rklenseth's psychology and whatever

[rklenseth]

Balls may not cut it, but it sure helps. The Republican and the Democratic parties will not always be dominant, someone just hasn't worked hard enough and gotten enough support to change that. The Liberatarian party is slowly creeping up the ladder. If you love politics enough and are passionate about changing the government, then you could do it. It's just finding someone dedicated enough at this point in time.

Nor have the Democrats or Republicans ever been dominant. The two parties today were once one party that had to fight for its where it is today. I wonder how many people would have said back in the 1830's that the Demo-Repubs never had a chance against the Whigs or other parties at the time.

And once again, the government doesn't change. It is the people that change. The government structure itself will always remain intact which is the Constitution.

[kroner]

But now you are arguing my point. The two main parties give the majority of Americans exactly what they want. That's why others have such a hard time gaining ground. Only radicals feel they aren't well represented by mainstream politicians. I'm not saying that this is bad, just incredibly hard to change, which is what you proposed doing.
Then there are many issues in which the majority of Americans are uninformed or just don't think clearly on and you get politicians doing stupid things. This is a flaw in democracy, not specific to our system.

Then there is change in the US over the last 200 years. I'll start listing countries and regions that have changed more: England, Russia, France, China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, the Balkans, all of Latin America, all of the Middle East, Germany, Italy, India, Poland, South Africa, and the list goes on. In fact there are very few places that have changed less.

And lastly, your theory on Republican dominace. It's more based on Republicans' claim to have become more moderate rather than any actual change. Lots of media garbage. Bush, for instance, has a highly conservative agenda. There's also been a rightward push in the view of most Americans due to 9/11 and all the events that brached from it. The Democratic Party hasn't had time yet to shift with that. But it will. Both parties always realine about the center eventually.

[Camino]

You mean both parties end up saying roughly the same thing and opposing the other for saying it?
I can't comment on US politics because I haven't lived under it instead I've experienced its consequences, which is quite a difference. I do know that the current breed of politics is grossly incompetent across the board and that, despite the few new names that turn up, the majority are all thinking how hard their job is and what they'll need to do to get re-elected. Which is really the problem from my viewpoint, they are always looking at a situation to try and find out how this will affect their ability to run for the position again, news media just keeps this going because for a long time now there have been tight links between government and the media.

I'm not surprised by any of the screw ups that happen in government today because I have long since given up on the idea of them representing the interests of the nation, iinstead they spend their time acting in a way that will appear productive but more often then not lacks planning, resources and/or motivation. How can you do what is in the best interest of your nation without stepping on the nations below you? American foreign policy has proven that you can't, I choose American policy because it inevitably has the widest reaching effects, to look out for your self you have to get rid of everybody that could halt your growth.

On another point I think America is losing its superpower status. Why? The definition of a superpower is one of enourmous power both economic and military but the true power of a nation is the preassure it can exert on another. If you can convice another nation to follow an action without the use of force then you are a superpower.

"A powerful and influential nation, especially a nuclear power that dominates its allies or client states in an international power bloc."

"A state powerful enough to influence events throughout the world."

Just two defintions of a superpower but there is another which I feel truly gives the right impression of a superpower.

"A nationstate able to influence world events without having to resort to military force"
Not hard to find a current example of a lack of power. Enjoy your state pensions or most likely a lack of one.

[The Lurker]

Yes, domestic power is certainly lacking in certain areas, but what does that have to do with exerting influence on other nations? They aren't going to stop listening to you just because you are running a massive decifit.

[The Hunter]

"Other Nations" are just fed up with the US telling them what to do, while the US doesn't even follow it's own rules.

Everyone knows the war tribunal in the hague right? Most nations in the world accept their legality and subject to it. The US doesn't, "never will a US citizen stand trial there". Infact, the US have made a law, enabling to invade the Nehterlands if ever a US citizen would stand trial there. Ummmm. The Netherlands and the US are allies, the NATO remember?
This is just one example. Then there's Kyoto and many more. The US are a superpower, indeed, but even a superpower can't expect forcing other countries to do what they like without complying to the rules they impose to others. Also as they found out, militairy force has an opposite effect.
Then there's the ussue of the UN. Although there's a lot of problems within the UN, it tries to achieve its goals by militairy force not to conquer, but by keeping the peace. A noble idea, yet the US hasn't paid their contribution to the UN for abt. 8 years because they dont do as the US tells them to.
The time will come that everybody will just ignore the US.

[kroner]

Yeah, the US is definitely still a superpower. That's why the US government manages to walk all over everyone else. They have the power to get away with whatever they want, for now at least, and they're abusing it.
Force in Iraq doesn't demonstrate a lack of influence without force. Sadam Hussein always gave in to ultimatums from the US and the UN about allowing weapons inspections. When the US invaded Iraq, they had no demands this time. They wanted to take down Iraq, so they did. This doesn't show weakness, in fact the opposite. It demonstrates an extremely dangerous power. The government has demonstrated that they aren't afraid to piss off everyone else in the world at any cost.

[The Hunter]

Well, they succeeded. Lost a lot of friends and gained a lot of enemies in the progress. Keep it going.

I'm still waiting for a major attack on the US.

[David]

I'll be qausi-Haiku about my analysis of U.S. mainstream politics. I will be very concise as well.

