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I'm writing in Joe Exotic, who's with me?
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Oct 17, 2016 08:42
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I kind of feel like John is glossing over the fact that if Stein was actually elected, she would have a clear mandate to write off student debt, regardless of whether the exact mechanism to do it exists currently or not.
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Oct 17, 2016 09:15
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Pararoid posted:I kind of feel like John is glossing over the fact that if Stein was actually elected, she would have a clear mandate to write off student debt, regardless of whether the exact mechanism to do it exists currently or not. Not really. He's not talking about whether she should do it, he's taking about the fact that she has no idea how to do it, doesn't understand why it won't work and is selling a policy that will not happen to voters that have put their trust in her.
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Oct 17, 2016 10:12
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Azhais posted:I'm writing in Joe Exotic, who's with me? That is effectively voting for whoever wins. If you'd be OK with a Trump presidency, go ahead. I'd prefer electing Clinton with a stronger mandate/heavier repudiation of Trump.
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Oct 17, 2016 10:22
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Pararoid posted:I kind of feel like John is glossing over the fact that if Stein was actually elected, she would have a clear mandate to write off student debt, regardless of whether the exact mechanism to do it exists currently or not. It still doesn't change the fact that it's a "I promise I'll get the school to put Coke machines in the cafeteria"-level claim. Growing up, that was the big bullshit claim any student body president candidate would make to get elected, and they'd get it shot down for the same reason this initiative wouldn't work - because more often than not, the school cafeterias aren't administered, overseen, or run by the school district, they're run by private concerns (and the Fed *is* private). It was her "hook" idea to try and get up to that magical 15% needed to merit a podium in a national debate. It didn't work, but there's no reason why she still can't keep saying she's going to put "Coke machines in the cafeteria" because she stands zero loving chance of winning and her saying it allows her to write a book after November 8th about how if she'd been elected we'd all be living in a Utopia now. The funny thing is that even though he's eighty-loving-two years old, if he hadn't blown his wad in 2000, Ralph Nader could have conceivably gotten a podium percentage this year. Instead we get Johnson and Stein. And I'm sorry, I know everyone says *Johnson* is the stoner, but Weld looked baked out of his loving mind in every scene next to Johnson.
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Oct 17, 2016 10:24
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I wish he had gone a bit further down on the "3rd party as spoiler" aspect because when you are dealing with the First Past the Post system the US uses, any party beyond the main two can only hope to act as a spoiler. There is no real minimum requirement for a winner beyond "get the higher percentage than the other guys", which is what got Maine's current governor Paul LePage into office despite getting a fairly paltry amount percentage-wise. Mathematically there's no way out of it unless we changed our voting system to that of a parliament where the split-up parties have a chance to at least form a coalition if they would end up with a majority percent or Australia's weighted preferences. But then again, maybe he's trying to argue that on a deeper level, the grass is greener on the other side only because we don't know it's astroturf until you look at it long enough, and thus examining these other choices who present themselves as "the only moral choice" will dispel their appeal. He also missed out on the best Johnson story, where he was led to a room named after Harriet Tubman and he turns to his aide and asks "Who's Harriet Tubman?". Or the "drivers licenses are an infringement on our liberty" stuff. That poo poo is even more disqualifying than what we got presented. Neeksy fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Oct 17, 2016 |
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Oct 17, 2016 10:53
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I watched almost all the Louis Theroux documentaries a long time ago and, on the 'exotic dangerous pets' one, I'm pretty sure he showed Joe Exotic at one point. At least, I think that's the same gay guy in a threesome relationship who had a tiger rescue.
