Joy and Austin 24

[Playagirl]

Wow, American elections seem complicated with everyone/thing you have to vote for on the ballot. In Canada we only vote for our local candidate, that's it. No propositions, no Senate, no Prime Minister, nothing. I find it hard though, because if I really hate my local candidate but like the party he represents, what do I do? Vote for someone I can't stomach in the hopes that his party will win? And I hate that we have to vote strategically instead of voting how we want. This year's provincial election was a case in point. I hate Doug Ford (Conservative) so didn't want him to get elected. My other choices were Liberal or NDP. I ended up voting for a party I didn't want just to make sure Ford didn't get in (I went with the candidate I thought had a better chance of winning even though he's not from the party I did want). All for nothing though since Ford got in and has been causing chaos ever since.

[rainbowbabycakes]

11 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

@laPapessaGiovanna Can we skip the class and just do an adorable internet video from School House Rocks or something instead? I’d rather be comfy in my pajamas on the couch with my kid then awkwardly squeezed into an auditorium somewhere with a bunch of strangers, especially since mass shootings are a thing here and I’d prefer to avoid a large indoor gathering concerning politics out of a sense of self preservation. 

(And yes, I know just how exceptionally lazy and paranoid that sounds. I’m pretty disenchanted with our political system right now though - thanks GOP! - and while I’ll continue voting, doing my best to research the candidates, and contacting them about the issues I just really don’t want to do more than necessary right now because it hurts my heart and makes me feel pretty anxious.)

our local children's theater just did School House Rocks Live!, and I loved it.... I think the parents in the audience had more fun than the kids, we knew all the songs, lol

[AliceInFundyland]

A write-in is not the same thing as a choice that says, in effect, I believe none of the available candidates are capable of doing a good job. I think we need that option country wide.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

2 minutes ago, AliceInFundyland said:

A write-in is not the same thing as a choice that says, in effect, I believe none of the available candidates are capable of doing a good job. I think we need that option country wide.

If we had this I would be thrilled to vote.  And if it took majority boot the candidates and try again.

Then it raises the bar so they have to try to be more than slightly less shitty than their opponent.

[mpheels]

Voter participation is so low in the US, the attitude that an individual vote doesn’t count just becomes self perpetuating. Your individual vote might not be the tipping point, but if all eligible/able voters actually voted, if really could change the outcome of elections. No one is going to agree with a candidate 100%, but part of being a grown up is knowing what you value and weighing the costs/benefits of your agreements/disagreements with a candidate. Look no further than the fundies we snark on to see this in action.

 People don’t want to participate because they hate the system, but the system won’t change unless more people participate. Even if you are annoyed with the big name elections and leave some parts of the ballot blank, there are a ton of down ballot races that have a huge impact on the system. Frustrated with how your state runs elections (including voter disenfranchisement and who gets on the ballot)? The people who make those rules are either elected or appointed by elected officials. Our system is slow to change by design, but it won’t change at all if people don’t do anything to make it change. There are so many efforts to disenfranchise voters in the US right now, it’s downright offensive to me that a person who is actually able to vote wouldn’t do so.

[Rachel333]

I also think there's a big difference between not feeling comfortable choosing between two candidates in a particular race and saying you just won't ever vote at all.

[Beermeet]

18 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

If we had this I would be thrilled to vote.  And if it took majority boot the candidates and try again.

Then it raises the bar so they have to try to be more than slightly less shitty than their opponent.

Isn't that the general idea for 3rd party candidates? In the primaries (?) if a third party like Ross Perot was to get enough votes, they have to acknowledge that candidate and said candidate gets a bigger platform like the Republicans and Democrats do? But, people rarely do do because " they won't win".  Well they certainly won't if we don't try!  Something happens though,  because Perot dropped out unexpectedly and Bernie got absorbed into Democrat.  

[HerNameIsBuffy]

16 minutes ago, Beermeet said:

Isn't that the general idea for 3rd party candidates?

That's now what I was talking about.  Right now the 2 party system as a lock on things and we need a way to say to both those parties to take back their shitty candidates and try again.

[Beermeet]

10 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

That's now what I was talking about.  Right now the 2 party system as a lock on things and we need a way to say to both those parties to take back their shitty candidates and try again.

