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we can extend the existing fence if need be. i'm looking for someone to argue that a wall is worth the extra expense over a fence. to my limited knowledge, a fence is adequate.
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here are two examples of miracles happening to theists. one is where a woman's optic nerve became healed after being blind. optic nerves dont just heal themselves. the other is a woman with an incurable skin disease, becoming healed.
atheists always claim the same sorts of things happen to them. sure they'll show lots of far out examples, but nothing that looks impossible becoming possible. they can't meet their burden of proof. theists, christians in particular, are always showing things that are impossible, becoming possible.
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this is a pandemic. maybe we should wear masks, and stay away from folks who may have the virus. maybe we should get vaccinated. ya know the things that stops the disease from killing you.
what's so complicated about this?
they say only two thirds of folks want to be vaccinated, and that might not be enough to reach herd immunity.
a lot of you are GOP'ers, so id think a lotta you dont want vaccinated.
this doesn't have anything to do with sensibility, but it has everything to do with being politically brainwashed.
so, why the stupidity?
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if you think there are things that are not debateable, what are some examples?
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In the end, in red counties, you’d have…
- Lots of guns
- lots of violence
- Lots of underlying racism
- Lots of religious bigotry
- Lots of excuses for why the finances and operational system of govt was failing
- Lots of unwed mothers
- Lots of welfare use
- …and SERIOUS MONEY PROBLEMS.
questions, comments, words of wisdom?
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i think he's going to try to act like he will run, but he wont commit to it for awhile. he wants to be able to size up who the democrats will pick, and then decide. he had a super low approval rating when he left office, so it's not like he's the favorite of all, to win. he stands no chance against decent dems, but these days dems like to pick losers, so it's not like he won't have a chance. he's assured the primary nomination, given how popular he is with his base, so all he needs is for dems to pull another hillary move like they did four years ago, and he's got it made. if he decides not to run, he will try to get his kids or someone he highly favors to run, so he doesn't risk losing again if it doesn't look good for him. it's anathema to him to lose twice in a row, so he's going to be extra cautious.
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just puttin this out there. i know ya'll can't help but to debate this, lolz
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here are the attributes that he says apply to Jesus....
greedy, jealous, selfish, self-centered, petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capricious, malevolent, an abortionist, and an outright serial killer.
if you look at the old testament, some of these things are actually plausible...
... what do ya think?
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how can u justify being an economic libertarian in the usa? for the most part, the only welfare that exists, is food stamps, a one time education benefit, and if you're lucky, healthcare. i suppose there are those tax credits for parents too poor to have kids. we dont have much of a welfare state, but here you are saying what we do have is too much. compared to the rest of the world, even the democratic party is largely conservative, yet here you are claiming a radical version of conservatism.
do you libertarians like being a radical?
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by far the biggest reason we spend so much on healthcare, is because the healthcare industry charges too much for services. this is a fact. just google it if you dont know this.
we should strive to be closer to the rest of the developed world, that spends half as much as as do. the problem for us, is that lobbyists are entrenched in the pockets of politicians, such that it would be next to impossible to just start slashing costs by fiat. the public is also weary of change, cause it's hard to say what will happen with change.
so what we could do, is set insurance costs into a uniform price system that is maybe a quarter more expensive than medicare pricing, and then grow healthcare costs at less than inflation, until costs are somewhat more reasonable. this would be beneficial, because it's slowly changing the status quo, instead of just taking an ax to it. it's feasible.
this would reduce the complexity of the current system. such that we wouldn't need so many insurance billers, for instance. as it is now, there's often an insurance biller per hospital bed at some hospitals, even though there's not even that many nurses.
we should also have insurance companies switch to non profit companies, given that's how most of that's how most of the developed world does their supplemental insurance coverage. this would reduce the profit waste and make peopel's health the highest priority.
see, most developed countries are not single payer, so that alone wouldn't solve our problems if we switched to it. they usually have a system like medicare that we have, with co insurance with a non profit company running it. with single payer, we could very easily just end up with healthcare that covers everyone.... while being super expensive.
