Broken Toys

I CAN’T vote, I’m a permanent resident. This video is mocking me!

Oh, and in reply to Vetarnias regarding the Canadian election.

The past Liberal government stole 40 Million dollars and gave the money to all of their advertising buddies who returned 40% of it back to the Liberals in brown paper bags, and the Liberals used the money as a slush fund to get re-elected (Google Adscam), while billing taxpayers $200 for pizza lunches and forcing strippers to work for their election campaigns for free, under threat of deportation (Google Sgro Strippers, or Volpe Pizza), if you don’t believe me.

They built a gun registry that was only supposed to cost 2 Million dollars and it has ended up costing us some stupid amount (upwards of a billion) and been bilked by their consultant friends for 100’s of millions of dollars in national defense computer contracts. Multi billion dollar corporations were allowed to flee Canada without paying a cent in taxes, and they allowed loopholes for companies to transfer all their assets to the Bermuda’s to escape paying taxes (including the Liberal Prime Ministers own shipping company)

And funny enough, not one single Liberal member went to jail over it, and even more funny is that fact that dumbass Canadians re-elected about 100 of them in a 317 seat house, because the felt that they identified more closely with them as compared to those redneck conservatives…

I could go on for hours about how much money the Liberals mismanaged/stole, but the saddest part is…

Twinkies who defend their record by examining the Conservatives 5-20 year old speeches looking for 6 lines that were copied out of 100, and using that as “evidence” that the criminals should be returned to power….

The problem with politics is that the entire process is designed from the ground up to allow only the fiercest, most power hungry, most often greedy, heartless folks to survive the process. And these are the last folks who should ever be in charge of things.

And I am saying that apolitically, the party doesn’t matter, it’s the process that is broken.

We’d be better off with a computer program that just randomly selected a voter every 4 years, sure we’d get a few duds but it would average out much better in my opinion.

This sort of apathy is why I’m in favour of mixing “special interest” votes with “geographical” votes. So, on an election, you’d cast two votes. One for your local representative and the other for the party you like best. A certain portion of the seats are then reserved to balance the difference between party votes and who wins the geographical first-past-the-post races.

The advantage of this system is that you can’t think that just because your vote wasn’t the tie vote it was meaningless. Instead, your realize the +1 votes was needed for your favorite party to gain the proportion it needed to get those bonus seats.

Speaking of Canada, if I understand properly, ties election funding to percentage performance rather than just seats won. This is how the Green party can claim funding despite no seats – the 10% of Canadians that voted for them didn’t waste their votes, but by directing votes their way directed funding and recognition their way.

The same issue, I think, lies with the electoral college in the US. The real problem isn’t politicians cherry picking the “cities”. It is that the “cities” aren’t as divided against themselves as they should be. The two party system is a very broken one – the proper way for a democracy to work is to a have sufficiently fractured party system that coalitions are required. This keeps the politicians hungry and unable to rely on the “safe” new york vote – a new New York First party might step forward, annex that vote, and then play the larger parties off each other. Much like you see in Canada with the aforementioned Bloc.

At some level, voter apathy is acceptable, however. I do think people who don’t want the franchise should not be forced to exercise it. It is not a good thing to make people vote based on what name they like best on the ballot box. This leads to reflexive sports-team voting (”I always vote republican” is not the sort of virtue “I always support the Cardinals” is) So, I can’t say I’m a fan of this sort of campaign. I think the voter apathy is structural. People have come to see the election as another SuperBowl because, to a large extent, it is one.

If you’re not voting, you don’t deserve your democracy. Please move to one of the numerous dictatorship around the globe, where your lack of commitment and apathy will be well rewarded.

@David E.

Still, let us not forget the blatant hypocrisy of the Conservatives themselves regarding their past.

For the benefit of American readers going through this without somehow falling asleep, the current “Conservative” leadership in fact got its start in politics by leaving the Progressive-Conservative Party when it was in power in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and forming the Reform Party, based on a series of factors going from dissatisfaction over the constitutional position to the string of scandals (Airbus, anyone?) coming to light.

The PC Party under Brian Mulroney had taken power in 1984 with the largest majority of seats in Canadian history, then was re-elected in 1988 through an uneasy alliance of Quebec and Western Canada in an issue where the Free Trade Agreement dwarfed every other issue. However, a series of constitutional crises led to the departure of both bases of support, the West went with Reform and Quebec members splintered off to form the Bloc. Hence in 1993, a party that had formed two back-to-back majority government was only able to retain a measly two seats in the House. That same year, our beloved PM was elected as a Reform MP.

Fast-forward ten years. The Progressive-Conservative Party, with roots going back to 1867, is still around but struggling. Then the Canadian Alliance, formerly the Reform Party, makes the bold offer to annex the old PC Party, assume its pedigree, and drop the “progressive” part of the name. Despite some disagreement by some PC members, the merger goes through.

