Exhaustion 2012 (or, It's Not Forcible Rape if the SuperPAC is Willing) - by june gloom
Vasquez on 31/8/2012 at 05:38
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
US politics have baffled almost everyone I know and everyone I've spoken to on the subject here in the UK
Finland calling, with the same message.
Everytime I think THIS is the craziest I've ever heard, out comes the next and even crazier thing. It's like... like... I don't even have words for it
Inline Image:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45093000/jpg/_45093630_league_bbc226i.jpgNicker on 31/8/2012 at 06:02
The arcane structure and function of your federal government is confounding enough, even when it is operating, which seems to be during a brief period between the inauguration and the end of the honeymoon. The remainder of the four years appears to be consumed by the campaign for the next election.
demagogue on 31/8/2012 at 08:41
Internet is out at the school this week, so have to be brief on some outside connection. =V
Uh... yeah the Republicans have kind of derailed and have alienated me over the last decade, and I've worked for two Republican congressmen in WDC.
BTW, the political theory on this, realignment theory, is that in systems like the US (first cross the pole voting) you get two major parties that divide across the major ideological divide, but over time the dividing line evolves and all the major demographics realign their positions, so the N-S dividing line of the Civil War, realigned with an nativists - immigrants/labor in the 1890s, urban/East-rural/West line in the 1900s, progressive-conservative in the 1910s-20s, New Deal-Industry in the 1930s-40s ... The last biggest realignment was the 1970s, Nixon's Southern strategy that flipped the South D to R, the rise of ~40% "independent" voters, and what culminated as Reagan's suburban libertarian (currently manifested as the Tea Party branch). The issue divide of our era is a new kind of nativism(R)-cosmopolitian(D)... So all the free-trade & Rockefellar Reps associated with Nixon to Bush I are now being pushed out of the "New Republicans"... But the Dems haven't quite pulled right enough to grab them, so they fall into the "independent" bag, not really happily. A lot of center-right people without a political home anymore in the US right now.
SubJeff on 31/8/2012 at 09:28
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
Recent Vegas shenanigans notwithstanding, what value do they serve exactly?
The serve a number of purposes. Firstly and most obvious is the tourism. People come to see stuff in the UK, and specifically London, because of them and there is no doubt it's because the family is still functioning (unlike in France or Germany) since other European countries have equally, if not more interesting, Royal histories and artefacts and they don't get the same.
The Royals serve as "side-step" ambassadors for the UK. They go on Royal visits to countries we want something from and this is A Big Deal. Want to negotiate some mining deal? Queen goes to country first.
The Royal "seal" is something which signifies a certain quality. Royal Charters aren't just given out willy nilly, the honours list signifies something here too.
Let's not forget the Commonwealth, and also the fact that theoretically the monarch can dismiss a PM if need be.
I think more a important question is "what harm do they do?". People say they cost the taxpayer money but afaik they actually make us money. People say "what makes them special? they were born into it, they didn't do anything to get there", but to me it's the same as Paris Hilton who is famous for being the daughter of a rich person. And I don't imagine I'd want the Royal burden.
demagogue on 31/8/2012 at 09:38
I'd say values are at play with it. The idea of political privilege based only on status is anathema in the US, so it wouldn't fly here on principle... But that was never to say it's a bad idea for other countries. What gets me is that people in the US don't always see how wealth, the lobby industry, political donations, and campaign funding, etc, slant the playing-field so groups in the US are getting privileged just based on their status, their vote is "more equal", which should raise the same red flag they have against royal privilege, but more people let it slide. I suppose they think that those people "earned" their rights, but something like political equality shouldn't work like that, when you're talking about some issue that's supposed to be in the public interest, not just some private industry's interest.
Thirith on 31/8/2012 at 10:43
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
I think more a important question is "what harm do they do?"
I don't have anything against the Royals as people - I don't
know them as people - but the flipside of their symbolic value is that they feed the ongoing, pernicious British (or perhaps more English?) neurosis about class.
On the US elections, though: in my opinion all political systems that are de-facto two-party systems have a much stronger tendency to deteriorate into quasi-Manichaean, us-vs-them, mudslinging crap fest - and the irony is that in so many of those cases the two parties actually become more and more alike. I don't think the Swiss system is perfect, and it's as slow and unwieldy as a tranquilised elephant, but it's one that is still mostly based on, "Well, we're all in this together, we have to find some sort of consensus that isn't ideal for anyone but that everyone can live with, so let's get on with it, okay?"
Cue jokes about the Neutral Planet.
faetal on 31/8/2012 at 11:17
Since most actual change is defined by lobbying, politicians and legislators serving the interests defined by their investments and donors calling in favours - isn't the choice between Rep/Dem (and indeed Lab/Lib/Con in the UK) largely similar to deciding whether or not you want the person fucking you to be talking nice or dirty? CHeck your Gini coefficient trends since the '70s to see what difference any of it has actually made to the one metric which matters - "how much are those who create a nation's wealth (the workers and consumers) valued vs those who extract it?".
SubJeff on 31/8/2012 at 12:23
Quote Posted by Thirith
I don't have anything against the Royals as people - I don't
know them as people - but the flipside of their symbolic value is that they feed the ongoing, pernicious British (or perhaps more English?) neurosis about class.
The only people who have a problem with the class system here are those that don't have any. And even if we "abolished" the class system (as if that's ever going to happen) people are still naturally in a certain class. Changing the names isn't going to alter behaviour and it isn't going to change the socio-economic class you are in.
Vivian on 31/8/2012 at 13:26
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
The Royal family is a very useful institution actually. And they're not really inbred.
Mate, have you
seen Prince Charles? There's some serious shadow-over-innsmouth type shit going on with his face. What class system? It's just a reflection of how rich you are. We have as much of a class system as any other country.
CCCToad on 31/8/2012 at 17:36
Quote Posted by Thirith
On the US elections, though: in my opinion all political systems that are de-facto two-party systems have a much stronger tendency to deteriorate into quasi-Manichaean, us-vs-them, mudslinging crap fest - and the irony is that in so many of those cases the two parties actually become more and more alike.
With the additional irony being that if you point it out, you are quite clearly insane and overlooking the very real differences between those two parties.
