Which Party do you feel will "fix" America's problems?

[quanta]

Except Quanta, who'll probably argue anything I have to say with reason and intelligence. Fucking tosser.

Nah, I agree with said post to about the maximum I'll agree with any statement. I would more likely just add unnecessary addendums. There are a few exceptions in terms of how politicians behave, but well... they're exceptions. And mostly they're exceptions in terms of the style in which they get things done rather than the considerations and results. I certainly don't envy the job of people who have to sell a policy, new law, and changes in spending. I'm so damn used to science or math, where although the same social maneuvering and politicking comes in, everyone is closer in terms of knowledge, education, and goals so it's harder to fleece people or disagree so fundamentally on where to be heading. That and the scientific disciplines are much more narrowly focused which makes analysis and data collection easier.

However, having read about and studied a few of the results of people or governments trying to rule in a more "scientific" or elitist manner while cutting out democracy, I don't believe it's a good idea. Not only is it simply wrong treat people like lab rats, but no one group is smart enough on its own to manage something as complicated as a nation.

As for the rest of your post, I agree that politicians suck when it comes to problem solving, because they cater to everyone BUT the people who voted for them. In effect, this leaves only the people with money getting anything out of this.

Yet voters keep re-electing the same people. I can't help but view this as a sign that it is most certainly partially the voters' fault/responsibility for who is governing the country.

Also, never forget the most important principle in a democracy... "money talks".

EDIT:

Charters are basically public schools with less rules and regulations. Less union control and more freedom in terms of management and such. At least as far as I understand it. I think there is quite a bit of variation in these.

Vouchers are pretty easy to understand though (in concept). Basically, instead of the government paying for a kid to go to public school, their parents receive a voucher with some monetary value that mean the government will pay a certain amount of tuition for a kid to go to any school of the parents' choice including private schools (although I suppose you could restrict the school choice somewhat). It's definitely something I strongly support.

Edited September 1, 2009 by quanta

[California Mountain Snake]

Charters are basically public schools with less rules and regulations. Less union control and more freedom in terms of management and such. At least as far as I understand it. I think there is quite a bit of variation in these.

Vouchers are pretty easy to understand though (in concept). Basically, instead of the government paying for a kid to go to public school, their parents receive a voucher with some monetary value that mean the government will pay a certain amount of tuition for a kid to go to any school of the parents' choice including private schools (although I suppose you could restrict the school choice somewhat). It's definitely something I strongly support.

And for the kids who have deadbeat parents who would sooner sell their vouchers to some suburban family going to a big fancy private school rather than give their child an education? I'm sorry, but free, mandatory education is in my opinion the number one way of giving children a chance to exceed their parents and be "born equal." The current system already has trouble with this, but I fear that under a charter system even more kids would fall through the cracks simply from parents who can't be fucked to care. Allowing more choice is great, but there should always be a default minimum (as Superbus said, a safety net).

Overall, I think we should focus more on the issues rather than who is pushing them. Personally, I hate the Democrat/Republican labels, and wish there was a way to do away with parties altogether, but with our type of government, I don't see that happening.

With any type of government. Parties are essential, but are universally in every country the most hated part of it. But people don't realize how much they depend on parties. Parties provide accountability. Without them any carpetbagger can run, collect his tribute, and get out while the getting is good and suffer no consequences. But in a party system, the party suffers, and can be punished electorally. This leads parties to be more likely to support candidates who won't hurt the party. Parties simplify options for voters, because when you don't have them you get people like Arnold Schwarzenegger voted into office (100 candidates running and people just voting for the one they've heard of). Parties provide stable platforms, or at least ones which change over time, and can accountable to voters from the local level to the federal level. It also allows shared achievements. You think pork barrel spending is bad now, if there were no parties each politician would need to amass numerous favors for his district just to get elected, making the game even more about money and less about individual politics, getting the exact opposite reaction you hoped for. Being party of a party allows various coattail effects to occur, where party members can take credit for party actions, and thus curry less of their own favor from their district.

