Sobriety can result in some strange behavior.

Keep It Real wrote:Obama was fucking great imo tho as well....we haven't had a leader that good for as long as I can remember lol

He made the bush tax cuts permanent which even the republicans couldn't do (apparently), did more drone strikes, ran out of bombs for syria and admitted he was a republican. He's now collecting $600k for speeches for doing Wall Streets bidding and don't forget he tried to sell off American soverignty via the TPP.

"A leader that good...."

Oh. Well there dies another unicorn.

Oh and he introduced a republican health care plan leaving out a public option and then campaigned AGAINST the guy who wanted the public option and ousted him.

Then there was the extrajudicial execution of American citizens carried out by drone attacks on foreign soil. Obama was far from the knight in shining armor the left would have us believe.

RS

theropod wrote:Then there was the extrajudicial execution of American citizens carried out by drone attacks on foreign soil. Obama was far from the knight in shining armor the left would have us believe.

RS

Didn't he also get rid of that pesky, oh what was it, Habeas corpus thing?

proudfootz wrote:Sobriety can result in some strange behavior.

Are you recommending I go to the off licence? Because I'm busily working on this again right now...

proudfootz wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:And yeah as this topic devolops I'm thinking more and more that better education is probably centrally important to anything we come up with.

I agree a knowledgeable electorate would be preferable.

So is it preferable to limit the electorate to the knowledgeable or effect the knowledge of the electorate.....I think the latter actually because the former is too weapon.....

The knowledge is already there. The problem is that there is a lack of will to seek it and particularly where that conflicts
with ones own political world view so it is a psychological issue not an educational one. It doesnt help either that politics
is very often binary and simply serves to reinforce division within society. There is zero point in having a better educated electorate with such a tribalistic system. So political parties should where ever possible try to work together rather than
be in eternal conflict with each other for reasons of ideology or tradition

Political parties cannot work together in a 1st past the post system at least for very long anyway.
As we have a 1st past the post system that isnt going to change very soon then logical how do you run a country when parties/people will not be working together

There was a Tory Lib Dem coalition which ran the full term from 20I0 to 20I5 and
the current Tory governnent is a minorty one which needs the support of the DUP

How well did that work out for everyone then?

Goal post shift.

Left or right goal post? Home or away team? Up/down/forward/backward/left/right? Half inch (pinch)? Half mile (smile)? Half kilometre (global warming thermometer)? Come on fal you're not being very precise

"Age ain't nothing but a number." Hands up who has never said that please. Why should unwise adults be allowed to vote and not wise 15 year olds? I mean, as the lynchpin of democracy doesn't the system deserve a better attempt at accuracy than "16 or older regardless of smarts, end of story, ugh"?

ETA, and the last couple of posts speak of soccer

Keep It Real wrote:Why should unwise adults be allowed to vote and not wise 15 year olds?

It's not really a very good bet that anyone is particularly wise. We only have intelligence tests, and not 'wisdom tests'. Nominating oneself is consequently taken as a test of unwisdom. Believing that humanity is perfectible is a warning sign of possible unwisdom, since that is what the religious nuts believe, but you may have a different set of criteria.

Keep It Real wrote:"Age ain't nothing but a number." Hands up who has never said that please. Why should unwise adults be allowed to vote and not wise 15 year olds? I mean, as the lynchpin of democracy doesn't the system deserve a better attempt at accuracy than "16 or older regardless of smarts, end of story, ugh"?

ETA, and the last couple of posts speak of soccer

Why should people be penalised for something they have no control over? Should we stop all people who have a mental health condition from voting because they can think irrationally?

6 year olds have feelings too, you know. I'll bet 90% would vote against mandatory vaccinations.

Sorry, did we come up with an actual method yet for testing if someone is wise and/or smart enough to vote? Because unless you can come up with that, everything else is pretty much mindless bullshitting.