...sickens me.

you guys need to reform your political/electoral rules system.

I was down at my parents place this week (down there for business) and I was watching TV on some US channels (which come through with US commercials) and holy crap was it bad :p

it's just pure attack ads... sometimes they come from a candidate, sometimes from a political action committee or something.

So a question to all the Americans out there:
How did your political system get to this completely polarized, gridlocked and frankly disgusting point? :|

My name is snawdog,and i approve this message..
"Pang kills kitties, and i do not.
Pang is such a cruel kitty killer, that i do not have time to talk about any issues."

its because they are allowed to donate so much money to campaigns and apparently do so anonymously now...

They need to add stricter limits on spending, and have better accountability as we do in Canada ^^

Well, they are out there because these horrible ads do work, because it makes the moderate independents not want to vote for either candidate, and then those who vote party lines, regardless of the candidate's merits, get to make all of the decisions.

What reform would you recommend beyond a suspension of freedom of speech? They can run whatever type of ad they want. Personally, I've never been influenced by one.

get rid of the position if they can't play well together. dang kids.

Reading his post, it sounds like he'd prefer that many of the financial donation limits be brought back into effect, anonymity for donations be eliminated (or seriously curtailed), and significant limitations be placed upon the activities of political action committees during elections.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

The Republican Party is approximately 150 years old. The Democratic Party is approximately 220 years old. Need I say more?

A two party system based upon polical parties that are both more than a century old. Hello, this spells problems. The parties once took risks and chances on issues. These issues would then be what they and their opponents talked about. Sometimes a party would be pushed out of power for 10-20 years as a result of a bad risk, but they would come back on the issues.

Then the parties figured out that if they stopped arguing about the issues and stopped taking risks, they wouldn't lose power for quite as long periods of time. So they stopped taking risks and there was nothing to debate about.

After that they started telling "Yo mama" jokes, but their mothers put them over their knees. Thus they decided that some people were more or less off limits in elections. They focused instead on destroying just two people, THEMSELVES! The candidate that gets destroyed the least wins the lovely chance to go to Washington, D.C. (once they are guided out of Washington state and back across the nation) and sit around telling "Yo mama" jokes in the privacy of the tax-payer funded offices. When they get bored of the jokes, they do a little work (declare war on someone, usually the American people) and then go back to their jokes.

Seriously, studies in the past have shown that negative ads work. Within a few more elections cycles I wonder if this will still be true anymore or if people will simply ignore all political ads on TV.

At least if there were more severe limitations on funding they wouldn't be able to afford so many ads heh.

Are the attacks ads not severe enough to get the people making them sued for libel or defamation?

qzjul, they have landed in court at times. A TN primary ad landed the candidates involved in court. One of those candidates is likely to join the US House.

I agree - it just begs to have stupid dominate the results.

I like the Montenegrin system. Advertising blackout 5 days prior to the election. Candidates can still campaign, give speeches, debate, etc - but 5 days prior to the actual voting they are required to have all advertisements pulled (including TV).


There is also a SEVERE need to limit the amount of "watchdog groups" that can run political ads. These things are nothing more than a candidate funneling money into a group so they can run smear campaigns for them - it's just disgusting.

Anyone see the report they did on the daily show last night on Detroit's Assistant DA?

http://nymag.com/...ercises_first_amendm.html

NOW, they're called "political action committees", "watchdog groups" are something different entirely. And they're not funded by candidates at all, because the candidates don't have money to spare (nor is it legal for them to fund such groups, I believe). The money is donated by individuals and corporations who support whatever cause the PACs are advocating for.

And no one watched anything about "Detroit's Assistant DA" because cities don't have Assistant DAs. Andrew Shirvell is one of many Assistant DAs in the state of Michigan. Though why you bring him up eludes me, as it has nothing to do with national, state or local politics. He's just one man being a douche.

American politics have a lot of problems, but the one at the root of most of the others is ignorance and apathy. If you're too apathetic to end your ignorance, fluffing about issues within the system is hypocritical. It doesn't even matter if you're an American or not (I'm not), you should make sure your fundamental facts are correct before advocating for changes based upon your (mis)understanding.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

So what happens if californians legalize marijuana and all those other things happening there?

californians legalize marijuana and the fed still has it outlawed, expect a lawsuit.

how can you call it suspending their right to free speech? they have to pay for the ad to get aired. or are we paying for it with tax dollars?