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Oct 17, 2016 13:20
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I think the greens and libertarians are both big messes and been marginalized for so long they really have no business gunning for president when they should probably work on local elections where they might be able to put butts in law-making seats. There are certainly enough angry people. That said I can't respect anyone who demands party loyalty to the democrat trash fire, and republicans have their sort pretty much no matter what. If people want to vote libertarian or green with the full knowledge it hurts democrats, power to them. I've resolved to just abstain personally. I think John was as fair as he could be for two parties who really don't have their poo poo together organizationally. greens really need to be focusing on taking seats away from sympathetic democratic districts and likewise libertarians need to snipe the many state seats that could probably be taken by libertarian candidates.
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Oct 17, 2016 15:03
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I really want to know more about the most patient man on television.
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Oct 17, 2016 15:11
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Grand Fromage posted:I really want to know more about the most patient man on television. You should give him a call and explain your fascination with him and what it means for Hilliars changes for election.
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Oct 17, 2016 15:25
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I'm surprised John didn't mention Evan McMullin, since he has a conceivable shot of winning Utah and 538 even wrote a dumb fanfic explaining how he could conceivably win through the house. (But it really is dumb; don't look it up.) And Gary Johnson is a big hypocrite for saying that it's unfair that the two parties won't let him debate when he won't let McMullin and Stein debate him. I still think the whole whining about "lesser of two evils" meme is dumb, because we had a prolonged primary process to pick these candidates, and that was the chance to prove your favorite candidate was politically viable. As hard as it is to say, Trump and Clinton were the two winners, chosen by the voters in their primaries.
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Oct 17, 2016 15:29
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Grand Fromage posted:I really want to know more about the most patient man on television. I don't even understand the format exactly. Does he have a show where he takes calls from both sides because it's mandated by the FCC or something?
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Oct 17, 2016 16:06
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If you guys are talking about that guy who's been featured on LWT as The Most Patient Man On Television before, he's simply one of the many C-SPAN hosts. C-SPAN itself always has both sides' retards call in and bark diarrhea while he calmly goes about rifling through newspaper articles and stuff. Bonus points for the random instance of someone asking a black guest about his enormous black penis or head hair that is similar to pubes. (actual events!)
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Oct 17, 2016 16:18
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I'd almost watch C-SPAN just to listen to those callers.
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Oct 17, 2016 16:40
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I'm disappointed that he didn't dig deeper into the Libertarian Party, because the more you look, the less smart a choice it seems. It's so bad that when I see my friends on Facebook suddenly discovering how awesome that party must be, I tell them a few of their actual policies--get rid of the FDA, the Dept. of Transportation, the Dept. of Education, the EPA, and Medicare. Their first reaction is, "Nuh-uh, they're not for that, because that's just dumb! Libertarians are awesome and they'd never be that dumb!" Then I tell them that I got this information directly from their party's platform, and they say one of two things: 1) "That's OK, they'll never get everything they want anyway," or 2) "Well, you don't have to agree with everything the party says...." And that's OK, I guess, because supporting a political party based solely on ignorance and/or the assumption that they won't get to do the things they're openly saying they want to do totally makes sense. It just gets more hilariously horrifying the more you peel that particular onion. John spent some good time looking at the candidates, but for the Libertarians, the party's positions are, in and of themselves, worthy of that kind of scrutiny. And I can't vote for Joe Exotic, because at a certain point, you just gotta wear a suit.
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Oct 17, 2016 16:58
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I've always thought of libertarians as selfish racist hippies.
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Oct 17, 2016 17:00
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I just noticed that on the map showing the USPS invading Canada, Alaska was colored the same color as Canada.
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Oct 17, 2016 17:08
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Who is this mythical voter that has informed itself enough about Hillary's policies to declare them "as bad as Trump's" but also looked at Stein/Johnson's candidacies and not concluded they are absolute garbage? Also, as others have pointed out, given the US's current electoral system, "protest" votes are the absolute laziest way of standing up against the status quo, akin to posting on the internet but with the added bonus that you're actively making GBS threads over your fellow citizens. If you really do care about your third party's policy, help them get elected at the local level and then vote for the least worst realistic candidate and help your favorite party keep them honest. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Oct 17, 2016 |
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Oct 17, 2016 17:48
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I feel like you've got as good a shot making a "third party" if you announce a canidacy for congress/senate 12 years in advance and just have a weekly youtube & twitter channel about your views and how you'd handle X thing. A lot can happen after 12 years on twitter.
