FPTP is extreme danger in uncertain and volatile times

[Queenmandy85]

2 hours ago, OftenWrong said:

You've simply forgetten that good, auld, adage my pappy used to say. "When in forums, remember to wear your boots, laddie. Wear your booooottttsss".

I deleted that post. I should not post anything before I've had my coffee and it was unfair to Myata. Yer Pappy was a wise soul, as are you. ?

 

[Queenmandy85]

10 hours ago, myata said:

Can't argue with a picture book.

Don't sell picture books short. I have a collection of 758 comic books. I have learned a lot from them, particularly from the Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck series. I learned about the 7 cities of Cibola from references to the Junior Woodchuck's Guide Book that Huey, Dewey and Louie always carried. I learned the Lone Ranger's Creed written by George Trendle and Fran Striker.  It may come from a comic book, but it is a great guide for life.

FYI: if you ever need a winning trivia question, What are Huey, Dewey and Louis real names? 

 

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

Across the West, except for the US which has its own problems, the political landscape is fracturing. At Canada’s founding the two biggest parties earned over 95% of the vote - now they are lucky to break 70%. This leads to a situation in FPTP where small regional parties can earn a disproportionate number of seats, e.g. the BQ here or the SNP in Scotland. Even with FPTP the decline of the major parties means we may be headed for a lot more minority government, an inherently unstable situation other countries address with coalitions (shock, horror). 

[eyeball]

18 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Even with FPTP the decline of the major parties means we may be headed for a lot more minority government, an inherently unstable situation other countries address with coalitions (shock, horror). 

It seems to me criticisms and legitimacy of coalitions ultimately come down to their ideological makeup and everything eventually defaults to left/right conservative/progressive paradigms.

If we want to avoid that, and I think we do, then I think some sort of formal PR system may be preferable to letting nature take its all to often uglier course.

[OftenWrong]

2 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

I deleted that post. I should not post anything before I've had my coffee and it was unfair to Myata. Yer Pappy was a wise soul, as are you. ?

 

Fine. Then I shall delete your quote.

[SpankyMcFarland]

Much as I’d like it, I have seen no enthusiasm for PR among the Canadian public. 

[myata]

3 hours ago, CdnFox said:

So in other words no you can't and in fact there isn't any. 

Now look who's blind or deaf or just dumb. "Can't" doesn't read "won't". Kids in the Grade like 3 would have gotten it in no time. You are a kiddo buddy or just retarded? (only factually objective and without a tiniest hint of offense). No one is obligated to quote a half of this board here just to satisfy your I haven't even a clue what, laziness, stdty?

[myata]

1 hour ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

I have seen no enthusiasm for PR among the Canadian public.

Sadly, it may have given in to the long, encapsulated and encoded in generations of uneventful coasting tradition of complacency. The first serious shake up will bring it right to the fore, while we long forgot how to understand and solve serious problems. And look at the bunch lining up before us in this century. It's gonna be fun.

[myata]

Just wondering how is it funny, that with a popular vote around 40% one gets a) a "majority" and b) a "landslide" and quite possibly c) total, unlimited by anything control of the government?

Imagine you called a groundhog "a gull"? Would it flap its legs to fly, what do you think? Does this parody have anything to do with a modern democratic government that earned its legitimacy with the majority of voters in a fair and open election, not some funny counting gimmick?

The only, one notch that separates it from open authoritarianism is that it can, in theory (media control, manipulation, bribing the populace with their own money etc) replace a totally screwed government with a different, thought hardly more competent one. This is not enough in this age and century.. not even close.

So, there's an easy answer here: brainless-ness; a grave deterioration of the function if not the organ that was supposed to do the processing of the reality; or incurable complacency. Do you have a better one?

Edited December 22, 2023 by myata

[CdnFox]

7 hours ago, eyeball said:

It seems to me criticisms and legitimacy of coalitions ultimately come down to their ideological makeup and everything eventually defaults to left/right conservative/progressive paradigms.

If we want to avoid that, and I think we do, then I think some sort of formal PR system may be preferable to letting nature take its all to often uglier course.

Just about any other system makes it worse unfortunately.  Any situation where you get into minorities and coalitions inevitably stops being about good governance and becomes  more about posturing and making a single point rather than succeeding. 

Think of it like this - if you have a 'winner takes all' as is fptp, then they have to run the next one on their track record delivering. It's their whole focus - must make economy gooder!  that sort of thing. So they create holistic plans that are designed to achieve a vision, and if they don't they get clobbered. So you tend to get real leadership or at least something closer to it.

But- if you had a bunch of parties like the greens and ppc and such each will cease to worry about the overall results because they're no longer rewarded for that - what they focus on is specific issues that appeal to the base.  Must destroy oil industry. Must get rid of immigration.  etc etc.  There is no plan, there's just a hodge podge of conflicting interests and there's no accountability because obviously everything is everyone else's fault!!!

 

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

Just about any other system makes it worse unfortunately. 

I can't stand our system so I'm willing to try virtually anything.

OTOH without meaningful verifiable institutions of transparency imposed on whoever is in charge of them I'm convinced there's not a one that can be judged appropriately enough to tell which is best.

[CdnFox]

55 minutes ago, eyeball said:

I can't stand our system so I'm willing to try virtually anything.

 

That doesn't make much sense - you may not like getting stabbed with needles but that doesn't make trying a knife a good idea

57 minutes ago, eyeball said:

OTOH without meaningful verifiable institutions of transparency imposed on whoever is in charge of them I'm convinced there's not a one that can be judged appropriately enough to tell which is best.

