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#727731 04/11/20 06:02 PM
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Yes, tomorrow will see the Big Election. Thursday 5th November 2020 is the date of the Community Council By-Elections in Argyll and Bute, with the final count being on Monday the 9th.

Tense and exciting times.

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Oi! You didn't post that in my politics topic! Imma ban you! :p

It sound like quite a nail-biter though. I would like to see a picture of the windswept queue.


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Sadly, you had already locked your Politics thread...


(About that WIS score... grin )

Last edited by Sadurian; 05/11/20 06:00 AM.
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Oh, that was deliberate! "My door is always locked", and all that.


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Can I post such images here? I'm wondering what Joe Biden will do with the guy on horseback.
[Linked Image]

Last edited by vometia; 05/11/20 01:22 PM. Reason: argh my eyes

Minthara is the best character and she NEEDS to be recruitable if you side with the grove!
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Do you have to? I'd rather be Rickrolled.


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The mind boggles.

But at least my eyes don't need to.

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If we have to mention the US election (and I think we'd all be better off not doing so in any hope of seriousness), it is worth recalling what has gone before:

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were running against each other. The campaign was full of even more personal smears and slurs than we see in recent times. Adams was described as: "a hideous hermaphrodital character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” In return, Jefferson was described as "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

Ah, the great nobility of campaigning to run your country.

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Classy. The more things change, etc.

And while I'm writing that, some bugger's letting off squealy fireworks outside. :|


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Yes, we're getting the 1 or 2-week firework night here as well. I assumed that the ones earlier in the week were all about having a party before the Lockdown, but the parties seem to be carrying on.

I do note that the NHS are asking people not to have back-garden fireworks shows because they usually end up in a mass of burns admissions. I'm guessing that the NHS really don't need an influx at A&E of careless drunks who were experimenting with sticking Catherine Wheels up their arses.*



* To which I have to append the old joke:
"I got into trouble for sticking fireworks up my cats' arse."
"Rectum."
"Yes, completely."

Last edited by Sadurian; 05/11/20 06:04 PM.
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Originally Posted by vometia
Do you have to? I'd rather be Rickrolled.

There are other talented singers



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The interesting thing to me is that there are more than two parties yet in effect the two-party system stays in place. I guess the winner is the taller but slimmer chinese friend of the guy on the horse. His friends on television had plenty of things to show in support of "democracy doesn't work". I am sure that the friendly fireworks expert on horseback agrees.


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Originally Posted by ArmouredHedgehog
The interesting thing to me is that there are more than two parties yet in effect the two-party system stays in place. I guess the winner is the taller but slimmer chinese friend of the guy on the horse. His friends on television had plenty of things to show in support of "democracy doesn't work". I am sure that the friendly fireworks expert on horseback agrees.


Gary Johnson is unlikely to live up to this, but sooner or later the Libertarian Party will become a powerful third force, such are the world trends.
Weed legalization has allowed many to breathe the air of freedom, and people will want more freedom and less pressure on business

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“Never discuss politics or religion in polite company; it will only cause ill-will and indigestion. Should an unpleasant discourse threaten the peace, smile serenely and quickly change the subject.”

Abigail Jenkins’ 1875 rule of etiquette.


This is a 'rule' of behaviour that has served me well over the decades. People tend to make too many assumptions about a person who supports (or fails to denounce) a particular political party, stance or personality. Regardless, I have yet to see a 'proper' discussions of politics (or religion) that hasn't descended into either becoming an echo chamber or a kindergarten playground.

Politics or religion in general and in the abstract I'm all in favour of discussing, but folk get too tied up in defending or promoting their position for me to enjoy seeing political discussion in the particular.

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Interesting election results were seen in the UK previous to the 1832 Reform Act.

For example; Old Sarum in Wiltshire, Dunwich in Suffolk, and Gatton in Surrey each used to regularly return two MPs to sit in Parliament. Sadly, neither Old Sarum nor Gatton had a permanent population, and thus relied on voters imported for the occasion by the local land-owner who, needless to say, expected that they vote for him. Dunwich also struggled with its credibility in the numbers of MPs elected because, having previously been a prosperous town, most of it had fallen into the sea in the C13th and it was subsequently reduced to being only a small village.

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Originally Posted by Sadurian
folk get too tied up in defending or promoting their position for me to enjoy seeing political discussion in the particular.