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economics 101
prices are set by supply and demand. not labor costs.
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this would speed up the free market. it already makes sense for people to switch to alternative energy, but if you sweeten the deal, it will happen faster. everyone wins in this situation, except those who dont want to do what's best for themselves and the world.
there should be a tax exemption for lower income people though.
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the filibuster keeps our country stable and predictable. it encourages negotiation so that laws can get passed, moderation is a good thing.
liberals are pushing to abolish it... but the real test is, would they want to abolish it if trump and the republicans were in change? the question answers itself... of course they wouldnt wanna abolish it at that point. but that's the nature of politics.... different parties control things at different points, so they will have complete control with a majority vote.
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his ban has been lifted
we need him back, as comic relief
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Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says "no person" may "hold any office, civil or military, under the United States," who, "having previously taken an oath as…an officer of the United States…to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
i dont think trump should have been impeached for the riots. and i dont think he should be barred from office for causing an insurrection. but i do think since the election, he's been committing rebellion against the USA based on patently untrue claims. he's been trying to overthrow our democratic republic, to overturn a proper election.
i say ted cruz and all the other defective congressmen should be removed and barred from office as well. i surmise that these guys know better, as opposed to their ignorant and brainwashed supporters.
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think of the guys who tried to kidnap the michigan govenor, or the capitol insurrectionists. these folks are brain washed and radicalized into crime. their issue is their own stupidity. they didn't have malicious intent for the sake of malicious intent. all that line of thinking, i confess, makes me think of them as less culpable than they could otherwise be thought of. of course they should be punished, i'm not saying otherwise... but just sayin is all.
do you agree?
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now, trump is the only president to have been impeached twice. i disagreed with both impeachments incidents, though.
they said he incited a riot. i disagree. at most he egged them on, but he didn't say to riot. in fact, at one point he told them to 'peacefully' and 'patriotically' go to the capitol.
the liberals can't rationally defend impeachment. the actions of the president dont match up with the charges. all liberals care about is makin trump look bad, and kicking him on his way out the door. facts be damned.
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apple and google both gave parler an ultimatum to start cracking down on threats of violence, and parler refused to do so. so both those big tech companies banned them from their platforms, dealing a huge blow. folks say they shouldn't have been banned, due to free speech. but, i say, they should have been banned, cause threats of violence have no place in the realm of free speech. most lay people just hear 'conservative platform banned from free speech', but they dont realize the part of all the violence and threats to the government.
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my understanding is that this is an example: some states have laws that allow absentee voting if a ballot is requested, and that's the law. but the govenors of some states took it upon themselves to send ballots to everyone. this seems to be the best i can imply as a possible wrong doing, but i dont know if this is what actually happened. it's hard to get good info on these sorts of claims.
now, even if the states did do wrong, that doesn't mean that millions of voters should have their votes voided or have the elections over turned. the people spoke, period. the voters and candidates and everyone involved have their own constitutuional rights. it's not right to invalidate millions of voters due to a technicality, bottom line.
but i am curious what kind of arguments there are that states violated their own election laws.
all the bogus fraud claims i dont buy. no one can provide reputable sources that show widespread fraud that would change the outcome of the election.
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he's gettin banned from all social media.
do you think the lovers and haters will go through trump withdrawal when they can't see his every thought at every second of the day? and withdrawal when he finally ceases to be president? what will happen when the antagonist of our story isn't there any more?
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the biggest reason we shouldn't print money for most things, is because it devalues the monetary supply, which especially hurts people who are saving money. think of an old person who doesn't invest but does save... their money would be impacted. but the thing about stimulus checks, is everyone who is not well off gets one, so it doesn't matter if there's some devaluing going on, because inflation would affect everyone the same and those savers of money would be getting a check too so they are balanced out. perhaps government shouldn't be printing money too much, but at least during a serious downturn in the economy, it makes sense to some extent.