Ah, I get what you were saying now.  Yes to that!  Last election was a perfect example.  Just hell no on 45 and Hillary, like her or not, turned too many off. Redo!!

[HerNameIsBuffy]

2 minutes ago, Beermeet said:

Ah, I get what you were saying now.  Yes to that!  Last election was a perfect example.  Just hell no on 45 and Hillary, like her or not, turned too many off. Redo!!

Exactly!

[Beermeet]

2 hours ago, Playagirl said:

Wow, American elections seem complicated with everyone/thing you have to vote for on the ballot. In Canada we only vote for our local candidate, that's it. No propositions, no Senate, no Prime Minister, nothing. I find it hard though, because if I really hate my local candidate but like the party he represents, what do I do? Vote for someone I can't stomach in the hopes that his party will win? And I hate that we have to vote strategically instead of voting how we want. 

Huh, I did not know that. I'm suddenly really appreciative of getting to do the more detailed ones. It breaks it up a bit. A bit more control on the local levels?  Never knew it any other way. I'm starting to feel the value of local elections these past few years. We can do more there that directly affects us. 

[KeshetParparNesicha]

2 hours ago, AliceInFundyland said:

A write-in is not the same thing as a choice that says, in effect, I believe none of the available candidates are capable of doing a good job. I think we need that option country wide.

Nevada has this - "None of These Candidates." On more than one occasion, None of These Candidates has won a statewide election, which was then awarded to the second-place finisher, so not much help there.

[AliceInFundyland]

21 minutes ago, KeshetParparNesicha said:

Nevada has this - "None of These Candidates." On more than one occasion, None of These Candidates has won a statewide election, which was then awarded to the second-place finisher, so not much help there.

That makes me want to laugh and cry. But, imagine if that was happening nationally? That’s the sort of point that needs making.

[PainfullyAware]

1 hour ago, Beermeet said:

Huh, I did not know that. I'm suddenly really appreciative of getting to do the more detailed ones. It breaks it up a bit.

Just to clarify that in Canada we vote on federal parliamentary representative, provincial parliamentary representative, City Council representative and school trustee, although the three levels of government are voted on at different times in separate elections. 

3 hours ago, Playagirl said:

And I hate that we have to vote strategically instead of voting how we want.

It's definitely a weird quirk of first-past-the-post, parliamentary systems that have three or more parties to end up voting strategically for whoever is more likely to beat the party you don't want in government! I usually don't end up thinking too much about the local representative because of that, but it still beats a two-party deadlock in my opinion.

I like the preferential system in Australia...

"The essence of preferential voting is that voters number candidates on the ballot paper in a rank order of choice. You put the number 1 next to your first choice candidate, 2 next to your second choice, and so on. If your first choice candidate is not elected and no candidate receives half of the vote, your vote may be re-examined for its next preference. The point of the system is to elect the most preferred candidate, to choose the candidate that can build an absolute majority of support in the electorate rather than the simple majority required for first past the post voting."

 There are no wasted votes and whoever is ultimately elected is always preferred by  more than 50% of people. But it doesn't have the instability sometimes associated with proportional representation. If you are a political nerd like me you'll agree that's kind of cool 

[Nodaknorskie]

This is the scariest election of my life.  I have a pre existing condition so rely on Obamacare for insurance which may I say I pay the full premium for.  If the Dems do not win the House or the Senate my insurance is gone.  Mitch McConell has said so, 14 states and the Trump administration are suing the government to make it so and AARP says my insurance could be as high as 25 thousand a month...yep a month.  If both houses go red I am dead.  It is a very scary time.

[Icea]

In Sweden we vote for city council, county council and parliament every four years. The way our system works is that you can choose to either vote for simply the party the prefer, or for a particular candidate of that party. On the ballot for each party the party have ranked their members according to who they want - if a party gets enough votes to secure three seats in parliament typically the first three people listed on the ballot will get those seats. If I don't have a preferred candidate I can just hand in my ballot for that party without marking any candidate.

However, if I think a person listed further down on the ballot is a better candidate, I can put an X next to that person's name, and if that person gets enough X's he/she will get the seat instead. It doesn't happen very often, because the candidates listed at the top are usually also who the majority of voters think should represent them, but it does happen every now and then.

