What is your opinion about your country (or your state in the case of the United States)?

[DNSKILL5]

I’m liberal conservative right left wing national poo poo diarrhea doo doo, listen to my world view that is not tired and regurgitated shit because it’s literally SHIT. 

[Scuba Steve]

The ruling class wants a proletariat that thinks politics is boring, dumb and pointless. They want you disengaged and powerless. Otherwise, you might realize collective action and "voting for better coalitions matters." Again, case in point, Minnesota.

[Endless]

On 10/15/2023 at 4:09 PM, Mr. Freeze said:

Nothing else like AZ. Glad I moved here. 

Arizona is one of my ''dream states''. Would probably love to live somewhere in Flagstaff, or maybe a small town near Lake Powell. The landscape around those areas seems like the kind of place that you can explore for an entire lifetime.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

17 hours ago, QuaketallicA said:

I know this might have been forgotten after 2015, but politics actually isn't supposed to be a reality tv show or a circus. The President should be judged by his actions; how he governs. Not whether he can get tv ratings or how interesting he is to listen to. If politicians did their job right, they should be as boring to watch as C-SPAN.

It's a bit hard to get people to pay attention to you, let alone take you seriously, if you you cannot find a way to make yourself at the very least interesting to listen to. Nobody is asking for the POTUS to challenge his opponent to a rap battle, they only expect them to at least have the verbal and conversational skills as your average Joe. This Joe doesn't meet that standard. It's no different than any other job that exposes you to the public. If you lack the ability to resonate with the public due to your lack of skill, it harbors distrust, bores people, and makes them look for someone else who at least appears to be interested in what they're speaking about. It's interesting that you bring up Ronald, since he was literally an actor and already excelled at speech, body language, and charisma. He his whole career revolved around having the skills to capture the public's attention. You can get away with things (speaking of election/re-election) without these skills, but certain criteria need to be in place:

 

-Your lack needs to not be severe.

-Your opponent is weak or disliked by a majority of people.

-You have something specific to offer to make up for the lack.

 

In the case of Biden, it's generally accepted even by a large amount of democrats (see again: approval rating) that he was elected because his opponent was severely disliked by a great number of people. The election was close enough that I'd say perhaps if his opponent had put more points into his speech/charisma/personality, he could have perhaps been re-elected. You can stand there and say "being interesting to the public shouldn't matter", but when your job revolves around the general public, that fact that it "shouldn't" matter doesn't mean anything, because it matters to a great extent.

 

You say the president should be judged by his actions - the president is judged by the public, so there's only two scenarios even if we pretend that Joe Biden is somehow objectively the most incredible POTUS of all time:

 

1 - Only 37% of Americans approve of his actions according to recent polling.

 

and/or

 

2 - The general public possesses limited political knowledge and votes on the candidate they find most interesting.

 

Politics have been a circus long before reality TV or TV itself existed. Due to social media, you simply have the blessing of being subjected to the opinions of all the spectators in the crowd who definitely are definitely educated enough to tell you everything about how the circus works, down to the ingredients they should use in their peanuts.

[Chezza]

Australia. It's pretty good.

[invictius]

Australia is a lucky country, run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck.  Poppy cutting, meritocracy discouraged, can't be an entrepreneur because of red tape.  The u.s in this sense felt a lot more free.  Though this youtuber says not long ago, in China you could do something like kick a dog and nobody would do anything about it.

[Sonikkumania]

I think my should country should start a Finno-Ugric league.

[QuaketallicA]

On 11/1/2023 at 7:16 PM, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

It's a bit hard to get people to pay attention to you, let alone take you seriously, if you you cannot find a way to make yourself at the very least interesting to listen to. Nobody is asking for the POTUS to challenge his opponent to a rap battle, they only expect them to at least have the verbal and conversational skills as your average Joe. This Joe doesn't meet that standard. It's no different than any other job that exposes you to the public. If you lack the ability to resonate with the public due to your lack of skill, it harbors distrust, bores people, and makes them look for someone else who at least appears to be interested in what they're speaking about. It's interesting that you bring up Ronald, since he was literally an actor and already excelled at speech, body language, and charisma. He his whole career revolved around having the skills to capture the public's attention. You can get away with things (speaking of election/re-election) without these skills, but certain criteria need to be in place:

 

-Your lack needs to not be severe.

