The Current Events Thread

[Madican]

Which just confuses me again. If they only care about cheddar, why are they allowed to be in control of a country? If they know nothing about an economy, why are they allowed to ruin it?

[Exeres]

Because our system of government doesn't demand accountability, it demands the ability to manipulate the beliefs of the unwashed masses, which the politicians are of course very good at.

Five minutes editing this post, deleting and revising. There's nothing more to say. Voters are idiots, politicians are greedy, and something needs to change.

[Syobon]

Those are typical problems with democracy, here are some standard suggestions that usually help with those:

- Raising education standards is by far the most important one. Raising the intelligence of the voters will raise the intelligence of their vote.
- Lowering the entry requirements for political careers, in other words taking the cheddar out of politics. Democracy's intent is to choose the person most fit to lead out of the entire population, be they a rich businessman or a poor factory worker. Anyone willing to take the job should have the means to try and get elected for it. This is perhaps a bit naive of an ideal and probably unachievable, but the problem I see in America is that politicians need the support of large corporations to run their multi-million dollar campaigns. This puts power in to the hands of the rich, instead of the masses.

[Shad]

But your suggestions would make cheddar less important, so nobody in power (hence with cheddar) would apply these suggestions.

[DoNotDelete]

I'm not entirely sure that democracy or capitalism as they stand are working in everyone's best interests anymore.

It's not as if I have any solutions that are worth talking about though.

[Shad]

The best solution would be to find a way to stop people from being greedy, individualist fucks.

In other words, we're boned.

[Syobon]

But your suggestions would make cheddar less important, so nobody in power (hence with cheddar) would apply these suggestions.

In extreme cases, the only way to put a situation like that around is a revolution. But let's hope it will never have to come to that.

[Madican]

That's what I think OWS is going to lead to. If nothing changes and the politicians refuse to listen to the people, there will eventually be a fight. And then another one. And it won't stop until one side gives up.

The Founding Fathers even put it into the Declaration of Independence. Second paragraph.

[Syobon]

The problem in the US though is that they are way too prepared to deal with something like that. I don't see any violent revolution succeeding unless the military itself defects.

[Madican]

The thing about that is the military is not composed of the sons and daughters of the rich, but those of the middle and poverty class. If it did come down to outright revolution, I can see it being torn in two because it will be their own family members they're suppressing.

But who really knows. I just think that's how it's going to go down, but I hope it doesn't.

[Mr. Mander]

The military is made of people too. There's a good chance that a significant number of military personnel would refuse to get involved or outright defect if it came to a revolution.

Of course, this is assuming that we do have a violent revolution. I don't see it coming to arms any time soon.

[Lotharu]

The military pledges their loyalty to the Constitution, not the politicians. So, if something like that happened, the military SHOULD side with those more aligned with the Constitution, which, in this hypothetical scenario, would be the people rebelling, not the government.
You may have some generals in it for cheddar, but I'd like to believe most of the actual soldiers would side with the Constitution.

[Syobon]

I do see a potential problem with that, but idk if it's really risk since I dunno much about America's military, so bear with me here,

Couldn't the soldiers be fed false information and be "brainwashed" in to fighting against the rebels? I don't think that would be so hard to do and they didn't seem to have any problems with it during the Cold War.

[Mr. Mander]

People could be brainwashed into hating Communists and the like because Communists were over in Russia and China, and they were different and lived far away.

It is significantly more difficult to wage a propaganda campaign against your own populace.

[Syobon]

The trick is to separate the protesters from the actual populace. Since it will mostly be college students who actually go in to the streets, they could depict them as pot smoking hippies and such, who bother the good, true Americans who sit fearfully in their homes.

But yes, it is significantly more difficult.