Suspending the Election

[Seanchaidh]

Spending without taxation to afford it requires borrowing.

This isn't strictly true, except sometimes by statute. And there is no particularly good reason it should be true, as inflation is more complicated than depending on just the size of the money supply. It's more about the size of particular parts of the money supply (that which will actually be spent towards consuming goods and services or utilizing productive resources, especially labor) in relation to the available stock of goods, services, and productive resources.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

But Bernie is a great example about what I'm talking about. Hands down, the best presidential candidate in my opinion. He got my vote last election here in the NY primaries. He would have gotten it if he made it to these primaries. There's nothing I questioned about Sanders at all. Nothing.

I kept being told that Sanders was going to get a groundswell of support from the youth that would give Democrats absolutely no choice but to nominate him. That groundswell never materialized. All of his supporters just went back home and said "we told you what we want; now give it to us", without doing all the hard work. The result: Sanders did not get nominated. (And before anyone gives me the "those lousy Democrats sabotaged him" argument, remember this: Sanders is not a registered Democrat. The party didn't have to give him the time of day, let alone a spot.) If you want someone to blame for him dropping out, maybe blame him for not running as an independent, or all the Bernie Bros who thought that you only had to stay in the game for the first half.

 

[Agema]

This isn't strictly true, except sometimes by statute. And there is no particularly good reason it should be true, as inflation is more complicated than depending on just the size of the money supply. It's more about the size of particular parts of the money supply (that which will actually be spent towards consuming goods and services or utilizing productive resources, especially labor) in relation to the available stock of goods, services, and productive resources.

The government can, theoretically, just print money and spend it: but if there's no parallel increase in goods and services to underlie it, it will cause some inflation. Inflation will sap the spending power of the populace, and thus effectively act rather like taxation.

 

[Houseman]

Apologies if this has been covered before, but could the election be delayed in the case of a pandemic or other disaster? Assuming something happens that makes it unsafe or deadly to vote, tally, or do any other election-related thing, could an election be delayed?

Has such a thing ever happened before?

 

[Revnak]

Apologies if this has been covered before, but could the election be delayed in the case of a pandemic or other disaster? Assuming something happens that makes it unsafe or deadly to vote, tally, or do any other election-related thing, could an election be delayed?

Has such a thing ever happened before?

I don’t know if it’s happened before, but Congress does have the authority to do so if they can agree to. At least I think that power lies with congress. It’s arguably much more complicated of course.

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[SupahEwok]

I don’t know if it’s happened before, but Congress does have the authority to do so if they can agree to. At least I think that power lies with congress. It’s arguably much more complicated of course.

It's not so much the power to delay the election, so much as it is the power to set the date of the election period. Congress could decide to make Election Day on Christmas if they wanted to, with no reason needed, provided they could muster the votes to pass the resolution.

I don't think an election has ever had its date change for reason of national emergency. Not through the Civil War, World Wars, or the Spanish Flu.

 

[Seanchaidh]

The government can, theoretically, just print money and spend it: but if there's no parallel increase in goods and services to underlie it, it will cause some inflation. Inflation will sap the spending power of the populace, and thus effectively act rather like taxation.

Often such spending can cause a parallel increase in goods and services, as unemployed labor and other resources will be utilized where otherwise they would not have been due to the increase in demand.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Maybe. The problem is that the US political system is built for two parties and a split in the Democrats would mean Republican hegemony for the foreseeable future. The Democrats splitting would mean two smaller parties just sapping votes from each other. As I said, it is an inherent leftist problem, because why should us GLBTQ individuals stand back because ethnic minorities also want reforms? And why should native Americans stand back for either of us? Everyone naturally feels their cause is the most urgent and the balancing act of keeping disparate groups unified is the great problem of any populist leftist party. The Democrats also has the added problem that they have to contend with the Republicans for centrist and moderate voters, so they can't go full hog on progressive agendas least they scare away voters that will have no problem voting Republican instead.

The sad fact is that the Democrats is probably as good as the USA is gonna get under its current political system. In a multi-party system you could have several smaller parties with a more narrow focus working together, which would allow the Democrats to take a comfortable centrist-left position and act as a natural rallying beacon for more progressive parties. But as it stands, short of a new leftist party usurping the Democrats (very unlikely), you are stuck with a party that will never be able to advocate a fully progressive agenda while also retaining a realistic chance of winning elections.

