Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Even if it's a clunky system, what I meant is it's still an evened out system, equally fluid for everyone even if some of that fluidity manifests more often for some than others. It should also be remembered the US is a nation where the leadership is not the whole of control. To those whose complaint here is that things seem preselected against their wishes (and against mine, I want to stress I'm not implying I disagree with them policy-wise), there is still at least some element of choice before things are narrowed down to the two choices. The US is not using a "loud/might makes right" approach at the moment, just a bumpy process, which sets it apart from Russia for example which is arguably de facto quasi-feudalist.
I don't think it's an evened out system. It's that on paper. I think we can agree on that. But the proper question is: Is that paper worth anything, anymore?
And is it evened out? What percentage of their salaries do lower class people pay for taxes and healtcare and the infrastructure? What percentage is it for rich people? Is there lobbyism being the biggest influence on what gets decided in politics? Who can afford that and gets their itches scratched? The big companies or the rural population? And do they even get some audience in the TV news shows, their voices heard?
As another reply said, when I say evened out, I mean in indication of the fact there’s a difference between having a voice (which everyone has the same amount of), everyone having differing levels of being able to have a voice, and being heard or unheard, as well as a difference between being dismissed on a fair/honest or relatively fair/honest basis (as in they’re overshadowed according to fair rules) and being dismissed unfairly as a result of certain people being prioritized by means that would rig the game. Certain things do surpass lobbyists, which I do acknowledge is a large force, but which, if it were the largest influence on politics, I'm sure would in turn surpass any meaning to any discussion on the two party system, another thing which I acknowledge might affect the gears (but not the outcome, if enough people of a certain opinion so willed, which is my point) of the government. There are many avenues around each blockage.
Yeah, what I mean is, sure there are some specific counterexamples far and in between. But if it weren't for the pharma lobby, you'd spend $8.000 on healthcare instead of $14.000 per year. And you'd live 2-3 years longer on average. I think 99.9% of the population would gladly accept that. But it ruins some of the business model of the 0.1% who get to make the decisions. It'll never happen in the USA because it's just on the paper that the people decide. And some of them aren't even educated enough to do so. Same thing with school shootings and other things people regularly complain about.