By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Politics Discussion - The US is ranked as a 'Flawed Democracy', what needs to change?

the-pi-guy said:
ConservagameR said:

What's the point in even asking if so many are afraid to speak because of who and how many are silenced?

Might be a good place to start.

Who do you think is being silenced?

Me for example, a conservative gay man. I’m not allowed to have a voice in the majority of situations—all through college and my personal life simply because “gay” and “conservative” doesn’t blend well with the people who are supposed to be inclusive and diverse.

(Hint, diversity and inclusiveness can’t be achieved if you don’t include those you disagree with) 

The only reason I mention that group of people is because of how I was born, people expect and assume me to have a set beliefs due to one aspect of myself. It happens to be the type of people that I’m automatically grouped with. 

Last edited by Paatar - on 25 October 2022

[Switch Friend code: 3909-3991-4970]

[Xbox Live: JissuWolfe]

[PSN: Jissu]

Around the Network
Paatar said:

Me for example, a conservative gay man. I’m not allowed to have a voice in the majority of situations—all through college and my personal life simply because “gay” and “conservative” doesn’t blend well with the people who are supposed to be inclusive and diverse.

According to who?

Paatar said:

(Hint, diversity and inclusiveness can’t be achieved if you don’t include those you disagree with) 

Hint: intolerance and tolerance are opposites. You can't have a tolerant world by propping up intolerant viewpoints.

There's no issue with people having "conservative" views. Lower taxes, that's fine.

But if those "conservative" views are opposed to other people existing, that can't work.



My view is that the U.S is as it was intended to be by its slave-holding gentry constructors. It has a "classical small "r" republican mixed government." 

Not much can be done to change the U.S to be small "d" democratic. 

If one wants democracy in the country controlled by the United States one should support the abolition of the United States and promote liquid democracy in agro-industrial federations of associated producers and geo-communal federations after the capitalist class and middle classes are subsumed into the working class majority.



the-pi-guy said:
Paatar said:

Me for example, a conservative gay man. I’m not allowed to have a voice in the majority of situations—all through college and my personal life simply because “gay” and “conservative” doesn’t blend well with the people who are supposed to be inclusive and diverse.

According to who? <—— literally the majority of gay people/people on the left. I’ve gotten more hate from them than anyone on the right or who is religious. 

Paatar said:

(Hint, diversity and inclusiveness can’t be achieved if you don’t include those you disagree with) 

Hint: intolerance and tolerance are opposites. You can't have a tolerant world by propping up intolerant viewpoints.

There's no issue with people having "conservative" views. Lower taxes, that's fine.

But if those "conservative" views are opposed to other people existing, that can't work.

You do realize you make up the whole “conversatives don’t believe certain people should exist” thing, right? It’s a loaded and over exaggerated way to express being against the right so that you come out morally on top because they believe that views that I’m assuming you appear to have are intolerant.  

while yes, there are people who believe certain people shouldn’t exist, those people are on all sides of the political spectrum, not just the right. The majority of people on the right do not care how people live. 

What you define as intolerant, others define as tolerant, and Vice versa. Setting up boundaries and lines in the political and social world is not intolerant—going too far with certain ideas has more negative ramifications than most people understand. 



[Switch Friend code: 3909-3991-4970]

[Xbox Live: JissuWolfe]

[PSN: Jissu]

Paatar said:

You do realize you make up the whole “conversatives don’t believe certain people should exist” thing, right? It’s a loaded and over exaggerated way to express being against the right so that you come out morally on top because they believe that views that I’m assuming you appear to have are intolerant.  

There's a reason why I put "conservative" in quotes.

I don't believe that all conservatives feel that way about people. But I know plenty of conservatives that absolutely feel that way. And they absolutely feel that those things are part of their platform. 

Paatar said:

 The majority of people on the right do not care how people live. 

You say that, and yet they constantly push back against people living certain ways.

Republican legislatures pushing back against gay marriage, trans people getting health care, etc. 

Paatar said:

What you define as intolerant, others define as tolerant, and Vice versa. 

Do you have an example?

Last edited by the-pi-guy - on 25 October 2022

Around the Network
the-pi-guy said:
Paatar said:

You do realize you make up the whole “conversatives don’t believe certain people should exist” thing, right? It’s a loaded and over exaggerated way to express being against the right so that you come out morally on top because they believe that views that I’m assuming you appear to have are intolerant.  

There's a reason why I put "conservative" in quotes.

I don't believe that all conservatives feel that way about people. But I know plenty of conservatives that absolutely feel that way. And they absolutely feel that those things are part of their platform. 

- Quotes don't mean anything other than quoting something--there are better ways to explain your meaning. Once again though, people who believe certain people shouldn't exist is not exclusive to the right. 

Paatar said:

 The majority of people on the right do not care how people live. 

You say that, and yet they constantly push back against people living certain ways.