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i think it's a mix of both, obviously. but it could be argued either way if you had to choose.
so which party's politics is dominant in the USA?
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do you agree?
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especially you liberals of the forum, do you acknowledge that some folks hate trump so much that they become irrational?
trump derangement syndrome or TDS is where someone hates trump so much that they become irrational in how they perceive him.
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the problem with section 8 housing currently is so much money is tied to a single person or group of persons. this means it becomes a lottery if you are lucky enough to get assistance. the program should be shifted to following the house that the government rents, not the person. and then all houses are expected to be filled, so mandatory roommates would be a thing.
here is my back of the envelope math. HUD currently spends thirty billion on section 8. tenants are expected to chip in a third of their income and HUD covers the rest of the rent. the bottom quintile of households average about 13k in income. that means, they would be chipping in 333 per month in rent on average. there are 66 million people in these households, with a 330 million total population. there are 2.6 people per household in the USA. that means, (66million divided by 2.6) there are twenty five million households. 25 million times 333 equals 8 billion. that means the total that HUD can spend on housing is 38 billion, 30 billion from the government and 8 billion from the individuals.
now we take the 38 billion and have the government rent a bunch of three bedroom houses. the average rent for these is 1500 per month. 38 billion divided by 1500 is twenty five million households that the government rents. at three rooms per household, that's a potential of 75 million people that can get a subsidized room, if each person gets a room. the thing is, it is actually higher than this, cause some children and some couples will double up in their rooms.
75 million people is a quarter of the population, all with the current revenue that the government currently spends. people will just be forced to get roommate situations, and landlord will have to deal with the different personalities living in one roof.
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some trump supporters, including some high ranking government officials, thinks trump should declare martial law. some say he should do it just to do a recount, some say to do a re election, and some say to do it permanently or at least for a long time indefinitely. i'm also embarrassed that i have relatives who think he should as well.
given the trump supporters here would suck his dick, i mean, support him, no matter what..... does that mean you would also support him declaring martial law?
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i googled the stats. you have a .9% chance of dying in a car. you have a .7% chance of dying from the coronavirus, and that's assuming you catch it.
so what can we concluded? well, we should still wear masks, and if someone is vulnerable, they should social distance for sure. if your local hospital is over crowded, you should be extra safe too. but what about everyone else? should you not socialize with your friends and family, if they are not vulnerable? that would be like saying "i'm not going to socialize with my friends and family, because i might die in the car on the way there, or vice versa".
so basically, if you think about it, if you dont want to live in fear, you might as well socialize with your healthy friends and family
if you disagree with this approach, why dont you stop socializing with your friends and family due to the car ride involved too?
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Depends on what “conservative” values you are looking for.
If you want a place where there is no such thing as the rule of law, maybe you should look at North Korea.
If you want a place which has outlawed abortion and has no chance of legalizing it in the near future, look at Afghanistan.
If you want a place which has strong religious values and has laws based on religion, look at Iran.
If you want a place which has enforced dress codes, strict laws, and extremely harsh punishments for things like possession of drugs, look at Saudi Arabia.
If you want a place which has very easy access to guns, look at Somalia.
If you want a place where the scope of the government is very limited and there is no universal healthcare or government-regulated anything, look at South Sudan.
If you want a place where the government feeds and satisfies only the ultra-rich and the oligarchs, look at Russia.
I hope you find these countries great places to live in. Good luck!
where is your conservative utopia?
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trump is trying to over turn the election, but invalidating millions of votes and win on a technicality. that is, the legislatures of the battleground states that were sued, set the election laws. but according to the suit, the governors of these states subverted the state laws, in allowing so many people to vote by mail. this is my understanding anyway, and i dont know all the details.
this sounds like it stands a chance, which i didn't think trump had a chance. it could work, if trump and his minions and the court dont mind invalidating millions of votes and letting trump win on a technicality.
who thinks trump stands no chance, and why do you think this?
who thinks trump must win this texas suit?
