Political Common Ground
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 00:16
VIEWED: 5611
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I thought I would try this.
Here's the idea in this thread:
We fight too much. Conflict is sometimes good. I'd rather have it than the all fall in line society. But we have to at some point meet in the middle, or somewhere, on some issues. Since we can't even agree on what particular schools of political thought stand for, or what their names mean, this might be difficult. But I want to start with a list of some political ideas. And I want to hear some thoughts on what poeple think, just briefly, and then we can get to the disagreements and see if we can't hammer out some compromises. This is really just the test of an idea, but humor me.
The origin of the idea BTW has been a result of watching this forum, and watching the senate. The seem to bicker and then one party has one extreme idea, and the other party has an opposite extreme idea, and they get further and further apart until they are completely divided, and then they vote. 55% of the people get their way, and are perfectly happy and 45% of the people have been marginalized and are very unhappy. What keeps America in balance is that this senate dominance flip flops back and forth every 8 years or so.
Anyway, hear goes:
Budget
Business
Education
Environment
Healthcare
Immigration
Foreign Policy
Military
Personal Freedom
Welfare
If I missed a key issue, please feel free to fill it in.
Here are my unapologetic stances on these issues, I'd ask other people to please do the same. We'll work out a compromise once the "this is what might happen if it was sour dicatorship" is down.
Budget: Zero tollerance for deficits. If there's a shortfall, everyone has to make do with X% less cents on the dollar, and that includes every contract. you're $14B contract is now your $13.2B contract.
Business: No policies that overtly hurt business. This means no business tax hikes and no trade barriers with any countries that follow decent trade rules (ie. it's okay to not import from countries using slave labor.) You can stop people whose business is destructive, but you shouldn't make rules that force them out of business, just because you want more pay or bennies for the labor group it hires. No exclusive labor cults like the AMA.
Education: Privatize it. Use govt. money in equal amounts for all children regardless of race color creed or what kind of school they go to, even if it's a freaky religious school. There would be no rules on how a school would be run. This is the one strong pro-equality stance I take, that everyone should have the same amount of $/student/year, and so funds should be pooled, via tax and spend :(
Environment. Protect it at all costs. Every species is sacred, and all undisturbed natural environments. If someone violated that, you feed them to the fishes.
Healthcare: open up to more competition, and switch from a 'protect the public' stance to an 'inform the public' stance. Alternate treatments and different traditions of practice are legit, and no one should be monopolize cures. There would be no health coverage, even insurance. All of this is to create an environment of lower costs. But you would have to treat anyone who came to you equally. If they truly could not pay, the govt. would pick up the final tab, but only in cases where it could be demonstrated that the patient couldn't possibly pay and that the treatment was needed. In these cases the govt. would pay an objectively calculated cost, not a blank check of what the provider wanted.
Immigration: I'd accept two types of immigrants.
1) those who show they add value to your nation.
2) Refugees who can definitely be shown to be victims of wholesale slaughter otherwise. (ie. Darfur) This second group would be granted asylum temporarily until the issue could be resolved.
Foreign Policy: Trade barriers only against countries with unfair labor practices. Sanctions against only dangerous countries that kill people. Sanctions are limited to things which facilitate the killing, and can never ever ever include bans on the imports of food and medical supplies,
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My word, in secret you're quite a little leftist aren't you....
Budget: Easiest way to avoid deficits is to avoid spending. So to my mind before you spend a penny you should ask yourself
1) Does it need to be done?
2) Is the government the best people to do it?
3) Is public taxation the only way to pay for it?
THEN you start worrying about budgets. In practice it's a good idea to be able to run some deficits, otherwise if you did get into unforseen situations, like natural disasters or unavoidable war then you lack the flexibility to deal with it. Every program undertaken by the government should have distinct spending limits that can not be crossed, every program needs a business plan with cost/benefit analysis and if it lasts for more than one fiscal period an annual report as to progress. This is people's money you are spending, treat it better than you treat your own.
