2k17 /pol/

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Sun May 07, 2017 7:18 pm #289895

Bottom post of the previous page:

modern politics just doesn't really leave any room for hope does it

FantasticFwoosh · Sun May 07, 2017 7:39 pm

Macron won, ew.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Sun May 07, 2017 7:45 pm #289908

CosmicScientist wrote:Balkanise France.

Citystate of Paris. Sultanate of Calais the Jungle. Champagne. Brittany. Give us Normandy, Maine and then a triangle of land around the Basque region. I don't care about the rest, just cut straight lines through it with a fishing net lain on a map of France.

What was the problem again?

Do we get Alsace-Lorraine back?

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Sun May 07, 2017 8:07 pm #289930

CosmicScientist wrote:
DemonFiren wrote:
CosmicScientist wrote:Balkanise France.

Citystate of Paris. Sultanate of Calais the Jungle. Champagne. Brittany. Give us Normandy, Maine and then a triangle of land around the Basque region. I don't care about the rest, just cut straight lines through it with a fishing net lain on a map of France.

What was the problem again?
Do we get Alsace-Lorraine back?
Bugger, I forgot there was a big country France was supposed to exist to sto-

I mean, uh, let's reschedule our talks and perhaps ask Scandinavia if they want to form a strong, unified entity not at all to box in anyone.

Why did we have to split up the Netherlands? If France goes down there's no-one who can put up even vaguely stall the Germans before they reach our channel!

please
we are extremely pacifist and only interested in the most peaceful of unions

ShadowDimentio · Sun May 07, 2017 8:34 pm

So that's why you need an army of mercenaries?

Checkmate, EU.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Sun May 07, 2017 8:35 pm #289956

imblyings wrote:
Grazyn wrote:The problem with the left is that they call themselves "internationalists" and call for unity but at the end of the day they always find the smallest ideological difference to disagree with each other and fail to ally against the common enemy. Only when they're being herded into the death camps they start to realize that maybe, just maybe, the moderate left or moderate right weren't exactly the same as the fascists. Mélenchon's decision to refuse support for Macron against Le Pen or Berniebros abstaining/voting for Trump/third party are the latest examples.
>death camps
>fascists

alinsky's rules for radicals working out well there

I've tried to understand how people think like this and there seems to be a common theme, maybe an inside morbid joke I don't know, of death camps involving gays and ethnics and x y z popular oppressed group of the day. Maybe I've read too many screencaps posting the dumbest users of twitter and other social media virtue signalling. Or maybe there's been a very real sudden divide in society as people get pressed into radicalizing on one side. There's no way to separate natural shifts of personal political beliefs informed through neutral information from beliefs manipulated through media and social engineering, that much is an objective truth.

So who's been radicalizing both sides? Why are people choosing to hit other people with u-locks? Knives?

It's almost insulting France has to die off slowly while people choose between two politicians, as radical and ironic as saying this is I wish they'd get off their asses and hang the lot and try anew.

I was exaggerating, you know, like when alt righters warn about extermination of the white man or mandatory gender reassignment? My point being that the left won't unite against a common enemy unless it hits them right in the face. In Italy the left failed to win the elections for 50 years even though they had the largest communist party in all western Europe because they were too busy fighting among themselves over petty things.

Luke Cox · Post by **Luke Cox** » Sun May 07, 2017 9:14 pm #289985

The mass shootings will continue until morale improves

Luke Cox · Post by **Luke Cox** » Sun May 07, 2017 11:32 pm #290028

Either way, we should offer our congratulations to the new president of France, Angela Merkel

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Sun May 07, 2017 11:34 pm #290029

That would just mean a whole lot of men get reassigned to women
Thats about it really. Nothing else changes

Edit: This post can be taken both as a reply to Cosmic above and as reply to the French election

Post by **oranges** » Mon May 08, 2017 3:49 am #290161

smugdog wrote:I predict a macron win

Thank you, thank you, I will be here all week

edit: also /pol/iticians dead in the water

DrPillzRedux · Mon May 08, 2017 4:12 am

A buddy at work was going on and on about how Pen would win about 2 weeks ago. I told him it's too late for France, since they got invaded by mudslimes and they don't have the same vote check and balance like the US does. He told me to wait and see.

He was pretty bummed about it all day today.

ColonicAcid · Post by **ColonicAcid** » Mon May 08, 2017 4:14 am #290179

>they don't have the same vote check and balance like the US does

but what did he mean by this.

ShadowDimentio · Mon May 08, 2017 4:29 am

Because without the electoral college why would a politician give a shit about any state that doesn't have a huge population like California, Texas or New York? Why would they give a single fuck about the needs of rural people when cities are all that matter?

