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this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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The only difference between the Russian and US system is that instead of having one big party whose interests are entirely separated from the public and which completely crushes any opposition parties, we have two big parties whose interests are entirely separated from the public and which completely crush all opposition parties.
A sham democracy if there ever was one, but that's because the purpose of indirect democracy is less to decide on policy and more to select a strongman leader that's most appealing.
The Russian election was "rigged" in that there was only controlled opposition... But this is also not an inherently unique feature. When was the last time a US President was neither Democrat nor Republican?
The US needs ranked choice voting badly, but to say the only difference between the US and Russia is the two party system is just straight up incorrect. Opposition leaders and dissidents do not get regularly assassinated by the government in the US for starters.
Currently yes. But Trump's lawyers have argued in court that the President can't be found guilty of any crimes, including assassination of political rivals.
Because there's no need to do it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
The US has done some fucked up shit, no doubt, but that is about messing with foreign countries and has nothing to do with what we're talking about here: The US internally disappearing and/or killing anyone who speaks out against it.
The son of someone involved in a literal fascist overthrow plot in the 30s became the head of the CIA which takes over governments then the President. His son then stole an election and allowed 9/11 to happen
Nice non-sequitur but that doesn't excuse anyone of anything.
You live in a fascist country that the CIA literally overthrew the government of then instituted a crisis which ushered in a police state. Lots of people disappear and you don't know because they run your media. Your country maintains black sites around the world including Guantanamo Bay. Your electrify the balls of people and say welp we tortured some folks. You don't hear about it because whistleblowers regularly wind up dead. Consider yourself lucky that you are white passing enough or have enough money that you are protected from this and get to live in a bubble.
Death to America
I refer you to my previous comment.
Yes they do. What do you think happened to Martin Luther King Jr, Malcom X or Fred Hampton? What do you think happened or all the budding leaders you never hear about. You have a child's understanding of the world you live in.
Because you have no historical or material context at all this needs to be explained to you. You live in a totalitarian fascist police state and are not informed of the death that occurs around you.
Nice that you can throw around big words like non sequitur. You only can't follow this because you have an American education.
If that's something that regularly happens in the US, do you have any examples from the last decade, instead of three examples from 55-60 years ago?
Interesting also that you picked out the point that the obvious assassinations happened 55 years ago and are demanding evidence from the past 10 years only as if you haven't had the same now geriatric people in charge, but said nothing about the fact that you extremely recently in the past 10 years electrified the balls of people which is internationally recognized as torture in a country you made up the reason for invading. People defending their homes just like the Ukranians were tied up in American black sites while they electrified their testicles and took pictures of it smiling. You think these people aren't willing to kill threats?
It does regularly happen in the US and we are not informed. There is no mechanism for informing you or reporting on information from the interior of the US. There is a complete lockdown on information in your country. There are no more reputable journalists, no more reputable local news papers, no reputable national news organizations. 9/11 was your Reichstag fire and you don't even realize. Literally last week a military defense contractor whistleblower was killed. They're smart enough to kill these people early by police violence or pushing them into prison for made up non violent crimes before people are a problem.
There are over 2 million people incarcerated in the US, the largest number of any country in the world by far and one of the highest rate of incarceration by far. Your missing leaders are in there.
Ok, 60+ year old examples aside, how does any of that excuse anything anyone else does?
It fucking doesn't!
This is the actual non sequitur. Your original comment is this:
The US needs ranked choice voting badly, but to say the only difference between the US and Russia is the two party system is just straight up incorrect. Opposition leaders and dissidents do not get regularly assassinated by the government in the US for starters.
This is factually incorrect in regards to the US. Your government regularly does murder dissidents. Nowhere in this chain am I excusing Russia, I am explaining to you that the US and Russia are not different. You are both corrupt, capitalist, fascist military-industrial empires that must be destroyed and have no redeeming value. Your point here is a complete non sequitur.
Totalitarianism is about thought control. The US has that so tight over its population you can't even see the forest for the trees.
k, you just give Putin a free pass then buddy because if one nation does terrible shit that magically makes it all ok for everyone else. Totally reasonable.
Not sure where you got that anyone is getting a pass from, your ass probably because you aren't reading or understanding a god damn thing. Fuck Russia. Fuck America. Fuck you.
Personally I'd say score voting would make the most sense. Essentially it works like this, you get a list of parties and you vote them 1-5 on how much you agree with them. This changes the whole dynamics as you now aren't choosing who will rule, but how much you agree with each party ideologically and forcing you to research on their proposed mandate plans. It also serves as sort of an evaluation of how do you think each party has been addressing the country's issues before the election.
Mathematically, this may not ensure always the most happiness, but it ensures the least unhappiness compared to all current known voting methods (you can easily find research on how this was calculated in many papers on mathematics).
Personally i would also propose returning to the old Roman and the first proposed French republic system of having 2-3 consuls of the most voted for parties and they take turns proposing legislation to a senate that's a direct seated representation of the voting results.
As an interesting tidbit, the reason we have a president/prime Minister with all the power in most western democracies, is because Napoleon altered the original proposed 3 consul system into a prime consul with all the power then minor ministers because he was aiming to become Emperor and wanted to centralize the power. Our democratic systems are strongly influenced by the first French republic post the French revolution.