-Your opponent is weak or disliked by a majority of people.

-You have something specific to offer to make up for the lack.

 

In the case of Biden, it's generally accepted even by a large amount of democrats (see again: approval rating) that he was elected because his opponent was severely disliked by a great number of people. The election was close enough that I'd say perhaps if his opponent had put more points into his speech/charisma/personality, he could have perhaps been re-elected. You can stand there and say "being interesting to the public shouldn't matter", but when your job revolves around the general public, that fact that it "shouldn't" matter doesn't mean anything, because it matters to a great extent.

 

You say the president should be judged by his actions - the president is judged by the public, so there's only two scenarios even if we pretend that Joe Biden is somehow objectively the most incredible POTUS of all time:

 

1 - Only 37% of Americans approve of his actions according to recent polling.

 

and/or

 

2 - The general public possesses limited political knowledge and votes on the candidate they find most interesting.

 

Politics have been a circus long before reality TV or TV itself existed. Due to social media, you simply have the blessing of being subjected to the opinions of all the spectators in the crowd who definitely are definitely educated enough to tell you everything about how the circus works, down to the ingredients they should use in their peanuts.

 

I would categorically disagree with your assessment of the President. I always found his speeches to be quite authoritative in nature, and speaking the common sense that was and remains so desperately needed, but remains so rare.

 

That the public is less enthused with him says more about the endemic danger presented by lying news organizations, tribalism, and social media bubbles. Trump's entire appeal is not based around charisma. It is based around telling blatant and obvious lies, which as is famously remarked, get half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on, and he simply repeats the lies often enough that any proportion of the population believe him no matter how brazenly absurd they are. It's like advertisements. Show them to enough people, and even the tiny 1% that are moved to purchase will still be hundreds of thousands of new consumers. Only the buyers in this case are voters.

 

According to Pew, in 2020 and 2021, roughly half of Americans say they get their news from social media. Roughly 7 in 10 have said they have ever gotten news from social media.

 

Put aside how Fox News was found legally liable for damages based on lies they made regarding voter fraud in the 2020 election. Just think about how completely biased, misleading, unfactual, and hyper-partisan "news" on social media is. So anywhere between half the country and and a majority are getting their news from social media rather than at least professional journalists. 

 

Don't you think that might have some influence on why the polling numbers are so low?

 

Furthermore, I think Biden's greatest enemy is probably the economy, which in peacetime is typically voters' greatest motivating factor. As someone with a degree in economics, it was crystal clear to me that emergency procedures that were necessary during the Pandemic--injecting money in to keep people from going broke while they couldn't work, and the Fed lowering rates--would inevitably lead to much inflation. Inflation was the cost, the necessary evil. It was compounded by the Ukraine war with the loss of access to Russian oil. However, even with the Fed having raised rates since then--I believe the Federal Funds Rate currently sits at 5.3%--inflation persists, at the pump and in grocery outlets.

 

So I would argue persistently high prices have also factored into a negative perception of the administration's handling of the economy, even though in my opinion Biden and Jerome Powell have made the right moves.

[Lofwyr]

On 11/2/2023 at 1:32 AM, Scuba Steve said:

The ruling class wants a proletariat that thinks politics is boring, dumb and pointless. They want you disengaged and powerless. Otherwise, you might realize collective action and "voting for better coalitions matters." Again, case in point, Minnesota.

They mostly want you to not own firearms and live under the police state. They don't care what or who you vote for because governments treat a lot of actions as confidential to the people.

That said, politics are not pointless, they're great if you want to indulge in self harm and lose everything over time your forebears held dear.

