Page 3 of 3 FirstFirst 123
Results 21 to 28 of 28
  1. #21
    Senior Member Gold Poster holzz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Location
    omnipresence
    Posts
    4,504

    Default Re: Do you really care?

    Quote Originally Posted by trish View Post
    Oh! So you're telling me you can't tell a campaign promise from a honest conviction? These people have a history. They have records. You can look at who supports them and who doesn't.

    And yes sometimes, reality gets in the way of opinion. Sometimes facts intervene and forces a change of mind. Not all unkept promises are lies.

    But none of that changes the fact that politicians are desperate for our VOTES. They're fucking desperate. We hold the power. What's really frustrating is that we aren't all of one mind (and half the population listens to the wrong pundits )But that's what a democratic republic is all about.
    sorry, all politicians lie....doesn't matter about the party.



  2. #22
    Hung Angel Platinum Poster trish's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    The United Fuckin' States of America
    Posts
    13,898

    Default Re: Do you really care?

    Sorry, but that doesn't address the remark you quoted.


    "...I no longer believe that people's secrets are defined and communicable, or their feelings full-blown and easy to recognize."_Alice Munro, Chaddeleys and Flemings.

    "...the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way". _Judge Holden, Cormac McCarthy's, BLOOD MERIDIAN.

  3. #23
    Hung Angel Platinum Poster trish's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    The United Fuckin' States of America
    Posts
    13,898

    Default Re: Do you really care?

    Quote Originally Posted by holzz View Post
    sorry, all politicians lie....doesn't matter about the party.
    Perhaps if all politicians lied all of the time and all evidence of what policies they actually support were completely inaccessible, then how one should vote would be be completely indeterminate. But that is not the case.

    No politician or party is ever going to be in perfect alignment with my own beliefs and opinions on matters of domestic and foreign policy. If even there were, no politician or party is going to be able to put enact even a small fraction those policies. Even then, on any single issue there will have to be compromise, trades and deals to get anything done.

    If the only thing you do is vote, your involvement in the experiment of self-governance is minimal. Not voting because you can’t know what policies an office seeker might or might not support should they obtain office, is just a silly excuse to abdicate one’s civil responsibility entirely.

    Quote Originally Posted by fred41 View Post
    ....but a referendum can , in fact, be part of the political process. If political parties have been dead locked on issues in what seems like forever - than a call to the people seems the correct thing to do. It shouldn't be on every issue obviously, but one deemed important enough to a country to find it necessary. If the interested subsection of a populace that would normally back a particular vote that you - for example - are part of doesn't turn out in significant numbers to vote...then shame on them..(I think sometimes people also have to come to grips with the fact that their personal choice isn't always necessarily the right one either).
    There's nothing wrong with occasionally making the populace part of the political process...they're already part of the process every time they vote.
    Quote Originally Posted by fred41 View Post
    ...I'm referring to referendum votes on a local gov't level though.
    I tend to agree. Where it goes too far, is perhaps in California. Their system of allowing citizen petitions to force public votes on popular issues sometimes seems out of hand, resulting chain reactions of votes called to nullify the prior ones. On the local level, these popular elections are too often influenced by outside interests and money.

    On the national level, Amendments to the Constitution have to be ratified by the State Legislatures (not the populace). I wonder if NRA might not have passed by now if 1) it was voted on by the public and 2) it wasn’t the first proposed Amendment to have a ratification deadline placed upon it. The only other one with a deadline was the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment (the Child Labor Amendment of 1924 is still pending).


    1 out of 1 members liked this post.
    Last edited by trish; 10-01-2014 at 05:38 PM.
    "...I no longer believe that people's secrets are defined and communicable, or their feelings full-blown and easy to recognize."_Alice Munro, Chaddeleys and Flemings.

    "...the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way". _Judge Holden, Cormac McCarthy's, BLOOD MERIDIAN.

  4. #24
    Senior Member Platinum Poster
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    13,473

    Default Re: Do you really care?

