Market politics

[neroden]

The point I was about to make. 18 US Code 2331 defines domestic terrorism as:

(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

Interestingly this section was added to the legal definitions with the Patriot Act in October 2001.

By this definition Donald Trump is clearly a domestic terrorist. Locking young children in makeshift prisons and separating them from their parents was dangerous to human life, a violation of the criminal laws of the United States, and was intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population. (He *said* it was intended to.)

:sigh: Somehow I suspect he won't be prosecuted.

 

[gilscales]

By this definition Donald Trump is clearly a domestic terrorist. Locking young children in makeshift prisons and separating them from their parents was dangerous to human life, a violation of the criminal laws of the United States, and was intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population. (He *said* it was intended to.)

:sigh: Somehow I suspect he won't be prosecuted.

By your logic the former president Obama is a domestic terrorist as well, according to you

Those photos of immigrant children “caged” by the US? They’re from 2014

 

[AudubonB]

Not sure about that, if you look at what Neroden's post showed of the statute. I don't believe you would be able to tack the necessary sections Bi, Bii or Biii onto the current president's predecessor.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Bringing my reply here instead of in the Market Action thread :

There is nothing naïve about thinking that in a democracy, what 70% of people want will get passed. Esp, when it is already been done in every other high & mid income level country.

Is there any other issue that one party totally opposes but has 70% approval ? We may not get Medicare For All in the next 4 years, but it is inevitable. It might even happen before TSLA hits 700 !

70% of Americans now support Medicare-for-all—here's how single-payer could affect you

Well, for example : Guns

86%-92% (depending on when you run the poll and how you phrase it) of Americans believe we should have background checks for all gun sales. This is a wildly popular concept. Even "gun people" are in favor because as it is AFAIK only guns stores can perform background checks. You can't do a background check for a private sale, and there's lots of private sales. So you never know if the person you're selling to is shady (and might rip you off, etc), and being able to have a background check actually makes those private sales safer. The problem is, in usual political football fashion, elected democrats want to make them mandatory, and elected republicans want to make them optional but available, and they will never agree, so nothing happens.

75% are in favor of mandatory 30 day waiting periods for all guns

70% in favor of registering all guns with police (I'm actually surprised it's this high)

68% in favor of raising the legal age to purchase "certain firearms" (I'm not even entirely sure what this means) from 18 to 21

The media would have us believe that nobody on the right supports any of these things (any kind of gun reform/restriction/whatever you want to call it), but clearly the constituents must because otherwise you couldn't get such high %'s of support.

However, since we've become an oligarchy, only the elites (rich and corporate) get what they want - the rest of us just get a 30% chance of anything passing with no correlation to how much we want it. See also the study and the reply to critics of the study.

(via Wolf-PAC)

Independent studies, such as one conducted by Professors Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, have confirmed that public opinion holds "only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” This same research identified a measurable correlation between what those who could afford lobbyists wanted, and what laws were ultimately passed by Congress.

(via Represent.Us)

In the last 5 years alone, the 200 most politically active companies in the U.S. spent $5.8 billion influencing our government with lobbying and campaign contributions.

Those same companies got $4.4 trillion in taxpayer support – earning a return of 750 times their investment

At least on the gun front, perhaps with the NRA slowly running out of money (since they don't represent actual gun owners, more and more have left the NRA, their membership is shrinking, but they keep spending on campaigns and such), perhaps eventually something happens just because the politicians will no longer be paid to have nothing happen.

Or maybe we actually get some politicians who represent us. The "blue wave" seems to be bringing in a bunch of promising not yet corrupted candidates, but many more already were defeated in primaries against the corrupt incumbents before even reaching the general election. So even if every one of these fresh new faces who claim to be uncorrupted are uncorrupted and stay that way, and we get a few more every 2 years, it's going to be a long slog until we have enough to do something about it.

 

[Intl Professor]

At least on the gun front, perhaps with the NRA slowly running out of money (since they don't represent actual gun owners, more and more have left the NRA, their membership is shrinking, but they keep spending on campaigns and such), perhaps eventually something happens just because the politicians will no longer be paid to have nothing happen.

And, withal, there is some suspicion they have been financed by the Russians. As the great orange says, "we shall see."