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this would cause many more to get vaccinated than would otherwise do it. that might allow us to reach herd immunity, where the disease won't spread any more. i mean, i know many here and out there wont take it, but they can live with themselves and the blood that is on their hands in choosing not to partake when they spread it around and kill people.
so... this check in exchange for gettin vaccinated... who opposes and why?
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A DAY IN THE LIFE OF SUE, A REPUBLICAN
Sue gets up at 6 a.m. and fills her coffeepot with water to prepare her morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.
With her first swallow of coffee, she takes her daily medication. Her medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of her medications are paid for by her employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Sue gets it too.
She prepares her morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Sue's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Sue reaches for her shampoo. Her bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for her right to know what she was putting on her body and how much it contained.
Sue dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air she breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
She walks to the subway station for her government-subsidized ride to work. It saves her considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Sue begins her work day. She has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Sue's employer pays these standards because Sue's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.
If Sue is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, she'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think she should lose her home because of her temporary misfortune.
Its noontime and Sue needs to make a bank deposit so she can pay some bills. Sue's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Sue's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Sue has to pay her Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and her below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Sue and the government would be better off if she was educated and earned more money over her lifetime.
Sue is home from work. She plans to visit her father this evening at his farm home in the country. She gets in her car for the drive. Her car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. She arrives at her childhood home. Her generation was the third to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
She is happy to see her father, who is now retired. Her father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Sue wouldn't have to.
Sue gets back in her car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Sue enjoys throughout her day. Sue agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm self-made and believe everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
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the problem with term limits, is that we end up with folks who dont know any thing about the government or its laws.
or, if we did have term limits, limit it to a career, like thirty years.
they say the presidency is too much power to give one person for a long time, but that doesn't apply to congress given it's not such a concentrated power
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on the one hand, their power can create lots of great things, like creating a space economy. or creating entire industries when there's an new idea.
on the other hand, if billionaires didn't exist, maybe more money would be spent at mom and pop stores, or there'd be less exploitation of people and the environment.
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just curious. supposedly God commanded you to, so.
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that's why we have menacing laws.
here is what he said.
“Hey, how are you? You know what happens to corrupt Democrat politicians and election officials who support Black Lives Matter and who use voter fraud and voter suppression, voter intimidation, and election tampering? You know what happens?” a man said, according to a recording of the call. “They learn first hand, the hard way, why the Second Amendment exists. We are a thousand steps ahead of you motherf—, and you’re walking right into the lion’s den.”
what's the difference... "i'm gonna shoot you" v. "i'm gonna use the second amendment against you" especially in the context of how he said it
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if everyone took it, and it was effective, at most ten percent of people would die of the people who would have otherwise died. instead of 300k dead, it'd be thirty k. but actually, if everyone took it, it could cause herd immunity, where so many people are immune that the virus can't spread.
would you be willing to take it?
which of you trumpanzees would refuse to take it, and thwart herd immunity? cause u know it will be trump supporters who refuse to take it even if it is shown to be safe.
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most of his lawsuits are being thrown out of court. the only major victory he had was winning the ability to be six feet from the election counters instead of ten... and that's only because dems conceded the victory. his only chance at the supreme court handing him the presidency is if pennsylvania was very close with biden on top and it all hinged on that state.... but that would only happen if the margin was less than four thousand, given that's how many ballots could be invalidated due to a technicality- the thing is, the margin is tens of thosuands in biden's favor, and that state isn't the crucial one. so basically, trump has no standing to even go before the supreme court- won't happen. he's flailing in the desert sun. he's making a fool of himself.
u read it here, he won't even get before the supreme court. the only reason i know all these things, is because i'm an informed voter who pays attention to the news...
the only conservatives who think he has a chance in the courts are the low information types who think a court case can always turn things around, and the retarded ones who think there's a big conspiracy theory of fraudulent voters, and the trump cult types who think PBS and even fox news is in on a conspiracy to make biden president.
