What if we replaced elected politicians with randomly selected citizens?

[March3]

What if we replaced elected politicians with randomly selected citizens?

https://www.fastcompany.com/90606492/wha...d-citizens

[Eric the Green]

That's an interesting name for the libertarian spammer. A new name every day, bro!

[David Horn]

(03-04-2021, 05:37 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: That's an interesting name for the libertarian spammer. A new name every day, bro!

He can look at the calendar and post "The sky is blue". It's a major time saver.

[pbrower2a]

But most of the time I would have to post "the sky is gray" because I am in Michigan!

[girlmonday]

Kings live in large castles, eat well, have armies to protect them, and tax the serfs.

What benefits does the government give you?

If you lived in a free country, you can decide if going outside is worth the risk. In a police state, the government tells you what to do.

[pbrower2a]

Here's the problem: a random selection could get you a criminal, an addict, a madman, or an idiot. Everyone would be at different levels of the learning curve, and some would be quick drop-offs because... well, they might even be illiterate.

Were I to ever assume the responsibilities attached I would do my level best... I would do some things right for my district, such as to seek a posting on the agriculture committee because my district is extremely rural. I would also be a poor ideological match even for that. I am a liberal in an R+20 district.

[Einzige]

(03-05-2021, 07:45 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here's the problem: a random selection could get you a criminal, an addict, a madman, or an idiot. Everyone would be at different levels of the learning curve, and some would be quick drop-offs because... well, they might even be illiterate.

Were I to ever assume the responsibilities attached I would do my level best... I would do some things right for my district, such as to seek a posting on the agriculture committee because my district is extremely rural. I would also be a poor ideological match even for that. I am a liberal in an R+20 district.

Lol, plenty of politicians are functionally illiterate about anything outside of politics.

[pbrower2a]

(03-05-2021, 07:57 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-05-2021, 07:45 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here's the problem: a random selection could get you a criminal, an addict, a madman, or an idiot. Everyone would be at different levels of the learning curve, and some would be quick drop-offs because... well, they might even be illiterate.

Were I to ever assume the responsibilities attached I would do my level best... I would do some things right for my district, such as to seek a posting on the agriculture committee because my district is extremely rural. I would also be a poor ideological match even for that. I am a liberal in an R+20 district.

Lol, plenty of politicians are functionally illiterate about anything outside of politics.

Political life does not exist in a vacuum. Locally there is the cultural color, and that can be very different from some conception of the state as a whole. Tennessee seems super-Red, but Greater Nashville is more like Greater Atlanta or Greater Indianapolis in its politics. 

We have plenty of  people who believe in Young-Earth Creationism. a nearly-complete denial of biological science because evolution denies the first chapters of Genesis. Something had to explain the origin of life and the universe, and the ancient Hebrews took the most convincing story of the time, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and stripped it of its pagan gods and used it to stifle curiosity about things that people could not then know. Anyone who believes in the Genesis account at the expense of all other explanations has no curiosity about paleontology, continental drift, archeology, and genetics that together tell a far richer story than some curiosity-crushing meme.

We have Holocaust deniers (I can say this to people who claim to be defending the German people from a slander: there was nothing wrong with the German And Austrian people between 1933 and 1945 that Judaism would not have solved), anti-vaxxers, white supremacists, and Afrocentrists... and in turn AIDS deniers and COVID-19 deniers. We have people who think that everyone in possession of a gun would make life safer. (Truth be told, dogs are safer and more likely to attack bad guys effectively, and a dog is likely to make one more likely to survive a medical catastrophe and less likely to commit suicide in a depressing situation). Statistics over spotty stories? Sure, we have all heard the tale of someone who smoked like a chimney and lived deep into his nineties. I do not smoke. I know the statistics. Statistics is the easiest math class in college.

[girlmonday]

Americans don't care if the Gestapo use surveillance drones, but Americans completely lose their minds if protesters protest tyranny.

[pbrower2a]

(03-05-2021, 10:02 PM)girlmonday Wrote: Americans don't care if the Gestapo use surveillance drones, but Americans completely lose their minds if protesters protest tyranny.

For now, suppose that the insurrection of January 6 had achieved its ends. We would be having plenty of protests against what would be the effective dictatorship of Donald Trump. Trump would continue to tell us that he really won and what looked like a Biden win was a sham because, well, huge vote fraud that would have to be rectified the next time. Maybe there would already be a secret police forming, and people would be picked up at protests and never be seen again. Congress would be voting already on such measures as allowing states to decide that people could vote only as their employers dictate. 

But it did not happen. 

As for surveillance drones, I am surprised that they are not already in use for the enforcement of traffic laws. That said, running red lights and stop signs or driving 80 in a 70 zone isn't a political statement.

[MissDenver]

Wow.

The US is collapsing and no one says a word.

You know the world is doomed when even Somalia requires life jackets to be used at the beach and people are forced to used seatbelts on buses.

Racists scream that the US must be a police state because mudshits exist, but why was the USA able to be a free country in 1989 even with black people?

Nazis say restaurants must be licensed because negroes are dirty, but couldn't Fascists boycott restaurants with black workers?

Racists insist affirmative action is necessary because white people might not be hired at a company, but couldn't those who are not hired at one employer apply at another business?

Americans swear North Korea is a paradise because they have closed borders, but do you really want to live in a place where everyone thinks the same and wears the same clothes and no one can be rich or be different?

Airplanes, cars, and telephones could never be invented today because anything new is immediately outlawed.

You may have thought that you learned your lesson 20 years ago if you hit your finger with a hammer, but if you hit your finger again this week, you might wonder if a law against smashing your finger with a hammer really would have helped.

The US is a hell today run by control freaks and busybodies who decide what the American sheep, zombies, and robots are allowed to do.

The US now is a police state with a smile. Americans do not even know that they live in a prison.

You might believe you live in a free country if you don't think. If you think then you would realize that your phone calls are wiretapped, you can't go outside without being stopped and frisked by the Gestapo, you can't travel without an ID and being groped by the TSA, you can't start a business, you have no free speech, you cannot protest, guns are illegal, the government can steal your property, the government can extrajudically assassinate you, torture you, and indefinitely detain you without trial.

Americans bitch and complain that Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit blocks them, but no one can make a free speech website?

Americans say Hollywood always portrays white men as evil and blacks as superheroes, but no one can make a Redpill documentary about white people?

The USA has 325 million people and not one person can write a song about tyranny, debt, and wars?

Think.

Americans used to believe in freedom.