Your ideas on business are unworkable because of other policy decisions you make further down. Without even trying you've impeded the business interests of industry, financial services and the medical industry while having a platform of hands off of business. Here's a news flash, the red tape business complains about is not arbitary nonesense directed by government just to f**k with them. All start their lives as well meaning meddling for something like "a clean environment" or "American hands on High tech weapons" and by the time they make it down to business they are "red tape." You don't want to trade with country's that use slave labour? How do you enforce that? How do you keep track of where something really comes from? Answer: red tape for import companies that represents man hours away from their core business. Unless you intend to live in a bananna republic you will end up making lots of red tape.
My answer. Personal responsability. Rather than impede every business that is trading fairly by making them document stuff that you then need to employ 1000's of bureaucrats to process make it clear, break the rules, go to jail and make sure you catch some bad boys every year to enforce the idea.
Education: Is a value for money issue. Just giving $ to every kid and then expecting it to be spent wisely is stupid. This is an investment in your country's future. It's too late to discover when biotech is big that half your kids went to "Oral Ahole U" and dont believe in evolution. If the government spends $ it has the right to say what it's buying and to audit the results like any other program.
Environment: Personal responsability issue. You break it you fix it, polute more than the guidelines and go to jail.
Healthcare like defence is a question of agrigating funds. The way it works in Europe is that everyone pays a little in taxation and are garenteed a basic level of cover that is free at point of use. Some people will pay in more than they need, some will end up taking out more. In general if your population is healthy and young enough it ballances out. The US system added a refinement by making it insurance, because the money then works for a living by being invested. Unfortunately as they are private companies the bulk of this profit goes to share holders not patient care. Also the US healthcare industry is a fixed market. You can buy private healthcare in the UK for a fraction of the US cost because the private providers have to compete with the NHS. Competition in a market always favours the consumer. So, I suggest everyone pays into a number of central plans each of which invests the money in accordance with the wishes of the client. Any profits made are divided between the client and a general welfare fund to cover extreme needs such as pandemics or health education/prevention. If someone becomes so sick that they run their fund dry the central funds compensate, monies amassed over a (hopefully) relatively fit lifetime can be used for more intensive care as people age. Fund managers allocate actual care from independent contractors on a cost/benefits basis. Providers must actively compete to win contracts.
Immigrat
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Leftist? Me?
Nah.
I wish people wouldn't hurl insults :)
I'm getting that the terms left and right seem to mean different things in the US from the UK. You might be surpised, many Repulican statesmen in office share many of these goals, it's principly the methods that we favor that differ. Show me something left and I can point you to the republican who started it.
Budgets. I like your 3 Q?s for budget. Where I'm coming from is I don't own a credit card, intentionally. You can't allow yourself into this situation. Disasters are what you have a disaster relief and a federal reserve for.
I don't buy your nixing that I'm creating red tape here. I think that's not even close to it. The bogging of business comes largely from labor unions, and federally mandated programs like corporate healthcare policies, IRAs, affirmative action and the like. After that, it's personal income tax, federal and state, and corporate income tax. A "don't kill the earth policy" is going to kill a couple of lumber companies which need to die. Good lumber companies do tree farming. Clearcutters are needed nowhere. As for the no-slavery policy, we already track where everything comes from and already know who this would affect. Principally, it would kill Walmart, it wouldn't have any other major effects except for agriculture and textiles.
Quite frankly, while I'm aware that this might cause food and clothing prices to go up, it needs doing. US-sponsored slave labor is part of America's horrible global image which feeds the growth of terrorism and anti-American sentiment. The Republican who started America's anti-slavery policy was Abraham Lincoln.
Conservation. Some things can't be fixed, you need to stop them from being done. Mostly I want no wiping out of natural environments, no poisoning of human inhabited ones. The Environment Conservation program in the US was started by TR, also a Republican.
