General Politics Three: But what is left/right?

[Cutlass]

No, I'm not confusing the federal for the state. Progressive taxation is the intentional misbalance of tax rates off of a 1:1 ratio in order to account for the realities of the world not being themselves 1:1. The skew is intentional and progressive. A flat, vice, consumption, or toll tax, dispite being simpler and possessing a prima facie fairness people like and understand, is nonetheless regressive. The low income and end consumer pay relatively more of thier contribution to the system under these paradigms.

Political allotment of power, of clout, is no different. With power comes many things. In the issue of income it comes with social status, availability of services, marriage rates, any number of real outcomes. So, I'm not picky on the metric we use, it doesn't need to be income, but I'm looking for a broad measure of social privilege, the sort that comes with political power and social influence, that indicates that the residents who receive the political skew that comes from the nature of the federal congress and its presidential electors are indeed overprivileged at least to the point that an even 1:1 ratio would not be regressive. The results would seem to be the opposite on every measure selected!

"Well they suck and would be better off if we had thier political power" is indeed a political argument, but it's like flat taxes or vice taxes. They're too stupid to spend thier capital wisely, so they must be more ruled. In the case of power, I think it's preposterous that this would be true.

Just because the inputs are complicated doesn't mean power only comes from this one little thing. Proximity, social, economic, and infrastructure clearly matter too. Which is how a district with no senators whatsoever or valuable resourse extraction manages to be the mean population in the country with the highest level of overall privilege(accounting, of course, for the fact that this does not mean they themselves distribute it equitably amongst themselves more than any other).

Rural Americans have disproportionately high political power in the US government do to the way the Senate is apportioned. But also in the way that the House is apportioned.

They mostly vote Republican. Giving the Republican party an electoral advantage, the majority of political power in the US government since Reagan took office, and the majority of laws passed at the federal level since Reagan took office.

Wealthy Americans have disproportionately high political power in the US government do to the way they can control the narrative through control of the media, social media, think tanks, lobbying, and messaging in general. And also their political contributions, which were made unlimited by Supreme Court conservatives.

They mostly vote Republican, donate Republican, and spend their money supporting Republican candidates and causes. Giving the Republican party an electoral advantage, the majority of political power in the US government since Reagan took office, and the majority of laws passed at the federal level since Reagan took office.

Religiously active Americans have disproportionately high political power in the US government do to the moral authority they wield in being able to sway people to support a political side based on specific moral and cultural issues.

They mostly vote Republican, and use their moral authority to convince people that voting Republican is the only choice acceptable to God. Which is massively powerful in the minds of many.

The result of this is that for nearly all of the past more than 40 years the Republicans have had the balance of power in Washington. With Republican presidents more than half the time, Republican control of Congress most of the time, Republican control of the Supreme Court all of the time. As John Boener said when fighting with Obama, he got 95% of what he wanted.

And this is the core. Republicans have gotten 95% of what they wanted from the US federal government for the past 40+ years.

And in your mind, we're the ones that have too much power.

We, the majority of the national population, are the ones losing nearly everything nearly all the time.

But no, we have too much power.

 

[Farm Boy]

It's not like they've been in the majority. They're not now. They often aren't. In the face of partisan lockstep hardball, they've been disembowling speakers of the house upon the rocks of pedophiles and crazies to advance spending bills that get signed. For all the faults of the system, one party dominating everything has not been an enduring feature of it for the last half century.

Either way. As noted, if they are overrepresented, they are not measurably overrepresented enough, yet, to counterbalance the structural iniquities in the system. The progressive tack here, if we are to keep track of such things across multiple broad social issues, would be to skew harder. Maybe three senators per state?

