RANT: No one has taken America away from anyone

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jan 19, 2011 8:36 pm

Alright, here's my rant.

Obama did not "take" America from anyone. Americans chose to elect him.

If Obama doesn't get re-elected, no one "took America back". America chose to elect someone else.

For that matter, Bush didn't "take" the role of President his first term. He received a majority of the electoral votes and was deemed the winner. Several presidents have lost popular vote but won electoral vote. (This rant is not meant for either side, so in the interest of fairness I'll throw something that liberals bitched about).

Also, the founding fathers made a direct effort to keep people like me out of the political process. Any invocation of them is not likely to change my mind about anything (Not to say that I don't find them fascinating as individuals, on the contrary!)

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jan 19, 2011 8:38 pm

Addendum: There is exactly one group of people that can claim America was taken from them.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:14 pm

That's a pretty tame rant.

There is exactly one group of people that can claim America was taken from them.

Retards?

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:26 pm

"Americans chose to elect him" is a bit generous...most Americans didn't vote for Obama. In addition, there was only one more option presented.

When your presented with "more war, more deficit spending" or "more war, more deficit spending", and you're forced to have one of those, I'm not really convinced you can say you have a choice.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:33 pm

Doom wrote:"Americans chose to elect him" is a bit generous...most Americans didn't vote for Obama.

What.

http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2008/2008presgeresults.pdf

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:04 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:
Doom wrote:"Americans chose to elect him" is a bit generous...most Americans didn't vote for Obama.
What.

http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2008/2008presgeresults.pdf

What I think he's getting at is that 69.5 million Americans (give or take) voted for Obama, while 237.5 million Americans (based on a population I got off Google) did not.

Granted, most of the Americans who didn't vote for Obama didn't vote for anyone (and may not have been able to, for various reasons including youth). Then again, even people who cast votes for Obama may have been voting more "Against McCain" than "For Obama".

TL;DR just because a guy won doesn't mean that most of America wants him...it just means he won. In some cases, it just means he was the least insulting choice on the plate.

Not trying to put words in Doom's mouth, but that's what I got out of his statement. He can correct/clarify if he likes.

PR wrote:
There is exactly one group of people that can claim America was taken from them.
Retards?

I think he means these guys

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:28 pm

I think he means these guys

Guess we wanted it more BOO YAH.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:48 pm

Doom wrote:"Americans chose to elect him" is a bit generous...most Americans didn't vote for Obama. In addition, there was only one more option presented.

Franchise is always limited, so any comparison of votes vs total population is silly.

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:10 am

Doom wrote:"Americans chose to elect him" is a bit generous...most Americans didn't vote for Obama. In addition, there was only one more option presented.

More Americans voted for him than have voted for anyone else ever.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:44 am

It's why you need mandatory voting and preferential or instant runoff voting.

Blam.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:44 am

mandatory voting

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:47 am

Americans took America away from the British.

And as much of a shithole as America has become, I have full confidence, that under British rule it would only be an order of magnitude worse.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:15 am

Koumei wrote:Americans took America away from the British.

Technically, we took it away from the British Parliment. It's not like any British Citizen could say, "hey, that little piece of land over there is mine." In fact we got pissed off at the King because he let parliment do shit that no true Englishman would stand. (That and the fact that he couldn't speak a word of English ... old German George.) Once we managed to get a treaty John Adams as Ambassador was eager to diplomatically kiss his ass ... as equals of course.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:20 am

Psychic Robot wrote:
mandatory voting
[...]

I honestly don't get it.

Edit: Maybe you're talking about the US shit that complains about how informal votes in australia are bad, or coercive or some shit, whereas our high informal vote rate is created almost entirely by people who have per socioeconomic status, i.e. they cannot fill out the paper correctly because they are bad at reading.

On the plus side, your can legally tell your employer 'fuck you' and go vote on a work day and he has to give you time off, and the election is on the weekend, and Australians start a riot if they have to wait more than 1 hour to vote - how long do people in the poor areas in the US have to wait? Yeah, like 8 hours.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:29 am

Bush will win every time if you have mandatory voting?