I think my low spending and privitize everything are pretty much the backbone of the GOP. (When Bush isn't in charge)
Quote:
The way it works in Europe is that everyone pays a little in taxation and are garenteed a basic level of cover that is free at point of use.
It always starts like this, but once you've created the huge kitty, someone invades Iraq. The greeks had such a system, and Pericles raided the kitty and attacked Sparta, so it's nothing new.
Quote:
Unfortunately as they are private companies the bulk of this profit goes to share holders not patient care.
The insurance system is appallingly bad. I think it's sort of a capitalists way of doing the same sort of thing, but it's bad. I'd rather just pay the healthcare bills outright, with that govt. backup I describe. That way if I need $5 million surgery, there's no way I can pay, the govt. would pick up the tab. I'm sure this would be
But you missed the real key problem here. The bulk of the profit actually goes to the fat padding by the healthcare providers, particularly the drug companies, who make off with at least the size share that the insurance companies themselves make. This is because it is a blank check system.
Quote:
You can buy private healthcare in the UK for a fraction of the US cost because the private providers have to compete with the NHS.
This was the gorbachev plan for the US, which I said in an earlier thread I'd support. But I'd rather have something anti-cartel along the lines of the anti-trust to force competition between private providers, so I don't have to budget a large national health system.
Immigration. I only supported temp. housing for refugees because my country is America, and we have huge amounts of unpopulated space. I certainly wouldn't suggest anyone in Europe do the same, I think that would be insane.
I'm not sure I agree about personal freedom. I think that it's not a matter of space. It's a matter of individual groups allowing to have rules. New York State is a little larger than Ireland, and has a little more than 4 times the number of people. Taking out New York City entire
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Well I will play along with the idea, and post my wacko political thoughts. I think few people are one political strip or the other, when I read Dreamtrove's original post I felt he was far closer to the right all things considered. I mean keep reading and you will see someone on the left. :)
Budget
A balanced budget should be the goal, but not mandatory as deficits are sometimes necessary. In terms of revenue I would restore the estate tax, raise taxes on the top 1% of the population and on major corporations (or at least eliminate many of the unnecessary subsidies we give major corporations). I would also cut defense spending 10-20%. With these funds I would finance my following proposals.
Business
First, I would raise the minimum wage, how about to $8.00 that sounds like a reasonable start.
Second, I would remove many of the limitations imposed over the last two decades on the Taft-Hartley Act and allow American workers the freedom to unionize. The government should only be involved to ensure that workers and employers are engaging in fair labor practices and let them resolve their disputes. As it stands now the government is in opposition to organized labor and this does not serve the American people, who are mostly employees.
Third, I would reorganize our tax code to favor small and medium sized businesses. This would encourage competition and create a more flexible economy.
Fourth, I would eliminate the tax loopholes that allow American companies to move their HQ overseas to escape taxation.
Fifth, see Healthcare below, basically free businesses from the hassles of having to deal with healthcare. A healthy work force is a successful work force.
Education
Public schools are a necessity to a free country, but are the responsibility of state and local governments. I would advocate more freedom for teachers and local administrators. I would eliminate federal standards and testing, though I would provide federal grants to the states for the development of innovative teaching techniques. These grants should be targeted to the most impoverished school districts of the nation.
Attending private school should not be subsidized by the government, but tuition expenses should be tax exemptions. Parents who home-school (which likely means one parent is not working) should also recieve a sizable tax exemption. Parents should have the freedom to provide for their child's education and that means having the financial freedom to do it.
The federal government will expand its support of higher education with expansion of Pell Grants and the student loan program. These programs should also be expanded to support more vocational and technical training for the many Americans not destined for college.
Environment
Seriously support the development of alternative sources of power, such as solar and wind. Expand national parks and truly encourage (and if necessary subsidize) mass transit systems. Strengthen the authority of the EPA and the U.S. should ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
Healthcare
Universal healthcare by eliminating age requirement for Medicare, which is actually more efficient than private healthcare providers. Also I would move to mainstream mental health issues, Americans needs psychiatric counseling and it has be incorporated into our healthcare system. Also Americans need to eat less meat, exercise more, stop smoking and drinking, and embrace preventative care, while we can't mandate this, we can start talking about these issues seriously.
