can join in later and run?

After the 2012 election, it was much talked about that Hillary and JEB would run. Trump was talking but noone ever takes him seriously, even less then than now. You may not see it overseas but it's being reported that way here. Rarely is there a surprise refusal once everyone knows they're running.

So after 2016 Biden's name was the first mentioned, Warren didn't come up seriously until after Bernie said he was in.

But Harris wasn't even censured in the senate yet. She was in mid pout when the first rumors came and didn't announce until last January. Literally, she could not be involved in your system? https://www.foxnews.com/politics/court-files-shed-light-on-kamalas-awkward-donation-from-donald-trump
 
With the Westminster system, the voters elect local members who sit in a 151 seat lower house. The party with the most seats forms government by proving they have more than 76 seats' worth of support.
The leader of the party is the person who becomes the prime minister if the party wins the majority of seats.

So the only way for a sitting prime minister to be replaced is at a general election, where the opposition might win. However, in recent Australian politics, we have had numerous prime ministers replaced by their own party through a vote of the parlimentary caucus. This is generally a very risky thing to do, however the Bradbury of all Prime Ministers won, and still managed to limp a 2-term appallingly bad government over the line with 76 seats. So no, the people didn't choose him to be prime minister. The people of the seat of Cook voted for him, and his party chose him to lead.

So if you don't like the party, or the leader, the best way to dispose of them is to vote them out at a general election once every 3 years. You might have a change of government, but the former PM could still win their seat, and still serve in parliament. Generally they remain bitter, angry, backstabbers who make life hard for everyone, not least the country.

My point is, if the leader of a party has the endorsement of the party, nobody will seek to contend because it's their job to lead the party to an election win. In recent years our elections have focused heavily on personalities, rather than competency, but that's a pretty common trend the world over.
 
jonescg said:
In recent years our elections have focused heavily on personalities, rather than competency, but that's a pretty common trend the world over.
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Another common trend the world over is nations referring to themselves as a "Democracy", but in actuality being nothing of the sort. This is especially true among the world's "first world" nations. This disparity between the national identity and the reality is one of the reasons France is seeing increasing civil strife in the present as the common people grow increasingly agitated by the aristocracy that rules them and feeds off of their labor while telling them how "free" and "prosperous" they are as living standards crumble and the police state expands due to the result of policies that the vast majority of the people in France were/are against.

The actual direct democracies of the world that have existed within the last century, including but not limited to Libya under Qaddafi, Iran under Mosaddegh, or Chile under Allende, have been systematically exterminated by the fake "Democracies" of the world.

The Trilateral Commission feared an "excess of democracy" breaking out in the U.S. as a result of the Vietnam War protests and civil rights movement. As a result, freedom and prosperity in the U.S. have been greatly on the decline since while the propaganda proclaiming this country's prosperity and freedom was cranked up to 10. Then 9-11 occurred and it was cranked up to 11, and this country's living standards are currently at a relative nadir and freedom itself almost gone entirely in spite of all the propaganda claiming otherwise. Currently, the composite opinion of the people of the U.S. has absolutely no bearing upon the official policy enacted(See "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" by Princeton University). Congress is bought and paid for by corporations. The corporations write the laws America's people are expected to adhere to while the American people have no meaningful input, said laws being passed by a legislative branch thoroughly captured by corporate interests thanks to a court system that equates shameless bribery with "free speech" while it simultaneously is ok with corralling protestors into ironically named "free speech" zones to make sure they aren't heard. Non-violent protestors are jailed for straying out of these "free speech" zones. Americans are locked into cages and have their assets stripped when they refuse to follow said laws written by corporations with which the American people had no meaningful input and if one refuses to pay the taxes required to enforce said laws. One will even be killed by thugs with badges and guns as the ultimate consequence and logical conclusion of refusing to be locked into said cages or having their assets stripped. The elite of society want to take the guns away from the commoners for a reason, as they know that if current trends continue, it's only a matter of time before their guns are aimed not only at the thugs with badges and guns(who are grossly outnumbered and increasingly militarized to compensate), but also towards said elite of society(who are even more outnumbered, and are supporting the construction of a scientific control grid to monitor everyone and everything in a last ditch effort to retain dominance).