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trump's kids have the name and association necessary to get into politics.
trump probably wants ivanka to be the first female president, and she use to be a democrat so she may be more flexible on policy, and she's more level headed than her dad. i always vote democrat but i would consider ivanka as president.
there could be a long line of donald trumps, cause there's a long line of juniors. that would be hilarious if it happened, but it's a long shot considering how toxic trumpism can be, and how stupid don jr is. not to mention, don jr was openly calling on his dad to declare war due to the election results.
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but it's predominantly trump supporters who are on welfare
isn't that funny?
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libertarian candidate and constitution candidates took around one percent of the vote. they did this in swing states where the margin of victory was less than a percent. if we assume those guys would have went for trump since they're all conservative, we can conclude that the third party stole the election from trump.
this just shows the stupidity of third party voting and the spoiler effect in our type of voting system. would be much better to switch to approval rating voting or rank voting where a third party doesn't act like a spoiler and actually makes sense.
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it's not hardly even past election day, and already conspiracy theories are floating 'round from conservatives. 1. 100% of absentee ballots in michigan were for biden 2. there are more people voting in wisconsin than are registered to vote
mainstream media won't touch these with a ten foot pole. of course they wouldn't, given these are 'facts' are easily disprovable.
so which of you cray cray (crazy) conservatives believe this nonsense? do you have your own theory of voter fraud to pass 'round?
i wish i had my own alternative reality to escape to whenever things aren't going my way....
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is the question of corporal punishment finished as far as christians are concerned, in that the bible requires it?
Jesus’ words vouchsafes the beating of children to keep them in line to the word of Jesus as follows:"Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou BEATEST him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt BEAT HIM with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." (Proverbs.23:13-14)"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." (Proverbs.22:15)"He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." (Proverbs.13:24)
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Welcome to the Freedom Cafe! We trust you to make your own choices if you want to wear a face mask. And, in the same spirit of individual liberty, we allow our staff to make their own choices about the safety procedures they prefer to follow as they prepare and serve your food.
We encourage employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom, but understand that some people may be allergic to certain soaps or may simply prefer not to wash their hands. It is not our place to tell them what to do.
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Some of you may get sick, but almost everyone survives food poisoning. We think you’ll agree that it’s a small price to pay for the sweet freedom of no one ever being told what to do – and especially not for the silly reason of keeping strangers healthy.
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i would try to convert them to christianity. what about you?
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does anyone dispute that trump says things that are racist?
he said obama wasn't born in the usa, and he had no reason to think that. obama is black and his dad was born in kenya, but other than that, you never see folks like trump dispute the same situation with white politicians.
he told the squad to go back where they came from. the squad is that group of colored congress women. born in the usa. trump never would have told a group of whites to go back to where they came from.
he said a judge ruling on one of his civil suits can't be objective, given the judge is mexican. there wasn't a shred of evidence the judge wouldn't be impartial, other than the fact that the judge was mexican.
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plurality voting is where you pick your favorite among a list of people. usually, this just means the person who didn't get majority support but is the largest minority, wins. often times the winner has low approval ratings for that reason. plurality voting also encourages the spoiler effect... in a country where three fourths of the country is one ideology, having multiple people in that category means the minority ideologies wins. also, plurality voting discourages third parties, because people dont want to be spoilers or parties keep people from participating. think how conservatives are keeping out the libertarian. think how hillary had low approval ratings but took the nomination anyway. think how Gore would have won twenty years ago, but Nadar spoiled his nomination. the examples are endless. it's an undemocratic process. it insists that low approval rating candidates should win.
there are alternatives to plurality voting. approval rating voting. different types of rank voting. the large majority of other countries realize our voting process makes no sense, and have an alternative system. plurality is the wild west of voting, rationality be damned.
here is an article highlighting some of the ways plurality voting sucks.
here is an article highlighting some of the ways plurality voting sucks.
