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

Chrkeller said:

Can't bad people simply be bad people? Why does a person need to be put into a political bucket? Bad people exist across all demographics.

Absolutely bad people exist everywhere. The point of these conversations isn't "Republicans are violent monsters, look at this one random guy for proof". 

That's not how science or logic work. It's anecdotal/ it's cherry picking/etc. 

The point of these conversations is that "sometimes people are bad" by itself doesn't give us much to work with. We have to ask "why are people sometimes bad?" Is it because they were motivated by religious propaganda or political propaganda or were they motivated by their mental state (which again might bring us to is their mental state motivated by economics/religion/etc)? 

 

Understanding motivations gives us something to work with. Where did he get these ideas, why did he want to do it, what exactly was he hoping to accomplish? Those are productive questions. 

Figuring out that someone was being exposed to anti-American propaganda or anti-Democratic propaganda or anti-conservative propaganda gives us something to work with.  

That gets us to the next part where we can figure out how to handle dangerous propaganda, of any kind. 

Or figuring out anything else that might have motivated this event brings us to something else that might be solvable. 



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  1. Ending the filibuster.
    1. It is by definition an anti democratic tool that will be used to shot down any attempts at reforming pretty much anything.
  2. Reform campaign financing to reduce corruption and end wealth influence over government policies.
  3. Ranked choice voting
  4. Tie representative voting power to the number of vote he/she received. 
    1. This should render gerrymandering useless
    2. Ensure a vote have equal value everywhere in the US no matter how populous the state is.
  5. Give every US citizen the same right to vote by giving statehood to territories that lack one.
    1. This is an obvious flaws to the US democracy and anyone biding against this is clearly not for democracy
  6. Removing the electoral college as it doesn't bring any good for democracy at it's best and can harm it at it's worse.
  7. More accessible and better education.



EpicRandy said:
Chrkeller said:

Can't bad people simply be bad people? Why does a person need to be put into a political bucket? Bad people exist across all demographics.

You don't need to put bad person into a political bucket but some do this to themselves. A bad behavior or action is rarely devoid of motive, understanding those motive help take the right action. If one crime have been committed because of one party political rhetoric and repeated half veiled call for violence against actors of the opposing party than it needs to be called out.

I'll have to disagree greatly.  I think bad people do bad things all the time without any real motivation.  Just look at school shootings...  what is the motivation other than to cause harm?  Bad people do bad things.  I don't think there is ever going to be a short answer on why people do the things they do.  



Chrkeller said:
EpicRandy said:

You don't need to put bad person into a political bucket but some do this to themselves. A bad behavior or action is rarely devoid of motive, understanding those motive help take the right action. If one crime have been committed because of one party political rhetoric and repeated half veiled call for violence against actors of the opposing party than it needs to be called out.

I'll have to disagree greatly.  I think bad people do bad things all the time without any real motivation.  Just look at school shootings...  what is the motivation other than to cause harm?  Bad people do bad things.  I don't think there is ever going to be a short answer on why people do the things they do.  

I said rarely not never, an action normally have reason and motive, school shooting are often done by those who felt left out of society and try to do the most harm so they can to be noticed or heard. If it was completely devoid of motive than it should not have any more value to the person committing said action than anything else they could do at that moment.

A bad action to be completely devoid of motive would be done by those unable to even begin to process the effect of their own action. Like a 3-4 year old firing a found gun at his/her sibling. It is also without any premeditation.



EpicRandy said:
Chrkeller said:

I'll have to disagree greatly.  I think bad people do bad things all the time without any real motivation.  Just look at school shootings...  what is the motivation other than to cause harm?  Bad people do bad things.  I don't think there is ever going to be a short answer on why people do the things they do.  

I said rarely not never, an action normally have reason and motive, school shooting are often done by those who felt left out of society and try to do the most harm so they can to be noticed or heard. If it was completely devoid of motive than it should not have any more value to the person committing said action than anything else they could do at that moment.

A bad action to be completely devoid of motive would be done by those unable to even begin to process the effect of their own action. Like a 3-4 year old firing a found gun at his/her sibling. It is also without any premeditation.

To me this is a chicken versus the egg kind of thing.  Do people have motive and then commit crimes.  Or do bad people commit bad acts, apply some made up motive to justify their actions?  Heck if I know.  Bad people need to be removed from society.    



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Chrkeller said:
EpicRandy said:

I said rarely not never, an action normally have reason and motive, school shooting are often done by those who felt left out of society and try to do the most harm so they can to be noticed or heard. If it was completely devoid of motive than it should not have any more value to the person committing said action than anything else they could do at that moment.

A bad action to be completely devoid of motive would be done by those unable to even begin to process the effect of their own action. Like a 3-4 year old firing a found gun at his/her sibling. It is also without any premeditation.

To me this is a chicken versus the egg kind of thing.  Do people have motive and then commit crimes.  Or do bad people commit bad acts, apply some made up motive to justify their actions?  Heck if I know.  Bad people need to be removed from society.    

It isn't, crimes have motives however flawed it is. If an action is devoid of motive than it has no more value to the person committing it than any other action like raising your arm when your alone. Motive can be senseless though but their still is.

A person may use made up motive to justify their act but there still is true motives behind it. 



Chrkeller said:
EpicRandy said:

You don't need to put bad person into a political bucket but some do this to themselves. A bad behavior or action is rarely devoid of motive, understanding those motive help take the right action. If one crime have been committed because of one party political rhetoric and repeated half veiled call for violence against actors of the opposing party than it needs to be called out.

