Damn, all the other history nerds have already well-demolished the "people used to trust the federal government back in the 18th and 19th Centuries" hilarity.
So I guess I'll have to cast my vote for the number one problem with America being the rampant and increasing wealth disparity between an increasingly powerful upper class and an increasingly large and disempowered lower class and the tattered remnants of the American middle class slowly drifting down to join them.
I'm going with the wealth gap and horribly uninformed population. I mean honestly, we have large segments of the population who will adamantly swear up and down things that are provably false.
On a more recent level, the whole concept of politics as a sporting event. It's become less about policies that benefit the people, or rational discussions about differences in opinion on what benefits the people, and more about scoring points and opposing whatever that other team supports.
It's the Red Sox/Yankees on a national level, essentially.
Short version: Things today aren't any worse than they've ever been - now you just know about it.
I think its more or less this.
Well to a point this does lead to instability. Not that that's really a bad thing and it's probably good in the long run, but certainly a lot of the recent upheaval in the arab world is due as much to widespread access to information as anything else.
Things sure do suck here in <insert current year>! Not like back in <insert some year in the past> when everything was great because <choose one: taxes were lower / people loved their country / people loved God / people loved proper music / people made music about loving god and their country / people wore belts / there were less wars / there were more wars / there was Star Wars / there was no internet / there was no TV / there was no printing press / there was no fire / the server wasn't too busy>!
Okay, that last part is true.
Thanks a lot, Obama!
desc on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Damn, all the other history nerds have already well-demolished the "people used to trust the federal government back in the 18th and 19th Centuries" hilarity.
So I guess I'll have to cast my vote for the number one problem with America being the rampant and increasing wealth disparity between an increasingly powerful upper class and an increasingly large and disempowered lower class and the tattered remnants of the American middle class slowly drifting down to join them.
Well, either that or AutoTune.
And even if we assume it's a new issue, and choose the historically ignorant view that distrust of the government is solely a modern function, and if we work with that flawed assumption we have to pick the modern event that caused it. We could start with November 3, 1986, and I'm sure June 17, 1972 would be popular, or we could pick August 7, 1964, or April 19, 1961 would be pretty fair. It's just so damn hard to choose.
Thomamelas on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I'm going with the wealth gap and horribly uninformed population. I mean honestly, we have large segments of the population who will adamantly swear up and down things that are provably false.
On a more recent level, the whole concept of politics as a sporting event. It's become less about policies that benefit the people, or rational discussions about differences in opinion on what benefits the people, and more about scoring points and opposing whatever that other team supports.
It's the Red Sox/Yankees on a national level, essentially.
It really hasn't changed. Even looking at Jefferson vs Adams, there was a lot of ugly political talk. And frankly it was even nastier then today's standards.
I'm going with the wealth gap and horribly uninformed population. I mean honestly, we have large segments of the population who will adamantly swear up and down things that are provably false.
On a more recent level, the whole concept of politics as a sporting event. It's become less about policies that benefit the people, or rational discussions about differences in opinion on what benefits the people, and more about scoring points and opposing whatever that other team supports.
It's the Red Sox/Yankees on a national level, essentially.
It really hasn't changed. Even looking at Jefferson vs Adams, there was a lot of ugly political talk. And frankly it was even nastier then today's standards.
This. For fuck's suck, the 1828 presidential campaign was a mess. JQA went all out: "fuck you Jackson, your wife's into bigamy, dude! How's her other husband doing?" Then Jackson's campaign tried to paint John Quincy Adams as a pimp for a Russian Czar, and as a thieving gambler (saying he used campaign funds to buy "gambling devices" for his residence).
I don't mean negative campaigning, that's been around forever.
The whole lockstep vote against whatever the other dudes present thing is new-ish. When you have party line voting over funding 9/11 responder health care, you know you've crossed into territory where even non partisan shit becomes a partisan shitstorm.
kildy on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I'm going with the wealth gap and horribly uninformed population. I mean honestly, we have large segments of the population who will adamantly swear up and down things that are provably false.
On a more recent level, the whole concept of politics as a sporting event. It's become less about policies that benefit the people, or rational discussions about differences in opinion on what benefits the people, and more about scoring points and opposing whatever that other team supports.
It's the Red Sox/Yankees on a national level, essentially.
It really hasn't changed. Even looking at Jefferson vs Adams, there was a lot of ugly political talk. And frankly it was even nastier then today's standards.
This. For fuck's suck, the 1828 presidential campaign was a mess. JQA went all out: "fuck you Jackson, your wife's into bigamy, dude! How's her other husband doing?" Then Jackson's campaign tried to paint John Quincy Adams as a pimp for a Russian Czar, and as a thieving gambler (saying he used campaign funds to buy "gambling devices" for his residence).
I think some of the issue is that a lot of people aren't old enough to remember when most small to mid-size towns had two newspapers. One for each party of the time. This idea that journalists are impartial and the media should stay above the infighting is a very modern one. Or that large media conglomerates didn't meddle in politics. Hearst used his publishing empire ruthlessly to do exactly that.
And the journalists who actually care about bias think that being unbiased means you just mindlessly write down what both sides say, and don't bother checking if any of it's accurate.
Sorry, kildy, I'm more still rambling on at the OP who seems to have run away. I shouldn't have really aimed that toward something responding to you.
I'm with you on the whole "politics as a sporting event" thing. Though, I don't know if that's a new thing, or how much/to what degree it's new. People always like choosing Team A or Team B, and seem to generally side with them regardless of the issue or policy at hand. I don't know if that was less the case in the past or not.
