The Small Rants Thread, Continued...

[Monotremeancer]

Many years back, the average politician in the Swedish government was supposed to earn the same amount of money as a high school teacher. I wish that was still the case, as people wouldn't do it for the money. Instead the country is lead by a guy who does a lot of crap and uses the word "freedom" as if it was synonymous with "if", "and" as well as "it".

Let's see how that works...

"Freedom elected, I promise you, no more taxes for poor freedom wealthy alike! Freedom will be a government of the people!"

Must be hard on his tongue.

You'd think so, but he manages quite well. As someone who takes an interest in politics I still want to hear his definition of the word freedom. So far it seems to be "High income means less tax! Money equals privilege in everything! Freeeeeeeeeedom!"

[sirpercival]

I just can't stand politics at all, in any form or fashion.  Seriously, thinking about it too much makes me physically ill.  I don't understand why people can't just be tolerant and nice to each other.  Maybe it's the company I keep (I intentionally surround myself with intelligent people), but deliberately ignorant, close-minded and irrational behavior and thinking really piss me off.

Amen. Not exclusive to politics though.

Maybe not, but politics is the most public and advertised forum for stupidity and deliberate ignorance I've ever experienced.  I try to wash my hands of it as often as I can, and simply live my life the way I think I should.

I do get taken advantage of from time to time because of it, but it's a small price to pay for peace of mind.

Call me paranoid but I don't believe in many cases that it's either stupidity, ignorance, or irrational.   These guys had to curry a lot of favor and bullshit a lot of people to get where they are, so they aren't stupid, it's just necessary for them to occasionally appear that way to deflect from what they're really doing.  After all if they're caught with their hands in something they can claim ignorance because people have thought of them that way all along.  It's to their benefit to appear slightly incompetent because it causes people to underestimate them and not pay close attention.  It's about money, pure and simple.  They have enough money and privilege  that they can avoid living with the consequences of the rules they make, and they don't give a damn about the people those rules screw over.  Those people aren't paying them.  Oh sure taxpayers may pay their salary in congress, but that isn't where the vast majority of their funds come from.

Oh, absolutely.  The ignorance, stupidity, and irrationality apply to the voters just as much as, if not more than, the politicians.  The politicians simply appeal to those properties in their constituency.  Which is actually worse -- if the voters were smart and the politicians were stupid and ignorant, the voters would fix things.

[Kuroimaken]

Many years back, the average politician in the Swedish government was supposed to earn the same amount of money as a high school teacher. I wish that was still the case, as people wouldn't do it for the money. Instead the country is lead by a guy who does a lot of crap and uses the word "freedom" as if it was synonymous with "if", "and" as well as "it".

Let's see how that works...

"Freedom elected, I promise you, no more taxes for poor freedom wealthy alike! Freedom will be a government of the people!"

Must be hard on his tongue.

You'd think so, but he manages quite well. As someone who takes an interest in politics I still want to hear his definition of the word freedom. So far it seems to be "High income means less tax! Money equals privilege in everything! Freeeeeeeeeedom!"

So it's GWB Jr.'s speeches replacing "9/11" with "Freedom"?

[Monotremeancer]

Many years back, the average politician in the Swedish government was supposed to earn the same amount of money as a high school teacher. I wish that was still the case, as people wouldn't do it for the money. Instead the country is lead by a guy who does a lot of crap and uses the word "freedom" as if it was synonymous with "if", "and" as well as "it".

Let's see how that works...

"Freedom elected, I promise you, no more taxes for poor freedom wealthy alike! Freedom will be a government of the people!"

Must be hard on his tongue.

You'd think so, but he manages quite well. As someone who takes an interest in politics I still want to hear his definition of the word freedom. So far it seems to be "High income means less tax! Money equals privilege in everything! Freeeeeeeeeedom!"

So it's GWB Jr.'s speeches replacing "9/11" with "Freedom"?

