America....

[faul]

I'm so civil, ask everybody, they'll tell you, I'm bigly civil.

The last time I checked, the notion of democracy included the idea that one person is one vote, rather than these special people I appointed are worth 10,000 votes each. It's not even a three fifths compromise, it's a 10000:1 between your (and I will continue to call them this because it is what they are) political aristocracy and everybody else.

Look, I'm not here to rewrite Federalist 10 for you. Suffice it to say, there are plenty of "notions" in democracy that are not purely represented in their purest form because people who want to get anything done generally recognize those things fall apart when rubber hits the roads. In practicality, reading about the fundamental notion of democracy without considering everything that has come after it is like taking Macro/Micro 101 and thinking you know how economics work. The principles are important to bear in mind as an ideal and helpful for re-calibration from time to time, but then you get morons who think supply-side makes sense on principle because they either never got past the basics or they're intellectually dishonest and manipulative.

You claim that I don't know how your aristocrats are selected, again you continue to presume my argument and my stance for me. The three categories are elected officials, delegates for life by being ex-President or Vice President, or simply be a member of the DNC as a powerbroker or activist. Of the 719 superdelegates 438 fall into this third category, they need not ever have been elected by the public or served a term in office. All they need is the ability to draw funds to the party.

Unelected, check. Wield power beyond the ken of normal men, check. Control the majority of the votes in the DNC, check. There's your political aristocracy. And there's your corporate and financial interests directly controlling your candidates, commerce and growth ahead of human interests.

Good job writing a section that's not even internally consistent ("unelected, check -- except for the ones that are). You can keep calling them aristocrats, but loaded language impresses me even less than a two-second understanding of superdelegates. That's not what I meant when I said you don't understand - and that willful lack of understanding is pretty apparent by the way you lump together powerbrokers and activists when that minor part of your "explanation" could incite a 10 page debate on its own.

Fundamentally you're claiming that the ends justify the means,

I'm glad we're establishing this for the third chortlesnorfling time. And this is even without adding a very relevant 'sometimes' to the start of a tired old catechism to keep it nice and simple.

which given the very premise of a democracy is a mechanism or the means by which to elect a leader, shows that you, like the party mechanism you are defending do not give a damn about it.

I think I've been giving you too much credit if you think the termination point of democracy is simply electing leadership. Democracy is how we elect leaders, but it's also, on principle, how those leaders govern. A functional democracy doesn't exist without those "leaders" being able to govern. If those "leaders" don't know how to govern, what was the chortlesnorfling point of electing them in the first place? Just because most people voted for Hitler Did Nothing Wrong as a Mountain Dew flavor didn't make it acceptable. I'm completely, 100% okay with a party's prerogative of reserving some level of authority in what candidates they put out to represent that party. Who knows, if Republicans had done the same, they might actually still represent some valid conservative principles instead of being overrun by nihlistic fuckbaits that have convinced people that government = invariably bad and the alternative of being skullfucked by whoever has the money + imperative to skullfuck is a-okay. On the flip side, I've also got nothing but antipathy for people who think money = BAD INFLUENCE. Like, dive into some chortlesnorfling nuance instead of getting lost in the fallacy of grays.

It's the geneva convention of the democrat party. And once again you would throw it aside to achieve whatever your ends are.

lol ok

So I have to ask why, what is so important that your side win at any cost, that the *right* person be nominated despite the wishes of the electorate, that candidates who are not the *right* candidate be given short shift and shafted, again with little to no regard for the wishes of the electorate. Or in short, why you are so eager to implement an out and out near dictatorial mandate for the nomination of democratic party presidential candidates.

Pretty simple formula: (curated choice* + functional government) > (unlimited choice + dysfunctional horseshit).

(*as long as it represents diversity in perspectives that stops short of 'full retard')

What is so inherently wrong with, for example a person winning who you disagree with if the majority of people consider them to the the least worst option.

Nothing's inherently wrong with it, but that's not actually the question you've been asking this entire time. There's nothing inherently wrong with democracy as a concept, but there have been issues with execution and acceptable concessions made since pretty much the moment of inception, which is why there are so many forms of democracies around the world, some of them closer than others to "pure democracies". We do the best we can, but at the end of the day, the idea is to elect leaders for a functional government, not just have Joe the Plumber win, come what may.

[lilith]

I'm glad I made this beast ..This thread has a good cross section of trolling..facts..alt facts and flames.. A regular political banquet indeed.

