Aaaaannnddd another person murdered in the good ol' USA for a nonviolent crime.

Home of the free and the brave is no longer reality, it is propaganda.

#uspol #GeorgeFloyd

@freemo > Home of the free and the brave is no longer reality, it is propaganda.

Completely. It was probably True and Right at the time of the Founders, who got off from under the British monarchy and started a new social contract experiment.

Now? 😔

Sadly it seems a new Revolution is the only way the country will find its course again. It would be bloody, but the status quo is unreal.

@design_RG Yea the thing about revolution, and civil wars, is there needs to be one of two scenarios for it to work...

1) there needs to be a geographic divide between the two sides. In this case left and the right are geographically intermixed so there are no lines that could be drawn

2) The whole of the people need to unite and universally envision the government as the bad guy with some unified sense of a public morality they are fighting for. With the left-right divide in america there is no unification.

As such revolution isnt likely to happen in the current climate.

@freemo I think it might happen, the country can't keep going as it is.

REgional tensions are high, and the Stupid in charge is only trowing gasoline in the fires. Likely it could end up in a bunch of new regional blocks, and this could take a long time to happen, maybe not.

Depends on many things. I love #Dystopic books and film, and have read and seen many; sometimes it feels like it's preparation for what's possibly to come.

Do you know the "World Made by Hand" novels by James Howard Kunstler ? Lovely, he's agreat writer, this series has 4 novels at the moment.

Highly recommend read.

His personal site : https://kunstler.com/books/world-made-by-hand/

@design_RG tensions arent enough... I think you are right that things may blow, but its more likely to look like riots and violence among americans than directed at the government in any real sense.

I mean just look at the people the population is voting for, those politicians dont look like revolution to me, they look like Status Quo with dementia.

We have a democracy, if things stood any chance of changing we would have a half-decent politician up for election right now.

@freemo > We have a democracy

Uhm, can be qualified, maybe "flawed" is a good adjective? I have frequently seen it used.

People are blinded by propaganda and noise, distractions. The political class is crass and corrupted. TWO parties, representing all the people?

Elections turn out, for presidential elections, under 50% ? OMG. And they go around harranging other people's countries and systems. Please.

@design_RG The flaws int he democracy, though, are not any unfairness in how votes are counted or any significant suppression in our ability to vote as we please.

All the flaws you mentioned are flaws inherent int he people, not the government. The people choose to read the huffington posts and the breitbart's of the world and get brainwashed by the propaganda, they choose to vote for the politically corrupt, they choose to buy the lie of a two party system and vote for it.

Every single one of these problems are problems inherent in the people and the choices they make. Every single one would go away if the people actually had any proper vision for a revolution and made changes, but they dont.

@freemo @design_RG Its a problem with system in use not the people. It is not a lie when winner takes all, scenario is applied. Even if some third party wins somehow it would still remain only two party system. Third party would just kick out one of those already in place.

@vnarek

That has no basis in reality. winner take all has nothing to do with a two party system. If anything that would mean its a "one party system" but the meaning there means something very different than what people even mean when they say "two party system".

If for example you saw year after year 3 or 4 parts having rather equal chance of winning then it wouldnt be called a two party system. That can happen simply by people voting as such.

@design_RG

@freemo This is the consensus in the political sciences actually. Look up Duverger's Law.

Yes, it can happen, but the winner takes all situation is going against that. Making additional parties does not make sense, because you can't meaningfully affect the country and people would not vote for third party because it is a waste of votes. Even if somehow a third party wins after some iteration, we are going to end up in two party system again.

@vnarek Hardly consensus that one *garuntees** the other.

It is true that because ofthe fact that people have bought into the lie of a two party system that a plurality vote tends to generate a two party system. This is absolutely true.

Likewise other systems of voting (even with a plurality rule in place) can effectively invalidate this sort of two-party thinking among the people, namely things like ranked-choice voting.

So there is some truth taht effectively, as long as people beleive the fallacy of the two-party system, it will be maintained unless and until counter measures are used to prevent it.

But it still, and always will, rely on the underlying fallacy being consider a truth by the voters and the people.

@vnarek In fact no only is not a scientific consensus that such a law is, in fact, a law, if you just go tot he wikipedia page about the law there are multiple counter examples that disprove the "law" listed.

@freemo Yea it says "tend to favour two-party system". I am just saying that it is hard to go against the system which makes two parties stronger and vote for third party. It is the same as systematic oppression of some race/ethnicity. You can escape poverty, but it is highly unlikely if the system does not want you to.

@vnarek Except it doesnt make the two party stronger. The only thing that makes twh two party system stronger is the fact that people beleive the lie that a two-party system exists in the first place.

