Two-party democracies
I can see it going both ways.Originally posted by Word
@fable I am not sure thats what he means. Could you please be more specific weasel?
Fable's "bread and circuses" meaning (from my view) give the people something to take their mind off other issues.
If your happy why ask for change?
Your's "Unhappy people will vote for a change if there is one needed" meaning (from my view) that there is not a problem yet that has callled for the people to rise up and vote for it.
Me...I believe it lies somewhere in the middle. 50% most like do go for the "bread and circuses"...while the other 50% would vote if they thought change was needed. I feel the US is really divided right now....and I don't know what direction it needs to go. From my personal look at my life (not the world view), at this time I'm better off that I have ever been....so to ask me if it needs a change I would be inclined to say no. But remember this is just my view on my life. Not on the laws, conflicts and all the rest the US gvernment has to deal with.
What I fear...if more parties are made to run, nothing will get done. Two parties with 50% each or 4 parties with 25% each...
I personal can't see a way around the problem...mainly because every person has a different way/appoarch to looking at things."Vile and evil, yes. But, That's Weasel" From BS's book, MD 20/20: Fine Wines of Rocky Flop.
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fable
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Factors that would lead to this development historically have been gradual and economic (the rise of other economic powerhouses to counter Britain in the late 19th century, for example), or sudden and military (the destruction of Napoleonic France in both Russia and England). I don't see either as being in place at this time. The US' position is, IMO, analogous to that of the early Roman Empire in this respect: it is riding high on the myth of its ideological and cultural superiority. For that myth to be dispelled and real change occur, global economic forces need to be at work for a long time. A couple of possibilities for the future, however, could be:Originally posted by Lazarus
What do you think should be done in the US to elevate the thinking of the masses? What would bring the government back to the people? What sort of institutional changes would you have enacted?
Super-China. China gets its bureaucratic act together by tightening economic and social controls once more on native citizens, although foreigners are permitted to run industries and commercial businesses within special economic zones. The result is a China whose financial clout counters and overwhelms the US, particularly as the majority of the nation's individual income is taken in the form of taxes and used to support massive infrastructure, cultural and military programs.
Euro-Russia. Leary of a bellicose, hectoring US which slaps ever-higher tarriffs on imported goods while demanding the freedom to export at will, the European Union and Russia eventually amalgamate their economic might into a single free-trade zone. No military union is possible, but the combined economic might of this super trading unit allows it to issue requirements to the US which the latter, outraged, refuses. The US loses valuable overseas contracts, expertise and import duties, then discovers that Asia will not take up the slack.
These are possible futures--in fact, one hundred years from now, some scientist-ideologue at an Asian university may start a political movement asserting that the Asiatic race has "a manifest destiny" and "right to rule" by virtue of its special abilities, not unlike similar views formulated in Britain, Prussia and France in the 15th-through-19th centuries at various points. The shift of global development that once favored Assyria, Rome, Egypt, Greece, England, the Italian States, the Ottoman Empire, Holland, the Soviet and the US, could move to China or Japan, or both..and this will, of course, be seen as inevitable at the time, by people who have a short-sighted sense of history.
Meanwhile, the disastisfaction created by loss of economic world power could potentially cause US citizens to awaken and demand structural changes to their government. Alternatively, it may just lead to dealing with symptoms and "culprit hunting," as one demagogue after another points a finger at different groups, inside or outside the country, who are guilty of stealing everybody's income.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
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Fable's debating prowess and incredible wealth of knowledge comes back to haunt him, I see.
I'm not going to do that reply anymore because everything I thought on the matter, aside from the specifics of the Australian system, have been said already.
I'm not going to do that reply anymore because everything I thought on the matter, aside from the specifics of the Australian system, have been said already.
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@fable: Sorry for the delay. Weather this weekend was PERFECT! And when it comes to a choice between fun under the sun and electronic debating ...
I do not understand your latest post. My question was asking what would you like to see changed - not how you imagine change being directed by external events. Yours ideas are very interesting, but IMHO one can hardly discuss the future with anything like certainty in such a matter.
@HighLordDave: I would like to answer some of the questions you posed directly to me, but, again, I have no time at the moment (just on lunch break now). I will get back to you. (Unless the weather is nice again! )
@fable: Sorry for the delay. Weather this weekend was PERFECT! And when it comes to a choice between fun under the sun and electronic debating ...
I do not understand your latest post. My question was asking what would you like to see changed - not how you imagine change being directed by external events. Yours ideas are very interesting, but IMHO one can hardly discuss the future with anything like certainty in such a matter.
@HighLordDave: I would like to answer some of the questions you posed directly to me, but, again, I have no time at the moment (just on lunch break now). I will get back to you. (Unless the weather is nice again!
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fable
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Re: I'm here!
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Lazarus
I do not understand your latest post. My question was asking what would you like to see changed - not how you imagine change being directed by external events. Yours ideas are very interesting, but IMHO one can hardly discuss the future with anything like certainty in such a matter.
Your question was actually, "What would bring the government back to the people? What sort of institutional changes would you have enacted?" (I quoted your questions at the start of my reply.) I went from there, since IMO nothing can be done or will be possible to change such a fundamental characteristic of the state at this time. To bring "the government back to the people" would require a set of circumstances that shift the balance of power on the world stage--hence, my coments, above.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Lazarus
I do not understand your latest post. My question was asking what would you like to see changed - not how you imagine change being directed by external events. Yours ideas are very interesting, but IMHO one can hardly discuss the future with anything like certainty in such a matter.