Related to this is elderly care, which is a crisis in this nation. I would assemble a commission to study the issue and make some proposals.
Immigration
We need a worker program in this country, make all the illegal immigrants in this country legal to at least start registering them. We need the workers, they need jobs, so let's admit it and move on. Clearly if we want to stop illegal immigration we need to help Mexico and a visiting worker program could help.
We
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Quote:
Budgets. I like your 3 Q?s for budget. Where I'm coming from is I don't own a credit card, intentionally. You can't allow yourself into this situation. Disasters are what you have a disaster relief and a federal reserve for.
I understand what you're saying I just think you misunderstand how this works or perhaps I'm missing what your point is. Once long ago currencies were on the gold standard and backed by real assets. These days they are not and governments have the temptation of printing themselves out of a crisis. I know that some US conservatives love the idea of going back to hard currency and hope that the markets will deal with everything else. They won't, the lesson of 1929 is that bad things happen to good people and that while individuals can be smart, people in markets can be dumb. If a disaster hits that effects a large enough chunk of the economy and people panic your economy can hit the bottom. With no method of injecting fresh capital into the system and assuming you already run a low tax regime you're talking soup kitchens for millions for years.
All the things you listed as "red tape" started out higher up the food chain as well intended meddling. Not one thing in that list was intended to f**k anyone over. For example, most good private companies offer pensions, this wasn't someone forcing them to do it it was a way of holding on to good staff. Some company pension schemes were badly managed and left retirees that had dutifully paid into the plans without retirement money. So the government stipulates the form pensions should take to ensure that they are handled correctly. Government also wants to encourage pensions because pension funds offer huge chunks of privately held capital that is used for investment in industry. So they set up tax incentives to encourage people to save. Is that social engineering, you bet, but you wont find a country anywhere or a political party that doesnt do it. So all that pension "red tape" came from on high wrapped around some good intentions.
As to the healthcare fund. If your intention is to stop your government from doing anything "naughty" by robbing them of capital it simply wont work, it just makes them more susceptable to corporate power plays. I've yet to find a person on the American right that doesn't feel fine about taxing his fellow citizens to pay for a common defence. You are all extremely happy to take from everyone and aggrigate that money (and by the way if anything in the US system represents the coffers of the Delphian League it's the Pentagon budget) yet you don't consider health care for what it is --- a civil defence function. You loose more Americans to desease and preventable illness every year than you ever have in any war. If the purpose of defence was the protection of the American *people* as most politico's suggest that money would be better spent elsewhere. My belief is that the Pentagon is really not defending Americans but defending property. Seeing as most ordinary folk would rather stay alive and have their family stay alive even if their few material goods are lost one is forced to assume that the Pentagon is actually defending corporate property. That being the case, why am I paying for it again???
Healthcare is a civil defence function. The flu kills more Americans every year than Al Queda has in its wettist wet dream, if defending America actually means defending Americans start there.
I don't get your point about communities with rules. Ireland has a pretty low population density for a European nation, the few "rules" it has that an American might see as being against personal freedom tend to be driven by religion. As for your sunny little vision, if your Meninites were pro-abortion we already know from your other posts that you wouldnt let them keep that "rule" of theirs but would impose your own moral viewpoint. Freedom isn't letting people do things you agree with it's tolerating them doing what you don't agree with without meddling. In that respect the US whatever it's political stripe has as bad
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I'm only going to respond one of your bullet points.
EDUCATION
I come from a family of educators. My father is a (now retired effective may 2005) high school science teacher. My mother (is still) an 8th grade english teacher. My wife's father is a retired 7th grade english teacher. My wife's mother is a former substitute teacher who got her licence late in life and is now teaching high school english. My wife is herself a 10th grade chemistry teacher who (because of her masters in chemistry) also teaches the advanced placement Chemistry course to 12th grade college bound students. She also has one class of Biology. I am a businessman.