Side note: I've been better. I've been working through an increasingly infected house deal gone bad and have been homeless these last few weeks (not as bad as it sounds). Haven't had much enthusiasm for posting here when all my energy has gone towards trying to fix my living situation.

I dunno. I still think if the list of things the Democrats were for was narrowed down then they could also pull non-hardcore Republicans to their banner if the cause fell in their own orbit. I think, and obviously I'm no politician so it's not an expert opinion of any sort, that if they were just supporting ethnic rights then they could get more people behind that when it didn't come with trans rights or vice versa, or any other issue they try to support.

Slight tangent, but it's a bit like the Rogue-like genre. The Berlin Interpretation had a definition of the genre that had so many requirements that it was never going to be accepted by anyone but a few people.

• The game uses random dungeon generation to increase replayability. Games may include pre-determined levels such as a town level common to the Moria family where the player can buy and sell equipment, but these are considered to reduce the randomness set by the Berlin Interpretation. This "random generation" is nearly always based on some procedural generation approach rather than true randomness. Procedural generation uses a set of rules defined by the game developers to seed the generation of the dungeon generally to assure that each level of the dungeon can be completed by the player without special equipment, and also can generally more aesthetically-pleasing levels.
• The game uses permadeath. Once a character dies, the player must begin a new game, known as a "run", which will regenerate the game's levels anew due to procedural generation. A "save game" feature will only provide suspension of gameplay and not a limitlessly recoverable state; the stored session is deleted upon resumption or character death. Players can circumvent this by backing up stored game data ("save scumming"), an act that is usually considered cheating; the developers of Rogue introduced the permadeath feature after introducing a save function, finding that players were repeatedly loading saved games to achieve the best results. According to Rogue's Michael Toy, they saw their approach to permadeath not as a means to make the game painful or difficult but to put weight on every decision the player made as to create a more immersive experience.
• The game is turn-based, giving the player as much time as needed to make a decision. Gameplay is usually step-based, where player actions are performed serially and take a variable measure of in-game time to complete. Game processes (e.g., monster movement and interaction, progressive effects such as poisoning or starvation) advance based on the passage of time dictated by these actions.
• The game is non-modal, in that every action should be available to the player regardless where they are in the game. The Interpretation notes that shops like in Angband do break this non-modality.
• The game has a degree of complexity due to the number of different game systems in place that allow the player to complete certain goals in multiple ways, creating emergent gameplay.For example, to get through a locked door, the player may attempt to pick the lock, kick it down, burn down the door, or even tunnel around it, depending on their current situation and inventory. A common phrase associated with NetHack is "The Dev Team Thinks of Everything" in that the developers seem to have anticipated every possible combination of actions that a player may attempt to try in their gameplay strategy, such as using gloves to protect one's character while wielding the corpse of a cockatrice as a weapon to petrify enemies by its touch.
• The player must use resource management to survive. Items that help sustain the player, such as food and healing items, are in limited supply, and the player must figure out how to use these most advantageously in order to survive in the dungeon. USGamer further considers "stamina decay" as another feature related to resource management. The player's character constantly needs to find food to survive or will die from hunger, which prevents the player from exploiting health regeneration by simply either passing turns for a long period of time or fighting very weak monsters at low level dungeons. Rich Carlson, one of the creators of an early roguelike-like Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, called this aspect a sort of "clock", imposing some type of deadline or limitation on how much the player can explore and creating tension in the game.
• The game is focused on hack and slash-based gameplay, where the goal is to kill lots of monsters, and where other peaceful options do not exist.
• The game requires the player to explore the map and discover the purpose of unidentified items in a manner that resets every playthrough. The identity of magical items, including magically enchanted items, varies from run to run. Newly discovered objects only offer a vague physical description that is randomized between games, with purposes and capabilities left unstated. For example, a "bubbly" potion might heal wounds one game, then poison the player character in the next. Items are often subject to alteration, acquiring specific traits, such as a curse, or direct player modification.

