14 years and counting...
Comments
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mcgruff10 said:Spiritual_Chaos said:What does "free elections" mean?
Never heard of a western democracy with as corrupt democratic process as the US.
Interesting article on corrupt nations (the us isn’t on the list)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/these-are-the-18-most-corrupt-countries-in-the-developed-world-a7066391.htmlThe 2015 annual Year in Election report compares the risks of flawed and failed elections, and looks at how well countries around the world meet international standards. The report gathers assessments from over 2,000 experts to evaluate the perceived integrity of all 180 national parliamentary and presidential contests held between July 1, 2012 to December 31, 2015 in 139 countries worldwide. These include 54 national elections held last year.
Forty experts were asked to assess each election by answering 49 questions The overall 100-point Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index is constructed by summing up the responses.
Americans often express pride in their democracy, yet the results indicate that domestic and international experts rate the U.S. elections as the worst among all Western democracies.
Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden are at the top of the ranking, all scoring over 80 on the 100 point PEI Index. Several democracies from diverse regions and cultures – for example, Israel and Canada – are ranked in the middle of the pack.
http://theconversation.com/american-elections-ranked-worst-among-western-democracies-heres-why-56485"Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"0 -
mcgruff10 said:Spiritual_Chaos said:What does "free elections" mean?
Never heard of a western democracy with as corrupt democratic process as the US.
Where have you read that we have the most corrupt democratic process of all western democracies? What makes you think that? Of course there is corruption here but I don’t think we are the most corrupt western democracy.
Interesting article on corrupt nations (the us isn’t on the list)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/these-are-the-18-most-corrupt-countries-in-the-developed-world-a7066391.html
Do you have a thing called gerrymandering?
Can you vote by default for being a citizen, or do you have to go through a process and "register" to vote?
What are the voting turnout for your superduper democratic elections?Post edited by Spiritual_Chaos on"Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"0 -
Spiritual_Chaos said:mcgruff10 said:Spiritual_Chaos said:What does "free elections" mean?
Never heard of a western democracy with as corrupt democratic process as the US.
Interesting article on corrupt nations (the us isn’t on the list)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/these-are-the-18-most-corrupt-countries-in-the-developed-world-a7066391.htmlThe 2015 annual Year in Election report compares the risks of flawed and failed elections, and looks at how well countries around the world meet international standards. The report gathers assessments from over 2,000 experts to evaluate the perceived integrity of all 180 national parliamentary and presidential contests held between July 1, 2012 to December 31, 2015 in 139 countries worldwide. These include 54 national elections held last year.
Forty experts were asked to assess each election by answering 49 questions The overall 100-point Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index is constructed by summing up the responses.
Americans often express pride in their democracy, yet the results indicate that domestic and international experts rate the U.S. elections as the worst among all Western democracies.
Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden are at the top of the ranking, all scoring over 80 on the 100 point PEI Index. Several democracies from diverse regions and cultures – for example, Israel and Canada – are ranked in the middle of the pack.
http://theconversation.com/american-elections-ranked-worst-among-western-democracies-heres-why-56485But the U.S. scores 62, a full 24 points lower than Denmark and Finland. The UK also performs fairly poorly, along with Greece and Australia. One reason for this is that proportional electoral systems – which translate votes into seats on a proportional basis – usually tend to score higher as they provide more inclusive opportunities for smaller parties. All of the Nordic countries, for example, use a proportional system.
I agree that gerrymandering is terrible however I'll take all this information with a grain of salt:The project received media attention in 2016 when it ranked the United States last among western nations.[2] One of the project's International Advisory Board, Andrew Reynolds, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, noted in the Raleigh-based News and Observer that his home state's election integrity score was similar to Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone.[3] The study ranked integrity of the state's congressional districts lowest in the nation just below similar outlier Wisconsin.[4][5] An editorial in the Wall Street Journal ridiculed the study, noting that "Democracy in New York (which scored a 61) and Virginia (60) is supposedly more imperiled than in Rwanda (64), though Rwanda is controlled by an autocrat. The worst-performing state, Arizona (53), is outranked by Kuwait (55), Ivory Coast (59) and Kyrgyzstan (54)."[6] Dylan Matthews writing in Vox agreed that "it seems foolish to infer from that that the US is less of a democracy than Rwanda" but felt that the EIP had highlighted important issues such as gerrymandering and voter registration laws.[7]
Statistician Andrew Gelman had a negative view of the PEI Index, commenting that "[it] all seems like an unstable combination of political ideology, academic self-promotion, credulous journalism, and plain old incompetence", noting among other things that the EIP's 2014 data release has previously given the North Korean parliamentary election an 'electoral integrity' score of 65.3 and Cuba 65.6, higher than elections in EU members Romania and Bulgaria.[8][9][10] Norris addressed the controversy in two long replies to Gelman, noting that her team had subsequently dropped the North Korean election from the dataset. Gelman, however, questioned her justification for this removal and continued to question the EIP's methodology more generally.
