MedicalStory2
No bio...
User ID: 2071
MedicalStory2
4d ago
We could certainly use more rational decision making in politics. We could certainly use less partisanship and more concern for the general welfare. I don't think your proposal gets us there.
First, we could look to the Federal Bureaucracy to see what happens to an arm of the government with stability against the forces of the whims of each election. Is the bureaucracy non-partisan? De jure yes, but de facto no. It has been basically captured and loyal to a specific party for decades. (And to the extent that's changed over the past year, it's only been by replacement with people loyal to the other party.) Does the bureaucracy make rational decisions? Lol, no.
Second, I don't think it helps to select for moderates. Smart people are more likely to have extreme beliefs and if, like me, you believe that our government is sliding backwards down a rut, what we need are "wild" ideas to get us out.
For what it's worth, I propose proportional representation using the "single transferrable vote" system. More diversity of beliefs and less toxic partisanship (like incentive to sabotage another party) in a multi-party system.
MedicalStory2
4mo ago
Would this have even been a crime in Israel? Quick Googling shows that the age of consent in Israel is 16, but I didn't find any information about the age of the person Alexandrovich was contacting.
I ask because I don't think it's too uncommon for any allied country to exert pressure on behalf of a citizen or even for local officials to allow flight from jurisdiction when the sex crime in the US isn't a crime in the home country. I can't find anything to confirm the pattern, but I do remember a local case a couple decades ago in Colorado involving a Swiss citizen.
MedicalStory2
8mo ago
Would Trump 47 be able to show his his true colors in a shutdown or is much of the unpopular stuff in a shutdown is actually required by law?
Trump will do his best to do the most enjoyable shutdown possible. For example, in previous shutdowns, the national parks closed, including spending money to ensure the closure of isolated trails. Maybe in a Trump 47 shutdown, they stay open to the public, but are free since no one is paid to collect money at the entrance.
If Trump 47 gets to show his true colors, then it would look completely different than the shutdowns of yore. If not, he can blame all the bad results on the Dems (and still enjoy the dismantle-whatever-he-wants superpowers the shutdown provides).
MedicalStory2
9mo ago
My suspicion is that the part you call a "shit-show" is mostly necessary opsec in an adversarial environment. The bureaucrats are fighting administration goals and if they were made privy to the administration's plans, they'd use that information to defeat the plan (or try to). So there's will-they/won't-they/when-they.
MedicalStory2
10mo ago
True, but birth certificate gender has the same problem. I don't imagine a norm of verifying birth gender in social settings.
MedicalStory2
10mo ago
There are plenty of coherent positions between preferred pronouns and birth certificate pronouns. The long version mine is here: https://medicalstory.substack.com/p/those-categories-do-not-work-for?r=eqn2u The tl;dr is it rounds close to whether they have been surgically altered.
MedicalStory2
11mo ago
The mathematician in me can't get past "Only 44% of the students now enrolled in four-year colleges in the United States are men -- 14% less than the figure for women"
Either you mean 44% of the students are men and 58% are women, which is not possible, even with rounding error. Or you mean 44% are men and about 51% are women (since 44 is about 14% lower than 51), which draws my attention to the missing 5%, presumably in some other/no data/did not answer category.
Or it's a typo shrug
Thanks for the link. I read the article and his anti-gerrymandering proposal too. For the House, I think he's got something close to the best thing that could be passed. (I still also want proportional representation, but don't currently see a realistic path to get there.)
For the Senate, I don't think the proposal (as summarized, I haven't read the full article) gets us to what you and the founders envision. We're too partisan.
More options
Context Copy link