 

[Gori the Grey]

The other way to package is it is to use conservative/progressive as your binary, and then note that, because our system is intrinsically conservative (puts lots of drags on making things happen), conservatives get their way in 2/3 of the logically possible cases: 1) when they have sufficient controls of the levers of governance to enact their favored legislation and 2) when power is split and nothing gets done vs only 3) when progressives have sufficient control of the levers of governance to get their favored legislation passed.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The other way to package is it is to use conservative/progressive as your binary, and then note that, because our system is intrinsically conservative (puts lots of drags on making things happen), conservatives get their way in 2/3 of the logically possible cases: 1) when they have sufficient controls of the levers of governance to enact their favored legislation and 2) when power is split and nothing gets done vs only 3) when progressives have sufficient control of the levers of governance to get their favored legislation passed.

I used to think that (2) was the Conservative ideal. And maybe it was, in the days of Reagan and Co. Small government meant big business could run rampant, and merely preserving traditional institutions like racism, sexism, and homophobia benefited them. But now, I think the Authoritarians have been working on (1) for most of my lifetime. They don't want (2), and they've taken over the Republican Party. Actual American conservatives don't have a party anymore* and I think a handful of them are beginning to realize that if they want (2) they'll have to fight for it, like walking up the down escalator, just to stay in place.


* Progressives and conservatives have that in common, now. Progressives have known it for years, though. It seems like many conservatives still believe the Republican Party is the Conservative party.

 

[Farm Boy]

Trumpies are a hell of a lot more "one party system that calls itself two parties" than before, yes.

As noted by picking up the traditional Democrat lines on immigration and trade. It's not every issue, but it's enough that they're basically Illinois Democrats. All the way down to the same governor predilections. Despite all the projection, what has happened is that the Republicans have come closer to where the Democrats are, which they don't like. Trump is way more similar a creature to them than a Pence or some other form of more traditional political adversary.

 

[Lexicus]

Progressive taxation is the intentional misbalance of tax rates off of a 1:1 ratio in order to account for the realities of the world not being themselves 1:1. The skew is intentional and progressive.

That skew is based on individual or household income, not on which state someone lives in.

Your whole argument here is absolutely ridiculous. You are arguing that poor people in the southwest quadrant of the District of Columbia, who are probably on average materially worse off than the average person in your county, should have no representation in Congress, and calling that argument "progressive." It verges on Orwellian, honestly.

 

[Hygro]

No, you're talkimg your politics and making the argument for why they are important enough to enact systemically regressive policies regarding the allotment of political power*. I'm not finding them compelling, but I appreciate they're being made. They're pretty solid, as far as political arguments for this sort of thing go.

*regressive may be a chance, or a natural development over time(I don't agree, but I recognize the argument made), but either way they'd be changes to the entire basis for the federal entity. The union itself, the accord, is ultimately a federation.

I get what you are saying, but something that's logically-rhetorically progressive doesn't make it so. Privileging small states privileges rich people in big and small states alike and holds back less privileged people in small and big states alike.

 

[Lexicus]

Case in point here, the Affordable Connectivity Program that subsidizes broadband internet access, massively benefiting people in rural areas.

Guess which party wants to let it run out of money?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/29/tech/broadband-affordability-acp-rural-older-americans/index.html

 

[JollyRoger]

As noted, if they are overrepresented, they are not measurably overrepresented enough,

6 of 9 justices on the Supreme Court even though a Republican presidential candidate has won only one popular vote in the past 8 elections.

 

[Farm Boy]

That skew is based on individual or household income, not on which state someone lives in.

Your whole argument here is absolutely ridiculous. You are arguing that poor people in the southwest quadrant of the District of Columbia, who are probably on average materially worse off than the average person in your county, should have no representation in Congress, and calling that argument "progressive." It verges on Orwellian, honestly.

I get what you are saying, but something that's logically-rhetorically progressive doesn't make it so. Privileging small states privileges rich people in big and small states alike and holds back less privileged people in small and big states alike.

6 of 9 justices on the Supreme Court even though a Republican presidential candidate has won only one popular vote in the past 8 elections.

Systemic outcomes in systems of millions will always have trees to point to in that thar bigass forest.

