Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 111 posts

Re: To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

#101

Post by ubernostrum »

oofabz wrote: post #38
ubernostrum wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've never seen answered: Has anyone actually stopped to figure out how multi-party systems really scale? India is the largest in the world, but also A) has Euro-style population density and B) is maybe not such a great example of a functioning representative government. France and Germany are better examples of governments that mostly work, but are dealing with a fraction of the US population and order-of-…

France and Germany are not so two-party. In the 53 years of France's current government, they have elected presidents from four parties. In the 22 years since German reunification, they have had presidents from three parties and one independent. Meanwhile, in the last 159 years, the US has only had Democrats and Republicans. Also, even if minor parties do not get elected, they offer healthy competition and keep the m…

Other comments have covered the France/Germany thing.

I will point out that I'm actually a fan of the electoral college in the present day, and believe it serves a useful purpose.

The quintessential problem in American politics is the different regions of the country, which all have their own set of interests and values. And, in general, people get very upset when they feel they aren't represented at all; for example, I live in the lone county in my state that consistently trends liberal, and I know that my vote effectively doesn't count for anything state-wide or any national election, because I'm surrounded and outnumbered by far more conservative voters. This is frustrating and leads to apathy.

Similarly, when a significant region of the country is effectively disenfranchised in this fashion, serious problems result. And that's what would happen if we replaced the electoral college by direct popular election: a small number of coastal population centers would essentially decide every election, leaving a huge swathe of the country realizing that their votes don't count.

Under the current electoral system, meanwhile, candidates for President have to be responsive to the interests of a broader cross-section of the country in order to get elected. On the whole, I think that's a good thing, because it ensures that we don't end up in a tyranny-of-the-urban-majority situation.

Re: To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

#102

Post by smsm42 »

mbesto wrote: post #76
smsm42 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Romney and Obama are not the only people in US politics. There are multiple proponents of single-payer model (which is obviously modelled along the same lines as in countries where it currently exists), and they keep being elected. Of course nobody would just say "we are going to copy France" - that'd be stupid, US and France are different countries with different traditions, legal systems, economic and political sys…

> that'd be stupid, US and France are different countries with different traditions, legal systems, economic and political systems, etc. > (state experiments don't have enough timespan and may not scale well) You see, this is problem right here. America was founded on the idea that each state should govern themselves and that there should be minimal federal involvement (this is what Libertarians fight for). Furthermo…

>> Your saying that we can't copy other countries because they're different, yet we can't copy ourselves because it doesn't scale well.

Right. That's why mere copying of anything won't work. One has to actually put some thought into how to make it work without just copying something. I know, it's a bummer, but when we spend trillions of dollars on federal government, we can expect them to have at least couple of people who can think and do beyond what an average copying machine does.

>> Have you ever watched Fox News for more than 5 minutes? They would slander the hell out of ANY politician who said "let's be like France"

I'd recommend to leave aside the knee-jerk Fox News bashing, it does not add anything to the topic. I'd also recommend to actually read my response, where I specifically say that nobody would say "let's be like France" - but many politicians can and do say "let's borrow this good idea from France". France being substitute for many various countries here of course.

>> Note - It's important to understand that neither I nor yourself need to watch Fox News. The point is, a VERY LARGE portion of America does, and they believe the stuff that spews out of these people's mouths.

I strongly suspect your information about "stuff that spews out of these people's mouths" is a a distorted third-party reports and not the result of actual observation of sufficient footage and comparing it to other comparable networks and hosts - such as MSNBC, for example. FN is no better and no worse than any other major news outlet - they all are politicized and all employ some people which have very strong opinions, earn millions by voicing these opinions to the public and sometimes do not let the actual facts to stand in the way of these opinions. This however is not related too much to the topic in question, as existence of politicians that openly declare views which go directly opposite to what most of the FN viewers would agree with is the fact, be these opinions regarding health care, finances, social issues, judiciary issues or any issues whatsoever. FN or their viewers do not hold any death grip on America and are only one part of various and pluralistic public scene. They have their options, other people have theirs, and all of them "spew" them from their mouths freely. It may cause some people stop voting for some politicians, and some other people start voting for them - that's how the elections work. But assuming politicians live in mortal fear of FN and that prevents them from telling what they want to tell people is pure nonsense.

>> I think the overall point of the article is that we are effectively "trapped" in the US because we are constantly reminded that "This is the America Way!" and to think otherwise is blasphemy.

This is baloney. There is no agreement what is "America Way", and right now there are at least two, if not more, polar opposite approaches as to what is "America Way" in pretty much every issue are being actively discussed in public, with roughly equal parts of the population sympathizing to each approach. In this situation, claiming there's only one "America Way" and departing from it is seen by the public as blasphemy is to confess your own ignorance and detachment from most current events easily observable.

Re: To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

#103

Post by smsm42 »

_delirium wrote: post #87
radicalbyte wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, another outlier :) That's a good observation about the British. They're also really pessimistic (Americans are broadly positive). And, unfortunately, they're very small minded (polar opposite of Americans). That's the result of being a fallen Empire, I guess. I like the Dutch: they're stubborn and everyone has an opinion on everything BUT they respect that. Heck, it's expected. That's something they have in comm…

On work hours, the Scandinavians do still have the Protestant work ethic culturally, but have been trying to cut back on number of hours, out of a theory (probably correct imo) that in a modern information economy it's more about quality of work than quantity of hours in chair. The current Danish workweek is 37 hours, and followed quite religiously. Everyone is on time and works efficiently during the day (no 2-hour…

It is true that quality is more important than quantity. But somehow in many cases people do use that as an excuse to slack off, and on the contrary, people delivering the best quality also those that do not skimp on quantity. If somebody knows how to do his thing in an excellent way, he'd probably also stay after 3pm on Friday to finish his thing. If his mind turns off at 3pm, then maybe he wasn't turned on too much even at 2pm. At least where it concerns professions which require personal engagement, if you just dig holes 9 to 5 (to 3 on Friday) then it's different of course.