I'll ride the wave where it takes me......0 -
Spiritual_Chaos said:mcgruff10 said:Spiritual_Chaos said:What does "free elections" mean?
Never heard of a western democracy with as corrupt democratic process as the US.
Where have you read that we have the most corrupt democratic process of all western democracies? What makes you think that? Of course there is corruption here but I don’t think we are the most corrupt western democracy.
Interesting article on corrupt nations (the us isn’t on the list)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/these-are-the-18-most-corrupt-countries-in-the-developed-world-a7066391.html
Do you have a thing called gerrymandering?
Can you vote by default for being a citizen, or do you have to go through a process and "register" to vote?
What are the voting turnout for your superduper democratic elections?
Do you have a thing called gerrymandering? yes, agreed it is terrible.
Can you vote by default for being a citizen, or do you have to go through a process and "register" to vote? register to vote: above 18/citizen and state residency requirements. In NJ you can get everything online: https://vote.gov/register/nj/ For info on different states go to vote.gov
What are the voting turnout for your superduper democratic elections? not good, more people should vote.
Post edited by mcgruff10 onI'll ride the wave where it takes me......0 -
cincybearcat said:josevolution said:cincybearcat said:josevolution said:I’ll never ever say this country is great again that definition has been trampled by the idiot in chief ...
This is an indefensible action by this admin, no doubt about it. But it doesn't take down a country as a whole....certainly knocks it down a few pegs....and we will need to see how we Americans fix this moving forward.'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 10 -
cincybearcat said:Halifax2TheMax said:cincybearcat said:Halifax2TheMax said:cincybearcat said:josevolution said:cincybearcat said:josevolution said:I’ll never ever say this country is great again that definition has been trampled by the idiot in chief ...
This is an indefensible action by this admin, no doubt about it. But it doesn't take down a country as a whole....certainly knocks it down a few pegs....and we will need to see how we Americans fix this moving forward.
So some things that I like about the US:
1) Freedom of speech
2) National parks
3) Amazing geography with lots of diverstiy
4) The diversity of the people
5) Friendliness of the people as you walk around
6) Wide open roads to drive
7) The music from the USA
8) The sports in USA
9) The TV and movies from USA
10) The universities provide terrific education and there are so many of them great in their own ways
11) The housing space....not everything is super crowded
12) 3 separate branches of government
13) Free elections
14) American craft beer
I'm sure there is plenty more but that's off the top of my head. I'm sure there is a list for most other countries as well.
1) Miles of beautiful coastline.
2) Smooth transitions of power. We don't have tanks rolling through the streets and state houses being torched after an election.
3) The ability of anyone to come from any part of the world with absolutely nothing and become a millionaire or better. Although this seems to be getting harder and harder to do.
4) Generoristy of the American people to help others here and around the wrold in times of need. But this also seems to have been curtailed recently (Puerto Rico, California wild fires). Has Team Trump Treason made any public statements or explained how the feds are assisting in California? Anything?
5) The amazing differences in culture you experience in different states. Sometimes it feels like I've left the country but I'm just in a different state.