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Oct 17, 2016 18:05
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Neeksy posted:I wish he had gone a bit further down on the "3rd party as spoiler" aspect because when you are dealing with the First Past the Post system the US uses, any party beyond the main two can only hope to act as a spoiler. There is no real minimum requirement for a winner beyond "get the higher percentage than the other guys", which is what got Maine's current governor Paul LePage into office despite getting a fairly paltry amount percentage-wise. Mathematically there's no way out of it unless we changed our voting system to that of a parliament where the split-up parties have a chance to at least form a coalition if they would end up with a majority percent or Australia's weighted preferences. I really, really prefer the weighted preference system we have here in Australia because it means no genuine vote is wasted even if it's for a 3rd party which has no chance of achieving the majority and outright winning the election. You at least have a chance of the minor parties getting one or two seats in parliament or the senate and helping make sure the two major parties don't skew things too badly in their own favour. On the other hand it also means that nutjobs like David Leyonhjelm and Cory Bernardi get into the senate so the system sure ain't perfect.
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Oct 17, 2016 18:52
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:If you really do care about your third party's policy, help them get elected at the local level and then vote for the least worst realistic candidate and help your favorite party keep them honest. I don't think most people have a great grasp on how much local and state government can affect their lives. Especially since voter turnout is starting to hover around 20-25% for those things. Which seems really weird to me since local elections probably have the greatest effect on people's day to day lives outside of a declaration of war. Or if you're Kim Davis.
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Oct 17, 2016 19:43
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Grinning Goblin posted:I don't think most people have a great grasp on how much local and state government can affect their lives. Especially since voter turnout is starting to hover around 20-25% for those things. Which seems really weird to me since local elections probably have the greatest effect on people's day to day lives outside of a declaration of war. Or if you're Kim Davis. Well poo poo. So people are bombarded with information about presidential elections, whereas with local elections which you rightly stated have more of an impact on daily lives, the information comes largely from the voter guides voters receive in the mail. I don't know how many times people I know said to me "Well I just filled out what the party voter guide endorsed". That's not even the booklet with real information, people are just doing what they're told by their party by and large. I've also got to say that there's something of a selection bias when it comes to posting on the internet. You have to have time and interest in doing so when it comes to something other than lolcats or Facebook reposts. Not to mention (with the obvious and notable exceptions) that even people on something awful tend to be smarter than average. That alone says something. What are you going to do when not only do many people (at least 50%) lack not only interest enough to be discerning about who to vote for in local and state elections, but lack intelligence as well?
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Oct 17, 2016 20:06
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The problem with the "start local" is in many cases, they do. Or at least try to. But ballot access laws can be difficult to overcome. In my state of Indiana, your party has to get 2% in the Secretary of State's race to get automatic ballot access. The only party in my lifetime that has ever done that is the Libertarian Party. Otherwise, if you are an independent candidate or a minor, non LP candidate, you have to gather signatures. For a City-County Council race within Indianapolis, it is something like 1,200 verified signatures of voters within your district. It becomes increasingly more difficult at the State legislative level, and nearly impossible when you talk about state-wide elections such as Governor or US Senate. And by verified, I mean they have to be verified by the county election board. In Indiana, each county election board is made up of an appointment by the county party for the Democrats, the county party for the Republicans, and then the elected County Clerk. This often leads to great scrutiny of signatures, making it difficult for minor parties or independent candidates to be listed. Usually minor parties need to collect 2-3x the amount of signatures required since many will be thrown out, sometimes on dubious claims. In my neck of the woods, occasionally the local Socialist Party will muster up enough signatures to get on the ballot for state legislative races. But it is pretty rare.