For the exact same reason you let dagga run around acting the fool. Trash talk gets attention. As long as it doesn't break what few rules their are, it gets allowed. Anyone who doesn't like it has to lump it.

Dibs - as Foog (much more eloquently than I) explained, they're primarily paid for with constituent money.

Foog - I just find the guy hilarious. Probably shoulda started a new thread, but I'm apathetic like that.

well, my main point was mainly about the fact that politics is so negative now pretty much across the board

how can constructive be done in this climate?
I saw an interview with John Boehner yesterday saying that "now is not the time for compromise"
what the hell? there was compromising before? :p
where was I for the compromising? :p

read a little about Joseph Goebbels, pang.

lol, lump it? i don't think so.

i'll just turn the dang radio off again. click. lump that you evil lying bastages who think money can buy you everything.

i can't hear you now.

WAY TO GO CALIFORNIA

-_-

Eric: or Rupert Murdoch :P

And Pang: look at our own federal politics and see where that is leading. Or the most recent UK election.

tbh the solution is to remove FPTP and replace it with PR. But then all the small communities will fluff.
fyi: FPTP is on of the main things that sunk japan in a big way.
In today's day and age that system makes no sense and only aggravates things.


Ultimately though this kind of polerization never ends well for either side.

agreed on the First past the post bit... that stuff needs to change

Why does fptp need to change in Canada? It's certainly not perfect, but it's served our country very well for a long time. Canadians live well, and our government does a reasonably good job of representing the desires of the population.

It's extremely easy to look at the problems we have and say "they were caused by FPTP elections, we should change that". But the truth is that we can foresee equally strong issues arising from PR -- and it's not like we can expect that the problems we foresee to be all that will exist.

No. We should not make massive governmental changes on a whim. The system we have has created a situation where we live well. We should not launch a massive governmental experiment that toys with the lives of Canadian citizens and will have an unknown outcome without a much stronger impetus than currently exists.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

My internet is too expensive!! /me slams fist

FPTP isn't as bad in Canada as it is in the states; but it is sometimes bad, ie when a conservative wins with like 35% of the vote, and 30/30 split between Liberal/NDP when clearly the majority favour not-a-conservative heh

FPTP necessitates large parties and tends to polarize.

"No. We should not make massive governmental changes on a whim. The system we have has created a situation where we live well."

I disagree. The system we have is creating a deteriorating situation and it is not serving us well.
Things like the NEP and Free trade would not likely come out of PR but could successfully be exploited via FPTP.

I evidence this by a couple of things:
1) voter turnout has been declining over the years
2) funding per capita for federal services oddly favors ridings with fewer voters
3) it is encouraging regionalism (see the block, amongst other things) and regional favoritism much more than PR would. (See the current infrastructure program for example).
4) Under FPTP conservative supporters tend to get no representation in Toronto even though their support hovers at 35% and liberal supporters tend to get almost no support in Alberta.
5) Look at the Bloc vs the NDP. Both have the same % vote share yet one has significantly more seats than the other. How is this democratic.
6) Under FPTP you can manipulate boundaries to influence election results. We don't have as severe a problem with that as they do in the US but our courts have ruled that ridings can be significantly different population wise because they are "a reflection of regional boundaries as well as population". Blatent example of this is the 1990s alberta provincial elections where 30% of the population was represented by 60% of the seats.

7) I argue that under the current system the rural municipalities are disproportionately favored over municipal ones. I will note that in the 1970s/1980s ontario the reverse was probably true

8) Under FPTP I only need to pay the most attention to areas where the vote is close. I can ignore areas where I have no chance of winning and don't need to pay as much attention to areas where I can win easily (or give them favors). This isn't just apparently in Canada. You don't believe me? Overlay a map of provincial service centers over a map of the city of toronto. Who typically wins in that mysterious whole in the middle? Coincedence really. Also if I am a conservative supporter and live in a riding that votes 60% NDP I am effectively disenfranchised. With PR my vote would count more because it's total votes everywhere that matter.