It is not a coincidence that nearly all of the nations the U.S. has waged war upon or initiated sanctions against(that were really declarations of war in everything but name) within the last 50 years have been nations that had initially refused to allow a privately-run central bank to control their currency. Examples of holdouts that have been conquered to some degree in the early 21st century included Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and Libya. Now we're down to Iran, North Korea, and Cuba as being the world's last holdouts that control their own money, who have resorted to authoritarianism as a survival tactic in the face of a constant regime of sanctions designed to perpetually impoverish their people as the U.S. deep state sets the stage for a coup in each of these three nations. The rest of the world's nations have their currencies controlled by dynastic families of very wealthy bankers(the Rothschilds being one of the most well known examples, among others) and are seeing a constant debasing of their purchasing power as a result, which ties directly to the declining living standards the people of first world nations are experiencing in spite of official statistics saying how "good" things are.

In the U.S., Ron Paul has been one of the few people who would actually try to do something about this by auditing the Federal Reserve. Bernie Sanders, to his credit, has paid this issue lip service, but personally, I don't trust him to anything near the same degree as I do Dr. Paul.
 
ZeroEm said:
I wish the USA was a Democracy and not a Republic. Where we could Vote and not have the electoral college vote for us!
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If Americans got to vote directly on what laws they wanted and didn't want and what policies were enacted, this nation would be far less authoritarian and far more egalitarian on the whole. But alas.

The founding fathers disdained democracy because they understood that the people could vote their rights away in the interest of expediency or out of ignorance. However, the representative republic the founding fathers intended for us to have has devolved into a plutocracy, kleptocracy and kakistocracy all in one that fails to represent the interests of the people the republic claims it represents. The representatives the American people are allowed to vote for are filtered by powerful special interests that are seeking a pre-determined outcome that benefits themselves and not the people, with plenty of vote tampering and other election chicanery to twist the odds for their favored candidates.

The U.S. is a corporate-run dictatorship pretending to be a democracy, that was meant to be a representative republic. It's little wonder why the people here are so miserable and angry.
 
Yes, people can not be trusted to make there own laws, we need the system the way it was designed. The way it was designed was changed for the benefit of the Democratic-Republican Party. Which I am neither. Every notice how these two parties keep other parties out of play! Sorry I have said too much.
 
neptronix said:
As citizens of the united states, we do not have the ability to chose our nominees. This nonsense is a circus to gauge public approval or disapproval. The deep state just wants to know how bad the civil unrest would be for each candidate.

I am not kidding or exaggerating. Watch how the DNC and RNC conduct themselves, if you haven't already.
Click to expand...
Yep
 
The Toecutter said:
The founding fathers disdained democracy because they understood that the people could vote their rights away in the interest of expediency or out of ignorance. However, the representative republic the founding fathers intended for us to have has devolved into a plutocracy, kleptocracy and kakistocracy all in one that fails to represent the interests of the people the republic claims it represents. The representatives the American people are allowed to vote for are filtered by powerful special interests that are seeking a pre-determined outcome that benefits themselves and not the people, with plenty of vote tampering and other election chicanery to twist the odds for their favored candidates.

The U.S. is a corporate-run dictatorship pretending to be a democracy, that was meant to be a representative republic. It's little wonder why the people here are so miserable and angry.
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I talk to so many people who are aware of the above to some degree and are hugely dissatisfied with how things are going here; even people who support the ruling party. I haven't met a single person who thinks things are okay.

Nobody is really mad enough to do anything about it though. What an awkward place to be.

We are just in the beginning stages of collectively realizing that our relationship with our government is an abusive one.
 
The Toecutter said:
If Americans got to vote directly on what laws they wanted and didn't want and what policies were enacted, this nation would be far less authoritarian and far more egalitarian on the whole. But alas.
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I don't think mob rule would be much better. After 9/11 all Muslims would have been in government camps, CDC budgets would go from zero (during times of no epidemics) to trillions (during epidemics) and we'd eternally be voting for zero taxation and a doubling of benefits.
The founding fathers disdained democracy because they understood that the people could vote their rights away in the interest of expediency or out of ignorance. However, the representative republic the founding fathers intended for us to have has devolved into a plutocracy, kleptocracy and kakistocracy all in one that fails to represent the interests of the people the republic claims it represents. The representatives the American people are allowed to vote for are filtered by powerful special interests that are seeking a pre-determined outcome that benefits themselves and not the people, with plenty of vote tampering and other election chicanery to twist the odds for their favored candidates.
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Agreed there; a lot is broken nowadays. One way to fix that is to get big money out of the electoral process. Repealing the Citizens United decision would be a good start there.
 