But even more importantly, without parties, our government (or any government) would be simply too inefficient to get done what needs to get done. It allows simple allocation of talking time based on representation, it allows majority politics to form (even in parliamentary systems you have the majority coalition) and a clear line of authority is created. Who's to say what happens in a room full of individuals who have no accountability to anyone except for their district? Parties create national concern, and allow federal issues to be discussed which helping reduce individualistic politicking. Trust me, you don't want a system without parties.

[Crystal Shards]

Heh. Depends what aspect of common sense. I'll admit to being socially inept, but that's about my only weak point. Unfortunately it's a big one.

No one has "about only one weak point." Sounds like you should do some more self-reflection.

And for the kids who have deadbeat parents who would sooner sell their vouchers to some suburban family going to a big fancy private school rather than give their child an education? I'm sorry, but free, mandatory education is in my opinion the number one way of giving children a chance to exceed their parents and be "born equal." The current system already has trouble with this, but I fear that under a charter system even more kids would fall through the cracks simply from parents who can't be fucked to care. Allowing more choice is great, but there should always be a default minimum (as Superbus said, a safety net).

Agreed. The better option might be to bring up the poorer schools while allowing schools who are producing top-of-the-class students to continue doing what they're doing. America looks like it's going the route where they expect everyone to be equal, and unfortunately that seems to also mean that students who deserve to be challenged more (because they can handle it) are suffering and forced to either come out average or find their own ways to challenge themselves. There will always be students that fall below average and students who fall above average; we need to realize this without forgetting that even below average students deserve a quality education.

[Jyosua]

And for the kids who have deadbeat parents who would sooner sell their vouchers to some suburban family going to a big fancy private school rather than give their child an education? I'm sorry, but free, mandatory education is in my opinion the number one way of giving children a chance to exceed their parents and be "born equal." The current system already has trouble with this, but I fear that under a charter system even more kids would fall through the cracks simply from parents who can't be fucked to care. Allowing more choice is great, but there should always be a default minimum (as Superbus said, a safety net).

That's an easy thing to fix. Let's think logicially: They can simply make it so the vouchers are locked to be used by whoever they are given to, i.e. they have the parent and student's names on them, and schools require identification to use them. That said, I think vouchers are a good idea. Sure would've helped my mom put me through schooling, and maybe then she wouldn't have had to have worked two or three jobs.

Overall, I think we should focus more on the issues rather than who is pushing them. Personally, I hate the Democrat/Republican labels, and wish there was a way to do away with parties altogether, but with our type of government, I don't see that happening.

With any type of government. Parties are essential, but are universally in every country the most hated part of it. But people don't realize how much they depend on parties. Parties provide accountability. Without them any carpetbagger can run, collect his tribute, and get out while the getting is good and suffer no consequences. But in a party system, the party suffers, and can be punished electorally. This leads parties to be more likely to support candidates who won't hurt the party. Parties simplify options for voters, because when you don't have them you get people like Arnold Schwarzenegger voted into office (100 candidates running and people just voting for the one they've heard of). Parties provide stable platforms, or at least ones which change over time, and can accountable to voters from the local level to the federal level. It also allows shared achievements. You think pork barrel spending is bad now, if there were no parties each politician would need to amass numerous favors for his district just to get elected, making the game even more about money and less about individual politics, getting the exact opposite reaction you hoped for. Being party of a party allows various coattail effects to occur, where party members can take credit for party actions, and thus curry less of their own favor from their district.

But even more importantly, without parties, our government (or any government) would be simply too inefficient to get done what needs to get done. It allows simple allocation of talking time based on representation, it allows majority politics to form (even in parliamentary systems you have the majority coalition) and a clear line of authority is created. Who's to say what happens in a room full of individuals who have no accountability to anyone except for their district? Parties create national concern, and allow federal issues to be discussed which helping reduce individualistic politicking. Trust me, you don't want a system without parties.