Not just yet, but he's getting there. His latest saying "Voting for the Left Party* and claiming not to believe in communism is like voting for the Moderates** and claim you do not believe in freedom"
*Opposing party
**The name of his party

[Amechra]

I have a confession to make...

I'm an authoritarian. I APPROVE of having a powerful governing force, as it is my opinion that, given the current population, nothing would function without someone giving the masses a firm kick in the ass.

And I also happen to loathe the government. I personally think that Democracy as a system is dangerously close to nonfunctional (I laugh really hard inside whenever someone makes the assertion that, if left to its own devices, a group will make decisions in their best interest. Most groups don't have any idea what their real best interests are; you don't leave the insane to run the asylum, do you?), and would have it replaced by...

And that's where my train of thought breaks off, because I can't think of anything that would work any better, outside of limited circumstances. And that both scares and saddens me.

On a mildly related note, I was extremely amused last year when NPR ran a radio program that treated the concept of money as inherently valueless (it IS only worth something because people agree on it, after all.) as if it were the most shocking concept in the world, a fact that I knew when I was 5.

I was going somewhere when I started this, but I can't remember what?

[X-Codes]

Everyone in the US really does vote for what they believe their own best interests are, and if someone actually managed to cut through all the bullshit and get them to understand the policies that are in their best interests, they would vote for whomever would enact those policies.

[Kuroimaken]

I believe democracy works best as the Greek intended it - the only people who get to vote are above a certain standard. In their case, said standard was male, born of two greek parents, and above a certain age, but all of those guys had one thing in common: they were educated from a young age. These weren't stupid clowns from backwater villages who didn't even know their government from their asses, they were the intellectual elite of their society, and being made aware of the needs of their cities was both civic duty and a part of their education.

Open-ended democracy caters to the lowest common denominator. When everyone gets to vote, and the stupid outnumber the smart, stupid decisions get made, and those who run the joint are the ones who can manipulate the stupid masses the best. So couple that with a number of decades of systematic dismantling of the education system and you get a country run by manipulative, backstabbing bastards who wouldn't know ethics if a book about it grew fangs and chewed their crotches off.

This is where my country is at right now. Ironically, it has been under two separate dictatorships, both brutal in their own rights, and under the dictators' rule? Shit got done. The people here will never make a stand against corruption because a lot of them don't even know how the system works.

How's that for saddening?

[X-Codes]

You used to have to be a landowner to vote in America.  At the time, it probably worked in the same way.

The problem with implementing this now is that being smart or well educated enough to understand a Democratic government doesn't strongly correlate to much of anything else in the US.  If you have a lot of money, you're a little more likely to understand how it all works.  Probably the same for being a Democrat, getting your news from a certain source (I'm actually tempted to say The Daily Show, here...), etc., but if they're statistically significant differences, at all, then they're just barely significant.

[Kuroimaken]

You used to have to be a landowner to vote in America.  At the time, it probably worked in the same way.

The problem with implementing this now is that being smart or well educated enough to understand a Democratic government doesn't strongly correlate to much of anything else in the US.  If you have a lot of money, you're a little more likely to understand how it all works.  Probably the same for being a Democrat, getting your news from a certain source (I'm actually tempted to say The Daily Show, here...), etc., but if they're statistically significant differences, at all, then they're just barely significant.

Hey, at least you know where the loyalties lie, politics-wise, where the media is concerned. Around here, it's muddled as hell and though all major media outlets claim no political affiliation, some are clearly more biased than others and some are just plain contrarians.

[Sinfire Titan]

Hey, at least you know where the loyalties lie, politics-wise, where the media is concerned. Around here, it's muddled as hell and though all major media outlets claim no political affiliation, some are clearly more biased than others and some are just plain contrarians.

The problem with telling a story is that it is never as good as it sounded in your head.

The problem with the media telling a story is that they like to make things even worse than that.

[Kuroimaken]

Hey, at least you know where the loyalties lie, politics-wise, where the media is concerned. Around here, it's muddled as hell and though all major media outlets claim no political affiliation, some are clearly more biased than others and some are just plain contrarians.