Dauntless said:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/02/economy/july-jobs-report/index.html
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Since 2009, job growth year over year has failed to match population growth in the U.S. The vast majority of new employment created is low-wage service sector jobs that pay close to minimum wage, which is not even enough to pay rent on a borderline "livable" rat-infested slumlord special in most of the U.S. let alone pay the utilities and eat on top of that, nevermind having surplus to save or spend on "wants". The U.S. employment to population ratio has failed to rebound back up to 2008 levels. The "recovery" that O'Duce took credit for was a complete fabrication, and the "booming economy" Trumpolini brags about, while a slight improvement from O'Duce even after filtering out the BLS obfuscations, still doesn't put us back to where we were before the economy collapsed in 2008.

I just applied to 6 more jobs today, 2 of them engineering firms. Getting an interview with an engineering firm is roughly a 1 in 200 chance for me thus far for each application submitted. I don't apply to a job unless I meet or exceed the qualifications listed for that job.

What I wouldn't give to be in the days of the late 1970s recession compared to this crap.
 
neptronix said:
The Toecutter said:
The founding fathers disdained democracy. . ..U.S. is a corporate-run dictatorship pretending to be. . . so miserable and angry.
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I talk to so many people who are aware of the above to some degree and are hugely dissatisfied with how things are going here; even people who support the ruling party. I haven't met a single person who thinks things are okay.

Nobody is really mad enough to do anything about it though. What an awkward place to be.

We are just in the beginning stages of collectively realizing that our relationship with our government is an abusive one.
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The 1860 sesession and the resulting Civil War was based on abuses the south complained about from day one. Dang, tell me you've at least heard of the nullification crisis.

Oh, right, I'm kidding myself again. But I'm sure there plenty of history you've heard of that is about government abuse, even if it's unspoken. People end up learning hard lessons about just how abusive the government intends to remain.

Since the original NOVEL is legendary for helping to discuss society and government, I'm thinking I should read this new translation of 'Utopia' my local library has. I hear it's much easier to read than the 19th century authoritive version I labored through.

But let me offer some spoilers: You can't miss this is a mirror version of England that's been isolated in the new world for over 1,000 years. Yet for all the talk of how horrible England is for the things it does, (Even if is IS/WAS the best European country) Utopia does it all in a perfect way. And the author is laughing at you as you read.

Permanent war to serve the growing need for slaves, farmland, resources, the Utopians really have things figured out. Oh, do read the punishment for dissent. Or for ANYTHING. No wonder Utopia is perfect. And Europe fell in love with the concept. Many refused to believe this wasn't a true story. You should be glad such abusiveness doesn't exist here.

Oh, it did. John Smith becoming the Paramount king of the indians for the Jamestown colony, you could have believed he'd read 'Utopia.' Perhaps Nathan Bedford Forest did read it, he sure used Utopian warfare.

Eeriely enough, Utopia itself seemed to be right about where they ultimately out South Carolina, the colony/state most like Utopia, with the slaves outnumbering the citizens, etc. Do you know which of the original 13 was the biggest loser in forming the US. Government? (Have you at least considered reading up on the nullification crisis?)

Keep in mind, while S.C. was a successful replica, that was accidental. The many deliberate efforts to create actual Utopian communities here failed. Thoreau's Walden Pond failed not(And you thought it was a success) for the same reasons as the others, for the same reason John Smith became a totalitarian dictator: Everyone thinks THEY should get to make the rules, not that they should have to follow them.

And with that, maybe you can understand I'm dumbfounded at the thought of getting people to agree on what abusive government would even be.

I would expect the very definition of it to be not just Obamacare, but his sending his people to the Supreme Court to argue against Americans having Constitutional Rights. And yet there are people who say that's just fine with them who will how about 'Abusive Government.'