And the journalists who actually care about bias think that being unbiased means you just mindlessly write down what both sides say, and don't bother checking if any of it's accurate.
It's unbiased if you give equal time to both the entire scientific community, and that one dude who says gravity doesn't exist.
kildy on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Sorry, kildy, I'm more still rambling on at the OP who seems to have run away. I shouldn't have really aimed that toward something responding to you.
I'm with you on the whole "politics as a sporting event" thing. Though, I don't know if that's a new thing, or how much/to what degree it's new. People always like choosing Team A or Team B, and seem to generally side with them regardless of the issue or policy at hand. I don't know if that was less the case in the past or not.
It's really not new. Like I mentioned before, even smaller towns had two newspapers, one for each party. We like to root for things. Politics is a thing to root for and like any good rivalry, you can keep a tally of grudges.
The main problem America has is it government. But it's not the trust in the government that's the problem, it's the core functioning. American politics has (d)evolved into a system that just doesn't work. Rational decisions are not being made, it's all grandstanding. The senate especially is just messed up. Laws are not being designed based on what's good for the country, what's needed to balance a budget, but only on "how does this make me look as a politician."
It seems to be stuck in a cycle where every sitting politician is directly responsible for all of the current problems, which means insane turnover rates every elections, placing everyone basicly into 24/7 campaign mode. Then add the ridicilous lobby/political donation laws, and you get a near permanent mess.
And that's where it gets even more messy, because it has moved to a place where the following are not even discussable: a) raising taxes b) Cutting Military funding c) Cutting Medicare/Medicaid. Even though two pie charts and the average 12 year old can show you that without at least two of the three, it's pretty much impossible to balance the US budged.
Then comes your silly voting system. It's practically designed to disenfranchise voters. Are you the minority in a state? Your opinions don't matter.
SanderJK on
Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited March 2011
There are some interesting things going on in this thread but the original post was not particularly worthwhile and the discussion's mandate, such as it is, is far too broad. If anyone wants to continue talking about these subjects in a more focused way in a new thread with a clearer OP, you have my blessing.
/ mods didn't go around locking threads all willy-nilly
;-)
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Posts
So I guess I'll have to cast my vote for the number one problem with America being the rampant and increasing wealth disparity between an increasingly powerful upper class and an increasingly large and disempowered lower class and the tattered remnants of the American middle class slowly drifting down to join them.
Well, either that or AutoTune.
I think its more or less this.
On a more recent level, the whole concept of politics as a sporting event. It's become less about policies that benefit the people, or rational discussions about differences in opinion on what benefits the people, and more about scoring points and opposing whatever that other team supports.
It's the Red Sox/Yankees on a national level, essentially.
Well to a point this does lead to instability. Not that that's really a bad thing and it's probably good in the long run, but certainly a lot of the recent upheaval in the arab world is due as much to widespread access to information as anything else.
Thanks a lot, Obama!
And even if we assume it's a new issue, and choose the historically ignorant view that distrust of the government is solely a modern function, and if we work with that flawed assumption we have to pick the modern event that caused it. We could start with November 3, 1986, and I'm sure June 17, 1972 would be popular, or we could pick August 7, 1964, or April 19, 1961 would be pretty fair. It's just so damn hard to choose.
It really hasn't changed. Even looking at Jefferson vs Adams, there was a lot of ugly political talk. And frankly it was even nastier then today's standards.
The whole lockstep vote against whatever the other dudes present thing is new-ish. When you have party line voting over funding 9/11 responder health care, you know you've crossed into territory where even non partisan shit becomes a partisan shitstorm.
I think some of the issue is that a lot of people aren't old enough to remember when most small to mid-size towns had two newspapers. One for each party of the time. This idea that journalists are impartial and the media should stay above the infighting is a very modern one. Or that large media conglomerates didn't meddle in politics. Hearst used his publishing empire ruthlessly to do exactly that.
I'm with you on the whole "politics as a sporting event" thing. Though, I don't know if that's a new thing, or how much/to what degree it's new. People always like choosing Team A or Team B, and seem to generally side with them regardless of the issue or policy at hand. I don't know if that was less the case in the past or not.
It's unbiased if you give equal time to both the entire scientific community, and that one dude who says gravity doesn't exist.
It's really not new. Like I mentioned before, even smaller towns had two newspapers, one for each party. We like to root for things. Politics is a thing to root for and like any good rivalry, you can keep a tally of grudges.
In every IT shop I've worked at, we had a "no death threats before 11am" policy. Because before your second cup of coffee, you don't really mean it.
So maybe pistols at 2pm?
oh hey, there it is!
That's your number one problem right there.
Well, that and server is busy errors
/ certain folk weren't allowed on golf courses
By 2 PM I've worked up such a rage that it would have to be shotguns.
It seems to be stuck in a cycle where every sitting politician is directly responsible for all of the current problems, which means insane turnover rates every elections, placing everyone basicly into 24/7 campaign mode. Then add the ridicilous lobby/political donation laws, and you get a near permanent mess.
And that's where it gets even more messy, because it has moved to a place where the following are not even discussable: a) raising taxes b) Cutting Military funding c) Cutting Medicare/Medicaid. Even though two pie charts and the average 12 year old can show you that without at least two of the three, it's pretty much impossible to balance the US budged.
Then comes your silly voting system. It's practically designed to disenfranchise voters. Are you the minority in a state? Your opinions don't matter.
;-)