Election integrity and systems of government

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Frelga
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Election integrity and systems of government

Post by Frelga »



I am not at all sanguine about the chances of a fair and free election in 2018.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

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Impenitent
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Impenitent »

I share Frelga's apprehensions. The Republican machine has been acting to tighten the gerrymander and squash voter registration for a long time, and scuttlebut suggests they're not done yet.


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Griffon64
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Griffon64 »

Their president lost the popular vote. Their president is widely unpopular. They are not the majority. If they continue to steal representation from the majority and force their special interests through they will have to accept that that will lead to a revolution --- and in a democracy, no less. It is a damn shame that it will come to that. But they seem intent on flushing democracy right down the toilet.

Every time I think about that sea of smirking white male faces clustered around their cluster of a healthcare bill I get mad. Look, I don't care if Congress is all white and all male if they would represent the interests of all their constituents. But they simply don't, and that is what makes me hopping mad. 31% of the population are white men. Of those I assume an even smaller percentage believe in treating women like second-hand citizens. Yet, that little subset of men is the only interest group Republicans in Congress seem interested in representing.
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Primula Baggins
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Primula Baggins »

Yes. To be white and male and well-off is the norm, for them, and everyone who is not all three of those (especially if they aren't any of them) is a deviation from the norm who doesn't matter to the country and whose rights don't need to be considered.

Gahhhhhh!
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
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Frelga
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Frelga »

But her emails!
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

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River
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by River »

Tragedy is an equalizer that respects no privilege. Sooner or later, misfortune befalls us all. If it hasn't yet, you've been lucky, not deserving. People forget that at their peril.
When you can do nothing what can you do?
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Frelga
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Frelga »

Frelga wrote:I am not at all sanguine about the chances of a fair and free election in 2018.
Trump expected to launch commission on 'election integrity'
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

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Cerin
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Cerin »

The commission might be a good thing, if it shows there is no voter fraud, and if they really do look into suppression as well as alleged fraud, as they've said they will. Without the pervasive tactics of voter suppression (restrictive voting laws, manipulation of voter rolls, inequities in voting availability) in the last election, Trump would not have won. Anything that focuses people's attention on our corrupt electoral system has to be good in the long run.
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Frelga
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Frelga »

ACLU: Trump’s voting commission is a sham
President Trump has just established a “Presidential Commission on Election Integrity.” But this commission will have no integrity if its vice-chair is Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State and the king of voter suppression.

The ACLU has sued Kobach four times on voter suppression – and won every case. The problem we have in this country isn’t voter fraud – it’s voter suppression. And on that front, Kobach is Public Enemy #1.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

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Cerin
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Cerin »

I think it's actually a foolish move on the Republicans' part, to call attention to the electoral process in this way. If there are Democrats on the commission, they will bring some of these shady practices to light. I'm surprised someone didn't try to talk the Pres. out of his delusions about illegal voters, in order to prevent this from happening. Sham or not, it may shine a light on the issue.
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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Cenedril_Gildinaur »

You guys are all so cute. The rules that Republicans try to impose on Democrats and that Democrats try to impose on Republicans are fluff compared to the real voter disenfranchisement and election rigging laws.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
-- Samuel Adams
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Primula Baggins
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Primula Baggins »

It's all serious, C_G, because it all contributes to the same problem.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Cenedril_Gildinaur »

Yes, it is all serious. It's just that I feel most people are giving all their attention it a smaller detail and not seeing at all the bigger details.

There are ballot access laws that actually require third parties to get a larger number of signatures to be on the ballot - not "same number even though it is a higher percentage" but "higher number". There are ballot deadlines that are routinely flouted by the major parties. There are ballot misprints that either get reprinted or not reprinted based on the category of party accidentally left off. There are parties disqualified in spite of meeting the requirements simply because a major party Secretary of State decrees so.

But with all of that, people pay a great deal of attention to quibbling around the edges.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
-- Samuel Adams
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Griffon64
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Griffon64 »

As a no party preference voter, the disenfranchisement of anybody who doesn't want to vote party line Dem or Rep is very frustrating. This is a country that prides itself on freedom, yet every election you have to pick the red door or the blue door, and even if you get to pick a different color door at any point you can be secure in the knowledge that you basically just showed yourself out as far as any actual representation goes. Why would either party care about representing people when they cannot be voted out? Even if moderates voted in droves for one party or the other due to disgust with the opposing party, the leadership and the loud wingnuts would just take that as endorsement of their agenda and forge ahead.

In South Africa the National Party was the driving force behind the abhorrent Apartheid regime. If South Africa was America, the country would still have to pick between the National Party and the ANC. Instead, the National Party crumbled into nothingness by 2005. It was obsolete: its racist, nationalist agenda rejected by the people. The ANC, 23 years into a troubled reign peppered with nepotism and incompetence, ( watch the video of Jacob Zuma trying to pronounce a large number. Or claiming if you shower after unprotected sex you won't get HIV. He has a eight grade education. I was used to a embarrassment of a president long before Donald J Trump came along. ) are watching their numbers decline. If they won't represent the people, they too will be rejected and destroyed.

How do you destroy the Republican or Democrat party in America?
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yovargas
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by yovargas »

Griffon64 wrote:How do you destroy the Republican or Democrat party in America?
When you find out, please let me know. I thought/hoped Trump might be loathsome enough to do it but nope. If he can't, probably nothing will.
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Dave_LF
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Dave_LF »

US political parties can die and have died, but they are more likely to evolve. Which is generally as things should be; sudden extinction is typically a sign of chaos and catastrophe. But political evolution can lead to "speciation" just as surely as biological evolution; both our current major parties existed in name at the time of the Civil War, but those early forms bear so little resemblance to the modern ones, it would be perfectly reasonable to consider them as separate entities, and to say that the originals are extinct.
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yovargas
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by yovargas »

I don't necessarily want the Rep & Dem parties to die, I just want their stranglehold monopolies to die. I just want some viable competition and more meaningful options. I want a system where Trump and Bernie could run as the independents they truly were and still be taken seriously as candidates.
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Dave_LF
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Dave_LF »

Meaning you would have liked to see all four of Sanders, Clinton, Trump, and (say) Cruz on the November ballot? Or if not, what is your definition of "being taken seriously"?
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yovargas
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by yovargas »

Dave_LF wrote:Meaning you would have liked to see all four of Sanders, Clinton, Trump, and (say) Cruz on the November ballot?
Yes.
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I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
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Frelga
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Re: Health Care Reform

Post by Frelga »

Wasn't there just an xkcd comic about it?
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
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