Sleazey said:
Sen. Bernie Sanders, has one speed: Loud. He shouts his answers and dismisses those who disagree with him.
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neptronix said:
Nobody is really mad enough to do anything about it though. What an awkward place to be.

We are just in the beginning stages of collectively realizing that our relationship with our government is an abusive one.
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Consider that even the smallest act of defiance, however small, when you refuse to yield to authority, will eventually end up with you locked in a cage and your assets stripped, or killed if you refuse to be locked in a cage or allow the authorities to strip your assets. It could be something as minor as refusing to pay a parking ticket that may have been wrongfully issued, or getting arrested for walking around in public after having a few beers even though you weren't bothering or harming anyone and refusing to pay the fines afterward.

Non-violent protestors have had their kids stolen from them by child services after being arrested at a protest for stepping out of the "free speech zone" and losing their jobs and eventually cars/homes as a result of said arrest. Same for otherwise fit parents who happened to smoke an otherwise harmless green flower that the federal government doesn't approve of.

Everyone does what they are told... or else. Then they all pretend how they live in this wonderful "free country" at the same time, where any interaction with law enforcement can turn deadly in a fraction of a second. Most people in this country don't even know what freedom is because they've never experienced it. It never really existed here. In fact, they're actually afraid of it because it is unknown, to an extreme. They're afraid of the vagrant walking down the street smoking a joint and not bothering anyone, or horrified that their neighbor dared to violate the HOA or local ordinance by working on their daily driver on their own property so they could get to work the next day and avoid paying a mechanic thousands of dollars they don't have, or upset that they saw a mother *gasp* BREASTFEEDING her infant child in public. There's no shortage of harmless acts that have been needlessly criminalized. In fact, the average American commits multiple felonies a day without even being aware it. After all, "ignorance of the law is no excuse", even though the law is so voluminous that it would be impossible to read all laws in a hundred lifetimes. We may be considered "free" relative to North Korea, but being "relatively free" is NOT the same as actually being free. The libertarians and anarchists understand this at least.

The Bill of Rights does not have "exceptions" and "exigent circumstances" that allow those amendments to be ignored written into it either, but try telling that to the federal courts or the Supreme court that both invent them on an almost daily basis.
 
Dauntless said:
the son of Christopher Columbus said:
The wise care little for widely held views
as most people are easily swayed
And that which they throw from their homes
Is later thought to be of highest value.
-Fernando Columbus
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Well that was telling. The son basically admitting his father was a fraud. Impressive.
 
MJSfoto1956 said:
The son basically admitting his father was a fraud. Impressive.
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Huh? How do you figure? That is about his own life, living on only a fraction of the inheritance he was supposed to get. Quite a story there, especially since so many people believe his father died penniless when he had become one of the richest men in Europe. But the sons didn't get much of it. Especially the 2nd, as the 1st was busy squandering as he pleased and expecting his younger brother to understand. But Fernando still had plenty with which to travel Europe and the new world, as well as buy up as many as 25,000 books to build his library.

Oh, was it 5,000 that were lost at sea? I suppose I should be looking this up, but all I really want to say is that was the dedication he wrote to his library, which was full of what, before the printing press, was not considered important enough to collect. But Fernando wanted to go beyond the religious, deeply philosophical, etc., and collect the complete knowledge of the world, which was finally being made available on paper. The Greeks had to steal to build their Alexandrian library, boarding the ships that came to the harbor, taking whatever the unwary crew and passengers didn't know to hide, transcribing copies that were given to the victims while the Greeks kept the originals. Fernando bought his legally.

The father was pretty much forgotten at the time of his death. It was the son who resuscitated his reputation. The father might have been forgotten by history if not for the son. And so would the son, who never would have had the chance to create the original library cataloguing system, the book summary, oh, we pointy headed intellectuals owe a great debt to Fernando. it's because of his cataloguing system that we know he had books that oh what we wouldn't give to have them remain with the collection all those centuries since. (Stolen, sold, he wasn't there to protect them anymore.) Now they're lost to history.
 
The Toecutter said:
neptronix said:
Nobody is really mad enough to do anything about it though. What an awkward place to be.

