The All Things Political Topic - Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one

[Chairchucker]

17 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Because what would be  the point and benefit of teaching history like you suggested and can you give an example ?

Probs the biggest example is Germany's fairly solid introspection of their own actions during World War 2, including creating a museum at Auschwitz dedicated to commemorating German war crimes.

Has lead to a nation that tends to rather firmly reject Nazi ideologies these days.

[Chairchucker]

Unrelated: our PM just called Australia's election for 21 May. That's not long before my birthday, so hopefully as an early birthday present Australia will vote out these losers.

[Gromnir]

har har

more relevant to the current topic...

HA! Good Fun!

[alanschu]

6 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:

I think Lincoln was against slavery but remember he was a politician first and foremost, and their job is to tell people what they want to hear to get elected and enact policies that ensure re-election.  It wasn't until late in the war when it became politically feasible to gear towards abolitionism due to the war dragging on longer and bloodier than literally anyone in the country anticipated (The American mindset being "All this death and carnage has to have some kind of moral meaning to it is well in line with American Christianity at the time).

Yeah, he didn't support the institution (which is why the South really amplified the idea that they were going to lose it if he was elected).

The politics around the Emancipation Proclamation are also fascinating. I really enjoyed James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom as it goes into a lot of the lead up of the ACW including the chronology of the war itself. It's been a few years but IIRC it was originally being considered mid war to help with the Union but people recognizing that it needed to come after a significant enough win so as to appear to come from a place of confidence rather than desperation.

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, Chairchucker said:

Unrelated: our PM just called Australia's election for 21 May. That's not long before my birthday, so hopefully as an early birthday present Australia will vote out these losers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-60951030

 

There is something rotten in the state(s) of... Australia

Australia election: Enter a lacklustre advert for democracy

There has long been something Biblical about the prime ministership of Scott Morrison, a Pentecostal Christian who declared on the night of his bolt from the blue victory in the 2019 election: "I've always believed in miracles".

Since then, much of his term in office has read like chapters from the Old Testament. There have been fires, floods and the pestilence of a global pandemic. Even his defiant stance towards China has a Manichean frame: a good versus evil struggle between freedom and authoritarianism - the "great polarisation", he calls it.

Recently, he sought to imprint his faith-based politics on Australian law, by pushing unsuccessfully for a Religious Discrimination Act offering legal protections to people of faith who made "statements of belief" - a charter, claimed its opponents, for the homophobic and transphobic.

 

Just one long BBC article highlighting the tip of the iceberg of Morrison's numerous Faux Pas's

 

As for why the opposition isn't outright stream rolling the Liberal Party, they are still heavily backed by the church, the resource and fossil fuel industry and ever present Murdoch Media (making it a David against Goliath fight)

 

[alanschu]

Friend of mine lives in Australia and shares a lot of her general frustration towards the Liberal Party as well.

(also, hi @Gorth!)

[Gorth]

35 minutes ago, alanschu said:

Friend of mine lives in Australia and shares a lot of her general frustration towards the Liberal Party as well.

(also, hi @Gorth!)

It's like a bad dream you can't wake up from

 

Hi @alanschugood to see you around again!

[Guard Dog]

Partisan ‘doom loop’? The answer is more parties, this group says

I'm all for this. But it will never happen. The one thing Democrats and Republicans agree on (actually they agree on pretty much everything they just want to be in charge and stymie the other party) is that the clubhouse of power is theirs and theirs alone and they zealously guard the door.

[Pidesco]

On 4/8/2022 at 5:58 PM, alanschu said:

It is not haha. More backend-y type of stuff that I can't speak too much about at the moment

Jazz Jackrabbit sequel confirmed

[Hurlshort]

SEL is the new CRT, peeps. Keep up with the times.

[Gorth]

Since Australian Federal elections are happening next month... new Honest Government Ads!

 

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, Gorth said:

Since Australian Federal elections are happening next month... new Honest Government Ads!

 

" Carbon credits and Carbon Colonialism " 

[Elerond]

25 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

" Carbon credits and Carbon Colonialism " 

Sadly they aren't jokes.

Carbon credits were meant to be capitalistic way to steer companies to greener tech, but ability to buy credits from less developed countries is lead to situation where they just increase total emissions, because companies get credits so cheap that they don't have any incentive the switch greener techs and seller country uses money to support industry that uses fossil energy

[Zoraptor]

Which is also almost always bad for the country the credits are generated in.