It takes only very simple logic to realize as a voter there is no incentive to vote for the two parties. But enough propaganda has spread to convince people that they must vote two parties anyway.

Its little more than people being idiotic and letting that effect their vote. Ideally the system shouldnt need to correct for their idiocy, the people should be thoughtful enough not to let themselves fall into that line of thinking in the first place.

@freemo @vnarek Read about first past the post, it's mathematically impossible for what you're suggesting to work; enough people BENEFIT from this system that they can hold us hostage to the two party system by complying with it. They WANT to force us to use it and their numbers allow this. You can't outvote the rich in first past the post.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

@penny

while it is certainly true that many people benefit from and want a two party system. Specifically those who are loyal to one of those two parties, in truth they have absolutely no power to force us to follow along.

The best they can do is spew advertisements at us (the rich).. but if we listen to those advertisements or not, or whether we actually bother to think for ourselves is entierly on us.

When the rich try to manipulate the public into a two party system, or a vote in general, and it happens to work, it isnt the rich who are to blame, it is the masses who were weak and gullible enough to turn on the TV in the first place, let alone listen to whatever nonsense it spewed at them without bothering to think for themselves.

@vnarek

@freemo @vnarek we can seize power by force, that's true, I'm into that. But it is mathematically impossible to vote our way out without achieving a better voting system

@penny

Incorrect for aforementioned reasons.

If a majority of people voted for a decent candidate, the decent candidate would win... There is no math diminishing their vote so long as people stop believing the lie that they are forced into two parties in the first place.

It is entirely circular logic that such mathematical pressures exist at all, and becomes self fulfilling by ones belief in it.

@vnarek

@freemo @vnarek The math does not work, you are arguing against simple basic logic. A simple majority of people fundamentally can't all vote for the same person, because they would always be a mixture of progressive and conservative people want. I don't want fascism, the other 50% does. I want healthcare, the other 50% wants me to die. I want to exist as a trans woman, the other 50% wants me dead. How can a simple majority like this ever vote together? What would this theoretical canidate support?

As long as no canidate can unify our ideals it's impossible. You can't say it isn't, a simple majority can never be achieved.

@penny I think @freemo ment that it would not be 50% 50%, but more like 30% 20% 10% 40% for example. Not all republicans wants fascism and not all left-leaning people have the same idea for leftist ideology, but we are grouped together into two wide parties that we lean more towards.

@vnarek @freemo Right, but we both have to vote for the SAME person. 50% of Republicans and 50% of conservatives have to vote for the same person. How would that be possible? What would they support?

@penny

Except we dont all have to vote for the same person, we just need to make sure one person gets more votes than any other.

@vnarek

@freemo @vnarek

You don't understand. A simple majority has to all vote for the same person. It is mathematically untrue

That means that one population base made of voters of both parties(or an entire party?)have to all decide to rebel and vote for the same third party. Otherwise, the "Conservative B Party" and the "Progressive B party" act as proxy parties and both sap 25% of votes from republicans, 25% from republicans, and after gerrymandering.... Republicans win.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_splitting#Spoiler_effect

This system is designed to be almost impossible to escape, it is hostile, and it adapts

@penny

No you can have 40% vote for party A, 30% vote for party B and 30% vote for party C, and you will have a congress that represents those parties just fine. There is no requirement that everyone needs to vote for the same party for that party to see some level of success.

@vnarek

@freemo @vnarek these numbers apply to microeconomics too, you can't get even get Congress as a third party because you will be competing against a conservative republican and a progressive democratic and you will act as a spoiler canidate for the one the most similar to you, causing both of you to lose. It's just math, first past the post it just rigged

@penny

being a spoiler vote for an otherwise evvil candidate, even if it is the lesser of two evils, should be the goal. Especially considering there are "spoilers" on both sides.

voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.

@vnarek

@freemo @vnarek Right, I'm protest voting for the green party. But I'm aware it is mathematically impossible for them or any third party to win until we fix voting.

@penny

then why is it possible for third parties to have won past elections, multiple times, without a change in voting?

The truth is, it isnt impossible, it just requires people to not be stupid. Which perhaps is pretty impossible in its own right, granted, but it has happened before.

@vnarek

@freemo @vnarek usually when third parties win, there hasn't been an adjacent oponent. A republican/Democrat could have sapped their votes, whichever was most similar, but no showed. And sometimes just every republican/democrat in a small community with a large majority of similar do and just decide to do that, but that's just an incredibly successful win! Back to blackjack, you still win a lot of hands when the odds are rigged- you just lose a whole lot more

@penny

Can you give an example of a third party winning the presidential election due to a no show of a primary party? In every case I know of that is not true. But it has been a while since i reviewed the cases.

@vnarek