So now you’re getting a weird state of affairs with a Conservative leader who got his start by leaving the Conservatives; Western Canadian members who now find themselves wearing the tag of a party they once ended up hating with a passion; and since you can’t pick-and-choose which elements of your assumed heritage you want to retain, a leadership which once publicly damned Mulroney for everything he did (from pandering to Quebec to questionable use of public funds) now trying to name-drop him in a positive light when convenient, and either excuse his actions or remain silent.

And just by looking at them, you know there’s something sinister about themselves that they’re trying to keep under wraps. I voted Progressive-Conservative in 1997 and 2000, but after the merger there is no way I am going to vote for these new “Conservatives”.

The Liberals have their crimes, and they are plentiful. I too am tired of seeing them rely on their usual poles of support of Southern Ontario and Western Quebec, as though that were morally superior to the Tories taking Alberta for granted. I am sick of their regarding themselves as the natural governing party, and I for one wouldn’t weep if the NDP formed the Official Opposition this time around. Otherwise it’s going to be the usual Liberal strategy: Let the Conservatives enjoy their majority because it will be short-lived, then we’ll be back in power again. Just consider Diefenbaker.

And one of the peculiarities of this country is that, unlike in the US, there is always a constitutional crisis around the corner. Conservatives rarely survive them, and Ontario’s equalization whining is gearing up to be such a thing — and this of course under a Liberal premier who would just love to play kingmaker.

And that’s why I hate Liberals. They take things for granted, which after a while accrues to the point where they are seen as arrogant and kicked out of office. But when they get booted out, they just bide their time, knowing that their traditional zones of support will deliver as expected and that others will return to them.

I will just add that for all the bad taste in Conservative electioneering, who could ever forget those Liberal ads in the campaign of 2006, gems of fear-mongering seeking to expose Harper as a Bush worshiper with a hidden agenda, concluding with those portentous words: “We’re not allowed to make this up”? When those guys even forget something as basic as how to run a campaign, you know it’s time to show them the door.

Yes, the system is broken. But there is no way to fix it. I don’t see voter apathy as the cause, but rather as the natural conclusion, of such a democratic deficit. But stuck between self-serving politicians and a certain branch of exalted philosophy (from Socrates/Plato down) that has nothing but contempt for democracy, for the philosopher is seen as the only person apt enough to occupy a position of leadership (and hence can disguise his interest as a moral obligation — no need to be ambitious when it’s the people’s duty to come to you), I can’t say I’m surprised by the state of democracy.

Regarding reimbursement of expenses for candidates in Canada, you can check out this link:

http://www.elections.ca/loi/com/Election/ele04_e.html

Surprisingly enough, it’s outdated, as the minimum share of votes for a candidate to qualify for reimbursement has been lowered to 10% from 15$.

Also there is the notion of official party status. To be recognized in the House of Commons, you need a minimum of 12 seats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_party_status

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Hurin,

http://preview.tinyurl.com/4gmmwp
^
Raw numbers.

http://www.povertyinamerica.psu.edu/

^
People do not have air conditioning or even heating, they freeze to death in the winter, they go hungry…

Again, your perspective on the poor in America is so out of touch with reality I’d have to take you by the hand and walk you through a homeless shelter (It’s no surprise to me, but it will be to you that the majority of people in homeless shelters are CHILDREN) and government housing (Again, you’ll see the majority of the occupants are CHILDREN.)…

You are shamelessly ignorant.
—————————————–

Uh. . . it’s like you just read one or two words of every sentence, then say: “Nuh uh! IGNORANT!”. . . and then feel good about yourself.

You just sent me two links just giving numbers. Nobody ever questioned that the government designates a whole lot of people as “impoverished” or “below the poverty line.” We all know that. The question is what constitutes “poverty” in this country.

You seem to (again) be (willfully?) confusing “poverty” with homelessness. The truly homeless constitute only a tiny, tiny fraction of those huge numbers that the government designates as “impoverished.” The vast, vast majority of those “impoverished” aren’t living on the streets or in shelters. So you can take me to all the shelters you want. . . that’s not poverty. That’s homelessness. And that’s not what the government figures you sent me are covering. You conflate the two and then hysterically point to the huge numbers to try to convince us that each of those numbers are not only on the street starving to death and dying of cold, but that they are CHILDREN! CHILDREN! Geez, demagogue much?

Nice attempt at redirection though. You can go on talking about the homeless. But I’m not. Since nobody has any issue with helping them.

You don’t seem to realize this basic fact: Homeless are impoverished. But not all impoverished are homeless.

