Just a few short years ago we Americans knew what we were doing: making the world into one big likeness of ourselves. We had the experts; we knew how it was done. Our policy operatives would deradicalize here and regime-change there; our economists would float billions to the good guys and slap sanctions on the bad; and pretty soon the whole place was going to be stately and neat, safe for debt instruments and empowerment seminars, for hors dâoeuvres in the embassy garden and taxis hailed with smartphones. Democracy! Of thee we sang.
Now we stand chastened, humiliated, bewildered. Democracy? We tremble to think of what it might do next.
Government of the people? When we open the door to ordinary peopleâlet them actually influence what goes onâthey insist we make bigotry and persecution into our great national causes.
Government by the people? When we let the people have their sayâunmanaged, uncuratedâthey choose the biggest blowhard on TV to be our leader. Then they cheer for him as he destroys the environment and cracks down on immigrant families.
Heed the voice of the plain people and all the levees of taste and learning will immediately be swamped. Half of them will demand that minorities be consigned to the back of the bus; the other half will try to confiscate the hard-won wealth of societyâs greatest innovators. (...)
Is Bernie my monkey? I ask you, KarmaKarma, even though I know you're not my monkey. But you seem to have a strong interest in (and therefore perhaps knowledge of) monkeys. Perhaps you can help me determine who my monkey is.
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, KarmaKarma. Spasibo.
Is Bernie my monkey? I ask you, KarmaKarma, even though I know you're not my monkey. But you seem to have a strong interest in (and therefore perhaps knowledge of) monkeys. Perhaps you can help me determine who my monkey is.
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, KarmaKarma. Spasibo.
Bernie Sanders is a class act and he performed much better in the primaries than most expected. A certain country in North America could do with a little more class these days.
Our politics are not quite the same but today I prefer to focus on the common.
I support him 100%.
At this point I fear greatly for the future of this country.
Bernie Sanders is a class act and he performed much better in the primaries than most expected. A certain country in North America could do with a little more class these days.
Our politics are not quite the same but today I prefer to focus on the common.
Is Bernie my monkey? I ask you, KarmaKarma, even though I know you're not my monkey. But you seem to have a strong interest in (and therefore perhaps knowledge of) monkeys. Perhaps you can help me determine who my monkey is.
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, KarmaKarma. Spasibo.
(...) There is so little freedom in the world. Even here, now, in our celebrated liberal democracy, social mobility is incredibly limited compared with that in countries of comparable development, and there appears to be very little we can do about it. One freedom that cannot be taken from you is your freedom not to like the status quo â your freedom to be angry, disaffected, unimpressed, your refusal to be cajoled, soothed or consoled with small tokens of influence devoid of real power. Mr. Sanders, ill tempered and impatient with pleasantries, embodied that freedom, and he offered it to you.
None of this means you will get what you want, in politics or in life: Mr. Sanders did not win, after all. But he never lied, and he never pretended to like what is so clearly detestable or attempted to persuade any one of us that we ought to like it either. He was right to the end, and he refused to reconcile himself to the forces that eventually overtook him. It is hard to see him go. But there is at least some dignity in it.
Vote Libertarian or other third party, sure. Not voting does nothing; accomplishes nothing.
I agree with the sentiment, but voting for a candidate that isn't viable is the same as not voting. In our current system, the only way to have an impact is to either vote for....or against...one of the two candidates who have a chance of winning.
A vote for a third party, under present circumstances, is of no consequence in the election at hand for the reasons you state. The value of such a vote is to promote the viability of third parties for future elections. The more votes a third-party candidate garners, the more attention is drawn to the idea of voting for third parties. A seed might be planted. I have voted for third-party candidates with that idea in mind.
That said, I would not even consider voting for a third party in November. The imperative is getting rid of Trump â before it is too late for our democracy.
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Mar 6, 2020 - 7:04am
rgio wrote:
steeler wrote:
Vote Libertarian or other third party, sure. Not voting does nothing; accomplishes nothing.
I agree with the sentiment, but voting for a candidate that isn't viable is the same as not voting. In our current system, the only way to have an impact is to either vote for....or against...one of the two candidates who have a chance of winning.
A vote for a third party, under present circumstances, is of no consequence in the election at hand for the reasons you state. The value of such a vote is to promote the viability of third parties for future elections. The more votes a third-party candidate garners, the more attention is drawn to the idea of voting for third parties. A seed might be planted. I have voted for third-party candidates with that idea in mind.
That said, I would not even consider voting for a third party in November. The imperative is getting rid of Trump â before it is too late for our democracy.
Vote Libertarian or other third party, sure. Not voting does nothing; accomplishes nothing.
I agree with the sentiment, but voting for a candidate that isn't viable is the same as not voting. In our current system, the only way to have an impact is to either vote for....or against...one of the two candidates who have a chance of winning.
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Mar 6, 2020 - 5:33am
sirdroseph wrote:
kcar wrote:
Read what I just posted. I prematurely posted by error and didn't include all the news article excerpts. Trump visited the USS Arizona Memorial 3 years ago. He laid a wreath, bowed his head and tweeted about the visitâ"Remember #PearlHarbor. Remember the @USSArizona! A day I'll never forget."
One year after that and he's at USS Arizona memorial againâbut he had to ask John Kelly "Hey, John, whatâs this all about? Whatâs this a tour of?â
That's not being an idiot. That'sbeing demented.
Could be. If so looks like we are guaranteed to have a mentally disabled President. Yay two party duopoly! Voting Libertarian has never been so easy or even not voting at all, I think we are there now. It's all good in the hood. Politics are very much like viruses. It is all up to us, government is not going to save us. Be independent, get yourself right. Bon Apetit.
Vote Libertarian or other third party, sure. Not voting does nothing; accomplishes nothing.
Read what I just posted. I prematurely posted by error and didn't include all the news article excerpts. Trump visited the USS Arizona Memorial 3 years ago. He laid a wreath, bowed his head and tweeted about the visit—"Remember #PearlHarbor. Remember the @USSArizona! A day I'll never forget."
One year after that and he's at USS Arizona memorial again—but he had to ask John Kelly "Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?”
That's not being an idiot. That'sbeing demented.
Could be. If so looks like we are guaranteed to have a mentally disabled President. Yay two party duopoly! Voting Libertarian has never been so easy or even not voting at all, I think we are there now. It's all good in the hood. Politics are very much like viruses. It is all up to us, government is not going to save us. Be independent, get yourself right. Bon Apetit.
There is a different between an idiot and having dementia, Trump has always been an idiot.
Read what I just posted. I prematurely posted by error and didn't include all the news article excerpts. Trump visited the USS Arizona Memorial 3 years ago. He laid a wreath, bowed his head and tweeted about the visit—"Remember #PearlHarbor. Remember the @USSArizona! A day I'll never forget."
One year after that and he's at USS Arizona memorial again—but he had to ask John Kelly "Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?”