American Politics
Definition
Groupthink

EDIT: And besides Politics is more of a dog and pony show. The real power lies with the un elected policy bureaucracies that make the develop the policies then hand them to incompetent political leaders who couldn't begin to make effective policies, due to their lack of experience and knowledge IRL. Occasionally you will have a president who is competent enough... Bush is basically pushing pre made policies that were already fully baked years ago by conservative think tanks and political scientists, he serves his purpose as the 'front man' though', if Americans at large paid attention long enough to see how things are truly run their rampant individualism would destroy the current state of doing business. I'm not completely opposed to there being a Mandarin class of policy hacks steadily formulating U.S. policy based on partisan and non-partisan research... but most Americans would be.

Special interest groups are another facet. I don't include all think tanks and other organizations as that. The codeword special interest group generally refers to the mercenary for-profit groups who will work for anyone for a buck, that is a different species of policy production.

EDIT 2: On Censorship

I'm not a Liebercrat advocating full censorship, but corporations would not be spending billions of dollars on media advertising if it didn't highly influence people. It stands to reason that things on between the advertisements have at least equal or greater influence. The vast majority of people simply cannot think fully rationally until 12-13. If you go back even earlier than that in childhood development a kid will take anything they see at face value- they have no concept of subtle propagande et cetra. This is scientific fact. The development simply isn't there until late childhood or early teens. There is a reason for the rating system... What Hollywood studios have been doing is rating more and more racy movies PG-13 as a marketing startegy... They take advantage of the way the rating system works as well, by intentionally adding very racy things for the censors to cut out, allowing them to keep what they originally wanted anyway... another thing to remember is that this is unlikely to change by itself because the rating system is a self-regulated inside-industry thing... not above basic reproach.

[David]

"Well, they succeeded. Lost a lot of friends and gained a lot of enemies in the progress. Keep it going.

I'm still waiting for a major attack on the US."

Don't confuse the idiots who run the country with those who live in it. I don't want to be bombed. I will give you that the American mainstream is much further to the right than most of the rest of the world. That will change as it becomes more urbanized and cosmopolitan, give it some time. In addition to all the immigrants from more collectivist cultures.

The truth is that America is already a collectivist society in practice, its just the individualistic mythology that hasn't caught up yet. I'm sure that all the laise-faire middle income people would be changing their tune if we truly had that sort of system. Most important industries are heavily subsidized: I'm sure paying $15 for a loaf of unsubsidized bread would make quite a few soccer mom turned liberal converts were their ideology truly to match reality. You would have millions upon millions living below the poverty line and a great many more starving, people would have to spend all their money of food and rent rather than SUVs. Not to mention the utility subsidies, the road subsidies, the education subsidies, the government spending that supports most of the economy, the government jobs that support the non government economy, the food stamp checks that allow the poor to eat and still work for below a living wage and give cheap fast food hamburgers... whereas massive lower class unrest would quickly bring the country into class warfare...

Oh... and for those that 'worked there way through college' your efforts are laudable, but what you payed for was but a small fraction of what it actually cost to educate you. Without federal and state grants (this is excluding personal pell grants et cetra) that fast-track gogo white collar job would be but a dream in a life filled with hard times. (a very small elite would be the ones controling everything instead of a medium sized elite lol)

So yes... the actual and the ideological are quite different things. Individualist Mythology but collectivism in reality.

[David]

Hey if you look at "Bush's" policies (as if they were his ideas, see post above) he is not truly a conservative. He has raised government spending in record levels... "because of 9/11 blah blah blah" argument does not account for all of his spending increases either. Reality and ideology: two different things.

[kroner]

But not so much of that is for social services. The wars are eating away at the budget a lot and so are the tremendous tax cuts (which definitely were a conservative move).
In addition, his environmental policy is very pro big business.

[David]

Agree on all points. I'm saying for the true conservative he isn't conservative. From a moderate and leftist view he is still conservative. To many of "the faithful" he is not a real conservative is what I mean.

And all of his methods do fit into one conservative camp which believes that you must wreck the government budget through spending and tax cuts in order to force "fiscal responsibilty", but most conservative ideology isn't _that_ convoluted.

[David]

LOL I do not think I have spelled paid as "payed" since early school. Now that I look over those posts I have a lot more spelling and grammer mistakes than usual... must be slipping... oh well its understandable for all intensive purposes.

[Sho]

The United States is not as individualistic as it's made out to be, but it's still not as collectivized as most European nations, at least from what I've read. It's true that US colleges tuition isn't as high as it would be in a completely laissez-faire system, but British universities are virtually free. The US has many government-funded health care programs, but many European countries have universal health care. In summary, the US is more collectivized than it was in 1789, but it's still less so than most other developed nations.

[Camino]

You're a little behind on British universities and how much they cost. It now directly costs students money to go to university and that is because the British government needs another way to raise more cash and so relive it self of a drain, however the most likely outcome is that they will still be paying a substantial sum to make sure under-privelaged (poor people) can continue their higher education.

I think you over-estimate the cost of bread if the industry went without subsidisation, it's about time that the industries went without government hand-outs. Still I have no doubt in my mind that even if Bush doesn't get re-elected that nothing substantial will happen to alter the US position on industry, for all the claims of a government that doesn't intervene or restrict people there sure are a lot of very obvious situations where that just isn't true. The US economy is built not on freedom or democracy (that which the media is so keen to proclaim) but rather on free money and cheap labour abroad.

EDIT:I was also surprised by how quickly people were to proclaim patriotism equated to ignoring the obvious and simply agreeing with the majority, it is very disheartening to see such displays of willful ignorance and more often than not it is seen as something to be applauded. Each nation's media playing off against one another. For instance the British media is always keen to look down on their American co-workers which laughable really because they both sell the same rubbish just repackaged and without the patriotic, religious patronising drivel that is indemic of US media.