Proportional Representation

People who want Greens in the US will vote for Democrats just to make sure Republicans don't get in, but that doesn't mean the Democrats represent their interests.
And here we see the true beauty of the Secret Ballot. NO, PiMan. The above is conjecture, and there's no way to prove it, because you can't prove which people vote for what, or why.

On the flip side, suppose we do it your way. Right now, the U.S. Senate has 60 Democrat seats and 40 Republican seats. Proportional representation means the Republicans would be writing 40% of the legislation that gets passed. Among other things, that means 40% of the current health care bill would get REWRITTEN by the Republicans.

Is that really what you want? Of course it isn't.
 
And here we see the true beauty of the Secret Ballot. NO, PiMan. The above is conjecture, and there's no way to prove it, because you can't prove which people vote for what, or why.

How odd that I just read a report that said he's correct. You know how they found out? Magic.

Or it might be polling or something.... Constraints on Third Parties by Paul Frymer
On the flip side, suppose we do it your way. Right now, the U.S. Senate has 60 Democrat seats and 40 Republican seats. Proportional representation means the Republicans would be writing 40% of the legislation that gets passed. Among other things, that means 40% of the current health care bill would get REWRITTEN by the Republicans.

Is that really what you want? Of course it isn't.

No because you don't require consensus and majority is majority and the Democrats could in a PR system far more easily form coalition with like minded liberal, leftist, and moderate parties to get their legislation passed. If you have 100 seats, with 40 going to the Democrats, 40 to the Republicans, and 20 to the Greens then the Democrats form coalition with the Greens and pass what they want.

See the article above. You have a deep misunderstanding of how a PR system would work.
 
And here we see the true beauty of the Secret Ballot. NO, PiMan. The above is conjecture, and there's no way to prove it, because you can't prove which people vote for what, or why.

I have seen no logical reason why the reverse would be true.

On the flip side, suppose we do it your way. Right now, the U.S. Senate has 60 Democrat seats and 40 Republican seats. Proportional representation means the Republicans would be writing 40% of the legislation that gets passed. Among other things, that means 40% of the current health care bill would get REWRITTEN by the Republicans.

Is that really what you want? Of course it isn't.

Proportional representation, range voting, instant runoff; these are just ways of deciding who gets in office. It doesn't change the way legislation is written or passed.
 
How odd that I just read a report that said he's correct. You know how they found out? Magic.

Or it might be polling or something....
How do you know the respondents answered the polls honestly? You don't. I told you--SECRET BALLOTS.

No because you don't require consensus and majority is majority and the Democrats could in a PR system far more easily form coalition with like minded liberal, leftist, and moderate parties to get their legislation passed.
The U.S. Congress already does this. That's how, for example, health care reform got started. The reason health care is failing right now is because the above coalition disintegrated. The same thing happens in lots of countries that DO have PR. You talk a lot of words, but the actual function is no different.
 
How do you know the respondents answered the polls honestly? You don't. I told you--SECRET BALLOTS.

That possibility can be accounted for statistically, and it is done so, we do use such polls for things you know.

The U.S. Congress already does this. That's how, for example, health care reform got started. The reason health care is failing right now is because the above coalition disintegrated. The same thing happens in lots of countries that DO have PR. You talk a lot of words, but the actual function is no different.

It eliminates the problem of single member district plurality systems in particular lack of representation, lack of voter choice, and gerrymandering. Also reading is hard does not constitute an arguement.
 
The U.S. Congress already does this. That's how, for example, health care reform got started. The reason health care is failing right now is because the above coalition disintegrated. The same thing happens in lots of countries that DO have PR. You talk a lot of words, but the actual function is no different.

The American people didn't get to chose the proportions of this faux-coalition in any way. In each electoral region, there is a single Democrat candidate, a single Republican candidate, and sundry other individual candidates that have no hope of success. That Democrat candidate could be further left or further right than the average Democrat, and the public have no real say in it, it is the choice of the Democrat party. Same goes for the republican candidate.
Proportional representation gives the people choice.
 