FPTP was made in a system where landowners could vote in multiple districts where they had land. That's why the system was set up like that. And under that society it made more sense. If we want one person one vote and everyone's vote is equal, FPTP makes your vote less equal than PR>

FPTP isn't as bad in canada because fewer government services are politicized imo. We don't elect judges. Our election authority is seen as impartial. And typically the courts/police don't play political favorites (at least not in the past 20 years).
Of course the elected government has the power to overide the courts on most things through not-withstanding + legislation though but at least it's clear to all when they break the existing rules.

what martian said!

eric -> I know all about Goebbels :p I absolutely love WWII history.... the next game we make after EE will include a WWII scenario for sure :p
It will be epic. Absolutely epic.

and martian -> oh ya, I'm not by any means saying that Canadian politics is great and America should copy us :p
I'm just raising the point that at some point, the US is going to need to change how their elections are done.... the emphasis for politicians is on funding & campaigning more than actually governing, and that seems somewhat backwards. The negative nature of politics, spurred on by the 24hr news organizations, is sending America. America is supposed to be the pinnacle of democracy.... are Americans still proud of their system and the nature of their elections?

It's called the First Amendment of the United Sates Constitution. It gives us all the right to say whatever the hell we wish regardless of how asinine it may be.

I think if the founding fathers had seen the current system in the united states, they'd have phrased things a little differently.


"Free speech, except for MORONS and politicians, whom are often one and the same"

lol :)


How do you think the US founding fathers would have written the US constitution had they had a glimpse forward into this world?

I think Ben Franklin did... "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

I think that they would have certainly been clear that businesses are not people and maybe they would have even figured out some way to keep politicians from being able to serve companies...

The US founding fathers believed that most white land owning men(as women and blacks were not allow to vote) would rather be back at the farm working. That was the central idea behind the current system that the elites of america who had time on their hands would run the country for 4 years at a time then they would go home and new people would show up. But at this point in time we have a system that the longer u stay in the politcal system the more power u can have control over. Thus the turn over is all most non because as Edward Dalberg Acton said: "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Agreed completely. Furthermore people now spend their efforts propagating their seat, not trying to serve their constituency. The irony is that they have to approve any sort of term limits for themselves... not going to happen... (but a definite point to push if my delusions of ever running for office ever come to be)

I think some serious regulation needs to be put into place on what can be contained within a political ad, or a political review by some of the "neutral" parties out there - unfortunately, so long as constituents and lobbyists continue to shape and guide political culture and ideals, I suspect it will only get worse.

Political ads are a bit like these forums in a way. You put on a name besides your own, say whatever you want about the other guy (with no requirement of truth or honesty, because you won't personally be held responsible anyways), and don't really much have to worry about regulation just so long as you don't blatantly violate the very lenient rules that are in place. If someone speaks against the message you're sending, you just start pummeling them with more of the same.

And yeah, this is extremely demoralizing to voters. I have never been closer than I was this year to just saying fluff it to voting because they all come across as such sleaze balls with these ads. I'm still glad I went though - even though only about 1/2 of the folks I voted for made office

You obviously have never ever seen some of the attack ads that the founding fathers used against each other in the newspapers of their era. Trust they were just as bad as they are today. Don't ever for a second delude yourself by thinking the the founding fathers lived in an era where everyone lived happily ever after and never said bad things about each other.



However if you do choose to believe those things then I would like to interest you in some investment opportunities.... XD

stupid buttons.....

Can you show me some links? I'd love to see that.

Am I still proud of this system? No. However, most solutions would probably require a constitutional amendment to put them on the books. I suppose the congress could make an advertising black out for the last five days and cite the preservation of our democracy as a reason. That might stand the test with the Supreme Court.

I don't quite think our system can be fixed short of a massive overhaul via a constitutional convention. That would require 2/3rds of the states to officially ask for one and then 3/4ths to ratify whatever changes were proposed.

heh i'm not saying they were living any sort of happily ever after; just that many of them were all in that french-revolutionary hype full of idealism and "change the system" stuff

I think it was more of a "Down with the system" mode though


And Pali's right. I remember seeing something on the History Channel once that one of our first presidents (can't remember which) ran adds that his opponent was openly gay and sodomized boys. I'll see if I can find any of it to post here when I get home tonight.

And even back then, rich constituents influenced policy and corrupted the ideals of the newly forming system.

The only fix for our system is all out revolution.

I find that improbable.

People always find things improbably that haven't happened within their life-spans.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

So you agree the ONLY fix is revolution?

Nope... I think I probably misunderstood you.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

No worries - I often have the same problem. I know how confusing I can be.

according to statistics 40% of our population are fat cow people, the most revolting thing that they can do is fart for 1/2 an hour without breathing.

It's always been that way Pang. I've heard in the 1800's candidates slandered each other much worse than now.

The ads you see pander to the candidates base to get them out to vote. Those of us who do not belong to either party tend to laugh and ignore them.

The only problem I have with it is that that money could be spent better elsewhere.

Still, it's unproductive...