Post by **oranges** » Mon May 08, 2017 4:44 am #290193

Why should they?

ShadowDimentio · Mon May 08, 2017 4:49 am

Because rural people deserve to be listened to by the government as well?

That's a stupid question.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Mon May 08, 2017 4:55 am #290196

Because otherwise, why would they not just declare independence and leave the cities as their own little citystates?
The US kinda has a thing about declaring independence

ShadowDimentio · Mon May 08, 2017 4:59 am

Except not after the Civil War.

That was like its whole thing.

Post by **oranges** » Mon May 08, 2017 4:59 am #290201

ShadowDimentio wrote:Because rural people deserve to be listened to by the government as well?

That's a stupid question.

Why should they listen to a minority more than they do any other minority? Rural people should get exactly the amount of representation that their numbers give them, not more and not less.

XSI wrote:Because otherwise, why would they not just declare independence and leave the cities as their own little citystates?
The US kinda has a thing about declaring independence

There's no feasible path for a tiny rural area to successfully legally become independent of any country, United states or not.

ShadowDimentio · Mon May 08, 2017 5:03 am

Because that minority is actually a gigantic amount of people who in a popular vote system would effectively not exist, and that's to say nothing of how like 5 states would practically own the entire country.

Plus it's not like the electoral college doesn't count populations. It does, by states rather than just the whole country, so extremely dense states like California, New York and Texas have a shitload of electors while rural states have few. But as a result of that the rural states and rural parts of states can actually hold a grain of power.

Post by **oranges** » Mon May 08, 2017 5:06 am #290203

ShadowDimentio wrote:Because that minority is actually a gigantic amount of people who in a popular vote system would effectively not exist, and that's to say nothing of how like 5 states would practically own the entire country.

If they were a gigantic amount of people they would have commensurate voting power in a popular vote, since by your own admission they do not, they can't be a statistically significant amount of people in the first place and there is no reason to weight the vote in their favour.

I never understood this argument specifically based on "rural voters", there are better ones to be made for the electoral college, such as that it's meant to give more equal weighting to every states point of view, rather than unbalancing it to the biggest states, or that it allows for a broader spread of views to be counted for.

ShadowDimentio · Mon May 08, 2017 5:08 am

I already mentioned that, that the top 3 largest states shouldn't run the country

Luke Cox · Post by **Luke Cox** » Mon May 08, 2017 5:55 am #290224

Californian here, it would be kind of bullshit if our population was counted by sheer number.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Mon May 08, 2017 6:02 am #290228

Especially considering population also counts illegals who can't vote

That said, what happens when you completely ignore a section of the population and refuse them input on government every single step along the way?
I don't like having to say that they'll become violent, but that's what history teaches us - if you don't treat people well, they will become violent and split off from you
That's how Belgium happened. The cities in the north of the united netherlands decided that they didn't care about what these half-french southerners thought of their policies and ideas. Today it seems unlikely that an entire chunk of land declares independence though. Instead, you'll just get another civil war with a lot of guerrilla warfare and economic warfare. People in the cities will likely end up starving because they import food and they now can do so exclusively through sea lanes and heavily guarded land corridors. And those will get bombed to the point of being near useless. Assuming they can afford to at all with the near-constant guerrilla warfare

The entire USA happened specifically because the rural colony folk did not feel like they had a say in things and still had to contribute what they thought were massive amounts of taxes.
If people get pissed off enough by a system they believe exists purely to rule over them like a tyrant would, then they will try to remove said system

Luke Cox · Post by **Luke Cox** » Mon May 08, 2017 6:15 am #290235

Even if the rural populations are a minority, they're still a significantly large minority, and it's not right for them to be completely dominated by California, Texas, and New York City.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Mon May 08, 2017 6:22 am #290240

Good thing that France votes for parliament next month so hopefully every section of the populace can get some representation. It's not like Macron was elected dictator supreme

Luke Cox · Post by **Luke Cox** » Mon May 08, 2017 6:36 am #290246

Grazyn wrote:Good thing that France votes for parliament next month so hopefully every section of the populace can get some representation. It's not like Macron was elected dictator supreme

That's very true, and that's what concerns me. My biggest fear regarding Social Justice dogma is that the pushback would result in a resurgence of the far right.

bandit · Post by **bandit** » Mon May 08, 2017 8:08 am #290265

smugdog wrote:I never understood this argument specifically based on "rural voters", there are better ones to be made for the electoral college, such as that it's meant to give more equal weighting to every states point of view, rather than unbalancing it to the biggest states, or that it allows for a broader spread of views to be counted for.

because the rural voters are the ones who agree with him and thus should be counted more, that's literally shadowdimentio's entire argument

lntigracy · Post by **lntigracy** » Mon May 08, 2017 8:17 am #290268

there are 50 states in the union

presidential candidates shouldn't be able to just ignore 37 of them and campaign in 3 simply because they have densely populated cities

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Mon May 08, 2017 8:33 am #290272

CosmicScientist wrote: Also I thought Belgium came into existence because of catholic/protestant divide alongside international intervention and an authoritarian king? You know, one of the best combinations? I really don't know!

