Beefy's Corner - The Off-Topic Chat Thread
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I've devoted a lot of time to following and understanding American politics and law (because I am an exciting person with exciting hobbies), and they have always favoured a level of political idiocy that would make Italy blanch or Taiwan shudder.
But this is wholly new territory of derp, and this battle is only the hors d'oeurve. They haven't shut down the government to prevent the health care law, even...they know that they have lost. They have shut down the government in order to demonstrate how committed they are to fighting the law; not beating, but flailing impotently and angrily because they've convinced their constituents that it's the Worst Thing Ever.
And in two weeks, the real fun begins. The debt ceiling, an antiquated and completely idiotic concept in the first place, needs to be raised to accommodate the spending that Congress has already approved. And in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, the Republicans -- having merely lost the presidency, Senate, and won the House while receiving fewer votes -- have decided that they want their entire legislative agenda passed. All of Romney's economic plan, plus some clearly unconstitutional stuff beyond, is all they ask to avoid defaulting on the American debt and plunging the world economy into chaos. That is the single dumbest thing I have ever heard in the political realm, and if I live to be 80 I hope to god that I never see anything that trumps it.
They should have to dissolve Congress when this happens. That's how we'd deal with it here, and in Canada and Australia.
Yep, I'd rather die for the want of a few dollars than live. Well, wouldn't everyone..?
I'd rather pay $180 just a blood test.
Preferably, they should dissolve it in a vat of acid, before pouring the resultant goo down a storm pipe.
The problem is that dissolving the government wouldn't even solve anything. Thanks to the profound inanity that is gerrymandering, a snap election would result in the same morons...or, scarily enough, more morons in all likelihood, because anti-government sentiment in the general public tends to lead to them electing anti-government mouth-breathers who demonstrate their anti-government credentials by breaking government.
Yeah, the time that I had to get a CAT scan to insure that the severe concussion I inflicted on myself had not led to a subdural hematoma, there were really only two thoughts going through my head: one, 'where am I...?' and two, 'wouldn't this experience be improved if it cost me $10000-20000?'
It would be a disincentive for the current morons to push it to this point though. They wouldn't have allowed this to happen if their jobs had been at stake.
That's excellently writen if I may say so Schad. Borne of someone who knows what he's talking about.
And yes, I think the server had a wobble.
Oh yeah, no contest. Free or $180. It's a no-brainer. Well it helps if you don't have one in the first place.
Oh, they're doing this because their jobs are at stake. Thanks to gerrymandering, they'll never lose their seats to a Democrat...but they could lose a Republican primary, and the primaries are filled with absolute lunatics. There were threats of running even-more-extreme primary candidates against Tea Party Republicans who simply admitted that they didn't have the votes to win; the ability to count is now heresy.
I'm doing US Politics at college at the moment and currently doing elections. America's got a silly system where, it seems, whichever party is in government, the public then vote for the opposing party in the Senate and HOR elections, making it hard to create laws (as shown). And don't get me started on the whole Gore/Bush 2000 election. Our system isn't perfect but at least the majority party/parties can pass through laws a lot easier. The only thing I like about the American system is that their upper chamber is elected and holds key politicians, ours is full of unelected Lords and Baronessses, as well as the aristocracy who, in theory, are more prestigious than our own elected government.
Canada's is even more silly: we have the House of Commons, which does things, and we have the Senate, which does nothing. We imported the concept of the House of Lords as an upper chamber, but did away with the Lords and turned it into a pure patronage appointment that serves no conceivable purpose but comes with a six-figure salary.
Monarchies in the past have only been gotten rid of in the past due to big revolutions - France, Russia, Germany, Italy, etc. I guess to be a true liberal democracy we should have a republic, but it's hard to say where to draw the line as we can't suddenly call to get rid of them - the Royal Family do very little, and therefore don't do anything majorly wrong. There's more important things to focus on.
These days I'm turning more and more into being in favour of a House of Lords, unless one can obtain a properly elected Second House. But the HoL doesn't do too badly. They're relatively cheap and have bags of wisdom. Besides, the Labour and Liberal Peers see it as a chance to carry on doing what they believe is their good work, and the Conservative Peers see it as a good opportunity to get some shut-eye.
Best way to do it, IMO: first past the post lower house, upper chamber with the members decided by proportional representation. It'd be a deliberative body, you'd be able to stock it with intelligent sorts who didn't need to go through the nasty business of getting directly elected, and it would remove some of the silliness where a party can receive ~37% of the vote and end up with total political control for several years.
Southampton Speedway Tuesday Nights, Saints Saturday Afternoon, Southampton Vikings Saturday Evenings.. Hampshire Cricket.. All within a few hundred yards of one another.. Greyhound Racing for the grown ups.. Happy days..
P.S. Surely they could put a temporary Dog track on the Ageas Bowl and use the middle tier of the pavilion as a dinner/betting restaurant??
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