[CarrotCake]

3 hours ago, Icea said:

In Sweden we vote for city council, county council and parliament every four years. The way our system works is that you can choose to either vote for simply the party the prefer, or for a particular candidate of that party. On the ballot for each party the party have ranked their members according to who they want - if a party gets enough votes to secure three seats in parliament typically the first three people listed on the ballot will get those seats. If I don't have a preferred candidate I can just hand in my ballot for that party without marking any candidate.

However, if I think a person listed further down on the ballot is a better candidate, I can put an X next to that person's name, and if that person gets enough X's he/she will get the seat instead. It doesn't happen very often, because the candidates listed at the top are usually also who the majority of voters think should represent them, but it does happen every now and then.

This is exactly how it works here in the Netherlands unless you cannot mark just the party but if you don't care for a person you would just vote for the top one which will be elected then anyway so it is kind of the same as for the party in general.

It does happen here quite a lot that people put a preferred vote for the first woman, the first person under 40 or any other political minority on the list. If I really don't care I also vote for one of the younger ones.

The only thing though is that because of all the different parties we have, we have a massive ballot (see spoiler)

Spoiler

[SapphireSlytherin]

7 hours ago, Nodaknorskie said:

This is the scariest election of my life.  I have a pre existing condition so rely on Obamacare for insurance which may I say I pay the full premium for.  If the Dems do not win the House or the Senate my insurance is gone.  Mitch McConell has said so, 14 states and the Trump administration are suing the government to make it so and AARP says my insurance could be as high as 25 thousand a month...yep a month.  If both houses go red I am dead.  It is a very scary time.

I have a doozie of a pre-existing condition (cancer) along with a host of other, mostly less-deadly pre-existing conditions (morphea - which is localized scleroderma; bum knees; headaches of undetermined origin...).

However - I'm afraid that AARP thing is likely scaremongering. They're notorious for that sort of exaggeration.

All that to say:  If Obama had done the RIGHT thing and abolished health insurance companies, then instituted free health care for all - this country would be a much better place to live. Instead, he sold out to the insurance companies, which are still getting richer and still charging exorbitant premiums that many people just can't afford.

 

[Meggo]

10 hours ago, KeshetParparNesicha said:

Nevada has this - "None of These Candidates." On more than one occasion, None of These Candidates has won a statewide election, which was then awarded to the second-place finisher, so not much help there.

I feel like it's almost like a vote of No Confidence. But what I'd love to see happen (and will never happen in the US) - is that if "None of the Above" wins - both parties have to go back to the drawing board and come up with someone else. But our election season is SO DAMN LONG - that they'll never do it.
I hate how long it is. I don't think you should be campaigning for your job while you're still DOING it. This administration has been a horrid example of it - starting to campaign the second you're in office but previous administrations do it too (just not this blatantly)

 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

1 hour ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

I have a doozie of a pre-existing condition (cancer) along with a host of other, mostly less-deadly pre-existing conditions (morphea - which is localized scleroderma; bum knees; headaches of undetermined origin...).

However - I'm afraid that AARP thing is likely scaremongering. They're notorious for that sort of exaggeration.

All that to say:  If Obama had done the RIGHT thing and abolished health insurance companies, then instituted free health care for all - this country would be a much better place to live. Instead, he sold out to the insurance companies, which are still getting richer and still charging exorbitant premiums that many people just can't afford.

But it isn't fear mongering, the insurance lobby wants to go back to the way things were, where we pay them and they don't pay anything if they can get away with it. 

Obama couldn't just abolish insurance companies, he and the other Dems would have been thrown out office so fast they'd still be looking for a landing spot. Also health care wouldn't have been free because they would have to jack our effect tax rate up to about 30ish % for us down here on the bottom (we only pay about 4-10% now) to pay for it, WHICH I would be fine with if it meant that I wouldn't have to pay $2500 every time I sneezed. Then you have to factor in the fact that MILLIONS of people are employed by insurance companies that would be displaced, we can't just stop the way things are done right now it will have to be done in stages, unfortunately to shift the burden from 1000's of insurance agencies to the Feds, is going to be a clusterfuck when you consider the insurance lobby and 1/2 the country don't want it.