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:51 am

Zinegata wrote:Bush will win every time if you have mandatory voting?

No, he won't win. He will just stare at you.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:55 am

Koumei wrote:I have full confidence, that under British rule it would only be an order of magnitude worse.

Where do you get that idea? I mean you could make some sort of "history would be completely different" butterfly effect argument.

But aside from that if you look at the actual outcome of history and what the British empire became you get things like, well, Australia.

Australia is a seriously better place to live than the USA, and we stayed under British rule, and technically still ARE under British rule.

Hell. The UK (strangely) remained under British rule and I would TOTALLY live there before living in the USA, even despite the shittier weather.

The USA is a total shit hole of a nation and most of the top western members of the Commonwealth are much cooler kids to hang out with.

Another highly relevant example. Canada.

Rule Brittania etc.. etc...

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:04 am

I honestly don't get it.

You can't force people to vote.

Australia is a seriously better place to live than the USA

Another highly relevant example. Canada.

Ahahahaha. Enjoy your libtard fantasyland.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:13 am

What? We may not be perfect but we DO have health care, functional welfare, a less violent society, a more modern less corrupt system of government, a healthier more pleasant culture, and nicer food.

And you could say that of Australia, the UK, and Canada.

The idea that the USA is a better place to live in than any of those countries is one held only by drooling US "exceptionalists" (AKA Nationalistic scum) who absolutely spit in the face of history and evidence in general.

If I get sick I can go see my GP without concern that it will bankrupt me. I pay a very modest sum once a fucking year and the rest is god damn FREE.

So hey, we "at least" have our health, you don't have that, WTF do you have again?

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:21 am

Britain basically losing that war was probably a good thing.

If nothing else, now people have the right attitude about royalty (they don't mean anything).

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:41 am

cthulhu wrote:It's why you need mandatory voting and preferential or instant runoff voting.

Blam.

Instant runnoff leads to some strange ways of gaming the system. Approval voting (probably means the same thing as "preferential") really makes more sense; not in the least because the standard (one person one vote) is its degenerate case.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:51 am

None of the ways of gaming the system to produce a non concordat winner have ever been demonstrated in practice in Australia. The concordat winner has always actually won. Which means I'm totally fine with the niche issues that IRV has over preferential. No tactical voting campaign has also ever been demonstrated to actually have an effect either.

I used to think approval voting was a big deal over instant run off but then I realized it's a waste of time as a practical matter. A or B is equally good, who gives a shit. Both are way better than first past the post.

You can't force people to vote.

Surprisingly you can. Just making it a requirement to vote appears to result in people saying 'fuck, maybe I better watch some TV news or some shit' and then generally casting a vote. In Australia all it takes to get out of the $50 dollar fine is writing a letter saying 'I felt sick and my dog died' which no-one checks, yet most people go vote. (Note: This doesn't actually make them any more informed than Joe Citizen anywhere else.. but meh)

Australia does have a higher informal vote, but it appears that's mostly because people cannot read and our ballot papers are excessively complex - see the titanic drop in informal voting when above the line voting was introduced in the senate, and the strong link between informal voting and socioeconomic status of the region.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:53 am

WTF do you have again?

Freedom of speech. (Lolpwnt.)

Surprisingly you can.

My point is that would cause a shitstorm in America.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:00 am

To be honest, the number one issue America has is rampant gerrymandering. The political system may actually be more corrupted that Northern Ireland during the troubles.

But yeah, the coercive thing occasionally gets some airplay here, but the 'most serious' political figures to advance that mandatory voting is bad because it is coercive recently:

* Mark Latham
* Nick Minchin

Anyone who follows Australian politics knows how laughable any pronouncement either one of those two make is, so the 2-1 combo is fucking amazing.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:26 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote: For that matter, Bush didn't "take" the role of President his first term. He received a majority of the electoral votes and was deemed the winner.

Without delving too deep into the minutia I was under the impression that Gore actually received the most votes in Florida, and if the count/recount process wasn't so flawed he would have carried the state.

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RANT: No one has taken America away from anyone

RANT: No one has taken America away from anyone

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