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At the ripe old age of 27, I have become a bit disillusioned with the American political system. Our federal government is corrupt with gerrymandering, lies, special interest, bribery, and strong-arming. The military budget vastly outstrips every other country's, the rich pay the government to dismantle hard-won and important checks to defend the poor and disenfranchised, and Hillary Clinton is bad with computers. We are doing self-destructive, myopic things like widespread fracking, drug prohibition, and ignoring crumbling infrastructure. There are lots of arguments among very smart people on how to fix this issue or that, or what underlying issues cause the symptoms of society that are ostensibly unrelated. A problem with these discussions is that there are so many individual glaring yet complex problems, it feels to me like trying to untie the Gordian Knot without a sword. I have had a crazy idea that has been bothering me since college: "Would the USA be better off as a confederacy, or even multiple countries?" I feel a lot of problems with our government is that it has become too powerful. It reaches all the way from DC right into our homes micromanaging our lives regardless of local culture. I think that the Unites States, at least, is too big for its britches. There is no way to reconcile the extreme differences in beliefs throughout my country into a coherent and constructive national body. This has lead to polarization of political discourse, and a judicial system cluttered with complex laws riddled with loopholes that cause many people to fall through the cracks in the bureaucracy. Would having a less powerful national government help? Texas can be the country it always wanted, different regions of the current US would have much more relative power to govern in the best interests and beliefs of their own citizens, and the military would be less of a global bully. I will say I don't know what all entails a confederate government other than the basic Civil War stuff from middle school, but I want to be clear I mean lower case confederacy, not the Confederate States of America. Also this isn't a panacea for the US, but big picture changes like this are interesting thought experiments. What do you all think?
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Apr 13, 2015 23:15
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Nevvy Z posted:There is no evidence, beyond your gut feeling, that the federal government is in any meaningful way the cause of the issues you are presenting or that you wouldn't just get the same problems repeated x times with x smaller confederacies. Federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have allowed its sale and use is by definition the national government using force to override the will of a local populace. It was peacefully voted into law and the federal government is still kicking doors down and shooting pets over it. I think that's a pretty hosed up way to run a country. Jagchosis posted:OP you realize that the U.S. started as a lower-case-c confederacy, it was a catastrophic unmanageable shithole and economic disaster, and the Constitution was written in response right? I don't clearly remember that from school, no. That's interesting, but then again the US now is an entirely different country than it was back when the Constitution was written, hence why I am asking why confederacy wouldn't work now. Is it like ideal communism in that it will never work due to human error and corruption, or have there been other countries recently that have been considered confederacies that have poo poo the bed mainly due to the way that governmental system works? I am honestly asking. I figured poo poo like posts containing one picture or a near empty-quote were still bannable in D&D because they aren't debating or discussion, but if this place has recently become GBS lite it's my fault for not paying attention and misjudging the people here.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:39
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VitalSigns posted:State gerrymandering is destroying our democracy and leading to single-party strangleholds all over the country. Let us fix this by returning more power to the states so they can suppress the vote directly and bring back Jim Crow. How do states suppress votes more than national government? And how would giving state governments more rights to govern themselves lead to bigoted laws? I don't follow. EDIT: This isn't an interesting topic to anyone else? What are the popular ideas for big-picture changes to improve the downward trend of personal freedoms post-911? Is there a reason to think the creep of executive power (and federal in general) will abate by itself? This is a bipartisan issue, both Obama and GWB have leveraged war and security to seriously erode personal freedoms. Locke Dunnegan fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 00:43
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VitalSigns posted:Yeah I guess if I cut out the parts of my brain that know about the last 250 years of American history I can see your point. What point do you think I'm making? I keep asking honest questions and I'm getting hilarious one-liners in response. The majority of the last 250 years of American history has been under a strong central national government, so Jim Crow, Japanese-American internment during WWII, fuckery of Native Americans, the drug war, the Great Depression, and others. Yes there have been leaps and bounds in personal freedoms (some more than others), but there's still seemingly systemic problems that hold us back as a nation, and I figured I had a good point for discussion. Or at least I could educate myself about related topics through getting schooled with knowledge instead of GoOn IrOnY.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:56
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Captain_Maclaine, thanks for not being a dick about someone honestly attempting discussion. I hadn't thought about it the way you explained it, and I see what the issues are with letting some states have more power to oppress. You are the first to do even a short direct response and I have more understanding, thanks. Also, I am not libertarian or Republican or right-wing at all. Being that I didn't bring up any popular talking points (that I know of) aside from reducing the power of central government somewhat, especially considering the increase in central power in the last fifteen years or so, I don't understand how someone can argue that I seem to be a member of those parties. Other than retarded non discussion straw men lulz, I guess. I hadn't realized how lax the requirements for posting had become in this forum. This isn't a slam, really, just that I prefer debate and discussion in D&D and the empty quotes and edgy comedy in GBS. Locke Dunnegan fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 01:35
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It should have been obvious by now but I meant the initial post to be taken as a straightforward request for information relating to the topic of discussion. I don't quite get how it could have been taken as a tongue-in-cheek "take that, atheists" type of post, but here we are. I'd like to assume you all are just raring for a good roast on a random dude you can make assumptions and stereotypes about as a retarded edgy echo chamber clusterfuck, but considering only a couple posters have deigned to give me anything resembling a proper response and the shitposterest of shitposts haven't been probated or anything, I think I just hosed up somewhere. It was a sloppy first post but it was meant to be in good faith, I'm sorry if I offended anyone or made people think I had ulterior motives.