Agreed.. I feel like i'm going around and around endlessly in circles.

[sauin]

Suffice it to say, there are plenty of "notions" in democracy that are not purely represented in their purest form because people who want to get anything done generally recognize those things fall apart when rubber hits the roads...then you get morons who think supply-side makes sense on principle because they either never got past the basics or they're intellectually dishonest and manipulative.

Alternatively you can relate that, as with your second example, people have taken the former as the excuse and are then being intellectually dishonest and manipulative in claiming that the 10000:1 compromise currently offered to democrat voters is in any way democratic. The party existed for over a century and a half without needing superdelegates, they got kennedy in without superdelegates. I'd have said that the rubber was well and truly on the road before anybody dreamt up that.

Good job writing a section that's not even internally consistent ("unelected, check -- except for the ones that are).

Go back and re-read it, unelected is contingent on controlling the majority of the DNC votes, both of which relate to the 438 unelected superdelegates. No other group of superdelegates fit either criteria, it requires a somewhat wilful misreading to make this claim.

You can keep calling them aristocrats, but loaded language impresses me even less than a two-second understanding of superdelegates.

Aristocrat: The aristocracy was a social class that a particular social order considered the highest of that society... Aristocratic status can involve feudal or legal privileges. I'd think that we can all agree that the unelected DNC superdelegates fill the criteria of being a higher class of members of the democrats and comes with the additional party privileges of having your vote count for 10,000 ordinary votes.

And that willful lack of understanding is pretty apparent by the way you lump together powerbrokers and activists when that minor part of your "explanation" could incite a 10 page debate on its own.

Not really, both are people who by virtue of their personal connections have now been given additional privileges.

I think I've been giving you too much credit if you think the termination point of democracy is simply electing leadership. Democracy is how we elect leaders, but it's also, on principle, how those leaders govern.

We live in a representative democracy, as has been established multiple times. After your leaders are elected their only checks and balances come from other elected officials, or any breach of the legal code that they are held accountable for. They should, in principle, govern with the idea of being re-elected which requires some longer term commitment to their electoral base. If I can pre-decide the position of an elected official by catering to the interests of a tiny minority of people (all four hundred of them), then I am no longer beholden to my electoral base.

A functional democracy doesn't exist without those "leaders" being able to govern. If those "leaders" don't know how to govern, what was the chortlesnorfling point of electing them in the first place?

Generally "because the other side are worse" is the opinion voiced. Alternatively claiming that someone doesnt know how to govern is often used as a subjective criticism. The point of democracy is to elect the person who is considered to best represent the interests of the voters. It makes no guarantees about their ability to navigate administration.

Who knows, if Republicans had done the same, they might actually still represent some valid conservative principles

I thought you were arguing earlier about how party principles need "re-calibration from time to time", clearly when the "tyres hit the road" those principles were abandoned. Else perhaps they're just intellectually dishonest.

Instead of being overrun by nihlistic fuckbaits that have convinced people that government = invariably bad and the alternative of being skullfucked by whoever has the money + imperative to skullfuck is a-okay. On the flip side, I've also got nothing but antipathy for people who think money = BAD INFLUENCE.

I'm not going to make the argument that money is a good or bad influence, simply that it is an influence that isn't the influence of the voters, and hence dilutes the effectiveness of democracy. Just as superdelegates get effective additional power by stint of being, in a democratic system the person with more money shouldn't have additional legislative power over those who do not.

Pretty simple formula: (curated choice* + functional government) > (unlimited choice + dysfunctional horseshit).
(*as long as it represents diversity in perspectives that stops short of 'full retard')

See now you've presumed that curate choices provide functional governments, or that the lack of a curated choice begets a dysfunctional one. I'd secondarily point out that by demanding whatever notion of diversity we're no longer discussing an electoral process, if the electorate chooses to not represent diversity are they not free to do that? What demands that the curated choice also aligns with your particular world-view?

Nothing's inherently wrong with it, but that's not actually the question you've been asking this entire time. There's nothing inherently wrong with democracy as a concept, but there have been issues with execution and acceptable concessions.

Concessions that seem to grow larger and larger without ever consulting the people who are making them.

We do the best we can, but at the end of the day, the idea is to elect leaders for a functional government, not just have Joe the Plumber win, come what may.