They're good points. But the outcomes are still the outcomes despite the outliers. If the system were bigger, it'd keep doing the same thing and it'd keep generating more outliers.

The socially outlined allocation of power is not yet sufficiently skewed on this axis, by whatever metric, to provide overall measurable equitable outcomes, by whatever metric.

Edit: though, I will have to point out that even by the judicial branch, the 6 are not simply 6. Thomas is the old guard from a different era. A Barret is not a Thomas anymore than a Roberts is. That's a change within the metric.

 

[JollyRoger]

Time for some lumberjacking

 

[EgonSpengler]

Case in point here, the Affordable Connectivity Program that subsidizes broadband internet access, massively benefiting people in rural areas.

Guess which party wants to let it run out of money?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/29/tech/broadband-affordability-acp-rural-older-americans/index.html

“It is clear the program would be extended if the speaker would allow a vote,” said Blair Levin, an analyst at the market research firm New Street Research. “So far, he has not said anything about it, but it appears he will not allow the House to vote on the legislation. He has not, to my knowledge, said anything substantive about the legislation or the program.”

A spokesperson for Johnson didn’t respond to a request for comment on proposals to renew the ACP.

I wonder if it would be practical to make it illegal for the office of a Representative to fail to respond to a request for comment by the news media? There could be things that would be classified, of course, for security reasons or whatever, but I think there are processes for classifying something. So if someone said, "we can't comment on that", the journalist could verify that, yes, in fact, they can't comment on that. For something like this, I'm not sure the office of a congressperson should be allowed to refuse to comment. I'd have to think about it some more.

 

[Farm Boy]

Time for some lumberjacking

Definitely.

Spoiler :

I get what you are saying, but something that's logically-rhetorically progressive doesn't make it so. Privileging small states privileges rich people in big and small states alike and holds back less privileged people in small and big states alike.

Sorry to double quote, Hygro. I do like your idea of just directly addressing the issue by measurement of income, I just noted a problem with it, a point of likely capture. More to that political reality, I think we'd have to at least try approaching other broad based social issues pretty consistently in this manner with respected and normalized outcomes before we could try it on a constitutional level like representation(I mean, we already sort of are trying it, we've got some baked in progressivism even if it was accidental(if we want to try and scry the intentions of the dead(I bet they were progressive))). We've tilted farther that way* before, it's been lazyness, relative comfort, and greed that's tipped it to where it is. It'll likely tip back, but nobody will like the costs upstream of that becoming the route people choose. That'd be my guess.

*general progressivism, like the era of Lustron Houses and the GI Bill(and we've been in Gilded Eras before, as well)

 

[Broken_Erika]

Georgia rocked by clashes over 'foreign agent' bill​

Riot police in Georgia fired tear gas and water cannon into crowds protesting a bill seen by the opposition as targeting media freedoms.

Thousands waving Georgian and European Union flags gathered outside parliament for a second night to protest what they see as a Russian-inspired law.

MPs approved the second reading of the controversial "foreign agent" bill on Wednesday.

The EU warns it could harm Tbilisi's ambitions of joining the bloc.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday she was following events in Georgia with "great concern".

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, she added: "The Georgian people want a European future for their country. Georgia is at a crossroads. It should stay the course on the road to Europe."

The bill cleared its second reading with a vote of 83 to 23. If it becomes law, organisations would be required to state whether they were funded from abroad.

Georgia's governing party wants it enacted by the end of the month, but critics say it is authoritarian.

The country has been rocked by weeks of protests over the issue. On Tuesday night, there were similar clashes between police and protesters on Rustaveli Avenue, outside parliament.

Several people were injured, including Levan Khabeishvili, chairman of the main opposition party United National Movement (UNM). He posted a picture of his bruised face on social media and later appeared in parliament, his face heavily bandaged.

Eyewitnesses accused some police officers of physically attacking protesters and EU foreign police chief Josep Borrell said he strongly condemned violence against Georgians "who were peacefully demonstrating against the law on foreign influence".