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Apr 14, 2015 01:51
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Stereotype posted:Willie Tomg gave you a pretty nice response, the first post in this thread was a good response. Sorry if your "Maybe the federal government shouldn't exist" idea doesn't get a huge positive reaction from people who have been discussing politics for several decades and devote huge portions of their lives to studying US and world history. I don't think everyone is out to get me, and your summary of my argument isn't, uh, my argument. Project your issues with the state of political discourse on someone else, obvious straw men is less attractive to read than ignorant what ifs.
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Apr 14, 2015 03:06
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Yeah, and me being high at the time had nothing to do with me being an idiot. 
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Apr 14, 2015 03:57
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Popping in to say that pretty much all the pot shots at me as OP are unfounded, incorrect straw men. Maybe that's the joke, but I don't get it.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:41
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Nintendo Kid posted:It's more that your beliefs are indistinguishable from parody. The beliefs you think I have are the straw men. That's the point I made. Once again, I was asking honestly because I DIDN'T KNOW, not that I was trying to sneak in some agenda. Please don't ever try to teach. Edit: If, say, I saw a speech from Ron Paul about bringing back the gold standard, and didn't know what that entailed, and asked about it, would you assume I was a supporter and then berate me? Do you not like discussion? Why are you in this forum? Locke Dunnegan fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 16:29
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Palace of Hate posted:Yes, but only because you previously indicated you believe that issues of corruption are a result of a "too big" federal government with "too much power" I worded my argument wrong, then. It's more an issue of special interest co-opting legislation that should be in the best interest of the people. I figured that diluting power to multiple smaller governments would make it more difficult to have such a strong influence over a nation as big as the US but as has been said before it would probably cause more harm than good. Never did I say "rawr big government is intrinsically bad", I said that there are problems with our centralized government and was wondering what would happen if it was set up different. It was a thought experiment for discussion, not a loving call to arms to overthrow the gubmint. Those of you who are super excited to poo poo on me for being a retard libertarian pothead (and whatever else you want me to be) need to chill the gently caress out and take a step back. People are less likely to be open to new ideas if you are bullying them for not knowing everything that you do.
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Apr 14, 2015 16:50
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Nintendo Kid posted:Uh, it's way easier for special interests to co-opt multiple small entities that don't have an overlying government than it is for them to co-opt an entire government. Jesus christ, have you never been to a city/town/county council meeting or followed state politics? See now, we're getting somewhere. You make an actual point as rebuttal for the thread's topic, but you gently caress up any chance of continued on topic responses from me by continuing to be a prick. Edit: I just realized I'm explaining basic SA forum etiquette to a troll. Dropping it. Locke Dunnegan fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 17:08
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I may have too much faith in the American public, but I don't buy in to the idea that the states would turn on each other if they were independent. Not everyone's a power hungry politician. If my home state was attempting to annex Arkansas I sincerely doubt there would be a majority supporting it.
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Apr 14, 2015 17:41
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Obdicut posted:You seem tense. This thread is way more tense than it was meant to be. Keeps things exciting. I think reducing military spending in the US would help out with inequality and funding of other important projects, but my issue is how can it be done? How do we go from the ingrained "won't raise taxes, hard on crime, protect Lady Liberty from dirty foreigners" shtick of politicians only looking to get elected to a more productive and sustainable state? How do you drum up support for that? It seems pretty insurmountable, which is why I seem so bleak in my views.