Simple 'first past the post' systems like they have in the US are flawed. The biggest problem is that clones (candidates or parties with similar positions) split the vote. For example, suppose 10% of the population wants Evil Dictator, but the other other 90% each want one of 18 different candidates as their first preference, evenly divided on first preferences (so 5% on first preferences), but rank any of the other 17 higher than Evil Dictator. So Evil Dictator has 10% of first preferences, but is the last preference for 90% of the population. The other candidates have 5% each.
First Past the Post would elect Evil Dictator in this circumstance. Better electoral systems (e.g. the Schulze method) would elect one of the other candidates.
This applies still if you elect a plurality of people - e.g. there could be two Evil Dictators, who 90% of the public oppose, but who have the highest vote because there are fewer of them to split the vote. Better systems like the better STV variants ensure proportionality (it avoids a landslide where the same voters determine all the representatives in a winner takes all approach). A larger parliament means more representation of the perspective of smaller minorities - so they are at least heard.
A "score" based voting system, if it is just a ranking of parties, could work like this. But if you are suggesting adding up the votes (so, for example, a 5 is worth 5x as much as a 1), the problem is tactical voting. People will, in practice, vote to make their vote count them most.
Let's say, for example, there are three candidates, Racist Evil Dictator, Racist, and Progressive. Let's say we know for granted almost everyone is going to score Racist Evil Dictator as 1. If a progressive was voting honestly, they might vote Progressive as a 5, and apart from the racism Racist might have been doing well, so they'd get a 3. The racist supporters, however, if they were being honest, would give Racist a 5 and Progressives a 3. Let's say there are 1000 progressive voters, and 600 racist voters. If voting honestly, the scores would be Progressive = 5 * 1000 + 3 * 600 = 6800, Racist = 5 * 600 + 3 * 1000 = 6000, Racist Dictator = 1 * 1600 = 1600. Now the problem is, you can't really get people to vote honestly. So let's say Racist riles up their followers to instead vote Progressive as a 1 to, even if they don't really think that. Now the scores are Progressive = 5 * 1000 + 1 * 600 = 5600, Racist = 5 * 600 + 3 * 1000 = 6000. Racist wins.
In practice, when a system allows people to vote tactically and have an advantage, it becomes a race to the bottom. That's how you end up with dynamics like the two-party system. A good voting system works by removing incentives to vote tactically - if you put your true preferences down, you will not be disadvantaged in your influence on the election, even if other people attempt to vote tactically. That means that genuine third parties have a chance if the people like them, even in the absence of coordination.
What opposition leaders? What dissidents?
Two of the top university presidents in the country were taken down after daring to question the common narrative on the conflict in Gaza.
A whistleblower for a government defence contractor was just assassinated in the middle of legal proceedings against that defence contractor.
Whistleblowers are hunted after: Assange is struggling to avoid extradition and Snowden is stuck in Russia after being pressured to leave everywhere else.
Meanwhile, even legitimate presidential candidates like Sanders are given every disadvantage, most notably in terms of (a lack of) funding and superdelegate votes in primaries.
I can't take you seriously at this point, we have protests here regularly and people speak out against the government like it's a hobby. To imply otherwise is farcical to say the least.
To the same extent this is true in both Russia and China, yes. Yet, what are their impacts on policy?
No.
Not even close.
Neither of those countries have constitutionally protected free speech and they both regularly disappear their people, even in other countries.
Like that Boeing whistleblower last week?
You're making it seem like things are so much better here.
I'm sorry, are you trying to suggest that the US government offed a whistle blower for Boeing??? Why would they even do that? To what end?
Article 29 of Russian constitution and Article 35 of Chinese constitution prove you wrong.
Lmfao and I can write on a piece of paper I'm the king of France but at the end of the day it's just a piece of paper with writing on it and no enforcement. They have it written on the constitution so they can say they have it, but then the ruling party does whatever it wants.
Again, what are the recent policy impacts of this "free speech"?
I can point to a very clear example of Chinese protests netting real, tangible policy change at the national level: Chinese protests took down Zero COVID policy. This is recent, large-scale, national, and resulted in a real and tangible change in government policy.
What can you point to in the US over that same time frame? I guess the march on Washington in support of Israel's genocide?
Again, you conveniently skirting around the point and I'm not going to continue discussing with someone not arguing in good faith.
Oh, true! Perhaps someone could remind russki police of that next time they're being arrested for holding a blank sheet of paper. Y'all sound dumb as hell.
It seems there’s an unspoken community rule against Un-American Activities
Incorrect. They were rigged pretty much completely, as some data shows. Something about 30 million fake votes.
tell that to Daphne Caruana Galizia
US politics is absolutely retarded but at least you aren't going to fall out of a window for criticizing the president.
No, but if you blow the whistle on a US company you might end up suicided.
Oh yea, true but that less about politics and more about capitalist creed. The US also has a police system that seemingly runs on the ritual sacrifice of innumerable black folk and pets but that is also not relevant.
Capitalist greed is what influences the base of US politics, though.
How can you possibly separate politics from capitalist greed. The government represents the class that holds power, and US it's the capital owning class.
In Russia the olicarchs are directly ruling the country so you can't criticise them without endangering your life. In the US the capitalist class heavily influences the politics but isnt the one directly ruling the country so you can criticise the politicians all you want. That's the difference I was pointing out.
I hope you enjoy your freedom of screaming into the void while being exploited.