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Unpopular opinion: I agree with Pence. If Trump can win the presidency, after everything, then this stupid country deserves everything he can dish out. The "American experiment" was a failure.
I say this knowing that in MAGA land, people like me will be swinging from lampposts. But at least I'll be spared Empress Ivanka leading us in the climate wars.
Fully agree. No one should be prevented from voting or from running for office.
Many laws are based on practical reasons. Forbidding a criminal to run for president is one. Or will you be ok if for example Putin ran for the american presidency letting the people decide?
I'm fine with reasonable limits on who can run. I don't agree with letting politicians freely decide who can run by passing laws.
Representatives. They speak for you because your population elected them to represent you, don't like your politicians and their decisions then look inwards.
We need strong constraints for what laws politicians can pass. As a principle, I don't think politicians should get to decide who can run against them or who can vote for them.
If you like your politicians: I would suggest you should look inwards.
Stop voting against your interests.
Can you expand on what you mean?
Two party system, gerrymandering, first past the post, no preferential voting. These are all systems used to rig your elections that you and your countrymen voted for.
You voted and got the representatives that represent the will of the people, and the will of the American people either wants these things or is uneducated as to why they shouldn't want these things, but again, all are result of the choices of the people of your country.
Americans act like their voting is disenfranchised, yeah it is, because you chose to disenfranchise it.
I didn't vote for any of this. No one alive did. The system is rigged and deeply entrenched.
Americans act like their voting is disenfranchised, because it is - not much of a choice available to be made.
What are you talking about? Society is a work in progress not a "it wasn't my choice" situation. You get handed what you get handed and you fix it or fuck it while you've got it before you hand it to the next generation. You are not unique, every society is the same.
Americans have gotten exactly what they chose, and they chose to vote for representatives from amongst themselves to remove their own ability to choose effectively and/or maintain the grift.
Why haven't you voted for representatives that want to remove these systems? Because people that want to remove these systems don't represent the majority of your population so those choices don't exist. Simple as that.
Want politicians and representatives that represent your interests? Well if there isn't one, someone has to become one, which means you either choose to step up and represent your ideals yourself and represent other people like you by actively engaging in the system, or you don't, and you sit down and take a big ol' chug from that oversized mug of shut the fuck up, because in a democracy your vote is your only voice and the American people sold theirs to grifters for a broken promise.
Capitalism at it's finest.
I don't really disagree with any of this.
The system is rigged and entrenched - not open to change. It is bad, but not so bad that enough people will risk changing it.
But it is bad enough that people should risk changing it, Americans just aren't aware of this because they don't actually know how far behind the rest of the developed world they've fallen.
You pay more for healthcare for worse outcomes than any other developed nation, there are dirt poor countries with better healthcare and healthier people. https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/07/how-does-the-us-healthcare-system-compare-to-other-countries
Education has been gutted, in 2019 they merged the two highest levels of reading comprehension classification because not enough Americans were reading at the top level of comprehension, 54% of American adults read below a 6th grade comprehension level. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=6e4041fd4c90
You have practically no nationally recognised workers rights, you have no real employment protections, you have no guaranteed job security or benefits, no liveable minimum wage, and no food security in the richest nation on the planet. http://www.fairwork.gov.au
You don't get paid mataterity leave for a child that probably cost between 2.5k to 10k to have and you still get charged $50 for skin to skin contact with your own newborn.
You don't go to the doctors when you're unwell because you can't afford it, and your insurance doesn't actually insure you against the one thing it's supposed to; financial ruin.
"But my taxes go to the military"
What if I told you that universal healthcare, on it's own, would improve your national health and happiness standards, increase life expectancy, reduce the financial burden of the population, have enough left over to invest back into education, and you could still have the largest military in the world?
But Americans apparently don't want that. They want those things, but not if they have to share with their fellow Americans.
https://youtu.be/aNghg1Y-WIc