Is Trump's Endgame a Dictatorship?

[Telstra]

All the people i know do not know any local council members/politicians.

That is why i said let they choose their peers.
People outside their peers mostly don't have a clue.

 

[gsdx]

All the people i know do not know any local council members/politicians.

That is why i said let they choose their peers.
People outside their peers mostly don't have a clue.

Trust me. More people know about their local government (and CARE about it enough to vote) than you and your friends do. Do you think politicians should just draw straws? Shortest straw wins?

 

[Telstra]

Trust me. More people know about their local government (and CARE about it enough to vote) than you and your friends do. Do you think politicians should just draw straws? Shortest straw wins?

No,
Doctors vote for their president of AMA
Politicians do the same in Australia, they vote for their own and not the people.

 

[gsdx]

^ There's a helluva difference between doctors and people running the government for an entire city or country. So tell us. Who are a local politician's peers?

 

[Kulindahr]

In Australia,
the politicians choose their leader and NOT the people.
The people are not qualified to choose a leader.

I read a very good paper once arguing that the task of the people should be to choose those who choose those who choose the leader, that such a system would result in the optimum minimum of competence in leadership. It wouldn't give great leadership, but it would preclude disastrous leadership.

So the original way to pick the U.S. Senate would have been the right one if Senators were chosen by the state legislatures if those legislatures had been chosen by local officials. Just think of all the corruption that could have been avoided!

 

[Kulindahr]

Actually,
people should not vote for anything.
They have no clue of the election rubbish.

For example,
i have never vote for the local council election because i don't have a clue who they are and what they stand for. Let their peers vote for each other.

That's essentially how our student body officers were chosen when I was at college. The result was a student government that spent most of its time telling each other how great they were and having no clue what most of us were really dealing with.

 

[Kulindahr]

Just because you don't have a clue about elections doesn't mean other people don't. A government elected by peers would be a government run by people who have the most friends.

But he has a point: democracy is a direct support of liberty when the people voting actually know the people being voted for.

So that should be the base tier, people voting for people they actually know. For the next level up, those people should choose among them, and so on to the top. It would be unlikely to supply us with great leaders, but it would be fairly sure to make sure we didn't get any real screw-ups.

 

[Kulindahr]

If you don't know who your local politicians are and what they stand for, it's because you can't be bothered to go find out.

That sort of depends on how big "local" is in this instance. If local is one the order of a couple of thousand people, sure he ought to know them. If it's an order of magnitude larger, he ought to be able to get to know them. But when you move up another order of magnitude, about the only people who get contact with the politicians are those who are already friends or those who can seriously provide for their re-election (or hinder it).

This is why the size of the U.S. House of Representatives should be tripled: it is not the "people's house" so long as a representative stands for so many people he can't even meet them all in a single week.

 

[Kulindahr]

What % of people know their local politicians (i mean really local like the council) ?
Very low %.

I make a point of knowing them. Officially their doors are "always open", and I take advantage of that; if I have an idea I think they ought to hear or see a problem I think they ought to be aware of, I wander by their offices until I catch them, and grab a chunk of their time.

When one consistently manages to have "other things to do", I know who to vote against next time around.

 

[Kulindahr]

Trust me. More people know about their local government (and CARE about it enough to vote) than you and your friends do. Do you think politicians should just draw straws? Shortest straw wins?

For the U.S. House of Representatives, that would be an improvement!

 

[TX-Beau]

That sort of depends on how big "local" is in this instance. If local is one the order of a couple of thousand people, sure he ought to know them. If it's an order of magnitude larger, he ought to be able to get to know them. But when you move up another order of magnitude, about the only people who get contact with the politicians are those who are already friends or those who can seriously provide for their re-election (or hinder it).

This is why the size of the U.S. House of Representatives should be tripled: it is not the "people's house" so long as a representative stands for so many people he can't even meet them all in a single week.

Bullshit. If you don't know who your local politicians are, it's because you re too lazy to go find out.

 

[Telstra]

Bullshit. If you don't know who your local politicians are, it's because you re too lazy to go find out.

I am not interested in council issues.
I have never heard their names and know nothing about them.
Therefore NOT qualified to vote for any of them.

Why don't you let Indians in India vote for the US elections ?
Most of them don't know Trump or Hilary.

 

[Kulindahr]

Bullshit. If you don't know who your local politicians are, it's because you re too lazy to go find out.

I know mine (try paying attention). But when I was at OSU, that was virtually impossible because unless you were part of their little power circle, there was no access. And the bigger the population of your "local" area is, the more true that becomes.

In New York, the fraction of people who know their "local" politicians is certainly less than 0.1%; the rest can't, period. Even if the politician doesn't want that to be so, it's impossible; to know even 0.5% would take all the politicians' time and the knowledge would be shallow indeed.

If by "know who they are" you mean a name and a party and maybe what one thing they voted for this year, sure -- people can know about them. But to know them? The very phenomenon of political camaigns is designed to make sure the voters never, ever actually know the politicians!

 

[Kulindahr]

I am not interested in council issues.
I have never heard their names and know nothing about them.
Therefore NOT qualified to vote for any of them.

Why don't you let Indians in India vote for the US elections ?
Most of them don't know Trump or Hilary.

"Never heard their names"?

No wonder you seem so out of touch with the world -- you'd have to avoid radio, TV, and local news of all sorts to accomplish that!

I applaud your diligence in sustaining ignorance -- it's quite an achievement.

 

[hotatlboi]

That sort of depends on how big "local" is in this instance. If local is one the order of a couple of thousand people, sure he ought to know them. If it's an order of magnitude larger, he ought to be able to get to know them. But when you move up another order of magnitude, about the only people who get contact with the politicians are those who are already friends or those who can seriously provide for their re-election (or hinder it).

This is why the size of the U.S. House of Representatives should be tripled: it is not the "people's house" so long as a representative stands for so many people he can't even meet them all in a single week.

Tripling the size of the House would not really make the reps all that much more accessible and it would make it function even less effectively than it does now.

 

[rareboy]

^ Oh dear God...exactly this.

You'd end up with one of those vast halls like the USSR or China, where thousands of minor elected reps spend their time enriching themselves and propping up their party leader.

 

[nsguy2]

Trump looking to assail 1A. It wouldn't surprise me to see him treat the Constitution as little more than a collection of Wikipedia pages.

Sopan Deb Verified account 
‏@SopanDeb
Wow. Trump, asked if there's too much protection allowed in the First Amendment:

https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/790404291546738688

 

[rareboy]

^ The bizarre thing is that you can sue for libel and slander in the US under tort if you can prove malice.

What Trump doesn't realize is that he'd be shut down for about 90% of the shit he spews under his own new rules.

 

[kallipolis]

A comment following the cited exchange makes sense to me:

He's describing what we already have: an Actual Malice tort.

That Trump is making a scapegoat of the media simply plays conveniently to those who are his die hard supporters, to maintain their unswerving support. This tactic is predictably used by candidates running for high office, who are trailing in the opinion polls.

 

[kallipolis]

^ The bizarre thing is that you can sue for libel and slander in the US under tort if you can prove malice.

What Trump doesn't realize is that he'd be shut down for about 90% of the shit he spews under his own new rules.

Noteworthy... a fact overlooked by Trump's self indulgence, refusing to acknowledge his self destructive behaviour.