I say these things so you as the reader will understand that I speak from an incredibly strong position of personal knowledge regarding the ills of education. Far too often the political spectrum on either side speaks as if they have the "ultimate education solution". And it is usually in the form of throwing money at the education bureaucracy in this country and expecting that it'll be spent in the wisest and most efficent manner. We all know that such a thing never happens. It fails because of 3 reasons:
1. Government by it's very nature is "inefficent". No person or group in government will profit from the use of funds. Funds are therefore not used with care. This is a fact of every branch of the government. When funds are used wisely it is always a function of a person (or persons) who truely cares about their public service. This event is rare.
2. Educators are not paid enough money to force them to care overly hard about the jobs they do. The addage "you get what you pay for" is very true.
3. Americans are lazy when compared to most other western nations. Our pop culture encourages teenagers to goof off rather than work hard. We go to school (on average) 180 days of the year. A typical high school day in the US starts at 8:00am and is over at 3:00pm with a 50 minute lunch and seven 8min passing periods (average numbers, schools vary). This computes to a 314 minute school day or 5.23 hours of learning. In Japan, students are in school 330 days of the year for 10 hours a day. They spend an average of 3300 hours a year learning. Compare that to our paltry 941.4.
My wife was greeted on her first day of school by a 48 year old biology teacher who expessed clearly his distain for his "stupid lazy kids" and warned her to get ready for "the crap they'll pull on you". He was an angry man who was just holding out the few more years until his retirement was ready so he could quit. He's quite typical of many teachers I've encountered. He isn't paid enough money for the grief he's endured for 25 years. As a result he's become more and more jaded towards the quality of the education he gives his students. He allows them to slack, he doesn't follow up on students who are falling back, and as soon as the bell rings he goes home to forget about his job. He is typical of the "JOB" teacher in america. What the US needs are "CAREER" teachers. The problem is that these types of educators are few and far between. Only those people who really really care about education are able to endure the crud of public schools and still preform 100%. My wife is one of those people. She loves chemistry. She wants to teach this subject. She wants to add value to a 10th graders mind. And she is in a minority. Most people who really care about a subject (chemistry, government, a foreign language, ect..) have spent many years educating themselves in that subject. They by-and-large are not going to accept jobs that offer uncompetitive saleries for the skills they possess. So what you end up with in public education are 95% teachers who are either inferior or simply average, and 5% who truely care. My wife is a perfect example. She spent her college years interning with the Dow chemical company. Upon her master's degree completion she could have had a very nice salary waiting for her at Dow. She choose instead to teach high school chemistry for one-half th
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Quote:
Originally posted by thiefjehat:
So how do we improve education? It's a really complicated answer with several dynamics but the cliffnotes are:
1. Pay teachers more. Expect excellence and fire them if they can't hold up.
2. Spend more time learning. start a school day at 7:00 and end at 4:00. Keep summer break because it's an important part of our culture in america but shorten it. Go to school for 220 days on average.
3. Give power back to educators. Realize that some kids just can't be taught. Keep them from poisoning those that can.
4. Tell a teacher you know that you respect what they do. Everybody wants to take pride in their life's work. Your comment will mean more than you know.
Feel free to reply if you are inclined to do so.
Do not fear me. Ours is a peaceful race, and we must live in harmony.
I agree with you for the most part.
Increasing teachers' salaries is a good start, but I believe that it is even more important to reduce class size. I have tutored kids for years and homeschool my own kids, I can teach my son more in a few hours than he would learn in school. If a teacher had only 10-15 students you would have less disobedient kids and accomplish twice as much.
