Mid Boss said:
Baresark said:
I hate this. As someone who is politically far more aware then your average person (and about 1 billion times more aware than your average gamer) it's just a facade. There is no truth in the debates. It's just a grounds for liars to lie to more people. And I don't believe for one second they are going to cover all the candidates, so it doesn't matter. It's not even fair in that capacity. Just more false reasons to believe in a completely broken and useless political system. Working within the confines of a broken system will not change the system. It will only keep the same broken system on life support.
What would you have us do then? Don't tell me you're one of those people who doesn't believe in voting.
My suggestion is that people in general need to understand that voting won't change the system, though I would not really tell anyone to not vote. I mean, as American's we are told that it's the cornerstone of freedom, even though it's not really. We are also told it's how we can make a difference, even though historically, anytime any country needs to vastly change it's political system there is usually either some sort of revolution or they literally just throw all the politicians out. In a system like ours there is no accountability. When someone messes up it's a big finger pointing session but nothing changes. If voting makes people feel better about it all, then by all means they should vote. My beliefs in regards to this are not something you really wanted to hear, so whether I believe in voting or not is inconsequential.
There is the belief by some that if no one would vote, it would freeze the government and in that, force a change. I'm not saying I believe this, but I am saying that people have been voting for a really long time and so far the political spectrum hasn't changed in a really long time. And it certainly has not noticeably changed for the better. By some people's accounts, it's gotten much worse.
Mortuorum said:
Baresark said:
read above quote of what I said, as it's the same.
The first step to getting people to understand the very real flaws with the US electoral system is getting people involved at any level. If Microsoft's initiative can get even a fraction of 1% of active Xbox Live users to take a more active interest in the political process, it's a worthwhile endeavor.
I would agree but no one should be under the impression that by watching a political debate they are gaining awareness. Politics is far to complicated to be covered in a few debates. This will hit all the hot button issue and be full rhetoric about fixing the economy and helping people, but it won't cover anything that resembles any actual even attempt at a plan to do so. For example: Obama will most likely talk about the initiatives to block cheap foreign imports of things like electronics, and the Romney will disagree with him just because. He will give some bullshit reasoning as to why he doesn't agree with Obama, and even if Romney and I agree on this (which I hope to god our political alignments are not too far in accord with each other since he is a whopping pile of shit), he won't have any alternative ideas, he will spend his time attacking Obama's super shitty reasons as to why it's the right thing to do. This puts Obama in the lead in my book (I'm even sure he is a better man than Romney is), but this will be like the last election where he will say a whole of nothing (read: rhetoric) and people will cheer and shout and agree with him. I'm sure we all recall the last election where he stood on a platform of "Change" but then failed to explain how he would change anything at all.
By all accounts, the best case scenario is that a few more people vote, but voting hasn't actually helped improve anything by any noticeable measurement in a long time.