Well, for the vast majority of people, anyway. Someone benefits from that kind of setup, those people of course get rewarded by it, but they're not the majority by far.

[aloysiusfreeman]

56 minutes ago, Lofwyr said:

They mostly want you to not own firearms and live under the police state. They don't care what or who you vote for because governments treat a lot of actions as confidential to the people.

That said, politics are not pointless, they're great if you want to indulge in self harm and lose everything over time your forebears held dear.

Well, for the vast majority of people, anyway. Someone benefits from that kind of setup, those people of course get rewarded by it, but they're not the majority by far.

 

I know the meaning of the word politics is malleable, but politics always exist so long as there's a society and society wants some form of rules, laws, and norms. 

 

 

[Pancrasio]

Best and worst country in the world, both things, at the same time.

 

...But I love it.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Pancrasio

[Li'l devil]

16 hours ago, Lofwyr said:

They mostly want you to not own firearms and live under the police state. They don't care what or who you vote for because governments treat a lot of actions as confidential to the people.

That said, politics are not pointless, they're great if you want to indulge in self harm and lose everything over time your forebears held dear.

Well, for the vast majority of people, anyway. Someone benefits from that kind of setup, those people of course get rewarded by it, but they're not the majority by far.

That's right! Politics is a job of politicians, and they know politics better than us regular people! So it's none of our business to be interested in politics, and we should just do our own jobs and hope that the politicians do their jobs well so that we all live happy!

[Lofwyr]

3 hours ago, Li'l devil said:

That's right! Politics is a job of politicians, and they know politics better than us regular people! So it's none of our business to be interested in politics, and we should just do our own jobs and hope that the politicians do their jobs well so that we all live happy!

 

What do you want out of politics, anyway?

If it's based on something scientific like medicine or whatever, then that's optimally objective.

If it's anything meaningful otherwise, you won't get it, no matter which faction you identify with.

 

Call me when you managed to abolish things like racism and other isms and have reinstalled even the usage of "discrimination" alone, good luck with that, that's one of the scariest proposals you can make because it's specific and universal, it is, unlike politics, not malleable and would do away with so many mental smokescreens what even 'is' politics and what isn't.

 

No, really, really really meditate on 'discrimination' alone and the reality how no matter which faction is 'in power' often 'curiously forgets' that whatever they might instate is part of politics too, and not just a new standard of good and evil.

 

Here's a super basic hook to get started. "You can be racist against whites", but you can discriminate against them, that's a super basic example but also strikes fears in many who'd have to face the possiblity of only being able to use discrimination instead of whatever speech they invent.

 

Or the ramifications of actual voter influence to have the ability to dissolve parties as a regular voter because you don't think they represent you.

It's such a basic and logical wish to have. "instead of picking the best out of a pool but have the rest of the pool still project their views and character assassination hooks onto you, you turn the system around and remove all the bad apples until only the good remain. LITERALLY REMOVING WHOLE PARTIES WHO'D HAVE TO BE REFORMED IF THEY WANT TO RUN AGAIN"

 

That would be so good for the voter, and closer to an actual democracy...but...you ain't getting that. You ain't getting anything. The only things you usually get is jack and diddly, and jack takes real long vacations often.

 

If you want politics, then maybe ask the governments to actually implement a sensible form of it, otherwise you get divide and conquer with some amenities at best, but nothing fundamental, and usually you just get shafted and duped.

Again, that should be so obvious from actual, present action that anyone observe simply on the front of voters having no free speech and their opinions being politicized and politicans being able to pretty much say all sorts of dumb shit from cofefe to whatever evil shit they drum up to invade others, or even deprecate their own people.

 

Imagine getting all the flak and no benefits while the politicans get all the benefits and no real flak. You think the clintons, bushes or trump give a damn? You can paint Putin in hard ultragay drag and it won't matter much. I mean, for him.

