Comments on: The Silly Ideas We Still Standby

By: Dave_A

Dave_A — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 22:51:37 +0000

And dillute the small-government faction even more…

Right now, small-government conservatism flips between 1st and 2nd chair – the ‘flipping’ is what holds back the agenda (since the hold-the-status-quo folks are in the lead when the small-government faction is not)….

However, if you go proportional, you unleash more seats for extreme elements from both sides – Paul followers, Birchers, Greens (on the Dem side), etc…

Personally, I think that the biggest obstacle small-government policies face, is that we accept some truly freakish ideologies into the ‘tent’ because they support some small-government policies.

Bachmann, Paul, and so on don’t help our cause – they hurt us by making ‘small government’ seem like an extremist position…

But they are tolerated and even given committee seats…

We need to stick a giant ‘NOT WITH US’ on these folks, or they will continue to drag us down….

By: Dave_A

Dave_A — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 20:22:27 +0000

Let’s take a bunch of bored hyper-active kids, and make them hungry, bored hyperactive kids because we’ve regulated their diet so heavily they can’t stand the taste of school-approved food (it’s so bad in some states/municipalities, that the school dictates what parents can send in a brown-bag)…

The solution to overweight kids isn’t food-nazisim, it’s more exercise.

By: bogornes

bogornes — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 13:02:03 +0000

The best way to reduce fraud is to not have elections! Your argument is predicated on the reality that voting has become utterly meaningless in over 40 states (with the concomitant diversion of political resources and political focus to a handful of states). Elections are already legitimately compartmentalized at the precinct/district/county/state level. Rendering votes meaningless in 80% of states is not the only way to reduce fraud, is it?

By: checkmate2012

checkmate2012 — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:58:36 +0000

Congrats ZachV for having the most comments in 24 hours without a recco!!!!! Well done. Now can we move on?

By: Dave_A

Dave_A — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:56:48 +0000

I wasn’t referring to the person, when I said ‘you have no idea what you’re voting for’….

I was referring to which party controls the chamber…

The most important thing in legislative our elections, is who sits in the leadership positions…

Proportional representation, no matter how it is accomplished, brings into question which party will have control (by enabling more than 2 to be represented on a routine and normal basis)….

An election where the Democrats lose to the GOP by 3 points, but Paulbots take 10%, is an example… You have NO idea which party the loons will form a coalition with… And no way to control this with your vote…

There is no way to solve that, except to design a strongly-implicit 2-party system. Like ours…

By: Dave_A

Dave_A — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:51:58 +0000

I thought it was funny too…

Because I’ve seen the ‘benefits’ those a-holes incur from their preference for that mode of mud-hut (really, mud castle) construction…

The title was originally ‘Mud Huts are pretty good, if you need your house to withstand 105mm fire from an AC-130′…..

By: aesthete

aesthete — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:48:49 +0000

I am a bad person

By: aesthete

aesthete — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:46:14 +0000

I’ll also note that you are referring to a “closed list” form of parliamentary democracy: where the voters have no input on how the list is organized and who gets on it. In “open list” parliaments, voters vote from among all the candidates put on the list by each party, and the seats that the party wins are filled from the most voted for list member downwards. Not as good as voting for a member yourself, but better than closed list, for sure.

By: kyle8

kyle8 — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:42:42 +0000

they can go the other way as well. If a coalition does anything that upsets a majority of people they will feel the heat at the ballot box, So it is not as likely that anything wild and crazy is done.

However, it would mean that some people who currently have no representation would get some.

During the last fifty years there really hasn’t been any representation for the rather sizable constituency who wants to reduce the size of government. Republicans have given lip service but that is all.

Of course I know this is just a pipe dream, but I am trying to find some way, any way that small government advocates can really be heard.

By: aesthete

aesthete — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:42:10 +0000

and you accurately describe the reasons that I loathe party list parliamentary-style democracy. Daniel Hannan (a British politician) has a pretty good argument that our Presidential system explains the vast differences between our government and the Euro model of large welfare states.

Proportional voting does not need to involve such a dynamic (though it often does because of how complicated it is to arbitrate such a system otherwise). My preference so far is some form of ranked voting, like the alternative vote (instant runoff). I also like the alternative vote plus (which fixes some of the problems that AV has with proportionality).