The problem with the 'bad' kids is not the kids, but the parents. That is the problem with our system a large number of parents just don't care about their kids. It is harsh to say that, but it is true. I find it hard to punish the kids, but I do realize (and have seen for myself) how these confused kids do undermine the learning experience. If money was no object then special classes and skills tailored to teach these kids could be developed and it would help a lot.
I am a fan of year long schooling, summer vacation does undermine the learning process and historical importance aside really serves no purpose. More and shorter vacation periods would be better. Yet I do not believe in more hours, I believe in better use of the hours. Studies show that kids don't start kicking in mentally til 8-9 in the morning and their concentration is not designed for all day learning. Heck I might even drop Fridays. Also hunger is problem, fortunately we have federal programs that feed poor kids, that is something ideal for the federal government to tackle and helps kids more than requiring standardized tests.
I do agree that power needs to be given back to educators, less top down bureaucracy, and more freedom to those on the ground to make the key decisions.
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I'm afraid I could only skim most of this thread, you guys have written a lot.
Anyway, here's what I think:
Budget
Budget per department/ministry?
Don't let them overrun. If more money is needed then let them state the case as too why. If there is a good reason increase the budget. If there is not allow them to use next years budget to make up the short fall (with adequate stops to prevent this from happening year after year) and make those responsible take pay cuts and penalties, possibly lose their jobs. Thus if they screw up their financial planning, or falsify estimates they are personally penalised for it.
Business
Needs stops and controls. Sorry but they do. Business is perfectly happy destroying the environment, employing slave labour and so on when there’s laws to prevent them. I don't see this stopping if all of a sudden we expect business to moderate activities on 'morals'.
At the end of the day companies aren't people, they're organisations that are aimed at generating profit. Providing a service or product is a means to that end.
I am of course talking about big business, as small business is people, and I don't think that's what you meant.
Education
Not to sure. My own experiences of school were a little different from the mainstream so I'm not sure I'm fully qualified on this subject. I went to a state (public) school, but it was a very well funded one, with class sizes no larger than 10 with 2 teachers. I'm Dyslexic, and was awarded a place at one of these schools (there’s two in the country).
I don't think a purely private or purely public system is the answer.
Environment
Strict controls on pollution. Incentives to use low pollution transportation (that includes making public transport viable) and penalising those who decide they need a huge 3 miles to the gallon 4x4 to take the kids a mile down the road to school --massively-- (won't happen, not in Britain at least, I'll elaborate if anyone wants to know why...).
Healthcare
Health care is a right, not a privilege. Your TV, internet connection etc, that's a privilege. I could go on and on but basically healthcare should be state funded and free for any who walk through the doors. If you have private health, good for you, you should still pay your national health, if you don't like paying for private and public, no one made you pay private.
Immigration
Asylum seekers who can prove they will be persecuted.
People with skills required by the nation. Sorry we can't save the world. Britian is too overcrowded, we have a over a third of the population of the USA in an area of land 2% of the size (I think).
Foreign Policy
See Dreamtroves post.
Military
Difficult one. Overly I agree with Dreamtrove.
Unfortunately there is a lot to a military, it's also a deterrent. I believe that the Falklands war could of been avoided with a show of force prior to the Argentinean invasion.
Personal Freedom
Live your life how you will, as long as that does not prevent others from doing the same. Making assertions such as "also fit the definition doesn't render you a useless member of society" to my view could lead to a very dangerous place.
Welfare
Largely agree with Dreamtrove here. Maybe Gov. gives vouchers rather than money, that shops can exchange for food, utilities companies will accept for service etc. Anything more rigid than that could be dangerous in my view.
Edit:
Managed to read some more.
I think I pretty much agree with everything Fletch2 posted.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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Fletch,
Yeah, you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying go back to... I was saying, this was the original plan, to have an emergency plan other than borrow. We should build such a thing. Like a big fund or whatever, for handling disasters. I don't like the "bail your way out" because I can't trust the competency and honesty of an unknown future administration, so I have to have a system in place which doesn't create the possibility that it could be used for disaster. National debt, even a very small amount, causes other countries to have leverage over the US. We can't allow this. Right now, a debt to China prevents us from opposing the annexation of Taiwan.