    Quote Originally Posted by fred41 View Post
    ....but a referendum can , in fact, be part of the political process. If political parties have been dead locked on issues in what seems like forever - than a call to the people seems the correct thing to do. It shouldn't be on every issue obviously, but one deemed important enough to a country to find it necessary. If the interested subsection of a populace that would normally back a particular vote that you - for example - are part of doesn't turn out in significant numbers to vote...then shame on them..(I think sometimes people also have to come to grips with the fact that their personal choice isn't always necessarily the right one either).
    There's nothing wrong with occasionally making the populace part of the political process...they're already part of the process every time they vote.
    I would be cautious in resorting to using a referendum for local issues, and I also think that it becomes even more problematic if you have areas with low voter registration and low turn out, as this must be factored in to any decision of importance, which is what one must think a referendum is for. Is it not also the case that in the USA your constitution already endows citizens with a wide range of rights, and that it is often a failure to enforce such rights locally that undermines the quality of local politics?

    I can only discuss the US in a detached manner as I don't live there and state laws vary, but you have the various arguments about law-making in California and whether or not Proposition 13 in the 1970s and others like it that were either a benefit to home owners, or reduced the tax-raising powers of the state, forcing them to raise taxes elsewhere. This year Chesterfield City has considered seceding from St Louis, again for tax reasons, but is it fair for one part of the city to opt out if this lands the remainder with a heavier tax burden, while, 'incidentally' increasing the predominantly black segments of the city? According to the New York Times, the local police in St Louis target black motorists unfairly in order to impose the fines that have become part of the city's revenue-raising strategy, so that crime is not in fact a crime statistic but a tax-statistic!

    A referendum might be justified if it concerns the character of the state as a whole -for example, in the UK whether or not we should be a monarchy, a member of the European Union, or independence for the constituent parts such as Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and indeed, England. Would the USA have to hold a referendum if, to take an hypothetical example, Puerto Rico applied to become the 51st state? I am not sure what the intractable issues are that can only be decided by a referendum, or if the process itself is valid if voter registration and voter turn-out is not considered comprehensive enough for the decision to be valid....and Trish's point about the potential for mischief-making by vested interests is also pertinent.



  5. #25
    Silver Poster fred41's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Queens, N.Y.
    Posts
    3,899

    Default Re: Do you really care?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavros View Post
    I would be cautious in resorting to using a referendum for local issues, and I also think that it becomes even more problematic if you have areas with low voter registration and low turn out, as this must be factored in to any decision of importance, which is what one must think a referendum is for. Is it not also the case that in the USA your constitution already endows citizens with a wide range of rights, and that it is often a failure to enforce such rights locally that undermines the quality of local politics?
    When I mean locally...I usually mean statewide. During most elections in N.Y.State...there are Ballot Questions (same thing). An 'informed' voter realizes why a particular referendum vote is on a ballot at the time and why...the issue usually only takes minute reading...and of course, there is always a reason for their timing and there is always a vested interest.
    ...but there is always a vested interest in any election...just as there also is a vested interest as to why a representative of a given people enacts or does anything....both can be (and sometimes are) overturned by the courts.

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavros View Post
    A referendum might be justified if it concerns the character of the state as a whole -for example, in the UK whether or not we should be a monarchy, a member of the European Union, or independence for the constituent parts such as Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and indeed, England. Would the USA have to hold a referendum if, to take an hypothetical example, Puerto Rico applied to become the 51st state? I am not sure what the intractable issues are that can only be decided by a referendum, or if the process itself is valid if voter registration and voter turn-out is not considered comprehensive enough for the decision to be valid....and Trish's point about the potential for mischief-making by vested interests is also pertinent.
    Yeah...pretty much agree with this.
    All opinions on other type of referendum votes aside - those are issues out of the norm of what I believe political representatives were voted into office to handle. The issues at stake affect everyone in such a way that every individual should have an "affecting" vote (and once again - shame on people that are too lazy to make it to the polls for this.)

    As for Puerto Rico - the last , non-binding of course, referendum vote amongst Puerto Ricans came in favor of statehood - though there is an argument as to the legitimacy of the numbers due to how the ballot questions were phrased. However I believe statehood can only be granted by Congress...and two things not favoring that: Puerto Rico's terrible economy and their voting demographics.

    For the record though - I would love for Puerto Rico to become the 51st State...but that can be a thread of it's own, in the future.