 

[wdolson]

Bringing my reply here instead of in the Market Action thread :



Well, for example : Guns

86%-92% (depending on when you run the poll and how you phrase it) of Americans believe we should have background checks for all gun sales. This is a wildly popular concept. Even "gun people" are in favor because as it is AFAIK only guns stores can perform background checks. You can't do a background check for a private sale, and there's lots of private sales. So you never know if the person you're selling to is shady (and might rip you off, etc), and being able to have a background check actually makes those private sales safer. The problem is, in usual political football fashion, elected democrats want to make them mandatory, and elected republicans want to make them optional but available, and they will never agree, so nothing happens.

75% are in favor of mandatory 30 day waiting periods for all guns

70% in favor of registering all guns with police (I'm actually surprised it's this high)

68% in favor of raising the legal age to purchase "certain firearms" (I'm not even entirely sure what this means) from 18 to 21

The media would have us believe that nobody on the right supports any of these things (any kind of gun reform/restriction/whatever you want to call it), but clearly the constituents must because otherwise you couldn't get such high %'s of support.

However, since we've become an oligarchy, only the elites (rich and corporate) get what they want - the rest of us just get a 30% chance of anything passing with no correlation to how much we want it. See also the study and the reply to critics of the study.

(via Wolf-PAC)

(via Represent.Us)


At least on the gun front, perhaps with the NRA slowly running out of money (since they don't represent actual gun owners, more and more have left the NRA, their membership is shrinking, but they keep spending on campaigns and such), perhaps eventually something happens just because the politicians will no longer be paid to have nothing happen.

Or maybe we actually get some politicians who represent us. The "blue wave" seems to be bringing in a bunch of promising not yet corrupted candidates, but many more already were defeated in primaries against the corrupt incumbents before even reaching the general election. So even if every one of these fresh new faces who claim to be uncorrupted are uncorrupted and stay that way, and we get a few more every 2 years, it's going to be a long slog until we have enough to do something about it.

Only about 1/4 of Americans own any guns at all, and 3% of gun owners own 1/2 of all the guns. How many people have arsenals like the Las Vegas shooter?
Three percent of the population own half of the civilian guns in the US

Another area where politicians ignored the will of the people was in Washington State which had the most open primary in the country. SCOTUS ruled that primaries are run by the parties and they can do what they want, so both parties went about changing state law for primaries, even though something like 92% of the population said they liked the open primary system.

 

[AZRI11]

Bringing my reply here instead of in the Market Action thread :



Well, for example : Guns

86%-92% (depending on when you run the poll and how you phrase it) of Americans believe we should have background checks for all gun sales. This is a wildly popular concept. Even "gun people" are in favor because as it is AFAIK only guns stores can perform background checks. You can't do a background check for a private sale, and there's lots of private sales. So you never know if the person you're selling to is shady (and might rip you off, etc), and being able to have a background check actually makes those private sales safer. The problem is, in usual political football fashion, elected democrats want to make them mandatory, and elected republicans want to make them optional but available, and they will never agree, so nothing happens.

75% are in favor of mandatory 30 day waiting periods for all guns

70% in favor of registering all guns with police (I'm actually surprised it's this high)

68% in favor of raising the legal age to purchase "certain firearms" (I'm not even entirely sure what this means) from 18 to 21

The media would have us believe that nobody on the right supports any of these things (any kind of gun reform/restriction/whatever you want to call it), but clearly the constituents must because otherwise you couldn't get such high %'s of support.

However, since we've become an oligarchy, only the elites (rich and corporate) get what they want - the rest of us just get a 30% chance of anything passing with no correlation to how much we want it. See also the study and the reply to critics of the study.

(via Wolf-PAC)

(via Represent.Us)


At least on the gun front, perhaps with the NRA slowly running out of money (since they don't represent actual gun owners, more and more have left the NRA, their membership is shrinking, but they keep spending on campaigns and such), perhaps eventually something happens just because the politicians will no longer be paid to have nothing happen.

Or maybe we actually get some politicians who represent us. The "blue wave" seems to be bringing in a bunch of promising not yet corrupted candidates, but many more already were defeated in primaries against the corrupt incumbents before even reaching the general election. So even if every one of these fresh new faces who claim to be uncorrupted are uncorrupted and stay that way, and we get a few more every 2 years, it's going to be a long slog until we have enough to do something about it.

