this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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We went over this:
"The reality is that being the leader sucks and meeting in the town square regularly is hard work. People just want to vote for (or maybe not even that much) who they think is the best dictator and let the the dictator do his thing [...] We’ve tried to hack that onto FPTP over the years, but it was never designed for that mode of use, and as you would expect the results are dismal. Indeed, we do need a new system if we want to not have to express our will."
Was there something in that which was not clear?
Honestly, I am unsure of what this is trying to say. My best interpretation is that it is still trying to point out that our bastardized attempt to turn FPTP into something it is not has failed, but that would just be repeating the quote quoted above it, so clearly I have missed the mark.
What you're saying is a strange, fantasy that has no connection to reality.
Sorry...I'm not interested in talking about your fantasies. We really need to discuss the reality of the Canadian political situation.
Have a good day.
Well, no. The context of discussion centres around an earlier commenter's claim that "We need a system that truly reflects the will on the majority of Canadians." That cannot discuss the reality of the Canadian political situation as it is fundamentally forward looking to a reality which does not yet exist. FPTP, used as it was designed, is very well suited to achieving what is stated.
But it does mean that the people have to express their will, and they have proven that they don't want to. They prefer to spend time focusing on their job, their family, friends, writing internet comments, etc. And fair enough. They want to hand control to a higher power and get back to their individual lives. FPTP is not at all suited to that.
No, it isn't, as I said above. The Harper government was elected three times with less than 40% of the popular vote and did all the things that Conservatives do, ran up the deficit, ran up the debt, cut taxes for the rich and corporations, cut services for everyone else, burned decades of scientific research and muzzled government experts to push his christofascist dogmatic agenda, passed unconstitutional laws as a dog whistle to his christofascist base then spent millions of dollars defending them to the Supreme Court only to have 100% of those unconstutitional laws struck down. How is that representing the majority of Canadians when then had the support of less than 40%?
The current Liberal + NDP agreement government far better represents the will of the people but it's a quirk of the FPTP system.
Yeah, no. The fact that you can actually name the dictator tells that this is not FPTP as it was designed. That is how it has come to be used, because people don't want to express their will, but that has already been talked about to death.
Again, the FPTP system was designed to have the people select one representative who gathers locally to talk about their concerns and objectives with the local people. The representative then takes the result of that to Ottawa to combine with all of the other localities that have done the same to reach an ultimate consensus. The representative's actions in Ottawa are recorded to make sure he has honoured what took place locally.
That is not how we use it. It has been bastardized to the point that it makes no sense. But we could if wanted to have the will of the majority represented. There is nothing stopping us other than doing the democratic work a democracy expects. The only possibly better way to have the will represented is to have us all travel to Ottawa and all gather together. That doesn't scale so well, though, and it's a long way from Vancouver.
To be fair, it's also quirky that you have been able to determine the will of the people as they don't usually want to express their will. Typically they'd rather let someone else figure it out. Hence how we got here.
You see? This is the kind of nonsense that is disconnected from reality. Harper was freely and fairly elected and was defeated in a free and fair election. He was nothing approaching a dictator.
I'm simply not willing to continue to discuss this with you if you're not making arguments that are connected to reality.
Have a good day.
The only time Harper was not elected in a Canadian federal election was the first one he participated in. He resigned from politics about six months after his last election win. Maybe you are trying to imply that the resignation was a defeat? But that did not happen during the election.
Are you, maybe, talking about an election other than the Canadian federal election?
It sure seemed like you were trying to say that he had total control over the country at one time. I do not disagree. If that is not the case, why did you bring him up?
Sorry...your position is so ridiculous that there is no room for discussion.
Funny, as I stopped having a position a while ago. I long moved to trying to figure out your position as it is in no way clear.
Some pretty simple questions in that last comment that would help clarify things. Is there a reason you are afraid to answer them?
Your positions are so absurd that there is no chance to have a reasonable conversation.
What kind of conversation would we have had if, hypothetically, they were not absurd?
Reasonable conversation is predicated on starting with the absurd. I give you the benefit of the doubt that you are trying, in good faith, to provide information to take us from the absurd to something sensible, but I am honestly not clear in what you are trying to say. My attempts to figure it out have been stonewalled.
MapleEngineer: I'm going to come over and fuck your wife.
Rocket: The fuck you are.
MapleEngineer: Let's negotiate and find some middle ground. Maybe she can just give me a blowjob.
When your opening position is absurd there is literally no room for discussion. You always take the most ridiculously extreme and absurd position. That leaves no room for reasonable discussion.
Yeah, more like:
Have a nice day.
Oh yeah, I forgot to add that at the end of every other reply. Sorry about the oversight.
Anyway, if you want a demonstration of absurd, this is what has become absurd. Back to the actual topic of conversation. I believe we have some outstanding questions.
I'm especially interested to learn which election Harper lost after having won one. Trying to wrap my head around your interesting mind further, it dawned on me that maybe you were trying to say that he was Prime Minister and then he lost that position. The trouble with that theory is that the Prime Minister is not elected in the Canadian federal election. It is an appointed position.