    Last edited by fred41; 10-03-2014 at 02:08 AM. Reason: spacing

  6. #26
    Senior Member Silver Poster
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    3,563

    Default Re: Do you really care?

    Not really FEELING next week's elections, the only exciting thing for me is the possible Legalization of Marijuana in Washington DC, which is right over the bridge for me. The Republican Senatorial Candidate in Virginia is a former Enron Lobbyist.

    Maybe I'll start tuning into MSNBC and Fox while the trick-or-treaters have me booked into the La-Z-Boy, .....see what's going on. I predict a landslide of bullshit on Tuesday night.


    World Class Asshole

  7. #27
    Junior Poster stimpy17's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    186

    Default Re: Do you really care?

    Quote Originally Posted by Odelay View Post
    Of course you still care enough to come onto the political board of a porn promotion site, but really, are you still invested in what happens politically in the world?

    In watching what's happening in Gaza and Ferguson, and a little further back in Newtown, CT, I have realized that I'm becoming more and more detached from the larger world, and specifically anything that smacks of politics. I would never refer to myself as an activist in any phase of my life, but I have engaged in a little activism at various times. I also campaigned hard for John Kerry and some local congressional candidates back in 2004 and 2006 because I thought it was do or die for the country. But I largely sat out the 2008 and 2012 elections, attending one Obama rally in each year. The last political campaign donation I made was in 2008, other than some funding for a friend who ran for state legislature and another who ran and won in a City Attorney race.

    I do care about stuff at the local community level. I'm sure I'd care a lot if I was a resident of Ferguson, Missouri. I do a little local volunteer stuff, but as soon as anything starts moving toward politics, I disengage. I guess the main reason I've disengaged from world and national politics is that it pretty much seems hopeless. People used to not vote against their own interests. Raising the minimum wage made sense to most people. Making the rich pay a little higher in taxes made sense to most people. Funding your local schools made sense. Although white people had to be drug kicking and screaming into the civil rights era, by the 70's, when I was growing into adulthood, it started making sense to most people.

    Another contributing factor for me is the absolutely appalling treatment of working people within just about every industry. Big business is politics, and vice versa. It's just a huge monolith and they get sheer idiots to work for them in Congress, the Supreme Court, and yes, even the White House. The media is absolutely useless.

    There are no solutions anymore. Only problems. When Al Gore wrote Earth in the Balance in 1992, I figured that would be a huge wake up call for planet earth and it's supposedly most intelligent species. It was anything, but. I simply can't spend psychological energy on working for a better world, because I'm not sure we deserve a better world anymore. Across the world, in 200 or so nations, people keep voting idiots and charlatans into power. Who was the last decent leader in the world? Mandela? He retired after one term in office. Is there anyone else?

    In the end, if I can't take anymore of the b.s. in this country, I'm moving south to Latin America. Not that it's a paradise there or anything, but my retirement dollars will stretch further. I've done alright in saving and stashing money in a 401k (no pension for me!). But I've also not had a raise in 7 years. And I work in a very profitable industry for a profitable company.

    Anyway, this rant is over. I'm curious what other participants here think. I give a fuck about individuals and their opinions. I don't give a fuck about big institutions or the people who run them.
    Bye.


    1 out of 2 members liked this post.
    " I don't pay them(Women) for sex, I pay them to leave".

    Charlie Sheen

  8. #28
    Professional Poster maxpower's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    1,709

    Default Re: Do you really care?

    Election Day is tomorrow. Remember to vote...or not.




    1 out of 1 members liked this post.

Similar Threads

  1. I don't care What anyone says...
    By EvonRose in forum General Discussion
    Replies: 37
    Last Post: 10-06-2011, 04:26 AM
  2. Hair care down there?
    By Surkis in forum General Discussion
    Replies: 15
    Last Post: 05-21-2008, 01:43 AM
  3. I don't care what they say!
    By MrsKellyPierce in forum General Discussion
    Replies: 9
    Last Post: 12-11-2007, 05:25 PM
  4. Do You Care About What You Say(here)?
    By Jasadin in forum General Discussion
    Replies: 14
    Last Post: 02-05-2007, 06:02 AM
  5. I don't care what anyone says...
    By magical meat in forum General Discussion
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 09-12-2006, 03:41 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •