Your personal political evolution

[Mountaineer]

Who on earth would respond to a lottery that puts their professional life on hold while they perform the temporary role of an ad hoc politician for a single term that would be ( x years?)?

Please educate me if I am missing the logic in this idea.

A not optional lottery with few legit reasons to not participate. Remember the draft?

Yes I do. I also remember that the draft was applicable to young men, pre-career age, no dependents, no bone spurs. And even then it was unpopular enough that it eventually went away.

But a not optional (read compulsory) lottery imposed on a society that throws a tantrum because their rights are being trampled when being asked to wear a mask during a pandemic? Right.

We don't like the government telling us what to do, unless it is the government forcing us to become the government.
Does. Not. Parse.

You are probably right, we have not gotten a severe enough bad taste in our mouth for a lottery at this time. I just hope you don't have to switch to a view of a lottery being a preferred system after a few years of Biden/Harris/Pelosi/AOC/revolution/banana republic/etc. Lord have mercy!

[doodle]

Speaking of does.not.parse..

Nixon is an obvious crook...but Trump's not? Anyways, I don't want to divert attention. I'm curious how people evolved to hold the positions that they have.

[glennds]

You are probably right, we have not gotten a severe enough bad taste in our mouth for a lottery at this time. I just hope you don't have to switch to a view of a lottery being a preferred system after a few years of Biden/Harris/Pelosi/AOC/revolution/banana republic/etc. Lord have mercy!

Let's hope not. Yikes!
But yes, I admit there have been times in my life when a choice that I thought to be absolutely repugnant later started looking pretty good.
In fact the opposite has even happened in a relationship or two.

[SomeDude]

I sometimes wonder if we would be better off if political positions were filled by lottery, one term only, no elaborate pensions, etc.

While a good idea in theory, a sizable chunk of the population does not have enough intelligence to vote, let alone run the country. So if you eliminated the unfit, you would get cries of racism, sexism, etc. If you didn't eliminate the unfit, well, you 'd have one helluva mess.

Who is actually smart enough to run a country?

[glennds]

I sometimes wonder if we would be better off if political positions were filled by lottery, one term only, no elaborate pensions, etc.

While a good idea in theory, a sizable chunk of the population does not have enough intelligence to vote, let alone run the country. So if you eliminated the unfit, you would get cries of racism, sexism, etc. If you didn't eliminate the unfit, well, you 'd have one helluva mess.

Who is actually smart enough to run a country?

The free market is.

Exactly. In other words, the heads of the private insurance companies, pharma companies, food industry, Wall Street banks, energy companies, the Koch brothers, the tech giants, the media conglomerates and private organizations like the NRA.

They've got your back.

[vnatale]

Never have cared much about politics but I believe I have voted in every local, state, federal election since I was eligible, mostly for Rs or Ds but an occasional L; pretty much always voted for the candidate, not the party, and who I thought would be better for the city, county, state, or country. I always thought my vote was a throwaway if I did not vote for one of the major party candidates. I care more about effectiveness of the candidate than his/her character but I do think character is important too; there are really only two Presidents that have turned my stomach; there have been several wannabes that did. I still don't care much about politics whether in government, business, or the church, I just know it is necessary; I think most government politicians are, in general, self-serving shysters in disguise, and the higher the position the more corruption one is tempted to engage in. I sometimes wonder if we would be better off if political positions were filled by lottery, one term only, no elaborate pensions, etc. FWIW, I agree with most of what Tom wrote. I'm big on personal responsibility, very small on welfare provided by the state except in true emergencies; I believe hand-ups are far better than hand-outs and those hand-ups should come from family, friends, and church where ever possible. I'm big on knowing our history (family, state, country, world), flaws and all. I'm not big on tearing things down or rewriting history.

As I just read the last two paragraphs on this extremely long book on the 2000 election....what I'd shorty prior read that you wrote above (highlighted)....came to mind. I suspect that you will find much to agree with in these two paragraphs?

Vinny

We have set up a world where great men do not get nominated for the presidency—only ruthless, power-mad pols with hollow centers, surrounded by political mercenaries. We have set up a world where the candidate with the more effective liars and more cutthroat scoundrels wins. Perhaps our displeasure with the products of this machinery is the reason we got into this mess in the first place.

Dirty politics and hollow rhetoric are not new to America, but in recent decades, as money and television and mass marketing have saturated the political process, the office of the presidency has been terribly tarnished. Nixon and Clinton certainly did their damage, but they weren’t the only ones. We’re a coarser society, an angrier place, made all the more so by the billions of dollars to be made in exploiting the worst in us. In 2000 we had two men running for the highest office in the land, and many of us thought neither of them truly up to the task. So perhaps there really wasn’t a presidency left to steal. You can look at dimpled ballots, questionable judicial decrees, lazy reporters, family ties, and too much money. You can scour the Florida swamps in search of submerged Votomatics. You can file Freedom of Information Act requests to track down mash notes between people who were supposed to be neutral and folks who were rabid partisans. You can look at Florida—or Iowa, or New Mexico, or just about any state—and wonder how its residents feel, knowing so many votes are routinely misread and discarded. You can look at sleazy political operatives and cutthroat lawyers and politicized judges. But if you really want to know who’s responsible for what went down in the Sunshine State, you might want to take a look in the mirror.

[Libertarian666]

I sometimes wonder if we would be better off if political positions were filled by lottery, one term only, no elaborate pensions, etc.

While a good idea in theory, a sizable chunk of the population does not have enough intelligence to vote, let alone run the country. So if you eliminated the unfit, you would get cries of racism, sexism, etc. If you didn't eliminate the unfit, well, you 'd have one helluva mess.

It's pretty obvious that a significant proportion of Congress isn't intelligent enough to run the country, and are extremely corrupt to boot.
I'd rather take my chances with a random drawing from the population.