Your question was actually, "What would bring the government back to the people? What sort of institutional changes would you have enacted?" (I quoted your questions at the start of my reply.) I went from there, since IMO nothing can be done or will be possible to change such a fundamental characteristic of the state at this time. To bring "the government back to the people" would require a set of circumstances that shift the balance of power on the world stage--hence, my coments, above.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
Re: Re: I'm here!
In other words could a group "hollar" load enough about a possible threat to shift enough opinions to want change?
Would it take a "shift of balance" or a possible threat of a shift of balance?Originally posted by fable
Your question was actually, "What would bring the government back to the people? What sort of institutional changes would you have enacted?" (I quoted your questions at the start of my reply.) I went from there, since IMO nothing can be done or will be possible to change such a fundamental characteristic of the state at this time. To bring "the government back to the people" would require a set of circumstances that shift the balance of power on the world stage--hence, my coments, above.
In other words could a group "hollar" load enough about a possible threat to shift enough opinions to want change?
"Vile and evil, yes. But, That's Weasel" From BS's book, MD 20/20: Fine Wines of Rocky Flop.
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fable
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Re: Re: Re: I'm here!
Government is an entity that resists change. Deep, structural changes are anathema to bureaucracies, who perceive (rightly) a temporary lessening of their power, an absence of order, and a drop in corruption, the doing of business perks between cronies, that is the lifeblood of government. This kind of change will be headed off at all costs, and the US has the ultimate weapon of pacification at its disposal: bread and circuses. Like the Ancient Romans, it's easiest to buy off the folks at home when you're rolling in the wealth of the world. As long as the cash is here, the same solution will be applied--and always successfully. I can't think of an instance at any time in history where its application didn't turn a decent sized group of dissidents into a tiny residual core of angry impotence.
So I don't believe the US government will change because of popular anger, not while money exists to set the tune that nearly all dance to. Not, that is, while conditions remain at a rough parity to the current system. No world-beating nation has ever fallen prey to internal anger while at the top of its form. Such anger is precluded by its resources.
But if the economic clout of the US was severely diminished in the distant future and the B&C response was out of the question, then who knows...? IMO, the US might respond militarily to such a threat. It might opt for temporizing solutions, like greater regional autonomy. At that point, we're dealing with so many interlocking factors that just about anything is possible.
Originally posted by Weasel
Would it take a "shift of balance" or a possible threat of a shift of balance?
In other words could a group "hollar" load enough about a possible threat to shift enough opinions to want change?
Government is an entity that resists change. Deep, structural changes are anathema to bureaucracies, who perceive (rightly) a temporary lessening of their power, an absence of order, and a drop in corruption, the doing of business perks between cronies, that is the lifeblood of government. This kind of change will be headed off at all costs, and the US has the ultimate weapon of pacification at its disposal: bread and circuses. Like the Ancient Romans, it's easiest to buy off the folks at home when you're rolling in the wealth of the world. As long as the cash is here, the same solution will be applied--and always successfully. I can't think of an instance at any time in history where its application didn't turn a decent sized group of dissidents into a tiny residual core of angry impotence.
So I don't believe the US government will change because of popular anger, not while money exists to set the tune that nearly all dance to. Not, that is, while conditions remain at a rough parity to the current system. No world-beating nation has ever fallen prey to internal anger while at the top of its form. Such anger is precluded by its resources.
But if the economic clout of the US was severely diminished in the distant future and the B&C response was out of the question, then who knows...? IMO, the US might respond militarily to such a threat. It might opt for temporizing solutions, like greater regional autonomy. At that point, we're dealing with so many interlocking factors that just about anything is possible.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
@HighLordDave; I wouldn't care to guess the content of my neighbor's mind. What I do protest is the assumption on your part that my neighbor will be ruled my "mob mentality."Originally posted by HighLordDave
@Lazarus:
If you take a reasonable, free-thinking individual and put him or her in a group, it is very easy to make those people behave in a way that is neither resonable or free-thinking. It's the mob mentality. It's not that you or I or your neighbour up the street are simple automatons moving about at the whim of some indisious master plan, but that as a group, people are swayed by marketing and charisma.
The field of demography arose out of the study of group tendencies and political parties (and advertising agencies) devote a lot of time and energy into getting masses of people to vote a certain way, support a certain cause or buy a certain product.
You believe that you are an individual unswayed by advertising on TV, soundbytes on the news and capable of becoming informed of issues in the next election and getting to know the candidates. Can you say the same about your neighbours?
I find it disheartening that people are always willing to assume the worst of human nature.Are you certain that the two major parties have installed themselves in positions of power? Or have they simply given the people what they want, and therefore been GIVEN that power? Again, I put it to you that the system is no more broken than the people that use it (or don't use it), and the Republicans and Democrats are no more powerful than the people have made them. So who/what is to blame? The system or the people?Originally posted by HighLordDave Let me ask you this: do you live in a state that allows voters to vote a straight-party ticket by pressing a single lever or marking a single column on the ballot? Do you know people who vote straight-party tickets? If you don't, you are a very fortunate person.
My argument is not that third parties cannot be effective. Nor is it that individuals cannot make a difference. My argument is that the Democrats and Republicans have installed themselves in power and have made it very hard for anyone else to have a say or a share in the power. I also believe that people vote in blocs regardless of their individual beliefs and that the public is easily swayed by advertising and flashy personalities.
Look, I dislike the two major parties as much as the next guy. I'm a radical capitalist! Do you think either one of the big parties has any understanding of that? No. But I do not decry the system, and I go and vote for the best option I can find. I believe that that is what we must all do. That IS within our power. And that CAN change the direction of the nation.
@fable: As I said, I don't know that peering into the future and playing out possible scenarios is very worthwhile. If you believe that some sea-change is necessary in the US system, but that it will never occur unless outside circumstances force it, then I must simply respectfully disagree.