[PrimeMcFly]

Well that's just going to fuel more conspiracy theories. Sigh.

It was amazing when states like PA were counting and clearly said results will change by the morning, and when that happened and people woke up to a different result they started crying conspiracy.

The election definitely wasn't rigged, but if it had been necessary to do so I would have supported it. Can't ever repeat the disaster we had from 2016 - 2022 again.

[nologic02]

> The election definitely wasn't rigged, but if it had been necessary to do so I would have supported it. Can't ever repeat the disaster we had from 2016 - 2022 again.

Ah yes, as a student of 1940s Jewish culture, I am quite fond of the "it didn't happen, but they deserved it" angle myself.

[olgeni]

> but if it had been necessary to do so I would have supported it.

And this is not going to fuel more conspiracy theories, at all \o/

[PrimeMcFly]

The people that fail to reason will continue to fail to reason regardless of any comment I make.

[w4ffl35]

You stated you are in favor of rigging elections in order to prevent a person you don't want to be president to become president. Nothing you say on this topic is worth listening to.

[PrimeMcFly]

Not quite. It's not just about personal preferences. It's about someone who is a clear and present danger to our way of life and the security of the country.

[w4ffl35]

That is your personal opinion. A large potion of Americans feel differently than you. You may have strong feelings about this, but you aren't allowed to force an outcome on society because of it. You are advocating for fascism and rigged elections because you don't like a president's style.

[PrimeMcFly]

Those Americans are wrong, and most deserve the 'deplorable' moniker they were given. Most of them shouldn't have a right to vote in the first place IMO.

And to downplay the issues as 'a president's style' is incredibly disingenuous.

[olgeni]

> It's about someone who is a clear and present danger to our way of life and the security of the country.

However, this mirrors what the QAnons and the hardline MAGAs say about Clinton and Biden. Or more or less what Bush used to tell about Saddam. It might be worth noticing.

[PrimeMcFly]

Only one side thought JFK was going to reappear. Only one side has a history of believing ridiculous claims with no evidence that repeatedly fail to bear fruit. Maybe that side should be taken less seriously.

[AllegedAlec]

"If democracy doesn't return the result we want we'll rig the system to return that result anyway"

[glompers]

George Washington in his transfer of power farewell speech warned Americans to avoid factionalism, right? But never mind that. Our party base (true speaking for either franchise that extracts rents from the need for electoral viability now) are more patriotic than that dude.

Or we only have to outrun the slower party in order to successfully outrun the grizzly bear of being less best for the country. No other accountability applies for very long if your faction can still pull back ahead as the better one for some projective new future of America, but both factions by their own definition will always outrun the other in that shadow race.

[PrimeMcFly]

The problem is you have half the country severely lacking in education and their thoughts and ideas about what is best for the country don't correspond to reality.

[georgeplusplus]

And Whose reality exactly is that?

Have you lived outside the US? Socialites in expensive lavish cities are the minority in the world by far. The majority is what you just described, poverty, and lack of education to start.

To them you are like Maria Antoinette telling them just eat cake from your cushy little San Fran bubble.

[PrimeMcFly]

It's not anyone's reality, it's reality, period.

Yes, I've lived outside the US - I'm not even from the US. I've lived in 5 different countries.

I don't really care how it seems. Ignorance, and offense at having that ignorance called out, is not a sufficient reason to burn a country to the ground and violate the rights of citizens.

If it were up to that poor uneducated half of the US, most of them would push for the US to be closer to Gilead.

[georgeplusplus]

It’s your opinion they’re burning it to the ground but the fact they have survived, and will continue to survive, without your way of thinking and education, speaks volumes.

Walk a mile in their shoes before you Insult and attack their way of life and thinking. that is the definition of ignorance in of itself

[PrimeMcFly]

If people can't be trusted to vote responsibly (i.e. not voting in someone openly talking about being a dictator, openly racist, openly bigoted), then I'm fine with bypassing the vote.

It's a flawed system anyway. Ridiculous that everyone should have a say.

[swores]

> "Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time..." - Winston Churchill

(Since it's the second quote of his I've used in this thread, I'd like to actively clarify that despite being British I am a long way from being a fan of Churchill, but he does have some good quotes attributed to him!)

So when you say "It's a flawed system anyway. Ridiculous that everyone should have a say." - do you have a better system in mind, that works better than existing forms of democracy?

[PrimeMcFly]

Actually, yes! Thank you for asking.

First I should point out how utterly ridiculous it is that with all the data we have access too, all our analytical capability and ability to model and simulation, there are not many people working on alternate systems, and anything people come up with is not taken seriously. People would rather poke holes in anything new, even if it has less problems than our current system.

I do have a rough idea for a system, it's based on a lot of research, but only exists as a lot of rough notes - I haven't taken the time yet to properly organize and write everything out, it's a big project.

Basically though, it tries to solve some of the problems of representative democracy like we have in the US. Some example differences (which I'm not sure if I can devote time to defending in this thread, I just list them as examples) by:

- Removing elections for many positions, having them appointed or offered to people from a qualified pool - possibly even assigning them the duty of serving in such a position, not unlike jury duty.