Deputy interior minister Aleksandre Darakhvelidze said six officers were hurt and 63 people arrested and he complained that "the rally turned completely violent". He said Mr Khabeishvili had been hurt while trying to break through a police cordon, although his party said he had been beaten by police.

Georgia was granted EU candidate status last December and polls suggest about 80% of the population is in favour of joining.

Protests against the bill began in mid-April, after the ruling Georgian Dream party proposed measures requiring non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and independent media to register as organisations "bearing the interests of a foreign power", if they receive more than 20% of their funding from foreign donors.

They would also be monitored by Georgia's justice ministry and could be forced to share sensitive information - or face hefty fines of up to 25,000 Georgian lari ($9,400; £7,500).

Opponents say the measures are inspired by authoritarian legislation that neighbouring Russia uses to crush dissent. But the billionaire founder of the Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, has claimed a Western "global war" party is using the country as part of its confrontation with Russia.

Protesters fear that the proposed foreign influence bill could be used to crush critical voices ahead of the parliamentary elections later this year.

A similar authoritarian law that came into force in Russia in 2012 has since been used to marginalise voices challenging the Kremlin - including prominent cultural figures, media organisations and civil society groups.

Many Georgians fear the measures will derail Georgia from its path towards the much-coveted status of EU membership, says the BBC's South Caucasus correspondent, Rayhan Demytrie.

A number of European leaders have warned the proposed bill is "incompatible" with European norms and values.

But the government of Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze is standing firm.

Mr Kobakhidze has accused NGOs of attempting to stage revolutions in Georgia twice, of promoting "gay propaganda" and of attacking the Georgian Orthodox Church.

The government insists the bill is about ensuring transparency and rejects the notion that it is against European values - or that Russia is behind the legislation.

On Monday, Mr Ivanishvili told a rally of Georgian Dream supporters that foreign-funded NGOs threatened Georgian sovereignty and that the opposition UNM would be punished for crimes against the state after this year's elections.

Georgia's ceremonial president, Salome Zourabichvili, described the pro-government rally as a "Putin-type" event.

Ms Zourabichvili, who is strongly opposed to the foreign influence bill, has appealed to the interior ministry to stop using "disproportionate force" against protesters.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68933064

 

[Lexicus]

(I mean, we already sort of are trying it, we've got some baked in progressivism even if it was accidental(if we want to try and scry the intentions of the dead(I bet they were progressive))).

We don't need to scry to find the intentions behind the electoral college, because of a little thing called writing.

 

[Lexicus]

We don't need to scry to find the intentions behind the electoral college, because of a little thing called writing.

View attachment 690043

This is literally the opposite of progressive btw

 

[Farm Boy]

A system based on acceptance of something so base an atrocity can still be progressive within its application and scope. The fault you point out has been remedied with gunfire and death. A remedy carried out closer to the inception than today by a significant margin. The sort of which comes from failures of consent in governance. Among the sort of people that... oh what's a relevant joke for them moment... "bring snacks?"

 

[Lexicus]

Well, the point is not merely slavery but the fact that "the right of suffrage was far more diffusive in the Northern states". The franchise and thus membership in the polity was extended to only a slice of the whites in the South until the mid 19th century. The idea behind the electoral college, and a significant pillar of support for the setup of the Senate, was to balance these proportionally smaller polities, made up of the men of quality, against the states where the men of no breeding could also vote. This is also the opposite of progressive. The electoral college has not uniformly empowered the aristocrats and their friends throughout US history - a lot of the rural states used to be progressive before the mid-20th century due to strong histories of labor activism - but now the Senate massively empowers a minority of the country to make policy that, as Cutlass has pointed out, makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. This is all also the opposite of progressive.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Add PR, DC and NYC. All have more people than Wyoming or Vermont.

 

[Farm Boy]

The whole experiment was progressive.