And now you're assuming that joe the plumber cannot run the government. One might make the argument that joe the plumber would be more qualified to run the government than a certain George Bush,

[sauin]

I congratulate you once again for entirely ignoring the point about the DNC blatantly violating their own charter, and their current defence of doing so. You claim that "corrections" are required on occasion: they could have voted to change the charter, and they did not. To use the argument you present below, does this not represent the actions of a "manipulative and intellectual dishonest" group?

Suffice it to say, there are plenty of "notions" in democracy that are not purely represented in their purest form because people who want to get anything done generally recognize those things fall apart when rubber hits the roads...then you get morons who think supply-side makes sense on principle because they either never got past the basics or they're intellectually dishonest and manipulative.

Alternatively you can relate that, as with your second example, people have taken the former as the excuse and are then being intellectually dishonest and manipulative in claiming that the 10000:1 compromise currently offered to democrat voters is in any way democratic. The party existed for over a century and a half without needing superdelegates, they got kennedy in without superdelegates. I'd have said that the rubber was well and truly on the road before anybody dreamt up that.

Good job writing a section that's not even internally consistent ("unelected, check -- except for the ones that are).

Go back and re-read it, unelected is contingent on controlling the majority of the DNC votes, both of which relate to the 438 unelected superdelegates. No other group of superdelegates fit either criteria, it requires a somewhat wilful misreading to make this claim.

You can keep calling them aristocrats, but loaded language impresses me even less than a two-second understanding of superdelegates.

Aristocrat: The aristocracy was a social class that a particular social order considered the highest of that society... Aristocratic status can involve feudal or legal privileges. I'd think that we can all agree that the unelected DNC superdelegates fill the criteria of being a higher class of members of the democrats and comes with the additional party privileges of having your vote count for 10,000 ordinary votes.

And that willful lack of understanding is pretty apparent by the way you lump together powerbrokers and activists when that minor part of your "explanation" could incite a 10 page debate on its own.

Not really, both are people who by virtue of their personal connections have now been given additional privileges.

I think I've been giving you too much credit if you think the termination point of democracy is simply electing leadership. Democracy is how we elect leaders, but it's also, on principle, how those leaders govern.

We live in a representative democracy, as has been established multiple times. After your leaders are elected their only checks and balances come from other elected officials, or any breach of the legal code that they are held accountable for. They should, in principle, govern with the idea of being re-elected which requires some longer term commitment to their electoral base. If I can pre-decide the position of an elected official by catering to the interests of a tiny minority of people (all four hundred of them), then I am no longer beholden to my electoral base.

A functional democracy doesn't exist without those "leaders" being able to govern. If those "leaders" don't know how to govern, what was the chortlesnorfling point of electing them in the first place?

Generally "because the other side are worse" is the opinion voiced. Alternatively claiming that someone doesnt know how to govern is often used as a subjective criticism. The point of democracy is to elect the person who is considered to best represent the interests of the voters. It makes no guarantees about their ability to navigate administration.

Who knows, if Republicans had done the same, they might actually still represent some valid conservative principles

I thought you were arguing earlier about how party principles need "re-calibration from time to time", clearly when the "tyres hit the road" those principles were abandoned. Else perhaps they're just intellectually dishonest.

Instead of being overrun by nihlistic fuckbaits that have convinced people that government = invariably bad and the alternative of being skullfucked by whoever has the money + imperative to skullfuck is a-okay. On the flip side, I've also got nothing but antipathy for people who think money = BAD INFLUENCE.

I'm not going to make the argument that money is a good or bad influence, simply that it is an influence that isn't the influence of the voters, and hence dilutes the effectiveness of democracy. Just as superdelegates get effective additional power by stint of being, in a democratic system the person with more money shouldn't have additional legislative power over those who do not.

Pretty simple formula: (curated choice* + functional government) > (unlimited choice + dysfunctional horseshit).
(*as long as it represents diversity in perspectives that stops short of 'full retard')

See now you've presumed that curate choices provide functional governments, or that the lack of a curated choice begets a dysfunctional one. I'd secondarily point out that by demanding whatever notion of diversity we're no longer discussing an electoral process, if the electorate chooses to not represent diversity are they not free to do that? What demands that the curated choice also aligns with your particular world-view?

Nothing's inherently wrong with it, but that's not actually the question you've been asking this entire time. There's nothing inherently wrong with democracy as a concept, but there have been issues with execution and acceptable concessions.