- Giving people in positions of power more power to act unilaterally, while still having their actions subject to review, a cross between SCOTUS and a jury of qualified individuals randomly selected.

- Ensuring leaders must act based on current science and knowledge, not personal feeling or intuition - these are not things the general population should be voting on, even indirectly.

- Many more referendums for big issues, rather than just having elected representatives make the decision, or worse, fail to make the decision.

Basically, many more elements of a meritocracy, much less influence and say from the population, while still ensuring they have a voice. It would be a much less democratic representative democracy in the best way possible, although I suppose it could still fall under that same umbrella.

[peteradio]

Go find a monarchy to live in then. These ideas are in direct opposition to what the ancestors of our nation were fleeing:

- must act based on current science and knowledge (religious oppression)

- positions of power more power to act unilaterally (monarchy)

- appointed or offered to people from a qualified pool (nobility)

[PrimeMcFly]

Nope, nothing I suggest is close to a monarchy; I'm very against such an anachronistic institution. You've gone out of your way to make a ton of ridiculous assumptions to build a worst case scenario here.

But, yes, religious oppression to a point is a good thing. At a minimum kids should not be allowed to be indoctrinated.

More power to act unilaterally does not equal complete power to act unilaterally i.e. a monarchy.

A qualified pool would be based on education, not heredity.

[jki275]

We don't have a "representative democracy" in the US. We have a representative republic. There is a very wide gap between what you believe our system of government is and what it actually is.

[PrimeMcFly]

No, there is no gap. You're making a rather large assumption.

And the US is both a representative democracy (no need for scarequotes) and a representative republic.

I used 'representative democracy' (quotes actually make sense here) because the context was about how well democracy as a form of government works.

This[0] helpful wiki page may be of interest to you.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

[glompers]

“a republic, if you can keep it.” - Franklin

[swores]

It's an interesting (and scary/depressing) subject to think about - what proportion of people would or wouldn't find that acceptable in even more extreme circumstance?

Let's imagine a hypothetical political party and its presidential nominee that had an official policy of "if we get elected, we will nuke every country in the world except our own, and if we don't get destroyed in return we'll then move on to use our military to murder every white person in America" (hopefully that's extreme enough and far enough from actual policies for anyone to read it as a dig against a particular party!), and imagine 51% of the country supported this party and these policies. How many people would go "well fair enough, democracy!"?

It's a bit like that old line attributed to Churchill:

> Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?"

> Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... "

> Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?"

> Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!"

> Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price"

It's easy (for some people, though I don't condone this view) to look down on prostitutes as being immoral and disgusting if nobody would offer you more than £5, but how many people with that view would be willing to bend their ethics if they genuinely had an offer of tens of millions in return for having sex one time?

Likewise, it's easy to say we should respect democracy when both sides genuinely want what's best for as many people as possible but disagree on how to achieve that, but what about if democratic voting leads to having a leader like Stalin, or Idi Amin, or Putin?

Put another way: if you sincerely believe either that all Democrats are evil and trying to wipe out white people and destroy Christianity, or you believe that Republicans are all literally the same as Hitler and will do as much harm, in either case (despite neither view being accurate) if it's a genuine belief then isn't the ethical reaction to oppose them even if undemocratic? (As a non-American I can't claim to be an expert on what the worst, most-exaggerated claims made against each of Biden and Trump are, so insert whatever they are to replace the examples above.)

One problem is when you get leaders who genuinely will do evil things and yet manage to be popular enough to win elections; the second problem is when you have enough people believing conspiracy theories and bad faith claims about a party that make them look evil. Neither is an easy problem to solve.

[cragfar]

> It's an interesting (and scary/depressing) subject to think about - what proportion of people would or wouldn't find that acceptable in even more extreme circumstance?

"Right side of history" isn't used just to sound cool. It's to embolden opinions like his. Same with the description of "just a bunch of old white men".

[lambertsimnel]

In your hypothetical situation (if it's a two-party system), there might be a problem with defeating such an extremist party even by legal, democratic, non-violent means. Even if such an extremist party can be consistently defeated, how does the political system avoid descending (further) into dysfunction?

If the extremist party remains competitive, doesn't the other party increasingly get drawn away from the public interest and towards entertaining (or at least resisting) extremist policies?

If the extremist party doesn't remain competitive, doesn't the other party win without needing to appeal to voters, leading it into corruption (or at least complacency)?

It seems to me that there are only three ways (violent or otherwise) to restore democracy in a two-party system after one of the two parties turns to extremism:

1) replace the extremist party, restoring two-party democracy

2) rescue the extremist party from extremism, restoring two-party democracy

3) reform the voting system to facilitate multi-party democracy

There's an obstacle to opposing extremism in the United States by democratic means; electoral procedures (such as the Electoral College) too often give victory to a party (extremist or otherwise) without the most votes, so persuading a majority of voters isn't enough.

[robador]

GOP made every effort to rig it, but failed.