The government has been redefining poverty upwards ever since LBJ and the Great Society. We keep dumping huge sums of money into the “war on poverty”. . . yet the poverty rate has *never* improved substantially. Why is that? Because we keep redefining what poverty is relative to the wealth of others, rather than absolute standards. It has become a means of exacerbating class warfare and income redistribution rather than providing the truly “impoverished” (by reasonable standards) with necessities.

And, one more time, as I said from the very beginning. . . we’re talking about those the government consider to be “impoverished”. . . and that is not synonymous with “homeless.”

I’ve given you ample opportunity to stop yelling “IGNORANT!” and “nuh-uh!” and actually make a cogent argument. But since that’s the best you seem to be able to do without being intellectually dishonest and willfully ignore distinctions of which I have to believe you are fully aware. It’s too bad you can’t make your points honestly and politely. Oh, but you don’t feel you need to be polite or even honest. Because everyone you disagree with is “ignorant” and probably dangerously so! You’re fighting for all that’s good and pure in the world. Even if you have to be disingenuous and demagogic as you do so.

So. . . I come here to read about MMORPGs. And I’m tired of hearing the same condescending, false crap from ya. You’ve got nothing, and your one attempt at substance above is demonstrably disingenous. So feel free to continue to call names and yell “nuh-uh! You’re so ignorant” and refer to people in their mid-30s who’ve been around a seen quite a bit as “white kids.” You’re only embarrassing yourself. After three or four posts, I think I’ve given you enough of a chance to say something of substance. And you haven’t. So I’m done. Take care.

Well, my much longer reply got stuck in the moderation queue. Probably because I quoted back those two links.

So, to sum up in case it never appears:

Providing two links to demonstrate that the government thinks there are a whole lot of people in “poverty” does nothing to further our discussion because the discussion has always been about what *constitutes* poverty in this country.

You then go on to (again) conflate homelessness and those living in shelters with the government’s definition of poverty. Yet, again, the homeless make up only a tiny, tiny fraction of those considered to be “impoverished.”

Nobody here doubts that the homeless have it very rough indeed and deserve our help. But while all those who are homeless are “impoverished”. . . not all “impoverished (according to our government’s definition) are homeless. Your need to conflate the two speaks volumes.

So, as I said in the yet-to-appear post. . . your need to avoid the actual topic and instead talk about the homeless and take us aside into irrelevant tangents when you’re not just asserting that those who disagree with you are “white kids” or (of course) merely ignorant. . . it all demonstrates that you don’t seem to really have that much to base your position upon. And as fun as it is to win an argument against someone who blusters and can’t help but call those they disagree with “ignorant” at every opportunity. . . it has stopped being fun because you aren’t even addressing the merits of the counter position. We’re talking about the definition of poverty and what it is constituted by in the real world for the vast majority of those so classified. You want to scream: “Think of the children you ignorant bastard! They’re all starving to death! See! Look at these numbers!” Yet, as anyone can see, those numbers say no such thing.

How do you argue with someone willing to go to those lenghts of intellectual dishonesty? Well, in my case, I choose not to.

Damn you J. I’ve been reading this blog for years and you’ve finally forced me into creating an account, just to reply to your post…

“This is a production of Leonardo DiCaprio’s company, who also got http://www.declareyourself.com started. Slightly NSFW splash page of Jessica Biel in bondage.

J.

3 Oct 08 at 10:23 pm”

It’s Jessica ALBA damn you, not Biel. Get your Jessica’s correct!

Living in Chicago I am tempted not to vote, Obama will take Illinois no matter if I vote for him or against him, since Chicago basically takes over the whole state when it comes to anything federal. There are a few local elections that are important, but usually they aren’t because the 2 parties run anyone out of town that even thinks about reform. The Machine here was originally against Obama too, until they figured out his idea of change was helping the poor, not fighting corruption, which made both parties happy.

But I guess I will vote anyway, mostly because I’ve known too many people from places like the former Iraq under Saddam, and some African countries, to be able to look them in the eye and say I squander everything I have but they didn’t have back there. I am thinking of voting for Barr, just to send a message. Whether that message is “I’m fed up with corrupt crap from both of you” or “I’m a nut” I am not sure.

Get rid of the electoral college? So only cities will count and rural and surburban voters won’t mean crap? It’s bad for the same reason removing the republic and deciding everything by referendum is bad: the majority will rule and the minority gets trampled. Or so that any small town could suddenly be the victim of lawsuits with tons of cash from the national parties, instead of lawsuits in just select cities right now during close elections, and our whole system grinds to a halt? We can’t even count votes with better than 2% accuracy yet.

Hurin,
You provided nothing but opinion. Your opinion can be summarized, “There are no truly poor people and even if there are, there aren’t very many.”.

I assume you stand by your opinion and any attempt to get you to look at any real substance is wasted.

Here: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm

The above right wing site agrees with you completely. They even source themselves for all of their “facts”.