More to the point in Masscussetes the voters could vote in a district 66% democrat and 33% Republican. The Democrat wins of course and gets the seat. The 33% get nothing. In a PR system if there were 10 seats then 6 would go to the Democrats and 3 to the Republicans. So the 33% aren't disenfranchised as in the current system, the SMDP with the electoral college disenfranchies people on a regional basis, a vote for a Democrat in Alabama is a wasted vote, and vice versa in Vermont. PR avoids this, it boosts participation, and improves the nature of democracy. With our electoral system candidates focus on a particular swing state, and the big electoral states, the small states by comparison generally get very little to no attention, PR encourages candidates to focus on all parts of the country equally and appeal to a broader section of interests and groups.
 
And here we see the true beauty of the Secret Ballot. NO, PiMan. The above is conjecture, and there's no way to prove it, because you can't prove which people vote for what, or why.

As someone who's job it is to identify, explain, analyze, and predict sociological behavior, including voting preference, I can assure that I can get a pretty good idea how people vote using statistics and cross level inference.

But hey, what do I know other than I do such for a living.
 
Did any of you folks who do polling for a living, predict that health care reform would implode? Or that Gitmo would still be open right now? Or that Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell would still be up and running after an entire year?

Nope. :D

I know polling, I've seen how it works. It's a guessing game. 60% vote this way, 40% vote that way, and nobody knows what's gonna happen until the actual election.

While true, however, the above is a little beside the point. The following illustrates why PR will never actually happen (and is ineffective wherever it's practiced). Cue my least-favorite leftist radical, Karalysia:

More to the point in Masscussetes the voters could vote in a district 66% democrat and 33% Republican. The Democrat wins of course and gets the seat. The 33% get nothing. In a PR system if there were 10 seats then 6 would go to the Democrats and 3 to the Republicans. So the 33% aren't disenfranchised as in the current system, the SMDP with the electoral college disenfranchies people on a regional basis, a vote for a Democrat in Alabama is a wasted vote, and vice versa in Vermont. PR avoids this, it boosts participation, and improves the nature of democracy.
The boldface part is the important bit. Regardless of what he says, I know Kara doesn't actually support PR in the U.S. right now, because he wants the Republican Party destroyed. By force. Seen him say that in another thread. Almost all voters are like this (though sometimes not including the part with the violence); they only support PR when they would get more political power out of it.

On the off chance this annoying post of mine causes Kara (or anybody else) to change his or her mind simply to prove me wrong.....well, if that happens I'll never know it, but it would be worth it.
 
I know polling, I've seen how it works. It's a guessing game. 60% vote this way, 40% vote that way, and nobody knows what's gonna happen until the actual election.

Um. No. He didn't say just polling, and if you reckon Greens voters won't tent to preference the Democrats over the Republicans, that's silly.
 
Did any of you folks who do polling for a living, predict that health care reform would implode? Or that Gitmo would still be open right now? Or that Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell would still be up and running after an entire year?

They poll what people's opinions are, not what the likelihood of success of a government promise/bill/measure/action is.

Nope. :D

I know polling, I've seen how it works. It's a guessing game. 60% vote this way, 40% vote that way, and nobody knows what's gonna happen until the actual election.

You're getting confused between 'not knowing for certain' and 'having a good indication'. I don't think anyone has said that polling is a 100% reliable method to accurately predict to the vote the results of an election. They're saying that it can give a good indication of what the results of an election are likely to be. Now I'm sure you can cherry pick examples of where polling was dead wrong, but for the most part, a reliable poll is reliable.
 
Of course, it is obvious that the Greens have so much with conservative politics.

Actually, about 25% of the Greens primary vote leads to preference flows to the Liberals (there's a cold hard fact about people's voting intentions for you Basketcase - about 75% of Greens voters in Australia prefer Labor over the Liberals and 25% prefer the reverse).

I myself would give them that preference if I lived in NSW in 2010, though I won't be. I'd probably have done so in a Crean vs Costello federal election, too.
 
I myself would give them that preference if I lived in NSW in 2010, though I won't be. I'd probably have done so in a Crean vs Costello federal election, too.

State or Federal election. Because I can understand state, but...
 
