I hate it more from the armchair politicians .
I'm not one of them, I'm an armchair potentate.
I hate it more from the armchair politicians .
I do not like to be told as a citizen what to do, say, watch, how to speak, what language to speak or whether I can shop on sundays. That sorta thing. Those that try lose points on my scorecard. I'll still rather vote for them though because their rank is higher than that of the next bunch of wankers with my best interests in mind (they say).
I have on at least one occasion voted NDP. While never having been a plan of their platform per se (what there is of it) it was during a time when I was really heavily dissatisfied with the Liberals (this was during the Chretian years) and the Tories had all of 4 seats in the House (or something like that) and this particular candidate I honestly thought would work hard for the riding. They didn't get in though, we got McSquinty's brother.Too much control is no good. Too much government interference, control or hand-holding will also score low. I learn more each day but will likely never vote NDP. :lol:
Many people express their vision of morality through their political views and actions. Such people often find their vision of morality is so compelling that it justifies any and all political actions without regard to the means used to achieve their compelling vision.
Saul Alinsky was one such man. His book Rules for Radicals laid out a set of principles and tactics, perhaps normative ethics, that are very effective in achieving political power. This is one of his rules...maybe the most important:
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Picking a target, freezing, personalizing and polarizing it makes it impossible to effectively govern a polity after having obtained power.
The problem for the USA is that it is necessary to adopt Mr. Alinsky's rules in order to achieve power. That's why Americans demonize each other and are so polarized. The fact that these rules are now incorporated into American political culture means that the American polity will rip itself apart through factionalism. De Tocqueville and others noted the potential for this phenomenon in America. It's too bad it came to this, but it does seem as though every democratic or republican society ultimately commits suicide. Maybe Canada can escape this fate because of its huge size, small population, abundant resources, and tradition of comity.
Ive never fully agreed with any one party. I go for the one most in line with my views at the time. Ive voted for three of them and been a member of two so far.
I'm not one of them, I'm an armchair potentate.
Bingo!I
I am jaded regarding political parties and I feel resentful of strong party supporters regardless of sides because I think they support the status quo and that means no change will ever happen. I see them as dead wood and an impediment to change for the good of the individual and the country.
I am an impotentate.I'm not one of them, I'm an armchair potentate.
So far? Lol. And you're still young. Imagine when you've had 20 years voting under your belt?
I agree polarization is heavy in American politics, more so than anywhere else it seems. The thing is though that it's not just American's that are polarized about American politics, it seems like everyone else is to. Which is an odd thing when you stop and thing about it. Almost like it's contagious or something.
Ive almost got 20 years of following politics under my belt. I was hooked by 10. Followed it a hell of a lot closer than most adults I knew. Neither of my parents ever voted or really paid attention to issues which really annoyed me at the time. I remember having a literal 'facepalm' moment when I was 13 and my father said he had no idea who the premier was...and he has lived in Ontario his whole life.
It's kind of like the Hatfields and the McCoys.Their polarization is really weird considering in practice the Democrats and Republicans dont run things all that differently from one another. Well, not on foreign policy anyway. They are both pretty consistent on that. Domestic stuff is another issue but even then they arent radically different in practice compared to the way they seem to be during campaigns.
Why? Seems a lot more sensible than what we often see on this board: people who loudly proclaim that it makes no difference who's in office, and then obsessively follow the parties and personalities whose presence in office they claim makes no difference.That is a facepalm moment.
SLM; said:... I cannot embrace the politics fully and be 'party faithful'.
Yet I see people, both here on the forum and out in the "real world" (so to speak) who do align themselves. But the part that somewhat confounds me is, many of the folks that I see doing this I find to be not so different from myself. At least in the sense that I don't think, at least for how they express themselves or how I've felt I've related to them or them to me, that they really fall so lock-step into the 'party philosophy'. But there still seems to be this penchant to align themselves, either for or against and I just would really like to understand why.
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I agree polarization is heavy in American politics, more so than anywhere else it seems. The thing is though that it's not just American's that are polarized about American politics, it seems like everyone else is to. Which is an odd thing when you stop and thing about it. Almost like it's contagious or something.
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