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Posted by: Beau7890 10 months, 4 weeks ago
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Beau789010 months, 4 weeks ago
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And some might say he's a bit too partisan here, mainly blaming the Republicans for slowing the process and allowing big business to raid the Treasury--though he does add a couple of parenthetical references about halfway through the article alluding to Democratic complicity.)
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Unfortunately, the cost of campaigns and difficulty of getting honest' messages to the public directly result in an adversarial two-party system and Congressional prioritization of wealthy interests and special projects for members' home districts. I don't know how this can be fixed, no matter what the president does. Media outlets are usually more interested in grand pronouncements, no matter how misleading they may be, and in nasty fights between ideologies than in honest discourse.
Any ideas?-
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berkeley10 months, 4 weeks ago
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while there are dozens of issues concerning money and media, there are two other things that could happen.
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the first is that it is both acceptable and legal to lie during a political campaign. this has huge consequences in promoting cynicism and disgust and driving millions of people away from the whole process. we could have "truth commissions" both on a local and national level that would be empowered to both label and remove ads that are blatant lies.
the second is the monopoly our two parties have in elections. instant runoff voting is a simple solution that communities and states could enact. because it would break the monopoly, it will be fiercely opposed by the political machinery, but we could do it. see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting-
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Beau789010 months, 4 weeks ago
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I love the idea of being able to validate claims made in campaign ads, though I have to wonder how independent the "truth commissions" could be (who appoints members of the commisions?), and what remedies candidates would have against unjust decisions made by them. There must be some way around this.
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As for alternative voting systems, I know there are a number of them...in Illinois, we used to elect state legislators using cumulative voting, which (as implemented here) had a similar effect of allowing voters to "rank" candidates by giving them three votes to apportion between more than one candidate as they chose. (Under that system, I could split my vote evenly between two or three candidates, give two votes to one and one to another, or give all three to a single candidate.)-
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DarkWizard10 months, 4 weeks ago
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berkeley and Beau7890,
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I think that "truth in advertising" should apply to politicians and their campaigns. This means that they have to produce at least hypothetically feasible plans to support any promises made while running for office. Holding to any of these promises would still become moot and subjective, however, after gaining said office as circumstances and information may be changed, obsolete, or inaccurate by the time they gain office and therefore make any accountability to promises unenforcible.
On the topic of voting. I think that we should make national elections more democratic and eliminate the electoral college in favor of popular vote. Also, the rules for how politicians get airtime v. those that the media ignores need to be revamped to reflect a more democratic process. Somehow, corporate money needs to become a non-factor in which candidates get pushed to the forefront of a race. And, the two-party system needs some real competition. This definitely requires some rule changes. Money, power, and influence should not be bottlenecked through a two-party system that does not represent true democracy.-
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Beau789010 months, 4 weeks ago
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I think most Americans (since they live in more populous states) would be in favor of abandoning the electoral college, but it'll never happen. It'd require an amendment to the Constitution, which would have to be ratified by many of those tiny states that get disproportionate representation. And it still wouldn't solve the problem of people being taken in by campaign promises that can't possibly be kept.
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beavith110 months, 4 weeks ago
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as long as we are a representative republic, the electoral college serves a purpose.
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anybody see what happened in Bolivia? the endemic majority voted themselves a new constitution that benefits themselves at the expense of the minority. oh yeah. and granted Morales another 5 year term, ala Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro.
the 'disproportionate representation' that you complain about was intentionally put into the constitution. that's how we have a bicameral legislature...
so. your point would be?
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