Any academic will tell you that our choose-one voting method (plurality voting) is a terrible, terrible voting method. (There’s better.) In fact, plurality voting is so bad that it deserves its own top five list.Here it is.Number 5: It’s InexpressivePlurality voting is among the least expressive voting methods there is. A plurality ballot puts a slate of candidates in front of you and forces you to choose only one. No more.Consider how strange that is. You likely have opinions about all those candidates. And yet, you only get a say about one. Different voting methods allow you to express yourself in all kinds of ways such as choosing as many as you want, ranking, and scoring. But plurality lets you do none of that.Not convinced? Imagine a way to offer less information than plurality voting allows while not handing over a blank ballot. Good luck!Number 4: The Spoiler EffectAnyone awake during the 2000 US presidential election is aware of the spoiler effect. In that election, we had a candidate that didn’t win (Nader) who divided another candidate’s support (Gore). Without Nader’s presence, Gore would have won; but with Nader present, Bush won. It makes no sense for a candidate to enter the race—and lose!—yet change the winner. But that’s the kind of nonsense plurality carries out.Plurality voting is extremely sensitive to the spoiler effect. The “spoiler” candidate only needs to take away a little support from a similar candidate to sway the election. This happens because plurality only lets you choose one candidate. Because you can only pick one, voters are forced to divide their support among similar candidates.The spoiler effect influences policy as well. It largely explains the US’ draconian ballot-access laws. Third parties and independents are often forced to quickly get many thousands—sometimes tens or hundreds of thousands—of signatures to get on the ballot. To make matters worse, major parties then challenge those signatures to try to kick them off the ballot. In Pennsylvania, presidential candidate Ralph Nader was forced to pay court costs just for defending his own signatures. This heinousness plays out on the local level, too.Why do major parties do this? Without a third or fourth candidate on the ballot, there’s no worry of a spoiler. Of course that also means voters don’t get options, but that’s not the major parties’ problem. So far major parties have preferred to stifle competition and democratic speech than address the real culprit: plurality voting.Number 3: Favorite BetrayalPlurality voting can bully you into voting against your favorite candidate. It does this by giving you a dilemma: (1) Support the candidate you really want, but risk having another candidate you don’t like win; or (2) Make a compromise by choosing among the frontrunners, but abandon your favorite.How good is a voting method that punishes you for supporting your honest favorite?Not being able to vote your favorite creates further issues. For instance, there’s less motivation to improve ballot access or get signatures for your candidate. After all, why work for better options if you can’t bring yourself to vote for them yourself?Number 2: Partisan winnersWhen multiple candidates enter a plurality voting election—or advance through multi-candidate primaries—we tend to see more partisan winners. Why is that? There’s a phenomenon called the center-squeeze effect that works against moderate candidates appealing to the center. The effect looks like this:(Figure generated using the voting simulation tool created by Ka-Ping Yee.)The candidates in the middle have their vote divided and squeezed from either side while candidates on the ends pick up the support from either tail. If you had to pick a best candidate for this electorate, wouldn’t you pick the candidate right in the middle that appeas to the broadest range of voters?With all the talk about partisanship, you’d think there’d be more attention to this center-squeeze issue, but there isn’t. Instead we cross our fingers for “bipartisan agreement.” Of course, expecting bipartisan cooperation in such a partisan environment is a lot like a basketball player expecting a deliberate assist from the opposing team. Fat chance.Number 1: Barrier to EntryBarrier to entry doesn’t necessarily affect an election’s winner, but it does threaten political discourse, a crucial piece to a functional democracy. Plurality creates a barrier to entry by giving new candidates artificially low support—the consequence when voters fear to vote their favorites. This means that new candidates (including third parties and independents) don’t just lose. They lose big.Our plurality voting approach is also taken with polling. They call people at dinner time: “If the election were held today, which candidate would you vote for?”And that polling information is used in all kinds of ways, including who gets in debates. If candidates get too