Republican legislatures pushing back against gay marriage, trans people getting health care, etc. 

- Legislature is not trying to push back gay marriage. It has been spun that way so that voters vote for the left--it's very easy to manipulate stories and control votes. Same thing happened with the "Don't say gay" bill--where the bill never even mentioned the word gay. It just prohibits the talk about sexual conduct, both straight and gay, in 3rd grade and lower classrooms. Which is something all of us should agree with--kids that young do not need that stuff in their classrooms. 

Paatar said:

What you define as intolerant, others define as tolerant, and Vice versa. 

Do you have an example?

- Give me a specific example of something you want me to rebuttal, and I'll provide it. 

Sorry about the formatting--haven't actually ever used the multi-quote feature.



[Switch Friend code: 3909-3991-4970]

[Xbox Live: JissuWolfe]

[PSN: Jissu]

I don't know if we can make the country more "democratic", the thing is everything is always rigged, you have senators here for more than 30 years with no experience than voting for the law you agree to vote for if the guy sitting next to you give his sandwich his wife made.


Maybe not allowing people to have a mandate more than twice, as it is the case for the US president. I mean, if you will serve the country, you cannot do it for ever, you need to have a real job before and after too.

Last edited by AJNShelton - on 25 October 2022

Paatar said:

Quotes don't mean anything other than quoting something. there are better ways to explain your meaning. Once again though, people who believe certain people shouldn't exist is not exclusive to the right. 

Quotation marks are used for plenty of things.

Quotation marks within an emphatic context should tell readers that the content in quotes means something other than what it usually would. In many cases, one might even interpret text within emphatic quotation marks as a wink to the audience

Quotation marks, also known as inverted commas, are normally used for quotation, as their American name suggests, or to mark a title (book, film, etc), or to enclose a foreign, technical, or otherwise potentially unfamiliar word. Standard use of these marks encompasses variation: they can be single or double, and may be punctuated differently around stops, depending on local conventions. Quotation marks can also highlight that a word is being used somehow peculiarly – a writer may wish to indicate irony, inaccuracy, or scepticism, for example; used this way, they’re called scare quotes. In the line: At the party I met a teacher, a journalist, and an ‘artist’, the scare quotes around artist act as a distancing device, probably signalling doubt about the person’s credentials as an artist. The effect is similar to the Irish phrase mar dhea.

Which here means, people call themselves conservative, and they hold these views. 

Paatar said:

Same thing happened with the "Don't say gay" bill--where the bill never even mentioned the word gay. It just prohibits the talk about sexual conduct, both straight and gay, in 3rd grade and lower classrooms. Which is something all of us should agree with--kids that young do not need that stuff in their classrooms. 

It does a lot more than that.

The actual bill

SEXUALLY-ORIENTED MATERIAL.—The term ‘‘sexually-oriented material’’ means any depiction, description, or simulation of sexual activity, any lewd or lascivious depiction or description of human genitals, or any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects

In other words, the bill covers gender dysphoria, and sexual orientation.

There's a pretty massive difference between gender identity, sexual orientation and sexual activity.

Paatar said:

Give me a specific example of something you want me to rebuttal, and I'll provide it. 

You claimed that tolerance sometimes meant intolerance, and vice versa. Give an example.



sc94597 said:

My view is that the U.S is as it was intended to be by its slave-holding gentry constructors. It has a "classical small "r" republican mixed government." 

Not much can be done to change the U.S to be small "d" democratic. 

If one wants democracy in the country controlled by the United States one should support the abolition of the United States and promote liquid democracy in agro-industrial federations of associated producers and geo-communal federations after the capitalist class and middle classes are subsumed into the working class majority.

To expand on my comment here. Think of how hard it would be to transition the U.S to multi-membered districts. 

You'd not only have to fight against the Republican Party but also the Democratic Party as both parties are invested in maintaining first past the post because it is that where they derive their power. 

Hell, look at what happened in Canada when Trudeau ran his initial platform on abolishing FPTP and then never actually did that. And a Canadian prime minister has more power over legislation than any single person in the U.S system does.

It would take action on the order of a political revolution to move to multi-membered districts, one of the mildest small "d" democratic reforms. 

If it takes that much political will, why not just fundamentally change the social system and create the most democratic institutions in the world? 

The options are either tinkering with the status-quo which won't fundamentally change anything or amassing a mass movement which shouldn't stop at moderate reforms but should actually transform us away from the capitalism that threatens human existence.



“People being silenced” is not part of the reason the US is classified as a flawed democracy. In fact, freedom of speech and pluralism is the one area where the US scores exceptionally well with a 9.58/10.

So while you might have an anecdote of some person being silenced in some social circle, in the grand scheme of things it’s not impacting the democracy of the US negatively. Rather, the democracy of the US is positively impacted by its freedom of speech and pluralism.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.