You may be right about that. I hadn't thought of it in that manner.

Heh. Depends what aspect of common sense. I'll admit to being socially inept, but that's about my only weak point. Unfortunately it's a big one.

No one has "about only one weak point." Sounds like you should do some more self-reflection.

You're welcome to point out another.

Agreed. The better option might be to bring up the poorer schools while allowing schools who are producing top-of-the-class students to continue doing what they're doing. America looks like it's going the route where they expect everyone to be equal, and unfortunately that seems to also mean that students who deserve to be challenged more (because they can handle it) are suffering and forced to either come out average or find their own ways to challenge themselves. There will always be students that fall below average and students who fall above average; we need to realize this without forgetting that even below average students deserve a quality education.

What about states like mine, which are something like the 3rd worst in the nation, so much so that about 80% or more of the students maintain a decent grade point average, and yet learn almost nothing, simply because the teachers suck and don't make sure that students that don't learn the material, don't pass. Here, they're more worried about teaching how to do well on the fucking FCAT than teaching the damn material they were hired to teach! I see so many retards coming out of the public school systems here, that it really saddens me.

It's not that the students are stupid, they just aren't being challenged at all, and are basically made out to think that it doesn't matter whether they actually remember the shit they're being taught or not. I think the state suffers from teaching apathy, really.

[quanta]

And for the kids who have deadbeat parents who would sooner sell their vouchers to some suburban family going to a big fancy private school rather than give their child an education?

...so there's this crazy idea where you make it so IT CAN ONLY BE REDEEMED FOR THAT CHILD. It's not a fucking blank check. Plus children are required by law to go to school anyways, so no you can't just sell your voucher to someone else unless you somehow send your kid to public school anyways, at which point the government will know you tried to pull a fast one. Where the hell did you even come up with this counterargument? Let me be clear- It's not even vaguely valid if you aren't a drooling retard when designing a voucher program.

I'm sorry, but free, mandatory education is in my opinion the number one way of giving children a chance to exceed their parents and be "born equal." The current system already has trouble with this, but I fear that under a charter system even more kids would fall through the cracks simply from parents who can't be fucked to care. Allowing more choice is great, but there should always be a default minimum (as Superbus said, a safety net).

It still remains mandatory, now parents just have the choice of WHERE it is and if they would like to pay a little extra for a kid to go to better school. Or pay the same for kids to go to a different school. The safety net remains. Also, don't be disingenuous, voucher programs are really popular among the poor for a reason (and no that reason is not because you can sell them to rich white folk).

Parties simplify options for voters, because when you don't have them you get people like Arnold Schwarzenegger voted into office (100 candidates running and people just voting for the one they've heard of).

Ummmm... A) Arnold was a republican. B) Our previous governor (who was not a famous movie star) was so full of fail he got fricking' RECALLED. Are you trying to come up with a counterexample to your own point or something?

You think pork barrel spending is bad now, if there were no parties each politician would need to amass numerous favors for his district just to get elected, making the game even more about money and less about individual politics, getting the exact opposite reaction you hoped for. Being party of a party allows various coattail effects to occur, where party members can take credit for party actions, and thus curry less of their own favor from their district.

I highly doubt this is true. Pork-barrel spending requires the complicity of a large segment of congress. If congress was much more divided, I doubt that anything would happen as often legislatively as it does now. Until you can come up with some sort of evidence, I'm going to assume you're talking out your ass.

But even more importantly, without parties, our government (or any government) would be simply too inefficient to get done what needs to get done. It allows simple allocation of talking time based on representation, it allows majority politics to form (even in parliamentary systems you have the majority coalition) and a clear line of authority is created. Who's to say what happens in a room full of individuals who have no accountability to anyone except for their district? Parties create national concern, and allow federal issues to be discussed which helping reduce individualistic politicking. Trust me, you don't want a system without parties.

