Demarchy, a counter to oligarchy.

[Mistwell]

No, I expect you to behave in your usual dickish manner. As an alternative, you can go to page 3 & look up the overall summary what the MRA can be spent on, which is what I did, and I'm guessing imperalus did unless he has an even greater surplus of spare time than I do.

It took me maybe 10 minutes from going to google, to finding that report, to starting to write my post.




This literally just after posted a glorified "TL;DR." This is why you have threads dedicated to you on Self-Flagellation.

OK, so lets be clear on what happened. I said it was too long, and I did not trust your reading of it where you claimed it said their allowance paid for a second house for them. Someone else then quoted it, and that demonstrated that your reading of it was wrong. And now you are bitching at me? Dude, you either lied about their being able to buy their homes from that expense, or you misread it. Either way proves that that distrust of your reading of it was justified.

You claimed they were underpaid and financially struggling.

I claimed they were underpaid. I didn't say they were struggling. But, you lying, once again, is no shock now is it?

As I said before, come up with proof that they go broke on a regular basis.

Now I claimed they are broke?

Do you have an issue with honesty? Just not get along with honesty? Did honesty beat you up on the playground when you were young?

[Strithe]

OK, so lets be clear on what happened. I said it was too long, and I did not trust your reading of it where you claimed it said their allowance paid for a second house for them. Someone else then quoted it, and that demonstrated that your reading of it was wrong. And now you are bitching at me? Dude, you either lied about their being able to buy their homes from that expense, or you misread it. Either way proves that that distrust of your reading of it was justified.

I missed it (twice), sue me. Earlier I could have sworn it did include housing expenses in that summary.

I claimed they were underpaid. I didn't say they were struggling. But, you lying, once again, is no shock now is it?

I'm going to repeat what I was responding to, you said (with emphasis added by me):

It's not a generous salary. It's actually a bad salary. By necessity, you have to have two homes, at least one of which must be in a relatively high cost of living area (Washington DC), and you also by necessity must travel between them on a near-constant basis. Maintaining a home in, say, Los Angeles (where I am) and Washington DC, and traveling between the two on a regular basis, and then paying the more than 50% in taxes (between Federal, State, Local, Property, and Sales taxes), means you're really not living very well. You were probably living a better quality of life before you entered Congress with that salary and level of requirements.

I guess I have a different definition of "financially struggling," I thought it meant a situation where one was "not living very well" and fighting to maintain or improve a certain "quality of life." According to you my interpretation was not only incorrect, but deliberately deceptive.

Dictionary.com defines Financial as: "pertaining to monetary receipts and expenditures; pertaining or relating to money matters", and struggle as: "to contend resolutely with a task, problem, etc."

I guess the English language is a pathological liar as well.

Now I claimed they are broke?

Do you have an issue with honesty? Just not get along with honesty? Did honesty beat you up on the playground when you were young?

I took what I saw as your "financially struggling" motif and ran with it. I took your list of "surelys" as rhetorical dickishness and responded in kind. Surely you recognize the difference between hyperbole & deception?

[Strithe]

If there is at least one assembly designated by random selection rather than by election, then you can fight the bias against the poors, the women, the ethnic minorities and so on. Plus, you add fresh air to a political system where professional politicians often end up in some kind of intellectual sclerosis because of the long, long years far away from the real world. Such an assembly would be a counter-power or a limiter to the elected assembly, which would still be in charge of leading the (legislative) nation's policy. I think it would supplement nicely whatever kind of supreme court exist in a given country.

I don't favor a completely random, unelected body. That smacks of bureaucracy rather than democracy, and it lacks even the internal interview process that bureaucracies have.

I'd like a process similar to how jury duty is done in the US: In that system people are selected randomly based on the voter registration rolls. They are then vetted before the trial by the judge, prosecution, & defense to make sure they don't have any conflicts of interests and aren't completely insane.

In my system, the house would be selected in a similar way. Let's say you start with a selection of at least 3 choices per party based on voter registration, or a minimum of 10 candidates per seat (20 total would be better). You then have several televised & internet-streamed debates or Q&A sessions moderated by members of the press and/or former or current politicians: sort of an American Idol for government work. Go to a vote after each public session, eliminating half of the contestants. This means with 20 at the start you go from 20, to 10, to 5, to the final two in November. You could do a "show" about every two months if you start in January.

There is no incumbency: when your term is up you're done. You can either go back to civilian life or play in the Senate (which I'd also term-limit).

[Mistwell]

I missed it (twice), sue me. Earlier I could have sworn it did include housing expenses in that summary.

Not gonna sue you, but going to say "See, I told you I don't trust your reading of it"

I'm going to repeat what I was responding to, you said (with emphasis added by me):

I guess I have a different definition of "financially struggling," I thought it meant a situation where one was "not living very well" and fighting to maintain or improve a certain "quality of life." According to you my interpretation was not only incorrect, but deliberately deceptive.

No it would appear you were not being deliberately deceptive, we're just not communicating well on this point.

When I said "not living very well" you read that as "living poorly" and I meant that as "not wealthy" (IE not "very well", emphasis on "very").

And when I said "better quality of life before" I meant that, given the context of Congress, most people who run for it were already attorney's or heads of school districts or in other positions where they were living either wealthy or close to wealthy, and they took a pay cut to go into Congress. I did not mean to imply they started middle-class and became poor by entering Congress. Usually, they start wealthy or upper upper class, and take a pay-cut to become simply upper-class to upper-middle-class.

I took what I saw as your "financially struggling" motif and ran with it. I took your list of "surelys" as rhetorical dickishness and responded in kind. Surely you recognize the difference between hyperbole & deception?

Indeed. I don't think you were being deceptive.

The thing is, you and I agree that Congress is full of a bunch of useless tools. I just don't think their pay is part of the issue. If we're going to ever fix the problem of worthless tools being in Congress, I don't think a pay-cut is the way to attract better people to those positions. I think the way to do it is massive lobbying and campaign finance reform, on a level it would require a Constitutional amendment.

[Calamari Face]

I don't favor a completely random, unelected body. That smacks of bureaucracy rather than democracy

Here, let me just channel the ancient Chinese, who invented the bureaucracy.

[Aloysius]

Yup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_%28bureaucrat%29

For around 1300 years, from 605 to 1905, mandarins were selected by merit through the extremely rigorous imperial examination.

This kind of selection makes elections looks like a random process. And it makes sure peasants have no voices in the system as well.

[Davek]

...And it makes sure peasants have no voices in the system as well.

In a democracy the peasants do have a voice, but they are only allowed to sing carefully written parts. It's all okay, they will have the pride of knowing that if they faithfully follow the parts, the powerful will appreciate the effort ...

[Calamari Face]

Why, they may even be permitted to eat cake!

[nail bunny]

Why, they may even be permitted to eat cake!

I'm just waiting for that slip up to happen again.

You know it will, these things come in cycles.

[PWD]

Cake is yummy. Not as good as pie though.