First off- usual caveate that transparancy is meaningless unless the public is willing to do something with it, which is  a problem in Canada....

but having said that - it's almost a seperate issue. Regardless of the model, the challenges of 'transparency' remain and are largely the same. So crack that one for one system and you've pretty much cracked it for all, and if you don't you havent'.  Who will guard the guardians is an age old skulltickler.

[myata]

There are exactly three first tier (or ostensibly) democracies that still use FPTP. Two of them are distinct, historical exceptions. Learn the skill of looking at an entity and seeing something entirely different, the opposite. Unleash your imagination. See the groundhog as a nightingale.

"Just about any other system makes it worse unfortunately"

[CdnFox]

51 minutes ago, myata said:

There are exactly three first tier (or ostensibly) democracies that still use FPTP. Two of them are distinct, historical exceptions. Learn the skill of looking at an entity and seeing something entirely different, the opposite. Unleash your imagination. See the groundhog as a nightingale.

"Just about any other system makes it worse unfortunately"

You know that cough syrup is just supposed to be used for coughs right?

[myata]

The whole culture of democratic politics is entirely different where one has to win the majority of votes, every single one counts, in an open contest with all other parties. It's lightyears away, another dimension, nothing even close to waiting up till the populace grows sick of your twin bud, and having no other choice pushes the finger for you and you call it a "landslide majority", dance sing and parade to celebrate non-existent and unearned "achievement".

Dressing up, the pomp, the media circus change nothing in the essence. It's only an imitation, a poor and pathetic facade show in place of a real functional democracy.

[CdnFox]

2 minutes ago, myata said:

The whole culture of democratic politics is entirely different where one has to win the majority of votes, every single one counts, in an open contest with all other parties. It's lightyears away, another dimension, nothing even close to waiting up till the populace grows sick of your twin bud, and having no other choice pushes the finger for you and you call it a "landslide majority", dance sing and parade to celebrate non-existent and unearned "achievement".

Dressing up, the pomp, the media circus change nothing in the essence. It's only an imitation, a poor and pathetic facade show in place of a real functional democracy.

Why is your brain like this?  Were you dropped as a child? Into some drugs? There's got to be a backstory....

Edited December 23, 2023 by CdnFox

[myata]

Now you can see who has no answers. What can be added here?

[eyeball]

11 hours ago, CdnFox said:

So crack that one for one system and you've pretty much cracked it for all,

Precisely.

Meanwhile any talk about which system of governance is better without cracking the transparency nut is pretty much a waste of time.

[CdnFox]

3 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Precisely.

Meanwhile any talk about which system of governance is better without cracking the transparency nut is pretty much a waste of time.

Well, that doesn't really hold true. 

First off, you seem to feel that "Transparency" is like a light switch - its all the way on or it's off. And that's not remotely even a little bit accurate. For example we have a  decent level of transparency right now in gov't.  There are reporting requirements for departments, budgeting reporting requirements, there's committees and such to look into various matters, there's ethics commissioners and so on.  And all these tools allow third party sources such as the media the ability to raise concerns and dig into issues. As well the media acts as a conduit for whistleblowers and 'anonomous tips'.

And these measures have caught a wide number of gov't acts that are questionable and brought them to the forefront. The list is actually pretty long.

So we already have a modest level of transparency, despite your somewhat simplistic claims otherwise. While it's always possible to improve generally speaking the public has a reasonable ability to know what's going on. The problem is people like you vote for trudeau even knowing what he's done  

Second off - transparency is useless entirely without the will AND the ability of the public to take action when a gov't is found to be doing something undesirable.  THe will is a seperate issue, but our system could be designed to allow the public to better hold the gov't to account. Recall legislation for example CAN be a very effective tool, even if nobody actually winds up being recalled as we saw in bc.

SO these discussions still matter.

[Legato]

PR is a witches cauldron where everything goes in and nothing good comes out.

 

[myata]

And the public here can do nothing, transparency or not. There are no mechanisms, absolutely and whatsoever, to keep in check fake "majority" governments whatever they do. This is a stupid jammed record that plays itself over and over, forever:

no matter what you do you can't change anything so what's the point of even thinking of a change?

Congrats. The dinosaurs tried that. They'd have much to say about the benefits of systems that were created perfect from day one and so needn't any change, ever.

[myata]

One thing one can do always though, is this: not participating in the obvious nonsense. OK, maybe you cannot change it, maybe it cannot be changed; but it doesn't mean that you have to accept it, and participate in it. No. Just stand away. Let it roll its way as far as it wants to but you can have, and keep your own. Accepting nonsense or insanity is like losing a part of your sanity and self. If the choice is rigged, if the outcome is predetermined from the outset, this isn't a fair game. You don't have to play.

Edited December 24, 2023 by myata

[Queenmandy85]

4 hours ago, myata said:

You don't have to play.

Now you have a plan. Well done.

Merry Christmas. ?

[CdnFox]

On 12/24/2023 at 1:46 AM, myata said:

One thing one can do always though, is this: not participating in the obvious nonsense. OK, maybe you cannot change it, maybe it cannot be changed; but it doesn't mean that you have to accept it, and participate in it. No. Just stand away. Let it roll its way as far as it wants to but you can have, and keep your own. Accepting nonsense or insanity is like losing a part of your sanity and self. If the choice is rigged, if the outcome is predetermined from the outset, this isn't a fair game. You don't have to play.

Absolutely - you definitely should be sitting the elections out

[myata]

Not that a two-year old would have an idea what the word means (not a baby "look mommy I can dance" show).