More likely to be true. More parties tends to lead to legislative gridlock. It's not too off base to assume this means no parties would lead to lots of gridlock.

Agreed. The better option might be to bring up the poorer schools while allowing schools who are producing top-of-the-class students to continue doing what they're doing. America looks like it's going the route where they expect everyone to be equal, and unfortunately that seems to also mean that students who deserve to be challenged more (because they can handle it) are suffering and forced to either come out average or find their own ways to challenge themselves. There will always be students that fall below average and students who fall above average; we need to realize this without forgetting that even below average students deserve a quality education.

And yet, I've never seen any sensible proposed solution for doing this inside the current system. Usually, the argument comes down to "spend more", which is a load of crap when you are going to spend more without fixing any clear organizational problems. The fact that charter kids often outscore their peers after you control for socioeconomic status and background ought to be an indicator that we should expand the programs (both in order to better understand why they do better and to see if we can keep improving the situation); not to mention, the waiting lists at good charters are often quite long. It's not that you couldn't apply the same reforms to public schools than you can to charters, but that it's much more difficult and jolting to change the entire system (there is very entrenched opposition from some of the government and the teachers' union) and competition is still useful anyways. Also, see my response to California Mountain Snake above on his counterpoint because it makes no sense.

I like vouchers even more than charters, and if we can't have either, it'd be nice if kids were allowed to attend any public school of their choice, regardless of where they live. Yes, I realize this might lead to even more "white flight", but it's important to note that having white kids sitting next to black kids doesn't improve their scores anyways. Rather "white flight" just makes it more obvious when are schools are failing a large segment of our population.

Hell, just provide the vouchers and monitor any public and charter schools. Bad government funded schools (charter or public) can be shut down or come under new management and rules and resources can be reallocated.

EDIT: Dammit, how did I not notice Jyosua had beat me to the punch on the obvious solution.

Edited September 1, 2009 by quanta

[Superbus]

Yet voters keep re-electing the same people. I can't help but view this as a sign that it is most certainly partially the voters' fault/responsibility for who is governing the country.

Glad you brought that up! Because that's really what gets back to the crux of the topic: debating what party is going to "fix" America.

Think about the Presidential elections. Think about how they basically started in 2006, with people being predicted and prodded into it by the media, and people supporting their people based on what the media was telling them; it was less "hey, I think person X would be a good president, let's support him" than it was "CNN and Fox say person Y is my party's favourite, I guess we'll support him!" It was less a matter of what people wanted than it was a matter of people accepting what they were given. In this phase, third party candidates were ignored.

Then the primaries struck. The Iowa primary came, and Barack Obama won the Democratic primary, striking a blow to presumptive favourite Hillary Clinton, getting his campaign really rolling, and hurting everyone else. All of a sudden, the media started squawking that Barack Obama was "for real" and a legitimate candidate, and it wasn't just a one-horse race anymore. Everyone talked about Barack and Hillary, and much fewer people talked about John Edwards. Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and others became an afterthought to the media, and therefore became an afterthought to the people. On the Republican side of things, due to funding issues, John McCain was rendered an afterthought. The next primary came and went, and due to the media's focus on only the people that did well - making it a self-fulfilling prophecy - some candidates dropped out of the race altogether, rendered victims of the short attention span media and even worse public. The few people who still even noticed they were in the running then decided "well, if I can't support person X, I'll support person Y!", whereas others that would normally support one of the minor candidates still remaining - someone like Richardson, or Biden, or someone on the Republican side like Rudy Guiliani or Ron Paul - decide that they don't want to "waste their vote", and decide to support someone stronger, as if they lose something if "their" candidate loses. Minority candidates were laughed off by the media for idiotic reasons; on the one hand, we can't vote for Dennis Kucinich, he's too short! But on the other hand, holy shit look at his wife! Perception becomes reality for a populace that is both too distracted by their own lives, and too lazy to seriously research the issues and the people governing them, instead relying on what they're being fed by their network news station of partisan choice; conservatives only pay attention to Fox, liberals only pay attention to MSNBC, and don't look farther than what their talking head of choice - be it O'Reilly or Olbermann - throws at them. Again, no mention of the third parties.