Yes.
But it was mostly because the government said they didn't give a shit about the Belgians, on a matter of religious stuff, while fully consciously deciding that they should just ignore dissent because they're ruling over them anyway and some votes that agreed with them counted more than the votes that disagreed. If it weren't for the international intervention it would have just been a long civil war and then they'd have been conquered and told to shut up and take it, or they'd have won and put their own rules in place
Not the finest thing to happen to people, so they were pretty happy about the intervention and having a country of their own

That said- Any minority that does not like the country is free to move somewhere else. But this won't solve anything for rural people because then there would just be more rural people moving in and they'd be unhappy too.
You can't just have a part of society be permanently ignored and unhappy, or you get bad things

Most countries solved this by just allowing the rural folk some autonomy and to make their own local laws, but the US has this thing about federal level being very involved in many things that these rural folk really would like their own laws for. And the city people in the US do not want to give the rural folk their own laws either- In the name of progress, equality, and so on. Forcing the issues onto them only pushes them further to the right and then we get something like Trump.
Someone who ran on a platform of "We the common people are being ignored! Vote for me and I'll listen!"
It's only going to get worse. Unless Trump manages to actually do well enough that everyone agrees to let him have another term, which feels unlikely to say the least.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Mon May 08, 2017 10:10 am #290294

European countries don't usually have a large enough rural population to get a whole political party to cater to them, farmers are happy with parties occasionaly throwing them a bone in the form of tax deductions, and if they get angry they just ride their tractors into the city and close off the nearest highway.

ShadowDimentio · Mon May 08, 2017 11:54 am

bandit wrote:
smugdog wrote:I never understood this argument specifically based on "rural voters", there are better ones to be made for the electoral college, such as that it's meant to give more equal weighting to every states point of view, rather than unbalancing it to the biggest states, or that it allows for a broader spread of views to be counted for.
because the rural voters are the ones who agree with him and thus should be counted more, that's literally shadowdimentio's entire argument

Yeah man I'm totally a conservative and/or a rural voter.

Where did you even get this from, your ass? Shove it back up there.

lntigracy · Post by **lntigracy** » Mon May 08, 2017 7:01 pm #290587

The electoral college would be better if views were given proportionally within a state instead of winner take all, I agree.

lntigracy · Post by **lntigracy** » Mon May 08, 2017 8:02 pm #290667

Each state has its local version of the Senate and House that are elected from the districts/counties more frequently than the national level

Plus the governor that's the president equivalent at the state level

Post by **oranges** » Mon May 08, 2017 9:47 pm #290768

the problem for the US is an over abundance of elections, meaning everyone focuses on the least important one (presidential) when they should focus on their local senate and congress elections.

bandit · Post by **bandit** » Mon May 08, 2017 10:24 pm #290783

ShadowDimentio wrote:Yeah man I'm totally a conservative and/or a rural voter.

Where did you even get this from, your ass? Shove it back up there.

rural voters went Trump, I assume you either did or would have

I guarantee you that if the votes were reversed and the red states all voted Clinton and the cities voted Trump, this thread would be full of "but every vote should count, no matter where it comes from!" arguments

lntigracy · Post by **lntigracy** » Mon May 08, 2017 10:33 pm #290787

I was left leaning all through high school and still thought the electoral college was a good thing

Stop being an idiot

DrPillzRedux · Mon May 08, 2017 11:24 pm

The electoral college is a good thing though. It prevents cities from deciding the winner of every election. Otherwise California and New York would decide each time.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Mon May 08, 2017 11:31 pm #290804

Maybe you guys should just drop the entire first past the post thing and get in the whole alternative vote thing.
You know, the one where a candidate with the least votes is eliminated and their votes are then re-assigned depending on the voters' priority list for voting.

So someone could vote for Sanders first but then have it set up that if Sanders doesn't win, his vote goes to someone else instead of being wasted
First past the post encourages parties to become strongly polarized and a two-party system, both things you have and really should try to stop

DrPillzRedux · Mon May 08, 2017 11:35 pm

That's a shit system. Either vote for the candidate you like most or don't is a fine mindset. You don't have to vote.