little support—which is what plurality does to newcomers—they don’t get in the debates. That means those candidates’ ideas don’t get heard.Media, too, consider plurality voting results when it comes to third parties and independents. Plurality’s paltry showing for third parties is the media’s excuse for why they don’t cover those candidates. Media’s reasoning to snub candidates goes something like this: “If their ideas were any good, they would have done better in the polls. They didn’t do well in the polls, so their ideas must not have been any good.” The assumption here, however, was that the poll—using plurality voting—was any good in the first place. But we know that plurality voting is no good at all.Unsurprisingly, third parties and independents rarely get anywhere. Plurality has so ingrained in us that we can’t have new ideas. It also tells us that even if a third party or independent gets on the ballot, we should dismiss them. Or maybe we should not even notice their presence.Plurality voting’s role means that we get stuck with two parties. And these two parties represent a narrow range of ideas. It’s little wonder why there’s seldom any real progress. Of course, that’s not to say there can’t be.
it's such a stupid system, that i distrust the motives of those who support it. maybe their favorite candidate has no chance otherwise? maybe they're just ignorant of the vast number of alternative voting systems? who knows.
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isn't it obvious that having a gun around during an argument will increase the likelihood of murder?
if it's true that the gun increases the likelihood of murder during an argument, then why do gun nuts insist that having guns around makes no difference in the murder rate?
also, look at the major english speaking countries, USA, UK, canada, and australia (you can also look at the developed world, too)... they all have the same nongun homicide rate. but when u look at gun homicide rate, the usa is wildly out of sync. it's noteworthy, that the usa has half the world's guns while havin only four percent of the world's population.
so we go back to the simple example, having a gun around during an argument. of course having guns around increases the murder rate... to say anything else denies the obvious example, and ignores the science. now, i'm sure folks will continue to ignore why there isn't a wildly out of whack nongun murder rate in the usa. but the simple fact remains, that if the usa just has a bad person problem and not a gun problem, there would be wildly out of whack non-gun murders too. (to be sure it's possible that folks just prefer to use guns instead of other weapons... but this is still too far fetched, cause if it's true, there should still be non-gun murders wildly out of whack)
what non sense and non answers do ya'll gun nuts have to answer with?
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God said that all the first borns in Egypt would die, including the israelites, unless they sacrificed a lamb and smeared the blood on their door frame.
what was the purpose of this? is it cool for God to kill in such a random way because of inherited sin? or what is the basis for God's decision? why would God even orchestrate this system? was this a literal story that happened? what is the skeptic and atheist view of all this?
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what are the rules of the trump supporter circle jerk that we have in this forum?
can anyone join the circle jerk? or do you have to be someone who sucks trump's dick? would a liberal be cast out of your circle jerk or is it a free for all orgy?
is greyparrot the alpha male of the circle jerk? he is the one that gets the most like, slash jerk offs. of course it's assumed that the orange man himself, trump, is the ultimate alpha male of your circle jerk.
do you guys do other sexual shit beside the circle jerk? is a reach around considered proper etiquette? do ya'll fantasize about trump when jerking off each other?
i'm sure i'll have more questions, but this is just for starters.
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it's an issue, but it don't seem like as big of an issue as liberals make it out to be. the median income in the USA is ranked at number six in the world. that's not bad at all. so it's not so much that there's a problem with income inequality as there is there is just a lot of really rich people in the USA. that's not a bad thing. yes, in a country as rich as ours, people should have what they need for the essentials of a safety net. but we already got it... it just needs to be run better. we spend more than we need to on healthcare and food and housing... these programs just need to be run better to help more people. so even the rich v poor disparity isn't as bad as liberals make it out to be.
thoughts?
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