As a few primaries go, more candidates begin to drop out, to the point where with about eight states done - eight states out of fifty - we're basically down to two Democratic candidates and three legitimate Republican candidates to be the flag bearer for their party; Obama and Clinton for the Dems, and McCain, Michael Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul - barely - for the Republicans. The press goes on and on about how Obama and McCain are the favourites, which causes people with an interest in who becomes President - corporations - to donate more to that person; it's less to them about supporting who they believe in than it is to get whoever wins to support them, the name on the plaque is meaningless. That then allows the candidate in the lead to increase their profile, in the media and with the people, to the point where the media-appointed runners-up start to matter less and less. The less they matter in the eyes of the media, the less exposure they get, so the less they matter to the people voting. At this point, with eight states having effectively determined the candidates for the Presidency, the rest of the states basically fall in line; don't want to waste that vote, after all. At this point, my party - the Libertarians - decided that Bob Barr, a failed Republican who supported DOMA, was going to be it's candidate for the Presidency, with Wayne Allen Root, a businessman I'd never heard of EVER, being it's VP candidate. I did not know this until after the fact, despite the fact that I'm REGISTERED, nor did I have any say in this (I would never have supported Barr).

At this point, there's only two legitimate people for President, one Republican, one Democrat. You didn't really like either candidate? Shut up and eat cake, that's all you got. No one seems to care two shits about 1) third parties, or 2) that little "write-in candidate" box you see in the lower right hand corner; the media paid no attention to the third parties, the other candidates weren't invited to the debates, and the McCain campaign even litigated - often successfully - to keep the Libertarian party off of the ballot in many swing states. The public was completely non-plussed, and talked less about relevant issues and what was happening around them than they did things either completely innocuous and useless ("What is Michelle Obama wearing!?"), or completely idiotic ("OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST! MCCAIN CRASHED PLANES!"). In the mind of the public, there were only two candidates, and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if you don't like any of the two candidates after all of this Masterpiece Theatre, you don't want to "throw away" your vote, right!?

Simply put, all of this happened because Americans, by and large, are too fat, happy and ultimately stupid to think for themselves. They can't read past the first page of USA Today or past the opening monologue of the Hannity show, and don't care to educate themselves on what matters, or even how our country's political system actually works; what they learned in Freshman year Western Civ. is good enough for them, and they vote less for who they care about than they do for who they are told to vote for. If anything, I think Democracy has been utterly exposed for what it is: a farce. At it's absolute, practical best, everyone gets one vote that counts... so I, an educated man who cares enough to educate himself further, get the same amount of pull as the redneck fucker in Frog Shit, Arkansas who votes solely for whoever's going to let him keep his gun and keep the fags from being allowed to marry. At it's worst... well, go read up on how Iran's elections went. And Russia's. And how Burma's are going to go. And... and... and...

Edited September 1, 2009 by Superbus

[Crystal Shards]

What about states like mine, which are something like the 3rd worst in the nation, so much so that about 80% or more of the students maintain a decent grade point average, and yet learn almost nothing, simply because the teachers suck and don't make sure that students that don't learn the material, don't pass. Here, they're more worried about teaching how to do well on the fucking FCAT than teaching the damn material they were hired to teach! I see so many retards coming out of the public school systems here, that it really saddens me.

It's not that the students are stupid, they just aren't being challenged at all, and are basically made out to think that it doesn't matter whether they actually remember the shit they're being taught or not. I think the state suffers from teaching apathy, really.

The better option might be to bring up the poorer schools while allowing schools who are producing top-of-the-class students to continue doing what they're doing.