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Apr 14, 2015 21:37
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Typo posted:Look you seem like someone who is genuinely interested in a good discussion, but I think D&D is really the wrong place for this type of debate. This isn't my first time here, though. I've lurked for years, and this is honestly the worst reaction I have ever seen to anyone seeking honest discussion. It was immediately taken over by straw manning, intellectual masturbation, and plain poo poo posting. poo poo like that would have seen people probated immediately in the past, or at least ignored if not called out. I loved going here for honest logical discussion about political issues, philosophy, religion, whatever. I made the mistake of not lurking in this forum recently to see how much the winds had changed and standards for good posting had eroded, and figured I had just made a grievous mistake somewhere or it was a fluke that obvious aggressive poo poo heads in the thread weren't being told to gently caress off of they weren't going to behave. I was wrong, apparently. I guess over time this forum may have become more of an echo chamber as everyone has had the same discussions, so fewer people are willing to dumb stuff down for a person who doesn't have an advanced degree on history or politics or had been around here long enough to know everything already. Or there was a conscious shift to looser discourse with more tolerance for low quality posts, like what happened in GBS. I just figured that worked for GBS but was kind of the opposite of what D&D would want. I made assumptions, was ignorant, and was severely slammed for it. Regardless of the causes, as a snapshot of the tolerance for ignorance (not stupidity), this thread casts a pretty lovely light on this forum in my eyes. I am relieved that in the last few posts things seem to have calmed down, which is nice, but gently caress me if I feel like contributing any time soon for fear of getting spit roasted for asking basic questions. I don't care if I sounded to some people as if I were a libertarian wolf in sheep's clothing, at face value it obviously isn't, because I loving wasn't. That is a time when giving the benefit of the doubt saves a cynical poster from blowing poo poo out of proportion and losing the interest someone may have in being an informed citizen. I want to see this forum and SA in general as really good at cutting through bullshit to get to the truth of matters, but I'm not so sure anymore.
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Apr 14, 2015 22:37
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:what, exactly, about this post grinds your gears Mr. Dunnegan Sorry, trying not to spam the thread with my replies, and I'm away from home at the moment so I don't have the time to read up on your examples. Links or summaries would help anyway since I'm wary on reading random poo poo on the internet, especially about loaded topics like politics.
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Apr 14, 2015 23:13
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Popular Thug Drink posted:for real tho you're getting trolled to poo poo because you're obviously an easy target I dropped it as soon as someone else mentioned that people making GBS threads on me may be going a bit overboard. Nothing like a little vindication to reduce bitching, and I felt that replying to a quote defending me with "  " would have been uncouth
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Apr 14, 2015 23:16
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Obdicut posted:May I suggest that instead of reading random poo poo, you read a well-written text on the subject, like the one I provided for you above? I choose not to. If you'd like my reasoning, you might find it in the untranslated "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" or maybe "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" series
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Apr 14, 2015 23:34
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Edit: count this as a reply to the last two posts too. Now that's efficiency! Obdicut posted:You really don't need to be an expert to type "give me liberty textbook 2nd edition" into amazon, but here you go: No one is coming up to you out of the blue and demanding anything. You are holding your own input in discussion hostage until someone takes the time to find, acquire, and read an entire textbook, but you are missing the part where no one gives a gently caress what you think when you pull stupid poo poo like that. There's only a certain amount of acceptance in asking someone to read up on something so you can have a discussion with common knowledge, and an entire physical textbook is a bit past that point when the discussion is the vitriolic clusterfuck that is this thread. I appreciate what you are trying to do, though, but if there isn't a shorter and more accessible way to access your input I don't have enough interest. I admit that is in part personal failing, but only the amount of personal failing that happens when I don't read the terms and conditions of a piece of shareware. I don't mean I don't have interest in reading ANYTHING relating to American politics, as I am sure people are going to skew my post into. It's more that if a random person comes to my door and won't tell me why they are there until I read the book they have, I'm going to close the door. Locke Dunnegan fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Apr 15, 2015 |
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Apr 15, 2015 00:00
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Nintendo Kid posted:Everyone else told you what was up, he deigned to give you a book link that would explain it in full course detail, dude. Is that seen as a good start by a lot of people? There didn't seem to be anyone else supporting his choice in literature so it came across as a random dude pimping an old textbook and then sitting there tapping his foot until I did what he wanted. When the level is discourse is as lovely as it has been anyone not in the in crowd knows who to trust to not be an elaborate troll. Trolling is useless and fucks things up for people on all sides of debate which is why I'm not excited about continuing discussion. Just trying to get my view across as best I can.
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Apr 15, 2015 00:15
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Nintendo Kid posted:I don't think expecting people to have understood middle and high school level government/social studies classes is such a high bar to be quite honest. I don't want to assume you don't know this, especially given how much of an elitist prick you've been the whole thread, but it's either that or you are being intellectually dishonest in the claim that public school education is adequate in making informed citizens. Especially when it comes to American history and politics, it's not too crazy to think that an otherwise intelligent individual wasn't given a good basis on positives and negatives of interplay between state and federal checks and balances. So basically you are ignoring a real problem in our education system to say I, personally, am an idiot due to personal failings, which is stupid, or you are ignorant of it, and are thus an idiot yourself. 