I agree we need to go to socialized medicine like they have in every other civilized country in the world, we just need to drag conservatives kicking and screaming along and that takes time, because they are assholes who think we should still be living in 1776.  FFS its taken almost 200 years to get them to give up the confederate flag and they are still whining about it.

 

[SassyPants]

12 hours ago, Beermeet said:

Isn't that the general idea for 3rd party candidates? In the primaries (?) if a third party like Ross Perot was to get enough votes, they have to acknowledge that candidate and said candidate gets a bigger platform like the Republicans and Democrats do? But, people rarely do do because " they won't win".  Well they certainly won't if we don't try!  Something happens though,  because Perot dropped out unexpectedly and Bernie got absorbed into Democrat.  

They won't because the big money that buys elections (and now apparently foreign governments) will not allow it. The system has to change first. The big money has to be removed. Corporations are NOT people. Look at what happened to Bernie Sanders in the last election, and by the DNC!

[justoneoftwo]

13 minutes ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

But it isn't fear mongering, the insurance lobby wants to go back to the way things were, where we pay them and they don't pay anything if they can get away with it. 

Obama couldn't just abolish insurance companies, he and the other Dems would have been thrown out office so fast they'd still be looking for a landing spot. Also health care wouldn't have been free because they would have to jack our effect tax rate up to about 30ish % for us down here on the bottom (we only pay about 4-10% now) to pay for it, WHICH I would be fine with if it meant that I wouldn't have to pay $2500 every time I sneezed. Then you have to factor in the fact that MILLIONS of people are employed by insurance companies that would be displaced, we can't just stop the way things are done right now it will have to be done in stages, unfortunately to shift the burden from 1000's of insurance agencies to the Feds, is going to be a clusterfuck when you consider the insurance lobby and 1/2 the country don't want it.

I agree we need to go to socialized medicine like they have in every other civilized country in the world, we just need to drag conservatives kicking and screaming along and that takes time, because they are assholes who think we should still be living in 1776.  FFS its taken almost 200 years to get them to give up the confederate flag and they are still whining about it.

 

Just had to point out it is only been about a hundred and fifty years since the Civil War not that they giving it up sorry if that was pedantic

[Rachel333]

2 hours ago, justoneoftwo said:

Just had to point out it is only been about a hundred and fifty years since the Civil War not that they giving it up sorry if that was pedantic

It really wasn't as long ago as people think. The last widow of a Civil War veteran died just 10 years ago, in 2008, and the last Civil War veteran died in 1956, which is within the lifetime of some posters here. Ruth Odom Bonner  died just last year and was the daughter of a man who was born into slavery. The US government is still paying Civil War survivor benefits; Irene Triplett is living and receives a pension as the daughter of a Civil War veteran. .

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

8 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

It really wasn't as long ago as people think. The last widow of a Civil War veteran died just 10 years ago, in 2008, and the last Civil War veteran died in 1956, which is within the lifetime of some posters here. Ruth Odom Bonner  died just last year and was the daughter of a man who was born into slavery. The US government is still paying Civil War survivor benefits; Irene Triplett is living and receives a pension as the daughter of a Civil War veteran. .

You're right but those marriages had huge age differences so it's a bit misleading. I like the Louis CK skit where he says it's been two 70-year-old ladies back to back since the Civil War. And a remarkably short time since desegregation!

[Rachel333]

3 minutes ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

You're right but those marriages had huge age differences so it's a bit misleading. I like the Louis CK skit where he says it's been two 70-year-old ladies back to back since the Civil War. And a remarkably short time since desegregation!

Well yeah, I'd think it was obvious there was a huge age difference if there was over 50 years between the last veteran dying and the last widow dying! I still find it a really fascinating thing to think about. One of my favorite facts is that President John Tyler, who was born in 1790 and served as the 10th US president from 1841-1845, has two living grandsons!

(And by "wasn't as long ago as people think" I mean in the sense of human connections. Obviously the actual number of years isn't a matter of perception.)

I just absolutely love the stories of "human wormholes."

https://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/the-fascinating-and-ego-killin.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/02/07/146534518/rasputin-was-my-neighbor-and-other-true-tales-of-time-travel