Red tape. I'm aware of where they came from, that's not the point. These are the things which cost business, because of the way they affect things. They raise the per hour cost of hiring Americans. We can't afford to do this. We need to bring American labor down to international competitive levels, which means slashing associated expenditures.
On defense you are so off on a tangent that you're on some other page, some other book or in some other library than what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with any of this. I'm saying create giant kitty, creates corruption. The no fat machine invites fewer vultures.
But, and this is the point. Back to the thread at hand:
Not yet. You're launching in to this attack too soon. The purpose of this thread is in its name 'common ground.' It's not to attack the unworkableness of everyones points. Not just yet. My fault for responding to the attacks, but it's an endless cycle, you can't not respond. So here:
Chill, for a moment. Everyone states their position, and then I want to work from there. Personally, I think almost everything posted is unworkable, but if we do this right we can expose the flaws one at a time, and possibly see whether the flaws we see are truly flaws, and whether those flaws are fatal or fixable.
Quote:
As for your sunny little vision, if your Meninites were pro-abortion we already know from your other posts that you wouldnt let them keep that "rule" of theirs but would impose your own moral viewpoint.
No, that would be the political left you're thinking of, the "everyone must obey my rules" issue.
I don't recall supporting the blanket ban when it was proposed, but it's a separate issue. I'm opposed to gay marriage, but I would let island society be gay marriagepaloosa. Abortion becomes a quesiton of does it harm others. Clearly this code has to be established at some point. Killing your children would never be allowed, nor killing someone else's. You can't harm others. This is so not the same thing. But even that taken into account, no, I don't care whether they have abortions.
Anyway, save the bickering or this will decend into the left/right war I'm trying to avoid. When we're done, I want to carry thing into an issue by issue debate, targetted at solutions which may be acceptable to everyone, or most people. I'm not saying people have to change their minds, just see if we can arrive at solutions that might be acceptable to all or to most. Just as an experiment.
Anyway, if you need to thwart something in this post, do so, but try not to make it a counter offensive, because I don't want to have to respond to your response. It's nothing personal, I actually kinda like you, but I need to stick to the idea of my thread, because partisan bickering is what all of us have been trained to do life long, we're like a pack of trained attack dogs. I'm trying out a new political idea here.
It's a mix of competition and cooperation I call consensus. It's an experiment of something different than the shut up and shout out. Humor me, if you can.
:)
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Thiefjehat,
Thanks for your education posts, I would like to hear more on your other positions, for the sake of the game.
Fletch, KJC, Citizen
Thanks for the platform position posts.
Now here's the game:
We have these platforms.
Each position, I want everyone, rather than argue why other people's positions are wrong, and should be marginalized, ignored, or otherwise removed from debate - instead - I want you to try to create a solution for that platform point that is at least roughly, best as you can manage, compatible with everyone else's position on this platform point.
I know how hard this is going to be. I disagree with 90% of what KJC posted, and I disagree with citizen and fletch all the time.
Also, since it's my thread an I get to say something, I want everyone to bear in mind that your voting public is going to be pretty much a 50/50 split liberals vs. conservatives. Even the most liberal or conservative societies are never more than 60/40 split. And by conservative I think we have to say lib dems in the Uk are conservative because they are pro-privatization free market etc. at least that's what I read. Here, by liberal I mean pro-govt. and by conservative I mean pro-private of pro-business. please don't nitpick these words because I'm not trying to define them, just using them as they would be used in New York. to try to get to a point.
The point is if 4 people come out on one side, and one person on another side, try to weight them as both equally, because it's safe to say that a minority of one might very well represent 50% of your local population, or their local population. The only exception I can think of is the pro-torture position. Almost no one supports that. Anywhere.
Okay, I'm going to start this off with education.
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