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Apr 15, 2015 00:26
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Nintendo Kid posted:If he was so willing to learn he wouldn't pitch a fit like a baby and go "I'm not going to chat because you guys were SO MEAN". Typo posted:But that's the thing though.
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Apr 15, 2015 00:30
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Nintendo Kid posted:It's not being elitist to expect people to understand a) why the Confederation failed b) why the Confederate States would have been broken even if they managed to not start/not lose the civil war.  See: Nintendo Kid posted:It'd be great if you lost interest in this topic because your interest is completely misfounded, to be quite frank It's actually annoying that people are actually calling some of the assholes out in this thread because I don't want to just pick up stakes and go when at least some of my issues with the discourse here is shared. This thread isn't about my OP anymore but maybe this new topic is worthy of discussion itself.
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Apr 15, 2015 00:47
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Obdicut posted:I was civil to him and his response to me is pretty much the same. ------ Saying that I am using a tone argument as an attempt to derail discussion is true, I guess, but while it is clean in a vacuum to state that a tone argument doesn't do anything about discussing the original topic, it's still important to realize WHY someone might feel like they need to bring up tone as a reason why the discussion isn't working. There's a reason why there are good diplomats, teachers, and public speakers, and part of that is that they can inform others while not explicitly or implicitly calling them retards.
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Apr 15, 2015 01:00
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Nintendo Kid posted:Hey, dude, it doesn't matter why you want to make a tone argument, it simply never is going to work out for you. Ever. Nah, it probably won't in this case, at least. You seem pretty against the ideas of humility or respect when guarded by anonymity.
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Apr 15, 2015 01:04
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Nostalgia4Infinity posted:Fuckin Thanks! I figured that was a good opener for this crowd. 
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Apr 15, 2015 01:52
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VitalSigns posted:I mean, if books are too long, I also gave you a couple of wikipedia links to descriptions of federal court cases that stopped states from doing even more egregious gerrymandering (giving whole cities of millions of people a single state representative, while every cowtown of 10,000 people gets one too, or just straight-up refusing to redestrict at all to keep population shifts from tilting power away from rural landowners), but you don't really seem interested in discussion or debate tbh I specifically said that I now understand some potential problems with giving states authority to give the finger to federal legislation. The entire point of my post was to gain information and/or leads to find information through discussion on what could happen if the government of the USA was set up differently, and that goal was met. I apologized for being ignorant, and expressed interest in reading more on the subject. I also took issue with the way much of the discussion was conducted, but I separated those two points when posting so as to reduce confusion. This side discussion turned out to be important to me to see first-hand how I can or should conduct myself here if I wanted to participate more, but it was definitely a derailment on my part and for that too I apologize.
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Apr 15, 2015 02:04
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Willie Tomg posted:Locke, if you're still reading then this is a pretty good doc from Frontline (which is a program you should be watching very much of, IMHO) specifically pertaining to the consequences of the Citizen's United court decision insofar as it affects broad rural Western/Midwest states. Specifically, that it makes gaming elections on the state and local level in ways that are favorable to entrenched and wealthy concerns really fuckin' easy. EDIT: But lol, posters can poo poo on me and break the basic SA rules without punishment but I can't explain my viewpoint when I'm being strawmanned and/or misunderstood? Labeling me as a retard libertarian and everything else changes the discussion and makes it difficult to have a discussion on its own merits. You say tone arguments, I say ad hominem and straw manning. Obvious double standards. Locke Dunnegan fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Apr 16, 2015 |
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Apr 16, 2015 20:26
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gradenko_2000 posted:I attempted to address your thread in a non-confrontational manner. Your choice to continue only acknowledging posters who "poo poo on you" for the sake of rationalizing your tantrum is completely your own. Yes, and I appreciate it, as you are acting like a normal poster. Well I guess on average way above the norm for this thread, so thank you. But considering I have ignored the vast majority of poo poo the last few pages when almost every single post engaging me directly has at least a stupid barbed comment instead of also letting it drop, I figured ignoring it and waiting for moderation apparently isn't the way to raise the bar. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, which sucks because the actual discussion about states vs. feds is getting interesting, and I can't participate because of assholes. And I know there's probably going to be a reply that I CAN participate and ignore the haters more, but why are they allowed to continue? Is this GameFAQs?
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Apr 16, 2015 20:42
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Popular Thug Drink posted:this is above all else a comedy forum, and your continued masochistic desire to get trolled to poo poo by the most pathetically low effort posts is kind of funny i agree lmao
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Apr 16, 2015 20:45
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Holding my views sacrosanct is something that I haven't done, actually. I could go fetch the post saying I am ignorant if you'd like but it looks like you're reading the thread so I'm going to assume you've read that one. The thread's topic is too vague to make this anything other than a catch-all topic for pretty much any state OR federal issue, though, so the next thread I post here will have a more refined scope.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:24
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