Super Aggro Crag · Tue May 09, 2017 12:17 am

>changing the election system because your candidate lost
>everyone in the government has their position because of said flawed system

Yeah they'll totally change it to something that would give the people more control over who gets into power

ShadowDimentio · Tue May 09, 2017 1:17 am

bandit wrote:
ShadowDimentio wrote:Yeah man I'm totally a conservative and/or a rural voter.

Where did you even get this from, your ass? Shove it back up there.
rural voters went Trump, I assume you either did or would have

I guarantee you that if the votes were reversed and the red states all voted Clinton and the cities voted Trump, this thread would be full of "but every vote should count, no matter where it comes from!" arguments

You're making an ass out of yourself with your projecting Bandit, please stop.

DrPillzRedux · Tue May 09, 2017 2:00 am

>the people

You mean the millions of illegals in CA who can vote without being a citizen since they all get drivers licenses?

bandit · Post by **bandit** » Tue May 09, 2017 2:12 am #290851

ShadowDimentio wrote:You're making an ass out of yourself with your projecting Bandit, please stop.

really, because despite growing up in a solidly republican state, being old enough to remember the 2000 election, and spending half my life on the internet I never heard the "wtf I love the electoral college" argument until last year

TheColdTurtle · Tue May 09, 2017 2:30 am

The only thing I have trouble with in the electoral college is that shouldn't every citizen get a vote?

Luke Cox · Post by **Luke Cox** » Tue May 09, 2017 2:48 am #290870

Nobody gave much of a shit about the electoral college until it caused Trump to win the election. Before November 2016 it was moderately annoying at worst. Now it's supposed to be this grave threat to democracy.

bandit · Post by **bandit** » Tue May 09, 2017 3:09 am #290876

Luke Cox wrote:Nobody gave much of a shit about the electoral college until it caused Trump to win the election. Before November 2016 it was moderately annoying at worst. Now it's supposed to be this grave threat to democracy.

also incorrect, I realize most of you were probably toddlers when it happened but 2000 was the same shit

ShadowDimentio · Tue May 09, 2017 3:22 am

Shockingly, people get mad when they lose. More on this story at 10!

onleavedontatme · Tue May 09, 2017 3:23 am

Luke Cox wrote:Nobody gave much of a shit about the electoral college until it caused Trump to win the election. Before November 2016 it was moderately annoying at worst. Now it's supposed to be this grave threat to democracy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_ ... tion,_2000

Super Aggro Crag · Tue May 09, 2017 3:45 am

>democrats lose
"WOWWWWWWW THE GAME IS RIGGED NOTHIN I COULD DO COCKADOODY BULLSHIT BUMBLEFUCK NONSENSE"
>democrats win
"HAHAHAHA TOO EASY HAHAH YOU GUYS SUCK ARE YOU EVEN TRYING WORKING AS INTENDED THE SYSTEM RULES!"

Democrats are the darksydephil of politics

If the electoral college was such a fucking issue in 2000 why wasn't it changed by 2008 when the ill-will people had for president George w. Bush gave democrats a lot of congressional seats and a president? I bet my left sideburn that if president Donald trump loses his reelection bid and the democrats take control again they will not change this apparently grave threat to national sovereignty.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Tue May 09, 2017 3:49 am #290892

Of course they won't
They profit off it just as much because it allocates seats based on total population, so the shitloads of illegals in Cali get counted and inflates their voting power

What ever happened to the "California independence" thing they yelled about early on after Trump's win?

onleavedontatme · Tue May 09, 2017 3:56 am

Super Aggro Crag wrote:>democrats lose
"WOWWWWWWW THE GAME IS RIGGED NOTHIN I COULD DO COCKADOODY BULLSHIT BUMBLEFUCK NONSENSE"
>democrats win
"HAHAHAHA TOO EASY HAHAH YOU GUYS SUCK ARE YOU EVEN TRYING WORKING AS INTENDED THE SYSTEM RULES!"

Democrats are the darksydephil of politics

If the electoral college was such a fucking issue in 2000 why wasn't it changed by 2008 when the ill-will people had for president George w. Bush gave democrats a lot of congressional seats and a president? I bet my left sideburn that if president Donald trump loses his reelection bid and the democrats take control again they will not change this apparently grave threat to national sovereignty.

It takes 3/4 of states to ratify an ammendment, they are incapable of changing it. It'd require a large number of small states voting to make themselves irrelevant, so it is never going to happen.