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Oct 17, 2016 20:11
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The third parties are wastes of time for the presidency. You don't build an opposition to the status quo from the top down unless you're overthrowing the government - get a handful of senators, now all the sudden you can make any legislation require both parties come to you
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Oct 17, 2016 21:01
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:Who is this mythical voter that has informed itself enough about Hillary's policies to declare them "as bad as Trump's" but also looked at Stein/Johnson's candidacies and not concluded they are absolute garbage? You should join us in the crazy political forward thread, where you can see facebook posts of such people on a daily basis. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3186581
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Oct 17, 2016 21:18
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So we defeat a corrupt two party system by continuing to only vote for one of those two parties?
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Oct 17, 2016 21:52
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Luvcow posted:I've always thought of libertarians as selfish racist hippies. "I'm not racist, it's just that my education and financial solvency means I don't encounter ~you people~ all that often to form a socially-positive opinion of you past what I hear from my more 'progressive' friends. I know a few of you are doctors and lawyers, though...so ~good for you~!"
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Oct 17, 2016 22:03
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Adding a 3rd party doesn't make the system less corrupt. The only way to make the system less corrupt is to stop the corrupt candidates before they get to this level. The only way THAT will happen is making sure government is inhabited by those who have the interests of their people at heart rather than party talking points. That can only happen from the bottom up.
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Oct 17, 2016 22:04
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I do think "Why don't third parties start at the local level" is a pretty bullshit anti-3rd party excuse, simply because there are already various local elections with third party races; and they people usually making those arguments don't particularly care about "local races" that don'e effect them. It's just a way of telling them to go away. My main argument against third parties is still the fact that the political ideology that I most agree with that has largely been traditionally ignored has shown to be viable in the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders, even though he's hardly not a politician of the "hard" Left, has shown that it's possible to seize control of the party or force a major party to at least adopt a big part of the Left's platform. And I don't care if the Libertarians gain ground within or outside of the GOP. Libertarianism is stupid.
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Oct 17, 2016 22:28
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Luvcow posted:So we defeat a corrupt two party system by continuing to only vote for one of those two parties? If one candidate doesn't get 270 electoral votes, the house of reps chooses the president instead. At the moment a two party system is pretty hardcoded in the constitution.
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Oct 17, 2016 22:50
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Echo Chamber posted:I do think "Why don't third parties start at the local level" is a pretty bullshit anti-3rd party excuse, simply because there are already various local elections with third party races; and they people usually making those arguments don't particularly care about "local races" that don'e effect them. It's just a way of telling them to go away. And that's how change should be done through the primaries, voting for Bernie in the primary shows you want the party further left and it worked the platform adopted many of his positions. Voting for the Green Party in the general shows nothing of the sort because there isn't a "why" section on the voting ballet and it's not like the third parties have any policies that are capable of being adopted.
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Oct 17, 2016 22:51
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You can get into the federal government without belonging to either of the two parties. Just ask Bernie Sanders. It's an uphill battle, especially if you're not providing a substantially unique viewpoint to draw people away from the main parties, but it can be done. It's insane to start out with the hardest fought for position in the entire country. I know it appeals to the foolish child optimist in all of us, but that's not the world we live in. Jill Stein seems really out of touch, and Gary Johnson is just...dumb. I can forgive the Aleppo moment; American politics tend to be much more inward-focused, and it's not even the capital of Syria. I can understand it. But then he just kept on with not knowing anything, which means at no point did he or any of his staff think to look up anything in order to not look like an idiot on national television. It's not hard, his failure is the result of direct choices.
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Oct 17, 2016 22:57
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Apoplexy posted:I watched almost all the Louis Theroux documentaries a long time ago and, on the 'exotic dangerous pets' one, I'm pretty sure he showed Joe Exotic at one point. At least, I think that's the same gay guy in a threesome relationship who had a tiger rescue. I was going to comment that this was probably a pretty small demographic but thinking about it I'd actually love if you were wrong and there was more than one person this could describe.