The right wing in America has had as a fundamental and basic idea “there are no poor people and the poor people that can be proven to exist deserve it.” this class warfare has been going on since the mid 1800’s…

Here’s a book: http://tinyurl.com/3n6kw5

There is no hopeless situation. There are situations out of which you are not happy.

My favorite part is where you think an opinion is automatically rendered invalid because a conservative think-tank adopts some aspects of it or researches the issue. Because a Conservative can’t ever be right. They’re always and altogether *evil* and intent on brutalizing the old, starving children, and taking away your health care because. . . well, that’s just what they do!

I assume that it’s also fun to paraphrase someone’s argument as you do. . . removing all nuance and stating everything in ridiculous absolutes while (as always) refusing to acknowledge what the person is *actually* saying. You argue against what you *wish* people were saying because that’s convenient for you. But note that you never actually either understand or address the merits of the position you make vague, disingenuous attempts at addressing. And, finally, it’s entertaining to see how you totally ignore the way your prior post(s) have been dismantled and exposed as an attempt to change the subject (from “poverty” to “homelessness.”).

You’re like a caricature of a Left-wing nut-job. You actually seem to think that saying: “That’s something conservatives say” will actually cause the average person to think: “Oh! Then it must be wrong! What was I thinking!?!” Tell me, do all your friends think like you? Or, better yet, do you consider yourself to be immersed in intellectual diversity because some of your friends are Marxists while your other friends are merely Socialists?

But, of course. . . nobody has ever said here that “There are no poor” as you lamely and disingenuously allege.

It’s very simple (which is why you seem to intent on obfuscating): Poverty is a word. Words have definitions. The definition of poverty has changed over the last several decades and been constantly redefined upwards by our government so that people who would never have been considered “impoverished” forty years ago *are* now considered to be “impoverished” by our government. You play along not only with this gradual redefinition of the term “poverty”, but even attempt to perpetuate the myth that everyone (or the vast, vast majority) so-designated is actually in the dire straights (starving, freezing, homeless, helpless, hopless) that the programs were originally created to remedy.

But that’s simply not the case. “Poverty” doesn’t mean what it once did in this country. As others have said, go take a look elsewhere in the world for “real” poverty. “Poverty” in this country is no longer anything like that. That’s called “progress.” But of course, you can’t recognize such progress because it puts your agenda at risk and threatens to undermine an entire political constituency.

Is there economic inequality in this country? There sure is! Nobody would dispute that.

Is there the type of “poverty” in this country that there used to be and that still permeates most of the rest of the world. Hell no. And it’s sad that you can’t see that.

You and those perpetuating the class warfare you claim to despise intentionally confuse/conflate inequality with “poverty” and rail against them as though they are synonymous. They are not. And anybody with an ounce of common sense, a degree of historical context, and isn’t completely addled by revolutionary zeal can readily recognize the difference.

H

Wait, I can say that more succinctly:

You cling to a 1950/60s definition of poverty and put scare quotes around the word “facts” when they come from the census or other dispassionate sources because, for your worldview to make sense, you *need* to do so. For your politics, your agenda, and your *anger* to make sense, the “poor” must be in the dire, “3rd world”-esque, destitute straits that you and those so angered by the West’s wealth regularly assert (without any basis in fact). That entire vast number of people designated as “poor” by our goverment *must* be all (or nearly all) starving, homeless, and utterly destitute. And any facts to the contrary *must* be damn lies. Even when they come from bi/non-partisan census figures or otherwise dispassionate sources. They *must* be lies, and despite no evidence to the contrary, the poor in this country must be starving and destitute because otherwise, your cause and your self-esteem might suffer. And we can’t have that!

The Left plays games with the word “poor” and “poverty” in order to pretend that the free markets and Western-style capitalism are just as prone to impoverishing its people as those craptacular places all across the globe where such systems are not in place. Yet any non-revolutionary fool knows that there is a *vast* difference between “poverty” there and the pseudo-”poverty” we have over here. Which the rest of the world and any prior generation would have a hard time calling “poverty” at all.

Did I mention I was done? You say that I’m obstinate. Yet you yourself demonstrate that you’re impervious to facts and objective statistics and merely dismiss those that don’t fit your world-view. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to find agenda-driven socialist propaganda objectively enlightening and convincing. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so disheartening. And it’s disheartening because so many of our ignorant, brain-washed kids think like you in this day and age, take what they have for granted, and are going to piss away the most prosperous system and era ever known to mankind because people like you fill their heads with this naked propaganda. And, of course, everyone just wants to be a “good person” and help the “poor”. . . you just need to make sure they don’t actually learn what is actually meant by “poor” in this country.

Woops, I guess that wasn’t succinct either.

Oh well. I give up. Seeya.

H

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