Every country has the government it deserves.

[wONKEyeYEs]

"Professors Martin Gilens (Princeton University) and Benjamin I. Page (Northwestern University)

looked at more than 20 years worth of data to answer a simple question:

Does the government represent the people?

Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law.

In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did.

What they found was extremely unsettling:

The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all."

 

Original paper...

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

 

When voting for representation doesn't work, what is left?

[wasab]

compare to Romania, USA aint that bad.

 

if you want to fight special interest, get others with money and counter influence the politics. no amount of $$$ can buy popular votes in the USA if the politicians are blatant crooks anyhow. To be honest, if congressmen just wants money, why cant them just like vote themselves a 100x raise? you know what i mean? they control the budget after all. 

[AshleyAshes]

3 minutes ago, wasab said:

To be honest, if congressmen just wants money, why cant them just like vote themselves a 100x raise? you know what i mean? they control the budget after all. 

Because the elecorate would eat them alive for it.

[Canada EH]

5 minutes ago, wasab said:

vote themselves a 100x raise

Thats what city hall does, while the public sector is losing jobs.

 

Governments are so wasteful

Governments are so stupid most of the time

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, Erik Sieghart said:

All congress has to do is pass a law that says they can do it.

No, they can't.

 

1 minute ago, Erik Sieghart said:

I don't know who came up with this brilliant plan but they forgot about federalism.

That's part of the reasoning behind the second amendment of the US Constitution.

[AshleyAshes]

13 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

That's part of the reasoning behind the second amendment of the US Constitution.

Yeah, all those small arms in civilian hands will do wonders against the United States government and the most well trained military in the world and it's tanks, armored personel carriers, strike capable jet fighters, attack helicopters, AEGIS destroyers, and artillary.  Look, I get that you American's LOVE the childish fantasy that the second amendment will protect you from a 'tyranical government' but let's be real here; American citizens can't legally posess the actual good shit and the United States military would utterly annihilate any opposition should it so choose to do so.  Thankfully, the armed forces of the United States are all volentary and would by in large take issue with 'Operation Round Up All The Americans' and and take all those super cool real weapons they have and point them in the opposite direction as ordered.  Any resistance to a 'tyranical government' would require the support of the military or it would be doomed, second ammendment or not, because othewise you are just cannon fodder.

[Canada EH]

Politicians go on so many vacations and get so many sweet gifts

[Volbet]

I can see a problem in the methodology. Their question is whether or not US representatives actually represent their constituency. 

They then proceed to answer (or attempt to, at least) from only one angle; that of pure populism. 

What they then answer is whether or not a represemtative represents their constituency's political opinion. What they don't answer is whether or not the representative represents their constituency's best interests. 

 

See, one of the features of a representative democracies, like the one in the US, is that it safeguards the republic from rampant populism, where a piece of legislation can be passed based on popular opinion rather than it being based on anything factual. 

 

[LienusLateTips]

Taiwan has a nice government and their people are nice *china comes by*

I SAID CHINESE TAIPEI OK

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

I still hate how our feminist Prime Minister is spending most of his time pushing his progressive agenda against misused pronouns rather than figuring out solutions to more pressing matters like I don't know, the fact that one of your major cities has listed affordable housing to be 3k a month?

[LienusLateTips]

1 minute ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I still hate how our feminist Prime Minister is spending most of his time pushing his progressive agenda against misused pronouns rather than figuring out solutions to more pressing matters like I don't know, the fact that one of your major cities has listed affordable housing to be 3k a month?

he should trademark "peoplekind", whatever that means

 

- coming from a "sorta socialist" left leaning person

[Eduard the weeb]

well yeah majority of people don't have a say and also popular opinion of the public falls upon the deaf ears of congress ( ex Net Neutrality ) and the thoughts of the young are disregarded for old thinking ( ex weed ).

 

so yeah I think right now Big business and money run the US

[asus killer]

Sorry for bringing bad news. the consequence may be right but the cause can't be.

In many countries (mine included) special interests can't trow money at politics and things are exactly the same. So the problem is electing bad people. See it this way if the politics weren't corrupt they would not accept the money, simple right!