We are just in the beginning stages of collectively realizing that our relationship with our government is an abusive one.
Click to expand...

Consider that even the smallest act of defiance, however small, when you refuse to yield to authority, will eventually end up with you locked in a cage and your assets stripped, or killed if you refuse to be locked in a cage or allow the authorities to strip your assets. It could be something as minor as refusing to pay a parking ticket that may have been wrongfully issued, or getting arrested for walking around in public after having a few beers even though you weren't bothering or harming anyone and refusing to pay the fines afterward.
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So tell me, how did Baltimore stay out of prison? They were rioting there recently, remember? Was it decided that it was greater punishment to leave them in Baltimore?

Ah yes, what dissent is allowed? Is it allowable to say openly that Baltimore has had a lot of bad black mayors in the last 50 years? It's a well known fact, so can we say it? That the only good mayor they've had was that white guy, Martin O'Malley, is allowable to say? Funny, as O'Malley was warming up his campaign for governor, the sitting republican governor who was his opponent fired a staffer for participating in an online discussion with a smear campaign against O'Malley. However, the state democratic party did NOT fire the official from their office who was starting the smear campaign. Why was the democratic party out to get their success story? He was about to win the governors race, why didn't they want that? Was it solely because he was working counter to all their identity politics?

People are plenty angry enough to do things, so they do things all the time. It might be nice if they'd figure out how to do things that are worthwhile, but they do much based on their anger. Another foolish editorial on the CNN website recently. The guy makes all these excuses why it's alright to commit crime in Baltimore. Afterall, the has been 'White flight.' Yeah, sounds like the black community is entitled to commit crime with white people leave, I'm so convinced. He goes on about how it's unfair that criminals get busted and have a criminal record afterward, here nobody does anything to comfort them. Sounds like not staying put and paying property taxes in Baltimore is a bigger crime than killing, dealing drugs, etc. At least in Baltimore. To hear the guy writing the editorial say it.

But I'm flummoxed. Do you guys simply live in a different U.S.A. than I do? 'What are you rebelling against?' 'Whattaya got?' The writer is rebelling against the reduction in the murder rate of the black community that occurred during the years of the white mayor. Would he have complained about it if one of the black mayors had accomplished this? To him, getting drugs off the street and keeping people alive just isn't worth seeing criminals getting a criminal record. CNN even makes room for him on all that.

So he gets to vent about his lifelong friends saying they're going to vote for a white mayor, what with how bad all those black mayors have been. How dare they. He still hasn't forgiven his father, who he says held real jobs, supported his family himself, raised his kids. The dad openly voted for Trump. How dare he. Despite this big lead in of the editorial about his pillar of society father, the author won't make allowance for maybe his father knows better than him.

All this dissent you're saying noone is allowed to have, oh, pay attention: It's all around you, out in the open. A lot of it is nonsense. But it's there. The problem is so much more attention gets devoted to the outright foolish, so nothing good will come of it. . . .
 
The Toecutter said:
Consider that even the smallest act of defiance, however small, when you refuse to yield to authority, will eventually end up with you locked in a cage and your assets stripped, or killed if you refuse to be locked in a cage or allow the authorities to strip your assets. It could be something as minor as refusing to pay a parking ticket that may have been wrongfully issued, or getting arrested for walking around in public after having a few beers even though you weren't bothering or harming anyone and refusing to pay the fines afterward.
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You'd be surprised what you can get away with. A lot of stories of bad things happening to dissenters are blown out of proportion or put in the spotlight to try to intimidate people back into a depressed complacency.

If you chose to live in a state with predatory police like California for example, then yes, i'd think twice about even remotely stepping out of the boundaries. But even in America there are places that are actually free from law enforcement, or close to, to the point where a lot of the victimless crime type stuff is overlooked and almost considered a joke by the law itself.

What the rulers are really scared of is not having enough resources to restrain the people if they go rogue. Remember that there's only 1 lawman per 10,000 people, approximately. In a city of a million people, there may be only a few thousand jail cells. The real way they keep everyone in line is through fear and intimidation. Their grip on the public is actually paper thin otherwise.

Here's a thought for you to chew on --v

[youtube]H6b70TUbdfs[/youtube]
 
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