A relative of mine set up this presser and the display behind the senator. Pac money runs the machine in D.C. and just about every state capital. No matter how people feel about issues it won't move the needle unless a super pac is behind it. Sandy Hook was the subject of this picture. Needle didn't budge.

 

[neroden]

Not sure about that, if you look at what Neroden's post showed of the statute. I don't believe you would be able to tack the necessary sections Bi, Bii or Biii onto the current president's predecessor.

My point was mostly that nobody really pays attention to the statute, though the statute definition is reasonable.

Instead the term "terrorist" is applied in an inconsistent and biased manner.

 

[neroden]

At least on the gun front, perhaps with the NRA slowly running out of money (since they don't represent actual gun owners, more and more have left the NRA, their membership is shrinking, but they keep spending on campaigns and such),

NRA is documented to primarily represent the US gun *manufacturers*, who are their major source of income. They want to sell as much product as possible, so opening up the markets of professional criminals and the mentally deranged helps sales. Particularly because they can scaremonger to the mentally deranged and convince them to buy hundreds of guns. The gun manufacturers also want zero product liability, which is why they got it from the Republicans, and why when they sell defective guns that blow up in the faces of hunters, the hunters have no recourse.

The gun manufacturers are running out of money to burn on this sort of evil lobbying, since their business keeps shrinking. (And the foreign manufacturers have better product quality, because they're subject to product liability laws in their home countries!) The mentally deranged market does write to and call Congress more than average, but the campaign to keep guns out of the hands of lunatics is starting to be almost as powerful a call-in lobby.

So now the NRA has been infiltrated by the Russians (sigh) as has been documented with the prosecution of Maria Butina. Which should lose them some more support Maybe eventually their lobbying power will collapse.

perhaps eventually something happens just because the politicians will no longer be paid to have nothing happen.

Or maybe we actually get some politicians who represent us. The "blue wave" seems to be bringing in a bunch of promising not yet corrupted candidates, but many more already were defeated in primaries against the corrupt incumbents before even reaching the general election. So even if every one of these fresh new faces who claim to be uncorrupted are uncorrupted and stay that way, and we get a few more every 2 years, it's going to be a long slog until we have enough to do something about it.

We've been working on cleaning up the NY State Senate since 2006. I think we're making progress. It is a slow, slow process. The number of corrupt state Senators who took *bribes* to switch parties from the Democrats to the Republicans after being elected has been ridiculous; 12 have been forced out during primaries so far, IIRC. The gerrymandering was extreme, as was the malapportionment (all the Republican districts have fewer people in them thean the Democratic districts). The Republicans had a secret TV studio which used taxpayer funds to run Republican campaign ads, only exposed during the first time Democrats took control in 2008.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Only about 1/4 of Americans own any guns at all, and 3% of gun owners own 1/2 of all the guns. How many people have arsenals like the Las Vegas shooter?
Three percent of the population own half of the civilian guns in the US

Another area where politicians ignored the will of the people was in Washington State which had the most open primary in the country. SCOTUS ruled that primaries are run by the parties and they can do what they want, so both parties went about changing state law for primaries, even though something like 92% of the population said they liked the open primary system.

Interesting to note that the Gallup poll has, between 1959 and 2018, ranged from 36% to 51%, most recently 43%, in poll respondents stating they have a gun in their home. However, they've also asked if the respondent owns a gun, and that has been a lower range of 27% - 31% which is more or less in line with the article you linked, I'm going to guess because most often it's just one person (most likely the "man of the house") who owns all the guns, but that the percentage of people with ready access to guns is obviously larger (as spouses and kids can most often gain access one way or another, even if only one person "owns" them).

I hope some day we have both open primaries (where we can not only vote in any primary, but all primaries for our area), and also ranked voting, so that nobody ever has to feel like they must "waste" a vote.

 

[wdolson]

My point was mostly that nobody really pays attention to the statute, though the statute definition is reasonable.

Instead the term "terrorist" is applied in an inconsistent and biased manner.