Imagine some politician that hates you actually having some memetic precedent for persecuting you as a political enemy too, because, I dunno, on the internet 10 years ago it seemed like a fun idea to troll some 'fascists' by having them cope mald and seethe behind ban bars for 'politics' while you laugh at them, instead of doing the right thing and always going for "Whatever anyone says, it's just opinion".

 

It's all fun and games until the rat bastages you're empowering by playing along with such memes turn it on you.

 

Edit/P.S.:

I guess tl/dr is: try to empower the people, and not in the communism way. Because you're part of the people. If you make yourself part of politics then you're part of politics and politics get the more fickle the lower on the totem pole you are.

There's no way around 'democracy' as we have it, but you should not vote with politics in mind, especially not projected toward yourself. Etc.

Don't get lost in it. Don't conduct yourself as if you're part of politics, outside of filling out a piece of paper every now and then.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Lofwyr

[RDETalus]

I feel like you're talking mostly about national level politics. Politics isn't so bad the smaller and more local you go. You have more real connections with people and ability to change things.

[Lila Feuer]

Quote

pol · i · tics. \ˈpä-lə-ˌtiks\. Origin: poly – Greek for “many” ticks – English for “blood sucking parasites”.

 

Naturally I try to stay away from things that require me to get constant blood transfusions so I don't pass out.

[Scuba Steve]

What does any of that even mean?

 

Remove parties? Politics is about building coalitions... and political parties will inevitably form since people with shared values and goals will form coalitions to get things done.

 

Quote

What do you want out of politics, anyway?

If it's based on something scientific like medicine or whatever, then that's optimally objective.

If it's anything meaningful otherwise, you won't get it, no matter which faction you identify with.

 

Policy? That's literally the goal of politics, crafting policy. There isn't enough space allowable in a post to give examples of how wrong that final statement is. For twenty years, many of us in Minnesota have worked to shape the DFL "faction" into a much more progressive party and in 2022, those efforts paid off. The groundwork helped them win enough seats to control all branches of the government and we literally 'got' tons of 'meaningful' policies that we've been demanding of our government for years. We didn't need "something scientific" to pass new laws that give all residents three months of paid family leave or 

 

Quote

If you want politics, then maybe ask the governments to actually implement a sensible form of it, otherwise you get divide and conquer with some amenities at best, but nothing fundamental, and usually you just get shafted and duped.

 

"The Government" isn't some amorphous entity that exists in the ether around us... we can absolutely bend it to our will. Those same Minnesota Representatives and Senators who used to worry "we're doing too much too fast" were pressured into enacting the goals of the new progressive majority.

 

Quote

Don't get lost in it. Don't conduct yourself as if you're part of politics, outside of filling out a piece of paper every now and then.

 

Beyond worthless advice; everyone is 'part of politics' because policy drives so much of our lives. You don't have to literally be an elected representative to have an effect on policy. The Republican party has sprinted towards fascism in large part because Republican elected officials are terrified of their voters who participate in primaries and routinely cast out their elected officials if they aren't sufficiently "conservative." Collective action can absolutely, 100% create "good for the voter," but the truth is, most people are just too lazy to engage with the process and would rather just complain on Facebook claiming none of it matters because they're an enlightened centrist who can see politics "for what it really is."

 

[DNSKILL5]

Just finish cleanin' up your room 
Let's see that dust fly with that broom 
Get all that garbage out of sight 
Or you don't go out Friday night 
Yakety yak (Don't talk back)

[SleepyVelvet]

If I complain about my state I get put on a list.  So I guess my opinion of my state is that "I can't complain".

 

:)

[NaZa]

Croatia could be better. The problem is that the left is not strong enough. The younger demographic emmigrated elsewhere, and our voters are the generation which fought in, or lived through, our independence war and as such will vote for HDZ (the party which "created" us)...

[Reisal]

At least upstate New York has a lot more green, hills, mountains and is colder up here in general.

[Sonikkumania]

I really feel like a lot of my fellow countrymen want to get their teeth kicked in by Russia all over again.

[Noiser]

43 minutes ago, Reisal said:

upstate New York has a lot more green, hills