If there are so many politicians in the US willing to be bought, then even if you make it illegal to give them money that will change NOTHING. They will find other ways to do it.

 

And it get worst (again, sorry for the bad news). People vote in stupid mode. Just look how they elected some people in the US. Is it a US thing? no. In many countries is exactly the same. In mine a politician went to jail for accepting bribes, millions in Switzerland without explanation for it. He came out and got elected AGAIN.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

2 hours ago, Volbet said:

I can see a problem in the methodology.

 

I haven't read the original article, so I won't comment on the actual Princeton study. But the way it is told in the video would make it seem very flood indeed, as it explains the empirical exercise as if they had independent observations. However, many policies ("ideas", in the video) are far from independent of each other, and you may easily have inconsistent policies all having high support at the same time. For example, the "ideas" for which public opinion was collected could be:

 

• Reduce tax rates across the board
• Improve public service X (health care, social security, infrastructure, etc)
• Reduce or don't increase public debt
• Keep inflation low

I could easily imagine many societies in which the support for each of these would be very high. At the same time, they can't all happen at the same time (at least not without invoking some unspecified policy that will square things out; usual candidates are "close tax loophles" or "eliminate corruption / wasteful spending in government officials", the math of which no one ever verifies, of course ). In reality, laws are quite more specific, which makes things worse: present spending alternatives, or tax reductions, one by one and you will easily end up with a budget 3 or 4 times as big as the existing one, or a completely un-funded state. And all by the same people who would be far from producing such outcome if you ask them to make the whole budget or set up the full tax system, with all the trade-offs becoming explicit and apparent.

From that perspective, differences in the "fit" for different groups could potentially reflect that one group has more consistent preferences over related policies, even when asked one by one.

[Volbet]

11 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I haven't read the original article, so I won't comment on the actual Princeton study. But the way it is told in the video would make it seem very flood indeed, as it explains the empirical exercise as if they had independent observations. However, many policies ("ideas", in the video) are far from independent of each other, and you may easily have inconsistent policies all having high support at the same time. For example, the "ideas" for which public opinion was collected could be:

 

• Reduce tax rates across the board
• Improve public service X (health care, social security, infrastructure, etc)
• Reduce or don't increase public debt
• Keep inflation low

I could easily imagine many societies in which the support for each of these would be very high. At the same time, they can't all happen at the same time (at least not without invoking some unspecified policy that will square things out; usual candidates are "close tax loophles" or "eliminate corruption / wasteful spending in government officials", the math of which no one ever verifies, of course ). In reality, laws are quite more specific, which makes things worse: present spending alternatives, or tax reductions, one by one and you will easily end up with a budget 3 or 4 times as big as the existing one, or a completely un-funded state. And all by the same people who would be far from producing such outcome if you ask them to make the whole budget or set up the full tax system, with all the trade-offs becoming explicit and apparent.

From that perspective, differences in the "fit" for different groups could potentially reflect that one group has more consistent preferences over related policies, even when asked one by one.

It also ignores the potential information inequality. 

 

The video seems to assume that the "elite" (whatever that means) gets their way due to throwing money at the problem. 

While that could certainly be the reason, or part of the reason, another reason could be that the "elite" is more informed about how public policy's work and how they're interwoven, meaning their0 opinion would fall more in line with what actually becomes policy.  

 

TL;DR just becuase you have an opinion it doesn't mean that it has to (or even can) become public policy. 

[AshleyAshes]

6 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I still hate how our feminist Prime Minister is spending most of his time pushing his progressive agenda against misused pronouns rather than figuring out solutions to more pressing matters like I don't know, the fact that one of your major cities has listed affordable housing to be 3k a month?

Probably because that would primarily be a municipal and provencial issue.  The Federal government largely lacks the jurisdiction to have any real influence on that.  But generally people are ignorant as to to the actual functions of their differnet levels of government and instead just blindly expect the highest level to 'Just do something to fix the problem' without understanding the mechanics of the issue.

[wasab]

10 hours ago, Drak3 said:

No, they can't.

 

That's part of the reasoning behind the second amendment of the US Constitution.