True. Traitor is thrown around willy nilly too. The US Constitution has one of the narrowest definition of traitor in the world, if not the narrowest. But that doesn't stop people from calling Trump's alleged activities with the Russians and Saudis treason. Under US law it isn't, but it is Conspiracy Against the United States, which is basically treason without the death penalty.

Interesting to note that the Gallup poll has, between 1959 and 2018, ranged from 36% to 51%, most recently 43%, in poll respondents stating they have a gun in their home. However, they've also asked if the respondent owns a gun, and that has been a lower range of 27% - 31% which is more or less in line with the article you linked, I'm going to guess because most often it's just one person (most likely the "man of the house") who owns all the guns, but that the percentage of people with ready access to guns is obviously larger (as spouses and kids can most often gain access one way or another, even if only one person "owns" them).

I hope some day we have both open primaries (where we can not only vote in any primary, but all primaries for our area), and also ranked voting, so that nobody ever has to feel like they must "waste" a vote.

In my household my female SO owns all the guns. She's a crack shot too.

Some kind of ranked voting would be a good idea someday. I believe it's done in some fashion in New Zealand now.

As @neroden pointed out, the NRA is hemorrhaging members, they could get nailed for being part of a criminal conspiracy, and the manufacturers are in financial trouble. Because of all the scare mongering that the evil black guy was going to break down your door and take away your guns during the Obama administration, gun sales were huge in the US among a narrow slice of paranoid people.

With the Republicans in power, gun sales have dried up and gun companies are hurting.

 

[neroden]

also ranked voting, so that nobody ever has to feel like they must "waste" a vote.

Given Australia's experience with ranked voting (...look it up), I would prefer
-- for the legislatures, the recommendation which has been made by US professional election design specialists since the 1950s: some form of proportional representation, so that if the Purple Party gets 17% of the votes, it gets 17% of the seats in the legislature. (US recommendations are why most countries which became independent during decolonization in the1950s use a propotional system.)
-- for single-winner offices like governor, Approval voting, which has *really* good resistance against manipulative "gaming" or strategic voting, has proven highly effective when it's been tried, makes it practically impossible to spoil your ballot, and is super simple to count.

See The Center for Election Science for more on why.

I switched a college club to approval voting some decades back; it ended all arguments over whether the outcome was "fair" or "really what people wanted". Nice result.

 

[bhtooefr]

Agree fully on the House. (I'm not sure how to treat the Senate, to be honest, but if the Senate is supposed to represent the states, and the House the people... the House should be elected by the whole people, not individual seats in districts. I have ideas for how to build the list used to fill the House seats, as well - each state through their party primary/caucus/whatever processes builds their own lists. Then, the state who voted the most for that party gets their top pick first, going to the next state in order of decreasing vote share. Once 50 seats are filled, it goes back around to every state's second candidates until all awarded seats are filled. This means that a state party need only get nine names on their list, unless they expect other states to not fill their lists and for enough seats to be won that seat exhaustion becomes a problem.)

I personally am not a fan of approval voting, for the simple reason that it ends up counting a strategic vote against someone equally to a vote for someone. It's still an improvement over first-past-the-post, though. (Then again, almost anything is - for that matter, last-past-the-post (least votes wins) would work better in our system, as it would select the least-hated candidate. In a system where all of the major candidates are hated by a significant portion of the population...)

Ranked ballots have many different counting methods, though, which can produce different results. Instant runoff does have weird effects where someone can be nobody's first choice, but everyone's second choice, and get ruled out before the second choices kick in, although it being easier to understand than better methods of counting ranked ballots is a benefit IMO (if the citizens can't understand how the election process works, the election loses transparency and trust). And, AFAIK Condorcet methods can be gamed more easily than IRV methods.

And, there's always range voting, as well.

 

[neroden]

Range voting is cool.

I tend to prefer the systems which are simple-to-count and simple-to-explain, because there is massive resistance among the math-impaired to anything even slightly complicated. Approval voting is exceptionally good in this regard. It's unfortunate that there are no proportional representation systems which are this simple, so far.

Approval voting can also be used live for business meetings, when deciding between alternative versions of a resolution (amendments/substitutes), and it's *extremely* helpful for that. Really stops a lot of shenanigans and ends a lot of trouble.

