There's a really disturbing movement against freedom of speech in the US that I never thought I would see.
"Vote blue no matter who" isn't gonna get us out of this one, and neither is donating to the ACLU and NPR.
[0] I prefer score voting, but I'll vote for anyone who will get any alternate form of voting out there. For an easy explanation of the different voting systems, look at https://ncase.me/ballot/
Because of the voting systems, parties need 4% of the votes to make it into the parliament, and all the votes for <4% parties are basically "lost".
The end effect was people not voting for the "new guy" because they liked the new guy, but because they didn't want the new guy to stay, causing a huge discrepancy between the the parties they actually wanted to win vs the voting results.
It's an unacceptable solution but it seems to me that the US is just too big and splitting it up would make more sense.
And yes, the power of individual representatives would be watered down, that's ok. It would be much closer to the direct democracy the parent comment suggested (and the reason I brought it up).
It allows representatives to deal with boring bills the public doesn't care about, but there are enough representatives that I can reasonably expect to be on a first name basis with my representative if I care enough to get involved.
CSPAN camera angles are limited on purpose to hide this, but most speeches are given to an empty or nearly empty chamber. Actual floor debate that might change viewpoints is rare to non-existent now - the real debate and discussion happens off of the floor in private intra-party meetings and lunches, or in 1:1 meetings between leadership.
We already have this. The divisions are called states. And it's solid argument for a weaker federal government.
The issue is coming up with the text of a bill to actually vote on and finding a way to avoid laws that contradict each other unintentionally.
Sadly, an average person is stupid, and half are even stupider.
Reduced crime, increased economic strength, increased education and skills, better overall wellbeing, a stronger economy, better health.
Whichever European country you're in, I'd wager that the .1% are using tax loopholes and straight up fraud to fleece more taxpayer money than 10k per citizen would cost.
Sounds a bit like you're a victim of class war propaganda. Try looking into BI and how it actually works.
If people are stupid and we need to be ruled by elites, then why do we have democracies? Why popular vote? Shouldn't we have PhD's decide who are rulers are?
Lookup "sortition", experiences show that common people tend to make better decison for the good of society, while any "club" (politicians, elites) end up working towards expanding their power.
Look how favourable our current laws are to politicians!!
There isn't a single far-left politician in the federal government. There are a few that are maybe left of center, but "far-left?" Absolutely not.
Show me a rep or senator calling for public ownership of the means of production and then we have a conversation, but there simply isn't one. Nobody with a say is advocating for abolishing money, the state, class, etc. Even the list of politicians that support worker unions is really short. The furthest left US politicians go is social democracy, which is just democracy with strong safety nets to help keep as many people as possible from rock bottom.
Private institutions are narrowing their versions of what was considered normative 'crude' behaviour into 'hate speech' which has implications. Netflix, Hulu etc. spend a lot of time defining what's appropriate and not in their programming, and someone uttering something 'counter narrative' is problematic for them (unless it makes them a lot of money).
That said, with Trump lying about the election, and others lying about vaccines, and foreign actors 100% trying to influence electoral outcomes (these are real things), it's an actual problem.
I mean, I don't care if RT.com is punted from anywhere, it's not relevant, but it's a slippery slope.
Did VISA, in the 1970s, kick people off of their network 'because speech'?
Did ABC Shipping refuse customers, 'because speech'?
That's not 'platforming' - those are just businesses that do business.
Second - what happened in the past is irrelevant.
Businesses should not really vetting customers unless there's a material reason.
Certainly banks, telcos, retail - should be barred from this. VISA is not 'platforming' anyone, that's ridiculous.
Twitter, Appstore - because they are directly related to the content, this is more arguably 'platforming' and there's more likely to be some kind of content management, but we have to be very careful about it.
Anybody not in that set saying something the rich and powerful don't agree with gets sued into oblivion and/or gets their soap box taken away.
All that is happening is that people want everyone to live by the same rules. Either nobody has consequences or everybody can have the soapbox taken away if the general public doesn't agree with them.
Billionaires have been too blatant with media manipulation for everyone else to be OK with the rules as they are.
BTW I'd also note that "free speech" American style is almost like a religion, you can't argue against it. I'd just note that no other country Europe (or the world) subscribes to this absolutist version of free speech. So it is reasonable that questions ensue questioning how great this "free speech" really is. Is lying by corporations really speech?
This is simply not true and I'm curious if you have any examples to support this.
> Anybody not in that set saying something the rich and powerful don't agree with gets sued into oblivion and/or gets their soap box taken away.
Again that is simply not true. In fact compared with the UK for instance it is _far_ harder to sue for libel or defamation in the US.
> Billionaires have been too blatant with media manipulation for everyone else to be OK with the rules as they are.
Rich people have access to resources the poor don't. That's not new.
> BTW I'd also note that "free speech" American style is almost like a religion, you can't argue against it. I'd just note that no other country Europe (or the world) subscribes to this absolutist version of free speech.
In general we are free speech absolutists. Honestly along with fast food, very entertaining movies and our love affair with guns it's quintessentially American.
The fast food and guns are still doing well though!
It's a scary precedent and even more scary that so many don't see what's happening.
> Billionaires have been too blatant with media manipulation for everyone else to be OK with the rules as they are.
The powerful have controlled the media in the past WAY more than they do now or even in recent decades. Even the people gaining control of the media recently are outside of the normal historical rich as they're all of the nouveau riche class.
This is all one more example of the recent trend of not wanting to bring UP the less privileged but to tear DOWN the privileged to the level of the less privileged. The former is beneficial for society the latter is self-destructive.
The result of lack of speech is violence. If people (parts of the rich) can't voice their opinion with words they do so with actions by galvanizing people into violent actions.
"Free speech absolutism" is a nonsensical slur. There are sensible restrictions on the freedom of speech that have been engrained into American jurisprudence. There actually used to be more exceptions (for instance, anti-war speech was illegal during World War 1) but, to their credit, the political left pushed for expanding those rights.
But yes, we do take our free speech with religious seriousness. That is because many of our ancestors came here to escape religious persecution from Europe (and other places). We do not wish to return to the bad old days where our beliefs could again be criminalized.