The more requirements there are for something being accepted, the less people you'll have that will agree with it.

I just feel like their current system isn't actually doing any good for anyone aside from treading water and if they were more focused then they could both attract more people and make more concise and acceptable reforms.

Side note: That sucks. I hope everything will start going better for you now. Is your wife (girlfriend?) doing ok too?

 

[Buyetyen]

I dunno. I still think if the list of things the Democrats were for was narrowed down then they could also pull non-hardcore Republicans to their banner if the cause fell in their own orbit. I think, and obviously I'm no politician so it's not an expert opinion of any sort, that if they were just supporting ethnic rights then they could get more people behind that when it didn't come with trans rights or vice versa, or any other issue they try to support.

That immediately begs the question: If the Dems are to focus exclusively on the rights of ethnic minorities, when do trans people get their rights? Because if not now, when? By playing politics and deciding who does and does not get to be an equal citizen under the law, all the Dems would do is communicate that, like the Republicans, they don't really believe in civil rights just the expediency of claiming to support them. A bit difficult to claim the moral high ground when you apply your values so inconsistently. It also won't win them a lot of friends in the queer community. No, throwing a demographic under the bus of not being important enough to have civil rights would probably just make things worse for the Dems.

Besides, trying to court Republican voters with Diet Republican platforms has only ever worked against the Democrats.

 

[Worgen]

Hey, I agree with you on a lot of things. But it is the issue for a lot of people.

I feel like my vote doesn't count because of how the system is set up. Whether Theist or Atheist, we're all praying to anything that will listen to keep Ruth Bader Ginsberg alive until Trump is voted out. The Supreme Court is already stacked enough on the Republican side. It doesn't need to be a landslide every time.

But firstly, you're falling in the trap that every voter has the same opportunities that you have. The youngest Millennial is... what, 22? 23? Operation Redmap was set about in 2010? By the time Redmap was set up, they were 16. Their first major vote (and yes, people don't understand how important local votes are) seemingly was taken from them. And we have a derisive, toxic figure because of it.

You have to understand why this isn't hand waving. Because people are angry. They don't trust the system. And for a good deal of them, their first time at the bat it was shown to be (in their minds) corrupt. As much as I might respect individual officers, I will never respect and/or trust the Police Force as a concept, because it has treated my family and myself as an enemy for longer than I care to think about.

But Bernie is a great example about what I'm talking about. Hands down, the best presidential candidate in my opinion. He got my vote last election here in the NY primaries. He would have gotten it if he made it to these primaries. There's nothing I questioned about Sanders at all. Nothing.

But people now are scared. Beaten. Trump took a lot out of people. And now they just want safety. Normalcy. They picked to back someone who doesn't hold a candle to Bernie because I feel they think they won't have to worry as much as with Biden as they do with Trump. And they want calm waters now, not the catalyst of change that I believe Sanders would be.

Feelings aren't handwaves, Worgen. It's literally the most important drive for people's voting. And Mileenials feel this system doesn't work. And like I said, I can't blame them.

I won't do their methods. I'm going to vote. But I can see their point. It's up to us to show them the way, instead of chastising them. And it's a hard sell. One that I'm having trouble buying myself.

Feeling like you vote doesn't count is one of the easiest methods of voter suppression and its rather effective also, its right there with closing polling stations and even that 'both sides' bullshit that I hate. Even voting in a place where you already "know" is going one way or another still matters since those numbers matter.

Yeah, its garbage, but thats why local/state elections are important. All this shit sucks but you can make a change with things through it.

I disagree that he was the best candidate, but thats neither here nor there. He has younger voter support but they didn't turn out in the numbers needed to matter.

I'm not hand waving feelings, a ton of how things work is based on feeling. Probably the most lasting damage trump is doing to america will be the feeling that our systems are unreliable and its going to take a lot of effort to convince people that voting matters and is secure and that our systems of checks and balances isn't just words. And if they can't then that is the end of our country, or at least in any form that we have known it. Maybe we will end up with a military junta or something.

 

[Houseman]

That immediately begs the question: If the Dems are to focus exclusively on the rights of ethnic minorities, when do trans people get their rights? Because if not now, when?

So are you saying... All Rights Matter?