Probably because they believe their position to be universally true. I think most political issues would disappear by simply abandoning the concept of universal moral and political truths.
Let a given group with shared views and values govern themselves in a small community according to their local truth. Such communites are naturally small for obvious reasons and cannot hold their own in conflict with larger ones.
Central government could be reduced to guarding the peace between the communities and dealing with foreign policy (Think of a refined and modernized version of the Holy Roman Empire with extreme local autonomy). The current system tries too hard to find concensus where there is none. Viking pillagers and Irish Monks had mutually exclusive interests. Having them vote for the course of action would have led to anything but an acceptable compromise.

A less transformative possibility:
A lot of the conflict resulting from elections could be avoided by awarding seats in a parliament to citizens by chance. This strategy would reproduce a better representation of the population in parliament than the election of career polticians. David van Raybrouck wrote an interesting book about this strategy "Against Elections". I think that most people confuse elections with democracy. Maybe a demoractic process that is not based on elections is the solution to the current crisis of democracies.

Last edited by ArmouredHedgehog; 07/11/20 05:39 AM.

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I can't even reach consensus with myself when it comes to politics. Seems a big problem is that 1) no matter how allegedly "moderate" or "centrist", every political discourse takes an extreme viewpoint about any given issue; 2) the extremes are usually opposite because "we can't be seen to agree with them", so the further the better; and 3) because the True Believers will take their entire political canon as one pure, indivisible gospel no matter how unpalatable some of its particular viewpoints.

At the moment I'm being a mixture of amused and dismayed that The Leader Of The Free Worldâ„¢, Bringer of Democracy and Libertyâ„¢ is still counting its votes days later, has an incumbent who looks set to refuse to leave office if he loses amidst a flurry of vexatious and frivolous lawsuits and all for two parties that are two cheeks of the same arse. Which isn't an especially anti-American point of view, btw, I mean I just need to look at my own country and grimace. It's light relief to watch someone else making a right arse of it instead.


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I think one major problem is party politics.

If the Aardvark Party advocates wearing top hats, tickling toads and eating strawberry jelly for Sunday breakfast, then I might be drawn to them because I enjoy a good toad tickle and a weekend strawberry jelly. However, I might be ambivalent on the subject of top hats.

My jelly-eating neighbour happens to be a supporter of the Zebra party, whose manifesto decries all forms of amphibian interference and wants to ban top hats. We could either be glad that we have the jelly eating in common and sensibly discuss the pros and cons of top hats, or we could fight tooth and nail and decide that each other is a loathsome individual (possibly even "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father") because the particular party we support disagrees on the subject of toads and hats.

Party politics is divisive by its nature. It doesn't want you to feel sympathetic to the other person's viewpoint because it might consequently lose you as a 'customer'.

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Well the BBC have finally made the decision that everyone else (well, almost everyone) had come to a day or so back. Thank the gods that that is all done with.

Apart from the probable litigation and demands for recounts, reruns and do-overs, of course. Do US politicians get Hero points that allow rerolls, do you think?

In all seriousness, I just hope that the folk over there accept the result with either satisfaction or resignation, and don't either get unbearably smug and vindictive or childishly petulant and obstructive. Emotions are already running high, and it is not a great idea to fan the flames when so many angry people have firearms and a lack of self-control.

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Originally Posted by vometia


At the moment I'm being a mixture of amused and dismayed that The Leader Of The Free Worldâ„¢, Bringer of Democracy and Libertyâ„¢ is still counting its votes days later


There is a pretty common misconception here, and it’s due to many people not understanding the difference between a state being declared for a candidate and certified for a candidate.

News organizations declare a state for a candidate once they determine it is mathematically impossible for one of the parties to win. This is unofficial. Official certification does not happen until all of the votes are counted, and this always takes a while. Counting mail in ballots, provisional ballots, and overseas ballots from our military and foreign residing citizens always takes longer. Sometimes recounts happen, and even though these rarely change an outcome, the certification can’t happen until this process is complete.

It took longer for news organizations to declare the winner in several states this elections because we have so many more mail in ballots than normal. Furthermore, in a traditional election one party always conceded the race once it becomes clear that they will not win. Trump didn’t and likely will never do this, which has dragged out the process.

That we are still counting votes is not at all out of the ordinary. Only the related circumstances around this are aberrant.

Last edited by Warlocke; 07/11/20 09:31 PM.
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