Re: To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

#104

Post by smsm42 »

oofabz wrote: post #13

One area where we lag behind the rest of the world is our voting system. In 1992 Clinton was elected with 43% of the vote because Perot split the Republicans. In 2000 Bush was elected with 48% because Nader split the Democrats. This kind of voting system has been mathematically proven to create a two-party system (Duverger's Law). In many other countries they use runoff voting, so if no one gets 50%, they hold anothe…

I have lived in a country wil multi-party election system. I am not really sure you'd prefer it to US system if you saw it in action. In multi-party system, one of the "big" wins the elections and then has to bargain with smaller parties to create a ruling coalition. This bargaining usually a completely disgusting process of political horse-trading, where narrow-issue parties wield wildly unproportional influence and extract huge concessions due to their political position. This also happens sometimes on narrow votes in US system, but while in US this is more of an exception, in multi-party state this is the only way to go. What is called "pork barrel spending" in US and seen as something that should be reduced if not eliminated completely in US is the only way to spend in a good multi-party system, because without buying off smaller parties (which are not shy of outright extortion because they have enough votes to hold small but key position and do not fear to look bad because they don't have to woo independents) no law and no budget can ever pass.

I'm not saying any of the systems is best or worst in each case, but multi-party system has as many, if not more, problems than two-party system.

Re: To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

#105

Post by smsm42 »

patrickk wrote: post #66
ams6110 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French would all be speaking German today if we (USA) had emulated them in the last century.

If you're talking about the allied victory in WWII, the soviets inflicted the vast majority of damage against the Germans. It's also quite disingenuous to bring up lazy stereotypes in a discussion. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4508901.stm

While it is true that Soviets did a major part of the actual combat work, they probably could not have done it without economic help from the US. If US were unable or unwilling to provide such help, it is not at all given that Soviet economy alone would have survived the onslaught. While the heroism of the Red Army people is unquestionable, one needs a lot of material resources to wage war, and without them even most heroic people can not win. Even Joseph Stalin - a man not known for being overly modest - acknowledged that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease

Re: To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

#107

Post by _delirium »

smsm42 wrote: post #103
_delirium wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On work hours, the Scandinavians do still have the Protestant work ethic culturally, but have been trying to cut back on number of hours, out of a theory (probably correct imo) that in a modern information economy it's more about quality of work than quantity of hours in chair. The current Danish workweek is 37 hours, and followed quite religiously. Everyone is on time and works efficiently during the day (no 2-hour…

It is true that quality is more important than quantity. But somehow in many cases people do use that as an excuse to slack off, and on the contrary, people delivering the best quality also those that do not skimp on quantity. If somebody knows how to do his thing in an excellent way, he'd probably also stay after 3pm on Friday to finish his thing. If his mind turns off at 3pm, then maybe he wasn't turned on too much…

I guess I don't think that's true. Imo, the best quality comes from companies with happy employees who have good work/life balances, not from the kind of places that expect employees to be chained to the boss.

Re: To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

#108

Post by randomafrican »

oofabz wrote: post #100
randomafrican wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>France and Germany are not so two-party. In the 53 years of France's current government, they have elected presidents from four parties. It's really two and a half. De Gaulle - Pompidou - Chirac -Sarkozy were part of the same party that morphed and changed names everytime there was a new leader. Miterrand - Hollande are the other. Giscard was a one-term president from a party that has always been a junior partner of…

Does Germany hold runoff elections? It looks like Merkel won in 2009 with only 34% of the vote. If they use the same system that the US does, that is probably why their elections only choose between the main two parties.

Actually, the Chancellor is elected by the bundestag and not directly by voters. And yes, it is required that more than half of the bundestag votes for the candidate.

Re: To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

#109

Post by [deleted] »

_delirium wrote: post #107
smsm42 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that quality is more important than quantity. But somehow in many cases people do use that as an excuse to slack off, and on the contrary, people delivering the best quality also those that do not skimp on quantity. If somebody knows how to do his thing in an excellent way, he'd probably also stay after 3pm on Friday to finish his thing. If his mind turns off at 3pm, then maybe he wasn't turned on too much…

I guess I don't think that's true. Imo, the best quality comes from companies with happy employees who have good work/life balances, not from the kind of places that expect employees to be chained to the boss.

[deleted]

Re: To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

#110

Post by smsm42 »

_delirium wrote: post #107
smsm42 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that quality is more important than quantity. But somehow in many cases people do use that as an excuse to slack off, and on the contrary, people delivering the best quality also those that do not skimp on quantity. If somebody knows how to do his thing in an excellent way, he'd probably also stay after 3pm on Friday to finish his thing. If his mind turns off at 3pm, then maybe he wasn't turned on too much…

I guess I don't think that's true. Imo, the best quality comes from companies with happy employees who have good work/life balances, not from the kind of places that expect employees to be chained to the boss.

You talk about coercion. I am talking about pride in one's work and not switching one's passions off when the clock hits 3pm. That doesn't prevent one from being happy and having good work/life balance, you know. I'm not saying it'd happen in 100% of cases. Nothing guarantees 100% happiness. I'm just saying if one's happiness lies in clocking off at 3pm and forgetting about everything till 9am on Monday I'm not sure if this person is a happy employee or just happy he's getting the money while spending as little time and effort as he can on the job.
Post reply on HN