State. The NSW state government needs to go. Not that I think the Libs will be much better. NSW politics is the poster child for the failure of two party politics.

Federally, that's just a statement of where the ALP and Libs were in 2002 or so. Crean was lacklustre, the ALP was such a rabble they couldn't even articulate proper opposition to the Iraq invasion, I kinda like Costello, and consolidating the wets presence in the Liberal Party with a moderate leader would have been a good thing to support.
 
Sorry for the delayed response, been very busy as of late.

My knowledge is solely on the early the SoCreds and the Social Credit movement itself. Though there were strong religious connections "Bible Bill" Aberhart and his partner Manning were a radio evangelists, this was not a strictly conservative group. The key policies were strong anti-poverty campaign, had labour backing, included efforts to redistribute wealth. Though most of their policies were stopped by the federal government and the courts before they could be implemented. I really don't know where they went during and after WWII.
Part of the problem is that the party doesn't really fit into our current spectrum

Remember that in the first half of the century, the West was a liberal haven, promoting welfare and other such "liberal" and socialist values and reform in general (the CCF and Douglas is Saskatchewan, and United Farmers in Alberta and elsewhere). The Baptist church (which Aberhart and Manning were associated with) was, along with other non-Anglican protestants, a driving force behind development of relief organizations, government assistance, and the welfare state, so religious didn't necessarily have the same conservative meaning.

Note, when I say Conservative and Liberal in this post, I am not referring to the parties.

They might be classified as 'Christian Democrats' (social right, econ. leftish). Not familiar with the West or Christian democracy, though. :dunno:

In Ontario with MMP, some people didn't understand it (and its supporters tend to overstate this as the cause of its defeat IMO), but many, such as myself voted against it because we understood and opposed it. I do not support proportional representation. I am opposed to any promotion of election based on party lists. Each individual should be elected. 63% of the votes were against it, taking 102 of 107 ridings, a pretty decisive defeat.

True, as I posted before, I see huge benefits of a proportional representation, but I also see the huge downside with respect to strengthening party lines and decreasing the freedom elected officials. At the same time, decreasing representation of smaller organizations from a riding (even with MMP we would have larger ridings).

I may be able to support an instant runoff while maintaining our current single member ridings, it would take some consideration though (currently I would benefit from it federally and get hurt provincially, so that isn't the basis of my position).

Fair points, I don't disagree with your stance on MMP. Failure of STV in BC was a little surprising, but that is something for another time.

There's a whole slew of reasons to support run-off voting over other electoral systems, but my reasons are simply to dismantle political party regional dominance (e.g. Bloc in QC, Liberals in urban ridings, Cons. out West, etc.) and greatly increasing competitiveness of elections by eliminating simple plurality wins.

It should at least make the politics more interesting to follow. :popcorn:
 
They might be classified as 'Christian Democrats' (social right, econ. leftish). Not familiar with the West or Christian democracy, though.
Not sure about the SoCreds in particular, but these church groups were strongly supportive of womens rights. McKinney (of the Famous Five) was an MLA for, and another was a major player in, the United Farmers, which had close ties to the SoCreds and when the UFA was falling apart, many members jumped to the SoCreds.
Once again, the West was the centre of progressive thought in Canada through this period, with the large number of Eastern European immigrants having a large impact. Manitoba first gave women the vote, the Persons Case arose from Alberta, Socialized medicine was started in Saskatchewan (Douglas was a Baptist Minister). The NDP's early base (and even more so for the CCF) was the West.

There is nothing preventing Christian groups from being both economically and socially left. The most prominent groups, the Catholic and Anglican Churches and the as modern Evangelism in the American South have a long history of conservatism, the former being very hierarchical in nature while the latter are in a very conservative area and follow the will of their congregations.
The whole Social Gospel movement was religious (particularily with those of the United Church, Presbyterians and Methodists who remained independent, and Baptists) and prmoting prohibition, protection of minorities, womens rights, labour unions, public education, equality, etc... In fact this movement was a strong force behind the creation of the United Church, in order to work together in a common purpose and give the congregations more power through numbers.

As to our personal opinions on proportional representation, we just appear to value things differently and there isn't any more discussion to be had.
 
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