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Oct 17, 2016 22:59
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:Who is this mythical voter that has informed itself enough about Hillary's policies to declare them "as bad as Trump's" but also looked at Stein/Johnson's candidacies and not concluded they are absolute garbage?
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Oct 17, 2016 23:15
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god, if only Joe exotic would pander to my desire for the president to wear a suit
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Oct 17, 2016 23:56
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I am in full support of having more than just two parties. I also believe the united states needs to move past FPTP and have runoff voting. That said, I agree that all the choices are loving terrible. Hillary is good candidate with some shadiness. Jill Stein means well but just comes off as naive. Johnson is naive and very destructive, if not dangerous. Trump is a psychopath.hemophilia posted:I think the greens and libertarians are both big messes and been marginalized for so long they really have no business gunning for president when they should probably work on local elections where they might be able to put butts in law-making seats. There are certainly enough angry people. This is why I support Socialist Alternative. Focus on local elections on guarantee Democratic areas, huge focus on issues and legislations, and promoting their ideas. Echo Chamber posted:I still think the whole whining about "lesser of two evils" meme is dumb, because we had a prolonged primary process to pick these candidates, and that was the chance to prove your favorite candidate was politically viable. As hard as it is to say, Trump and Clinton were the two winners, chosen by the voters in their primaries. I agree to this to a degree, but the reality is that some candidates won't fit the mold of the two parties either not really fitting into the mold (Gary Johnson) or being far too extreme for them. Even Bernie felt out of place in the Democratic Primaries before his rhetoric had Hillary adjust her stance. Ur Getting Fatter posted:Who is this mythical voter that has informed itself enough about Hillary's policies to declare them "as bad as Trump's" but also looked at Stein/Johnson's candidacies and not concluded they are absolute garbage? Or support referendums to end FPTP. Luvcow posted:So we defeat a corrupt two party system by continuing to only vote for one of those two parties? No. You vote on the local level to make the smaller parties more influential and most of all push for referendum that end FPTP. Even if you manage to "mainstream" a third party often they just end up becoming one of the bigger two parties in the long run or at worst you end up with an even shittier party replacing one of the existing ones (see Venezuela). It's amazing how neither of these third party candidates have talked about referendums to end FPTP. tarlibone posted:I'm disappointed that he didn't dig deeper into the Libertarian Party, because the more you look, the less smart a choice it seems. It's so bad that when I see my friends on Facebook suddenly discovering how awesome that party must be, I tell them a few of their actual policies--get rid of the FDA, the Dept. of Transportation, the Dept. of Education, the EPA, and Medicare. I linked this article on facebook and some of my friends were all 
punk rebel ecks fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Oct 18, 2016 |
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Oct 18, 2016 02:06
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The thing I'm kind of surprised he didn't touch was Jill Stein and the whole unclear ties to Russia.
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Oct 18, 2016 02:36
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The thing I'm kind of surprised he didn't touch was Jill Stein and the whole unclear ties to Russia.
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Oct 18, 2016 02:36
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I'm disappointed that he didn't get into how the leader of the Green Party is apparently more supportive of the major party candidate who believes climate change is a hoax, environmental regulations are stifling the economy, and we need to invest more than coal out of spite for Clinton.
Dr Christmas fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Oct 18, 2016 |
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Oct 18, 2016 03:06
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punk rebel ecks posted:That said, I agree that all the choices are loving terrible. punk rebel ecks posted:Hillary is good candidate with some shadiness. What does this even mean? How do you go from "all the candidates are terrible" to "Hillary is good but shady? This is the kind of poo poo I'm talking about. I'm fine with people not being fully on board with her policies or whatever, but it sometimes feels like people just throw these nothing statements out there because liking a popular candidate isn't cool or something.
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Oct 18, 2016 03:22
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