 

[Seanchaidh]

The more requirements there are for something being accepted, the less people you'll have that will agree with it.

No.

The less people you'll have that will agree with all of it.

The thing about political coalitions is that they don't need to agree about everything. They just need to get enough out of them to consider their support justified.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

No.

The less people you'll have that will agree with all of it.

The thing about political coalitions is that they don't need to agree about everything. They just need to get enough out of them to consider their support justified.

It depends on if the issue is one they don't care about or are against. X could not care about legalizing weed but if the politician saying they will legalize weed is also saying they will ban abortion and X has a sister that got an abortion because her boyfriend ditched her and so she couldn't support a child, then they don't vote for that politician because the abortion issue is important to them.

Further, you can have people be all for protecting the environment but think the methods you're proposing to do it are stupid and won't actually do anything, so while they are hardcore for the environment, they don't vote for you because of your plans.

 

[Seanchaidh]

It depends on if the issue is one they don't care about or are against. X could not care about legalizing weed but if the politician saying they will legalize weed is also saying they will ban abortion and X has a sister that got an abortion because her boyfriend ditched her and so she couldn't support a child, then they don't vote for that politician because the abortion issue is important to them.

To go back to your example:

It's not at all clear why significant numbers of people would give up on a coalition that fights for racial justice just because it also fights for justice for trans people, especially to the extent that those numbers outweigh those who would give up on a coalition that fights for racial justice because it doesn't fight for justice for trans people.

Sometimes people require A, B, C, and D and A and B, or A, B, and C is not enough, so the larger platform is not just more just but also necessary to build the coalition.

Further, you can have people be all for protecting the environment but think the methods you're proposing to do it are stupid and won't actually do anything, so while they are hardcore for the environment, they don't vote for you because of your plans.

This isn't exactly hypothetical, that's how a lot of environmentalists feel about the Democratic Party.

 

[Trunkage]

So are you saying... All Rights Matter?

'If one person isn't free, then all arent free'

That being said, we do triage rights. Eg. The right to murder is not high on the list. The right to keep your property is high on the list. Race, sex orientation and gender are higher on the list than ideology. Etc.

 

[Worgen]

This isn't exactly hypothetical, that's how a lot of environmentalists feel about the Democratic Party.

You mean for all those environmental regulations and treaties the democrats pulled us out of? Oh wait, that was the republicans.

 

[Trunkage]

You mean for all those environmental regulations and treaties the democrats pulled us out of? Oh wait, that was the republicans.

Clinton made eco-terrorism a thing. He locked up a bunch of left wingers because they were striking against companies destroying the environment.

The absolute gall of Al Gore pretending he was pro-environment in 2000 after what he pulled for 8 years is astonishing.

Don't get me wrong. Bush was still worse. But Clinton and Gore are the reason the US is so far behind. They made this climate skeptic thing fashionable

 

[Worgen]

Clinton made eco-terrorism a thing. He locked up a bunch of left wingers because they were striking against companies destroying the environment.

The absolute gall of Al Gore pretending he was pro-environment in 2000 after what he pulled for 8 years is astonishing.

Don't get me wrong. Bush was still worse. But Clinton and Gore are the reason the US is so far behind. They made this climate skeptic thing fashionable

The term eco-terrorism was coined in the 1960s but there were groups doing it before then.

Can you actually point any of this out cause Gore was involved with trying to further the environmentalist cause since like 1970s. And he pushed the GLOBE initiative and the Kyoto Protocols. But you must have some kind of knock out blow from how certain you seem.

 

[Revnak]

Clinton made eco-terrorism a thing. He locked up a bunch of left wingers because they were striking against companies destroying the environment.

The absolute gall of Al Gore pretending he was pro-environment in 2000 after what he pulled for 8 years is astonishing.

Don't get me wrong. Bush was still worse. But Clinton and Gore are the reason the US is so far behind. They made this climate skeptic thing fashionable

Oh yeah, that’s right. Always forget Clinton labeled an entire generation of leftists terrorists so he could sign trade deals. Honestly he’s probably the reason Oregon’s still got the dumbass fake political order it setup in the 80’s, because his labeling every environmental protester a terrorist agreed with their wildest delusions.