I'll have to disagree greatly.  I think bad people do bad things all the time without any real motivation.  Just look at school shootings...  what is the motivation other than to cause harm?  Bad people do bad things.  I don't think there is ever going to be a short answer on why people do the things they do.  

Revenge. Or do you think it's coincidence that the shooter was pretty much always a pupil at exactly the same school that he chose to start a shooting?

There are types of crimes that don't require any great plan to carry out, hence why such crimes typically do have a short answer (read: a single primitive motivation). Bad people typically lack empathy, meaning that they don't consider or don't care about the consequences of their actions for other people.

In this specific case it was a politically motivated crime, because the culprit had no personal connection to his intended victim who is a politician; there's no doubt that his victim wasn't chosen at random. It shouldn't bother conservative Americans that the culprit was a far-right nutjob, because all one has to do is to distance oneself from far-right ideologies. The entire longwinded conversation that has been going on for several days exists for no other reason than ConservagameR not being a conservative.



Legend11 correctly predicted that GTA IV will outsell Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I was wrong.

EpicRandy said:
Chrkeller said:

To me this is a chicken versus the egg kind of thing.  Do people have motive and then commit crimes.  Or do bad people commit bad acts, apply some made up motive to justify their actions?  Heck if I know.  Bad people need to be removed from society.    

It isn't, crimes have motives however flawed it is. If an action is devoid of motive than it has no more value to the person committing it than any other action like raising your arm when your alone. Motive can be senseless though but their still is.

A person may use made up motive to justify their act but there still is true motives behind it. 

Perhaps.  My experience is limited, but my sister in-law dated a convicted felon.  His family and her family (including me) did everything we could to get him back up and running in society...  it was a complete shit show.  He constantly made poor choices, always had a piss poor excuse and blamed everybody but himself.  We may have to disagree.  I think there is a good many people who are simply bad.  Some dogs bite, others don't.  Genetics, good and bad, do exist.  

Edit

I think my annoyance is political blaming for bad people, such as the Minnesota riots that went on for a period of time.  Violence shouldn't be leveraged for political gain.

Last edited by Chrkeller - on 15 November 2022

Chrkeller said:
EpicRandy said:

It isn't, crimes have motives however flawed it is. If an action is devoid of motive than it has no more value to the person committing it than any other action like raising your arm when your alone. Motive can be senseless though but their still is.

A person may use made up motive to justify their act but there still is true motives behind it. 

Perhaps.  My experience is limited, but my sister in-law dated a convicted felon.  His family and her family (including me) did everything we could to get him back up and running in society...  it was a complete shit show.  He constantly made poor choices, always had a piss poor excuse and blamed everybody but himself.  We may have to disagree.  I think there is a good many people who are simply bad.  Some dogs bite, others don't.  Genetics, good and bad, do exist.  

Dangerous harmful rhetoric also exists. I don't think every single person that stormed the capitol on Jan 6 was a 'bad person' or had bad intentions.
If someone convinces you that an election was stolen from them, that can drive people into desperation and commiting irrational acts.

If someone is intentionally lying to people in order to convince them of this, then they have a big responsibility for what happens.
The person that went into a pizza place with a shotgun because he heard from Alex Jones that Hillary Clinton runs child pedophile sex traffic ring in its basement, yeah he probably had some screws loose already, but should we just ignore the scumbags that prey on these gullible individuals for their own personal gain?

I don't think everyone that supported Hitler during WW2 was a 'bad person' either. They were decieved, and the main root of that problem was the Nazi party.

The blog of the guy that attacked Pelosi is clearly influencesd by many of these far-right ideologies that are no longer just fringe, but are echoed by their mainstream media and even some of their elected officials.

No one is giving him a pass for what he did. They're just also trying to hold the ones that influenced him accountable.
Because there will just be more and more avoidable incidents as long as that continues.

Last edited by Hiku - on 15 November 2022

Hiku said:
Chrkeller said:

Perhaps.  My experience is limited, but my sister in-law dated a convicted felon.  His family and her family (including me) did everything we could to get him back up and running in society...  it was a complete shit show.  He constantly made poor choices, always had a piss poor excuse and blamed everybody but himself.  We may have to disagree.  I think there is a good many people who are simply bad.  Some dogs bite, others don't.  Genetics, good and bad, do exist.  

Dangerous harmful rhetoric also exists. I don't think every single person that stormed the capitol on Jan 6 was a 'bad person' or had bad intentions.
If someone convinces you that an election was stolen from them, that can drive people into desperation and commiting irrational acts.

If someone is intentionally lying to people in order to convince them of this, then they have a big responsibility for what happens.
The person that went into a pizza place with a shotgun because he heard from Alex Jones that Hillary Clinton runs child pedophile sex traffic ring in its basement, yeah he probably had some screws loose already, but sould we just ignore the scumbags that prey on these gullible individuals for their own personal gain?

The blog of the guy that attacked Pelosi is clearly influencesd by many of these far-right ideologies that are no longer just fringe, but are echoed by their mainstream media and even some of their elected officials.

No one is giving him a pass for what he did. They're just also trying to hold the ones that influenced him responsible.
Because there will just be more and more avoidable incidents as long as that continues.

Perhaps that is my disconnect.  I mean who is dumb enough to believe a child sex ring exists in a pizza joint?  Or Sandy Hook was staged?  Or the election was stolen?  Vaccines are tracking devices?  I just don't get how people fall for such stupidity.  Maybe people simply aren't as smart as I think they are.