The problem with telling a story is that it is never as good as it sounded in your head.

The problem with the media telling a story is that they like to make things even worse than that.

We've basically reached the point everyone figured we'd reach eventually - the biggest selling point of a media outlet nowadays isn't circulation, reach or even what the hell they're talking about, it's reliability. Press agencies such as Reuters and AP are still relatively safe at this point and giving us strictly factual news, but I fear even that may crumble soon. You just can't trust local news outlets anymore, and press agencies obviously don't give us stories regarding politics of each individual country.

So basically, we're boned unless we can develop a filter regarding how much of local politic news is real and how much is bullshit.

[Sinfire Titan]

Honestly, I feel the press should be similar to the postal service instead of being corporate. News should be news, not entertainment.


The problem with that is the government gains stronger control over the press' ability to report news regarding the politicians without the government needing to cover that fact up.

[veekie]

Well, the practicality aspect rules out a lot of things.

Crowdsourced news is necessarily shallow but broad in nature. Its full of noise. Its good for avoiding information control and censorship(because of the sheer level of noise to data ratio, generally you just don't notice until its common news). It takes aggregators and social media to multiply news of actual interest to relevance. This is free, other than the hosting.

Deep news requires research and field investigation. This is expensive, so you'd only see it where someone is interested enough to fund research, and enough people are interested enough to pay for the resulting publications at their price. This is powered by market forces...and people mostly want inane entertainment.

[X-Codes]

A way to potentially fix the press in the US is to only grant access to certain places (Capital Hill and the WH) to media outlets that are non-profit and independently owned and operated from any/all other organizations.  Afterall, we see having Freedom of Religion as meaning "don't tax 'em," so why not the Press (mentioned in the exact same amendment to the constitution)?

[Amechra]

I was just told that I'm not going to be getting the same job this coming summer as I did last summer... and the only other major employer in the area is notorious for poor OSHA compliance  .

At least the way they did it still managed to be nicer than when I was laid off my job two summers ago; my direct superior just didn't schedule me for work, and avoided my calls; I finally managed to contact her two weeks after this started to have her say, "Oh, yes, you were laid off, have a nice summer." She hadn't even informed the fucking HR division!

I have awful luck with jobs; Bhu, that highway-waving job is starting to look good right now, given that the calculated costs of me going to college next year are over 3 times what I would have been able to pay given having that job that I was just informed that I'm not getting.

[bhu]

*Hugs* it only pays 8.50 an hour part time.  If you can find a liberty tax in your area im sure theyre hiring, i just dont know how well you'll be treated.  The one that told me it didn't have room for me on the schedule has a now hiring sign in front right now.

[Amechra]

There isn't one in the area; I live in rural New York, and it sucks.

I mean, I do have another job, webmastering for my church, but that doesn't pay nearly enough.

[bhu]

try the websites of most of the big tax preparers (liberty, hr, jackson hewitt, etc) they should be hiring now.  And they should have locators for stores.

[Jackinthegreen]

You know what happens when you try to open a locked modern car just with the handle?  The alarm goes off!  My grandpa apparently just discovered this.  Thankfully it wasn't at a time when people are typically sleeping, but having a car alarm go off for a minute and more tends to get irksome.

Once I get past the annoyance, I'm starting to feel sorry for him.  He can't drive anymore thanks to macular degeneration, and his memory is going.  At 82, that's somewhat to be expected.  Still, you'd think if someone wanted to fiddle with the car they'd have their keys on them, right? 

[DonQuixote]

Sorry for the disgusting level of detail, but I need to complain about this and that's what this thread is here for.

Over the past few days, it's been building.  It has finally reached the point of insanity.  A large, wobbly abscess, right on my ass.  Painful to sit, and I know it's not going away any time soon.  I'm beginning to think that the chairs in these dorms are plotting against my ass...