The folks at the New York Post have published a stunning expos of the protestors, which was so urgently vital that they devoted their front page to it. After weeks of patient research, they have discovered that the snobbish elitist protestors actually eat. Yes, they eat food, like they were royalty or something!
This has aroused the class envy of the starving downtrodden hordes at the New York Post, who presumably subsist on a diet of grass and pebbles stewed in hobo gravy.
But the solution to their problem lies in their own hands. All they have to do is go and camp out in Zuccotti Park and they too can dine on caviarroast swanpat de foie gras donated sacks of rice and beans, and find out for themselves what it's like to "eat like kings", albeit apparently the kings of a small village in Mexico.
An intuition told me from the very start there was a curius bug implanted here. It was too much of a co-incidence, an Arabesque spring time in America, a thought which spun like a bee in my head. But apparently its not a new bug at all and the same usual culprit: Hamas and the Brotherhood are embedded deep in the core of this Un-American phenomenon spreading all over the globe, with anti-Israel and Pro-Pretend Pals naturally taking centre stage:
Adequate, obviously you don't understand the problem. Until you get a handle on it, you'll never come up with a viable solution.
The problem is neither the rich or the poor. It's the boobs in government who spend the hard earned tax $$ of the upper and middle class as if it grew on trees rather than the hard work and risky investments of the upper (rich) and middle class.
The solution is for the rich, the middle class and the poor to go to the poles and fire the boobs, replacing them with conservative (i.e. to conserve) representatives who hold the line on spending, cut the pork,etc.
The solution is for the protesting rent-a-mob rif-raf, trashing up the homes, businesses and offices on Wall Street to go to work, earn their way and advocate for candidates who will cease and desist doing what the boobs in government are doing.
What on earth made you think that this was a reply to my post?
Utterly astounding. Tea Partiers show up and threaten people with loaded guns at health care debates; Tea Partiers attack peaceful Democratic demonstrators; Tea Partiers run amok in Wisconsin; none of that merits a police response beyond "move along, move along."
Oh, but complain about income inequality instead of a black president, and all of a sudden it's a full-on police riot. Unbelievable.
The Washington Post illustrated their story on the Oakland attack with a picture of a policeman stroking a kitten.
And gave it the headline "Protestors wearing out their welcome nationwide".
If they spin any harder they will be ripped apart by centrifugal force.
By the way, at least the tea party folks cleaned up after themselves. That's more than the flea baggers are doing. Their protest areas are more likely to need serious fumigation when they're done.
(Dons flame suit.)
After your last effort on this thread, you could at least try to post something that's actually true.
The mobsters were not unarmed. They were armed with anything they could get their hands on including stones and fire extinguishers, etc etc. All kinds of dangerous stuff was being thrown at the officers.
Given the radical left wing liberal atmosphere in Oakland, it must have been bad for the police and town fathers to stop the destruction violence and rebellion against law authorities. .Had it been in Iowa or Montana etc, one might expect the police to react.
Had they not called in outside enforcement, likely they would've been over-run by the frenzied mobs.
Do you have any evidence for your self-serving fantasies?
There are several other ways that voting itself could be managed, for example by allowing weighted voting, where each voter is given a set number of votes that could be spread over one or multiple candidates; or where the voter selects a first, second and third choice for an office which is then totaled.
In the first example, the voter could spread his votes over one or more candidates, for example if the voter felt really strongly about one candidate he could give all 5 (or what ever number) for one person or one each for five people or two for one person and three for a second.
Votes for a candidate would get totaled individually.
Under this system, I can't think of any circumstances under which it would not be rational to give all five points to some particular candidate.
In the later system, totally is done on a weighted scale, a candidate would get 3 points for a first choice vote, 2 points for each second choice vote and 1 point for each third choice vote.
Under which system it's better to be everybody's second choice than to be the first choice of 65%. A middle-of the road candidate who no-one really wants could therefore beat out someone more radical, one way or the other, who under FPTP would be acclaimed as winning a landslide victory. Is that what you intend?
Yes, and I imagine that with the uneducated electorate in the US that many would think just like you.
Well, provide me with a counter-example. Suppose that I have a personal ranking for my candidates. Suppose that I either do, or do not, have some idea what the rest of the electorate thinks. Under what circumstances would it be rational for me to split my five votes between more than one candidate?
Except the more radical candidate is far more likely to be a second or third choice than the middle of the road candidate.
But in that case he'd be the second choice of some middle-of-the-roaders, the ones who are closer to him than the other extreme. We're not going to get a situation where (for example) some people prefer the right-winger, some people prefer the centrist, but everyone has the lefty as their second choice, are we?
It should be irrelevant what the rest of the electorate thinks when determining your vote ...
Way to miss my point. Also, it wouldn't be irrelevant under your proposal.
Look, let's think it through. Suppose I don't know what everyone else thinks, and I have a preferred candidate. Then I should spend all my five votes on him. Because if I squander even one of my five votes on my second favorite candidate, and as a result my least favorite candidate beats my favorite candidate by one vote, then that would be bad.
Alternatively, let's suppose that I have some way of gauging the mood of the electorate. I find that my favorite candidate has no hope, but that my second favorite candidate has a good chance of beating my least favorite candidate. Then I would put all my votes towards my second favorite candidate (rather him than my least favorite candidate). To squander even one of my five votes on my favorite candidate might shut my second favorite candidate out and hand the election to the guy I hate the most.
So the thing is with your proposal that I can't think up any circumstances under which I would really want to split my votes. Maybe, perhaps, if everyone I wanted to vote for was a lost cause and I wished to make a protest vote for more than one person. But if I wish to influence the outcome of the election, then I should certainly cast all five of my votes for the same person.
I don't know. I do think that a big part of the problem though is that there are "righties and lefties".
Well, that was just an example. Consider this one. We have an election.
70% have preferences: Alice > Bob > Charlie > Duncan 30% have preferences: Bob > Charlie > Duncan > Alice
70% of people prefer Alice to Bob. But according to your system Bob has just been elected.
Again, it's really fun making up examples, isn't it.
It is good to compare a voting system against the kind of results you would like it to deliver. Either you're happy with it electing the guy who was the first choice of 30% against the gal who was the first choice of 70% or you're not. If you're not, it's time to think again, more carefully this time.
But the idea of developing a consensus is finding what everyone can live with.
The ideal system would include an absolute veto vote as well, where if anyone said I simply cannot live with candidate X being elected, then that person could not be elected.
An absolute veto? If anyone said that? One person?
She asked 99% of her neighbors, 'If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?' 'I,' said the cow. 'I,' said the duck. 'I,' said the pig. 'I,' said the goose. 'I shall pay you minimum wage,' said the little red hen, and so she did. The cow and the duck and the pig and the goose planted the wheat, and the wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain.
'Who will help me reap my wheat?' asked the little red hen. 'I,' said the cow. 'I,' said the duck. 'I,' said the pig. 'I,' said the goose. 'Actually, there's been an economic downturn, so I'll have to lay off the goose' said the little red hen, and so she did. And the cow and the duck and the pig reaped the wheat.
At last it came time to bake the bread. 'Who will help me bake the bread?' asked the little red hen. 'I,' said the cow. 'I,' said the duck. 'I,' said the pig. 'I would like my job back' said the goose. 'I mismanaged the farm, so the pig's going to have to go too' said the little red hen.
So the cow and the duck baked five loaves and the little red hen held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, 'No, I shall eat all five loaves. We live in a capitalist society, which means that hard work gets rewarded, and I did the hard work of getting you to make the bread and the hard, hard work of sacking you when you became uneconomic. No-one regretted that more than I.'
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