But congress are allow to amend the constitution to whatever suits them. If state politicians are all as corrupt as the feds, no one can really stop them.  They can all just enshrine shit like all politicians are entitled to top 1% income and 365 days vacation into the constitution.

[straight_stewie]

13 hours ago, wONKEyeYEs said:

The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all."

We are a Republic, and not a Democracy. Some people (like me), think that the benefits to this far outweigh the consequences, however the consequences are still pretty bad. But the benefits are pretty good, so it evens out in the end.

but this video is so full of bullshit that I have to believe the study it's based on was flawed too.

[Drak3]

58 minutes ago, wasab said:

But congress are allow to amend the constitution to whatever suits them. If state politicians are all as corrupt as the feds, no one can really stop them.  They can all just enshrine shit like all politicians are entitled to top 1% income and 365 days vacation into the constitution.

No, they aren't. They have limits to what they can amend, and that cannot infringe on the first 10.

[wasab]

3 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

No, they aren't. They have limits to what they can amend, and that cannot infringe on the first 10.

Actually they can. The first 10 are the bills of rights which are admendments themselves which can be admended themselves. Legally speaking, admenedment can never be remove. What Congress and states can do is to create a new one that nullified the previous. E.g. probation era, the constitution banned achohol (stupidest use of the constitution in my opinion) while later admenments nullified that.

[divito]

8 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I still hate how our feminist Prime Minister is spending most of his time pushing his progressive agenda against misused pronouns rather than figuring out solutions to more pressing matters like I don't know, the fact that one of your major cities has listed affordable housing to be 3k a month?

Um, several measures have cooled off the housing market already. Might be a case where you also need provincial measures to address local concerns. Federal implementations can't fix every case around the country that has issues.

[Donut417]

The video really does justice to how our government operates currently. Though as others have pointed out, stating that the people have no power is not correct. While the President is elected by the electoral college. Congress is elected by popular vote. In reality Congress is the branch that has the ability to impact the people more, as they are the ones that come up with the bills. The people have all the authority when picking these worthless bastards. I use that term, because a vast majority of them are worthless bastards. 

 

The issue is most people dont vote for who could do the best job. They vote along party lines because for some reason they think political parties mean something. Im not saying vote democrat or republican. But you should vote for the person you really believe can make a difference no matter what political party they belong to. For the record I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans. But in my opinion fuck the Federal elections. Its the State, county and local elections that matter the most. 

[wasab]

9 hours ago, JDE said:

Taiwan has a nice government and their people are nice *china comes by*

I SAID CHINESE TAIPEI OK

It should be called China Taiwan region right now. Taiwan China is not good enough anymore.

 

btw, Taiwan is Chinese. There is nothing wrong with calling them Chinese. Heck, their official name is Republic of China.

[AshleyAshes]

10 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

The issue is most people dont vote for who could do the best job. They vote along party lines because for some reason they think political parties mean something. Im not saying vote democrat or republican. But you should vote for the person you really believe can make a difference no matter what political party they belong to. For the record I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans. But in my opinion fuck the Federal elections. Its the State, county and local elections that matter the most. 

Also a LOT of people can be single issue voters and their 'single issue' is stupid as shit.

 

'I'll vote for whoever will stop the gays from marrying!'
'Maybe you should vote for whoever will do their best to support the public education system that you're own children are in?'

'But there are men, GETTING MARRIED TO EACH OTHER!'

'Which candidate is going to support the tax breaks that support the industry that keeps you employed? Does that matter to you?'

'THE MARRIAGES OF TOTAL STRANGERS I DON'T KNOW IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT!'

 

When it comes to 'politics' people generally focus on these big, often abstract concepts, and will so frequently know nothing about the small scale or more complicated stuff that ACTUALLY effects the lives of themselves, their families, and their communities.

[LienusLateTips]

5 minutes ago, wasab said:

It should be called China Taiwan region right now. Taiwan China is not good enough anymore.

 

btw, Taiwan is Chinese. There is nothing wrong with calling them Chinese. Heck, their official name is Republic of China.

Ik. I'm from Taiwan.

 

I made a China joke since whenever I say my country Taiwan some of my Chinese friends get triggered