I also do think that a strategic vote against someone is at least as valid as a strategic vote for someone. How often has the priority of the electorate been "Anyone but him!!!" ? A lot, I'd say. Approval voting would have prevented a lot of elected authoritarians from taking power in situations where they did so solely due to the disorganizaton of the opposition.

 

[pz1975]

Since we are discussing different election systems, BC is currently having a referendum asking which type we want. The options are to stay with FPTP (first past the post) or go with some form of proportional representation. The second part of the referendum is IF we vote for proportional representation, which of 3 different versions (below) that we want.

Curious about anyone’s opinions who has lived in a place using any of these systems and which they feel is the best.

Here is a general link to the referendum with explanations of each system: Elections BC

Here are the 3 forms of proportional representation we are voting on:

• Dual Member Proportional (DMP)

• Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

• Rural-Urban Proportional (RUP)

 

[bhtooefr]

I also do think that a strategic vote against someone is at least as valid as a strategic vote for someone. How often has the priority of the electorate been "Anyone but him!!!" ? A lot, I'd say. Approval voting would have prevented a lot of elected authoritarians from taking power in situations where they did so solely due to the disorganizaton of the opposition.

I almost wonder if a positive/neutral/negative range vote would work better than just approval voting.

So, you can positive anyone you want, negative anyone you don't want, and neutral (don't vote) anyone you don't care about.

 

[neroden]

Since we are discussing different election systems, BC is currently having a referendum asking which type we want. The options are to stay with FPTP (first past the post) or go with some form of proportional representation. The second part of the referendum is IF we vote for proportional representation, which of 3 different versions (below) that we want.

Curious about anyone’s opinions who has lived in a place using any of these systems and which they feel is the best.

Here is a general link to the referendum with explanations of each system: Elections BC

Here are the 3 forms of proportional representation we are voting on:

• Dual Member Proportional (DMP)

• Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

• Rural-Urban Proportional (RUP)

OK, second edit: I actually went through this again.

First point: They are ALL *much* better than first-past-the-post.

Mixed Member Proportional is the normal system used by most countries. It would be fine.

"Dual Member Proportional" seems like it might work; it's sort of a variant of the "top-up" system, but it's a bit weird. I haven't done the math to see if there are problems with it. I would generally NOT support a system without some proper mathematical analysis of it; there are a lot of systems that look fine until you do the mathematical analysis and then turn out to have a serious problem (the Borda Count is an example of this).

Rural-Urban Proportional should work too, since it's a system which already works (STV) for the urban districts and a system which already works (MMP) for the rural districts. So that would be fine too.

 

[Intl Professor]

TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

Don't disagree, but...

I'm worried even more now about interference in the election, either by the Russians—perhaps directly since there has been little protection, especially in Red states of actual vote counting—and interference by electoral officials in the process. Both are quite clear in cases like Georgia. The call for an investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State of Democratic hacking of the official elections site, is totally spurious because prompted by a "white hacker's" notice of code vulnerabilities. Though fivethirty-eight had a great article last month or so on such vulnerabilities, there seems to be very little chatter about electoral fraud on the main stream media, except, of course, for Rachel Maddow.

 

[gilscales]

TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

Don't disagree, but...

I'm worried even more now about interference in the election, either by the Russians—perhaps directly since there has been little protection, especially in Red states of actual vote counting—and interference by electoral officials in the process. Both are quite clear in cases like Georgia. The call for an investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State of Democratic hacking of the official elections site, is totally spurious because prompted by a "white hacker's" notice of code vulnerabilities. Though fivethirty-eight had a great article last month or so on such vulnerabilities, there seems to be very little chatter about electoral fraud on the main stream media, except, of course, for Rachel Maddow.

Is there any concern here about the influences of Facebook and Google on voters?
When will Google defend democracy?

 

[neroden]

Georgia's got a history of elections being stolen by right-wingers, and the corrupt Kemp, squatting in the Secretary of State's office, seems to be trying to steal another election. If we elected General Grant, he'd send in the Grand Army of the Republic to stop this, but with Andrew Johnson in office, we have to wait...

That said, I think we have a chance of making major progress in states which are... healthier... than Georgia.