But all it takes is one unnecessary invasion of Iraq or non-response to a hurricane for me to question whether all of this really matters in the context of whether America is, or still is, great. OP, if America is great, did she need to be made so again or was she always?09/15/1998 & 09/16/1998, Mansfield, MA; 08/29/00 08/30/00, Mansfield, MA; 07/02/03, 07/03/03, Mansfield, MA; 09/28/04, 09/29/04, Boston, MA; 09/22/05, Halifax, NS; 05/24/06, 05/25/06, Boston, MA; 07/22/06, 07/23/06, Gorge, WA; 06/27/2008, Hartford; 06/28/08, 06/30/08, Mansfield; 08/18/2009, O2, London, UK; 10/30/09, 10/31/09, Philadelphia, PA; 05/15/10, Hartford, CT; 05/17/10, Boston, MA; 05/20/10, 05/21/10, NY, NY; 06/22/10, Dublin, IRE; 06/23/10, Northern Ireland; 09/03/11, 09/04/11, Alpine Valley, WI; 09/11/11, 09/12/11, Toronto, Ont; 09/14/11, Ottawa, Ont; 09/15/11, Hamilton, Ont; 07/02/2012, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/04/2012 & 07/05/2012, Berlin, Germany; 07/07/2012, Stockholm, Sweden; 09/30/2012, Missoula, MT; 07/16/2013, London, Ont; 07/19/2013, Chicago, IL; 10/15/2013 & 10/16/2013, Worcester, MA; 10/21/2013 & 10/22/2013, Philadelphia, PA; 10/25/2013, Hartford, CT; 11/29/2013, Portland, OR; 11/30/2013, Spokane, WA; 12/04/2013, Vancouver, BC; 12/06/2013, Seattle, WA; 10/03/2014, St. Louis. MO; 10/22/2014, Denver, CO; 10/26/2015, New York, NY; 04/23/2016, New Orleans, LA; 04/28/2016 & 04/29/2016, Philadelphia, PA; 05/01/2016 & 05/02/2016, New York, NY; 05/08/2016, Ottawa, Ont.; 05/10/2016 & 05/12/2016, Toronto, Ont.; 08/05/2016 & 08/07/2016, Boston, MA; 08/20/2016 & 08/22/2016, Chicago, IL; 07/01/2018, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/03/2018, Krakow, Poland; 07/05/2018, Berlin, Germany; 09/02/2018 & 09/04/2018, Boston, MA; 09/08/2022, Toronto, Ont; 09/11/2022, New York, NY; 09/14/2022, Camden, NJ; 09/02/2023, St. Paul, MN; 05/04/2024 & 05/06/2024, Vancouver, BC; 05/10/2024, Portland, OR;
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©0 -
benjs said:cincybearcat said:josevolution said:cincybearcat said:josevolution said:I’ll never ever say this country is great again that definition has been trampled by the idiot in chief ...
This is an indefensible action by this admin, no doubt about it. But it doesn't take down a country as a whole....certainly knocks it down a few pegs....and we will need to see how we Americans fix this moving forward.hippiemom = goodness0 -
josevolution said:cincybearcat said:seriously you all are a bunch of crazy SOBs.
Poster #1 - i'll never say america is great again
Me - I wouldn't say "never", some things still great about America
Poster #2 - What's great about america
ME - You cant think of anything
Poster #2 - you said it, tell me
Me - ok here's what's great
POster #3 - no shit some things are great everywhere has some things great
Jesus H Christ.hippiemom = goodness0 -
Aw, don't go Cincy.Halifax2TheMax said:cincybearcat said:Halifax2TheMax said:cincybearcat said:Halifax2TheMax said:cincybearcat said:josevolution said:cincybearcat said:josevolution said:I’ll never ever say this country is great again that definition has been trampled by the idiot in chief ...
This is an indefensible action by this admin, no doubt about it. But it doesn't take down a country as a whole....certainly knocks it down a few pegs....and we will need to see how we Americans fix this moving forward.
So some things that I like about the US:
1) Freedom of speech
2) National parks
3) Amazing geography with lots of diverstiy
4) The diversity of the people
5) Friendliness of the people as you walk around
6) Wide open roads to drive
7) The music from the USA
8) The sports in USA
9) The TV and movies from USA
10) The universities provide terrific education and there are so many of them great in their own ways
11) The housing space....not everything is super crowded
12) 3 separate branches of government
13) Free elections
14) American craft beer
I'm sure there is plenty more but that's off the top of my head. I'm sure there is a list for most other countries as well.
1) Miles of beautiful coastline.
2) Smooth transitions of power. We don't have tanks rolling through the streets and state houses being torched after an election.
3) The ability of anyone to come from any part of the world with absolutely nothing and become a millionaire or better. Although this seems to be getting harder and harder to do.
4) Generoristy of the American people to help others here and around the wrold in times of need. But this also seems to have been curtailed recently (Puerto Rico, California wild fires). Has Team Trump Treason made any public statements or explained how the feds are assisting in California? Anything?
5) The amazing differences in culture you experience in different states. Sometimes it feels like I've left the country but I'm just in a different state.
But all it takes is one unnecessary invasion of Iraq or non-response to a hurricane for me to question whether all of this really matters in the context of whether America is, or still is, great. OP, if America is great, did she need to be made so again or was she always?
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata0 -
cincybearcat said:josevolution said:cincybearcat said:seriously you all are a bunch of crazy SOBs.