We've had loads of areas just put into pine forest which is fine if it's plantation and for timber but a lot of it is for cheap zero maintenance carbon credits where the pines will literally not even be managed. Pine plantations here are basically green desert since they're exotic/ introduced, and unmanaged an invasive pest to boot where everyone else has to pay to stop them invading nearby areas- and they grow far faster than in areas they're native to (for Pinus radiata plantation forestry plant --> cut can be as short as a 20 year cycle here). They've recently and belatedly changed it so if you want it to be permanent forest it has to be native because large areas of good food growing land was getting converted with a big net loss to the country. Now they just need to make it retroactive as well, and enjoy the squeals.

(Kind of funny though, politicians here utterly baffled by rising food prices when they've spent the past 20 years putting houses crappy low density McMansions on all the good horticultural land and pines on all the good pastoral lands. Oh yeah, and let there be a cosy non competitive supermarket duopoly. Who would have thunk two companies that control the market would only compete by building more supermarkets and operate mostly on making it impossible for anyone else to enter said market?)

Edited April 11, 2022 by Zoraptor

[Sarex]

It seems that it's not outside the realm of the possibility for La Pen to win the elections, not likely but not that unlikely.

[Gorth]

6 hours ago, Sarex said:

It seems that it's not outside the realm of the possibility for La Pen to win the elections, not likely but not that unlikely.

I'm no fan of Macron, but I personally hope Marine Le Pen doesn't win. The world has had enough "Trumps and Trump wannabes" for a life time. On the other hand, it would be entertaining following news from the EU (and the possible implosion of the EU) if it were to happen

 

Edit: EU the organisation, not the region

[HoonDing]

Depends on how many lefties bother to show up and vote for the "lesser" evil.

[Chairchucker]

Apparently France has preferential voting so they can still vote for their favourites and just preference Macron before Le Pen

 

EDIT: I'm wrong, you need an absolute majority and if not you vote again, weird

Edited April 12, 2022 by Chairchucker

[Elerond]

2 hours ago, Chairchucker said:

Apparently France has preferential voting so they can still vote for their favourites and just preference Macron before Le Pen

 

EDIT: I'm wrong, you need an absolute majority and if not you vote again, weird

They use two phase election, in first phase there can be any number of candidates and if no one gets over 50% of vote then there will be second election where people vote between top 2 from first vote.

[Chairchucker]

Preferential voting seems like a more efficient way to get a similar result tbh

[BruceVC]

11 hours ago, Gorth said:

I'm no fan of Macron, but I personally hope Marine Le Pen doesn't win. The world has had enough "Trumps and Trump wannabes" for a life time. On the other hand, it would be entertaining following news from the EU (and the possible implosion of the EU) if it were to happen

 

Edit: EU the organisation, not the region

We definitely dont want a Le Pen victory, anything that threatens the sustainability of the EU we dont want 

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Chairchucker said:

Preferential voting seems like a more efficient way to get a similar result tbh

No their system makes sense because it give political access and voice to lots of smaller parties that now need to tell their supporters in this next round who to support and they can negotiate with the bigger parties for their support. So it becomes exciting and interesting when you see the different extreme left and right smaller parties telling their supporters who to vote for 

 

[rjshae]

11 hours ago, Chairchucker said:

Apparently France has preferential voting so they can still vote for their favourites and just preference Macron before Le Pen

 

EDIT: I'm wrong, you need an absolute majority and if not you vote again, weird

I've been thinking that we should be encouraging school systems to adopt non-pluralistic voting systems with their student bodies so the next generation will be more receptive to the idea.

[HoonDing]

"We definitely dont want a Le Pen victory, anything that threatens the sustainability of the EU we dont want  "

Who's this "we"?

[alanschu]

11 hours ago, BruceVC said:

No their system makes sense because it give political access and voice to lots of smaller parties that now need to tell their supporters in this next round who to support and they can negotiate with the bigger parties for their support. So it becomes exciting and interesting when you see the different extreme left and right smaller parties telling their supporters who to vote for 

 

Is that actually what happens? As I can just as easily see it being "Doh ho ho ho ho, you better vote for us or it's like you're voting for the other guy. Better accept it!"