webwit wrote: IMO the difference between republicans and democrats is only the way in which sociopaths going for power address two different demographics in order to get the vote and gain power, while both don't represent the people but the same powerful rich companies and families.
This kind of reductionism is harmful. There is a significant difference between the two US parties, and elections have dramatic measurable consequences, to workers rights, reproductive rights, the environment, the US economy, likelihood of aggressive wars, limits to state surveillance, support for public infrastructure, scientific research funding, support for education, etc.
Few if any politicians are “sociopaths” in a clinical sense. All tend to be ambitious, and many are narcissists, and some have very little real life experience and suffer from weak imaginations (Cruz is a stand out example here), but that’s equally common among people with high status in other professions. There are plenty of narcissists among the best known athletes, actors, academic researchers, doctors, lawyers, etc., and even more among corporate executives.
Most politicians have some sense that they are trying to help “the people”, especially when first starting out. Unfortunately, casual corruption is the name of the game almost everywhere (Switzerland and Iceland are by no means exceptions here), and for many it is easy to confuse “winning the game” with the original purpose, effective governance. The problems are systemic rather than individual. Particular politicians should be held accountable for ethical lapses, but we shouldn’t be distracted from working on systemic fixes.
For example, modern US congressmen need to spend approximately all of their waking hours on fundraising if they want to win elections. This is completely toxic to democracy, and campaign finance reform is the only way to claw ourselves back to sanity. Similarly, gerrymandered districts which place most incumbents into “safe” seats reduce public accountability. Allowing various kinds of disenfrancisement and voter suppression to be successful strategies diverts political attention into figuring out how to best block various groups from voting or how to best prevent the blocked voting, on the margins; a better systemic fix would be to make elections a mandatory holiday, register all citizens by default, make sure all voters have easy access to information about the election, and work to make voting convenient for everyone. The parties should be striving to convince the populace to back their ideas, not striving to completely block those who disagree from participation. Allowing the US senate to indefinitely block judges and other executive appointments fundamentally breaks down the interaction between branches of government; journalists should be hounding lawmakers about this and citizens should be throwing GOP senators out of office if they continue to refuse to do the jobs they are paid for. At the state level, judges should not be elected, state congresses should not have short term limits, and the mechanism of the popular ballot initiative which cannot be overridden by lawmakers should be abolished as fundamentally dysfunctional. Etc.
None of these suggestions are at all radical changes to the system of government, but each would make dramatic difference in practice. There are dozens of similar changes.
As humans, our defining characteristic is the capability for learning. Our governments today are better in general than the governments of, say, the 18th century. We can keep improving though.
Oh jeez, thanks for that fohat. I love it when you DT'lers entertain me.