Concessions that seem to grow larger and larger without ever consulting the people who being forced to concede them.

We do the best we can, but at the end of the day, the idea is to elect leaders for a functional government, not just have Joe the Plumber win, come what may.

And now you're assuming that joe the plumber cannot run the government. One might make the argument that joe the plumber would be more qualified to run the government than a certain George Bush

[faul]

I was going to go point by point again, including the parts that needed repetition solely because you just keep ignoring the pretty clear-cut answers I gave, but the last bit sort of drained my will to waste any energy:

And now you're assuming that joe the plumber cannot run the government. One might make the argument that joe the plumber would be more qualified to run the government than a certain George Bush

a) I think you've got a pretty fucked up sense of the word "qualifications".

b) This would be vanilla stupid anyways, but it's actually mind-numbing stupid primarily because we're watching someone with zero legislative experience walk around completely out his depth right chortlesnorfling now. Motherfucker, I'm not assuming, I'm 100% certain Joe the Plumber can't run the chortlesnorfling government. For all his flaws, my fundamental disagreements with him, and even with the benefit of retrospect, I'd elect George W. Bush into office 11 times out of 10 over Joe the chortlesnorfling Plumber.

You bored me a long time ago, but now you've officially made me think you're ridiculous and not worth the discussion. Hope everyone enjoyed the show, all two of you that kept up with it!

[Astolfo]

Hope everyone enjoyed the show, all two of you that kept up with it!

It was a great last performance, much like Barney and Bailey's final show!

Now the elephants can be free!

[Tolveor]

And Faul looses the argument because he mentioned Hitler first. Internet rules!

[faul]

And Faul looses the argument because he mentioned Hitler first. Internet rules!

Debatable use of Godwin. I mentioned the delicious and democratically elected flavor of Mountain Dew known as Hitler Did Nothing Wrong, not Hitler or anything Hitler actually did.

[Paj]

Hope everyone enjoyed the show, all two of you that kept up with it!

It was a great last performance, much like Barney and Bailey's final show!

Now the elephants can be free!

Free on the streets again, peddling drugs and rank racing in MS-13. Those elephants weren't free for a reason.

[Diotima]

Superdelegates are all of them either currently elected or previously elected government officials, or party leaders elected by party members. If you want a say in who the superdelegates are, other than those who are awarded their vote by being currently serving Democratic party members in the House, Senate, or Governorships, or previously serving Presidents, or leaders of the House or Senate, then join the Party, and you'll get to vote for those Superdelegates that remain, like State party chairs. Superdelegates exist as a check against the kind of demagoguery that saw Trump become the Republican party's nominee, just as the electoral college should have been a check against Trump as President, though they abdicated their duty there. About the only flaw in the Democratic Party's superdelegate system is that they should not be permitted to make their choice for candidate known prior to the convention, to be enforced by losing their vote at the convention if they fail to keep your loyalties to themselves.

Superdelegates overturning "the will of the voters" is a feature of the system, not a flaw. Democracy does not mean mob-rule. The superdelegates overruling Clinton's popular vote lead in '08 was exactly the right thing to do, and arguably, they should have done it again in '16. The flaw in the '16 election was that the field was largely cleared for Hillary before any superdelegate announced anything. No one expected Sanders to present a viable challenge to her, there was even some question of him running as a Democrat at first, and O'Malley was a token challenge at best. Webb and Chaffee were jokes. Nothing the DNC did was improper during the primaries, even if some of the things they talked about doing might have been. Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton would have been perhaps the most qualified person to be President since Eisenhower, if not Roosevelt in his third term. The real flaw is that we're electing our President in the first place. That position is the head of the Administration of our government, and Commander in Chief of the most sophisticated and powerful military in history. It is not to be some kind of super-representative to the People. It is beyond ridiculous to suppose that the average voter is qualified to make a decision as to who would best perform that job, let alone that all of them together would be.

Mob-rule is not democracy, it is demagoguery masquerading as democracy. And is usually a puppet for oligarchs and genuine aristocrats. The job of representing the people lies with the House of Representatives, and the bulk of the failures in our system of federal government lie there, and in the necessity of the Executive co-opting legislative perogatives due to their failures. And the bulk of those failures stem from the fact that we elect those representatives from districts in the first place. Democracy does not imply or require elections, it requires that the legitimacy and authority of the government descend from the People. Elections are merely the highly flawed tool with which we currently ensure that descent.