Poster #1 - i'll never say america is great again
Me - I wouldn't say "never", some things still great about America
Poster #2 - What's great about america
ME - You cant think of anything
Poster #2 - you said it, tell me
Me - ok here's what's great
POster #3 - no shit some things are great everywhere has some things great
Jesus H Christ.jesus greets me looks just like me ....0 -
Let me set this thing off real quick
USA > Canada... we'll take your fucking maple syrup
Sweden, keep quiet, or we'll come take your cheese and multi-tool knives
Holla back, our button is bigger0 -
my2hands said:Let me set this thing off real quick
USA > Canada... we'll take your fucking maple syrup
Sweden, keep quiet, or we'll come take your cheese and multi-tool knives
Holla back, our button is bigger"Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"0 -
Shit, I fucked that up lol
Good old American public education!0 -
For the record, j know the difference between the two, I swear! Lol
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Spiritual_Chaos said:my2hands said:Let me set this thing off real quick
USA > Canada... we'll take your fucking maple syrup
Sweden, keep quiet, or we'll come take your cheese and multi-tool knives
Holla back, our button is bigger
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata0 -
my2hands said:Shit, I fucked that up lol
Good old American public education!
Swedish cheese is a must at all my parties!
Post edited by PJ_Soul onWith all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata0 -
How is my fellow Neil Young diehard, my swedish brother from another mother, spiritual_chaos, gonna own me like that? Hahaha0
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my2hands said:Shit, I fucked that up lol
Good old American public education!09/15/1998 & 09/16/1998, Mansfield, MA; 08/29/00 08/30/00, Mansfield, MA; 07/02/03, 07/03/03, Mansfield, MA; 09/28/04, 09/29/04, Boston, MA; 09/22/05, Halifax, NS; 05/24/06, 05/25/06, Boston, MA; 07/22/06, 07/23/06, Gorge, WA; 06/27/2008, Hartford; 06/28/08, 06/30/08, Mansfield; 08/18/2009, O2, London, UK; 10/30/09, 10/31/09, Philadelphia, PA; 05/15/10, Hartford, CT; 05/17/10, Boston, MA; 05/20/10, 05/21/10, NY, NY; 06/22/10, Dublin, IRE; 06/23/10, Northern Ireland; 09/03/11, 09/04/11, Alpine Valley, WI; 09/11/11, 09/12/11, Toronto, Ont; 09/14/11, Ottawa, Ont; 09/15/11, Hamilton, Ont; 07/02/2012, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/04/2012 & 07/05/2012, Berlin, Germany; 07/07/2012, Stockholm, Sweden; 09/30/2012, Missoula, MT; 07/16/2013, London, Ont; 07/19/2013, Chicago, IL; 10/15/2013 & 10/16/2013, Worcester, MA; 10/21/2013 & 10/22/2013, Philadelphia, PA; 10/25/2013, Hartford, CT; 11/29/2013, Portland, OR; 11/30/2013, Spokane, WA; 12/04/2013, Vancouver, BC; 12/06/2013, Seattle, WA; 10/03/2014, St. Louis. MO; 10/22/2014, Denver, CO; 10/26/2015, New York, NY; 04/23/2016, New Orleans, LA; 04/28/2016 & 04/29/2016, Philadelphia, PA; 05/01/2016 & 05/02/2016, New York, NY; 05/08/2016, Ottawa, Ont.; 05/10/2016 & 05/12/2016, Toronto, Ont.; 08/05/2016 & 08/07/2016, Boston, MA; 08/20/2016 & 08/22/2016, Chicago, IL; 07/01/2018, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/03/2018, Krakow, Poland; 07/05/2018, Berlin, Germany; 09/02/2018 & 09/04/2018, Boston, MA; 09/08/2022, Toronto, Ont; 09/11/2022, New York, NY; 09/14/2022, Camden, NJ; 09/02/2023, St. Paul, MN; 05/04/2024 & 05/06/2024, Vancouver, BC; 05/10/2024, Portland, OR;
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©0 -
Meltdown99 said:cincybearcat said:seriously you all are a bunch of crazy SOBs.
Poster #1 - i'll never say america is great again
Me - I wouldn't say "never", some things still great about America
Poster #2 - What's great about america
ME - You cant think of anything
Poster #2 - you said it, tell me
Me - ok here's what's great
POster #3 - no shit some things are great everywhere has some things great
Jesus H Christ.
0 -
Swedish cheese....... here we go lol0
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