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Hi CYS, just a random question for the site. If a genie appeared and told you you could alter the US election system to be run however you wanted, what changes would you make?

Or if you're from somewhere else this can apply to your own country. The only thing I'm not interested in is people who don't live in the US trying to eurosplain at the thread how it should work. Remember this is just a fun thread too and if you get in a real political argument or get mad, you're retarded.

Well first I would get rid of democracy all together. It doesn't work, it didn't even work out for the Athenians and they had a much more based system that locked out the unfit (90% of the population).

So, the founding fathers modeled the government after a non functioning one that embraced pedophilia, we cannot be surprised about what we got.

I'd like to replace it with a constitutional monarchy, and furthermore I'd like the ruling class to be High Elves. They are generally good natured or at least lawful, they are not creepy sex fiends, they appreciate art and intellectual pursuits and they wield ancient magics from the dawn of creation. And are obviously long lived which will just increase stability all around, most humans will never be faced with the prospect of a different ruler in their lifetime.

Since I'm already talking to a genie in this scenario, I don't expect finding an elf to be our King will present any problems.

I must respectfully disagree for the following reason: eight months of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shown how useless dictatorships are (or any system in which the people don't truly have a say). Their military has been embarrassed, and the main cause is the corruption of absolute power, which has resulted in money meant for military upgrades paying for yacht for billionaires.

Meanwhile, with technology made in the democratic West, Ukraine went from sure defeat to embarrassing Russia—at least in comparison to the overwhelming difference in the size and budget of their respective militaries.

So I argue that as inefficient as democracies or republics are, they result in making it a little bit harder for the elites to siphon off the masses. Oh, they still do it, no doubt. But it's not quite as egregious.

And I base this on absolutely nothing.

Also, high elves are clearly gay.

I would be crowned emperor for life with unlimited power

I think the last two sentences you wrote are not necessary. I don't see anything wrong with sharing views and discussing them. If someone is not informed just take their opinion with a grain of salt. No need to try to limit speech before anyone said anything.

Aside from that, I personally think that delaying the inevitable is futile. We should make everyone take a comprehensive 12 page questionnaire and feed the answers into the brilliant super ai overlord. It will make all government related decisions for the people, and will bring us faster to our doom/paradise. It will of course render all politicians to be utterly useless, but there's not much difference in that regard to the status quo.

There's at least one mod that doesn't want things getting "too political" since a thread I made during the last election was deleted.

Joe Biden

Joe Mama

Fuck off, Dutch. Your kind is not allowed here.

If the elves didn't work out, my second idea is primarily to address the immigration issue. Before any candidate can go on to the primaries, they must face off against a randomly chosen Mexican janitor with a highschool diploma or GED, and score some certain percentage higher when asked questions about history, current events, and the economy.

Following that, they must prove they're physically fit enough to hold office as well by defeating the janitor's sister, wife, mother, or some female relative anyway in hand to hand combat. This will all be televised live of course, and if they lose either match, the victor is considered to be officially in the running, but ONLY if they were already a legal citizen.

So first, the electoral system actually starts with education. I don’t know if it’s the standard everywhere, but the civics class I took in high school taught me bupkis.

So, the most important addition to the education system would be a robust ethics course that truly attempted to establish a religious and non religious basis for ethical behavior. I don’t think this would bring us together under one banner, but it would decrease the “I believe this ‘cause mommy and daddy do,” or “this is what smart people believe.”

Now that I have single handedly forced everyone to think for themselves (something that smarter people than me have been trying to do for millennia), we can move on to the electorate. The bicameral legislature stays. The only one people get to vote for, though, is the House. In these elections anyone with the qualifying age and residency status can run. Each submits a written essay of any length explaining what the purpose of life is, what the purpose of government is, and how they intend to ensure both. These essays are then voted for while the author remains anonymous.

This helps people not get caught in the mire of “who agrees with me most.” And almost ensures the weakening of political parties. As people would tend to vote for coherent essays, it is likely that “smarter” people would get elected. Then the House elects the Senate from applicants, and the Senate elects the president from among themselves.

While this system would definitely have its challenges, especially since Americans are illiterate, it would probably eliminate some of the problems from dumb electors

It ain’t a utopia, but it’s the best I can imagine with the current US population.

A singular strong leader is the only government choice that makes sense. Take your pick of any monarchy variants, fascism, or whatever.

Fuck off, Serb.

I promise obligatory tea time at 3pm on the dot every day! And cake for breakfast, lunch AND dinner!

MHD knows how to win my vote-slash-fealty.

What if the Elven King abolishes that shitty Amazon show and declares only faithful adaptions are allowed from hence forth and also puts you in an advisory position to determine which attempts are worthy?

I will report back after I watch it tonight.  I suppose it's possible I could be persuaded by the Elven King. 

Those responsible for the Hobbit movies will also be executed (but only after a fair trial) however this was going to happen anyway and isn't related to your new position.

... Are hot chocolates permissible at tea time?

Is nobody else in this scenario fucking pissed that they're not just getting the standard three wishes? I want money, damn it!

You look like you're from the wrong side of the ocean to be in this thread, missy.

Yeah, American politics are fucking boring now that Trump's gone. Joe Biden never does anything interesting outside his weird hair smelling fetish.

Meanwhile I keep hearing you guys are lItErAlLy cOlLaPsInG, which I assume means the entire island is sinking into the ocean, F. Must be global warming.

And Trump might still come back, you never know.

Oh God yeah, I mean I thought Trump was a joke. The last bloke we has in charge was this guy:
 

... And, the new lady in charge, everybody! ^_^

 

Well what else should she be talking about? It isn't like there's anything more important going on in the UK or the world at large.

Are you mad? What about the importation of foreign tea and crumpets? >.<

I haven't watched this yet, but I'm not sure what the issue is, cheese is important.

Personally, I think it's awesome that there is video of her about 30 years ago calling the monarchy disgraceful, but that she still was able to be elected PM.

“I’m against the idea that people can be born to rule. That people—because of the family they’re born into—should be able to be the head of state of our country: I think that’s disgraceful.” 

Almost as disgraceful as imported cheese. ^_^

Of course. Nobody should ever be forced to eat imported cheese.  That's just barbaric.

Now I'm strangely curious as to her position on spray cheese.

Chesterton on Cheese

There is a precedent for political minds in the UK to be strangely concerned with cheese

smh 44 days.

Proof that she just wasn't born to rule.

The Bri*ish had plenty of things to say about Trump, but at least he wasn't a quitter.

...

Lol

Some interesting facts: for what will be about 50 days in office Truss will get an annual pension of 115,000 pounds a year ($130,000) for life - clearly I'm in the wrong job :) I like to think this is a nice way of showing how democracy can autocorrect quickly though, with dictatorships they keep the inept for life.

Another thing, in four years of madness Trump's approval rating never shifted from the 34-49% range. Truss's approval rating dove from 44% to 11% in two months because the UK doesn't really have these bipartisan lifelong fixed loyalties to this party or that party that many Americans seem to have. Also 11% suggests that in just two months Truss was three times worse than Trump and she didn't even try a coup :D (another example, Boris went from 66 to 23% approval in two years for going to his own birthday party for drinks and lying about it).

At least we're not Sweden though :D

I dunno. We get the lifelong fixed loyalties to the political parties, just not to the people in charge of them.

It helps that Trump was entertaining the whole time he was in office and when you go completely over the top like he did, you're bound to get a group of like minded nuts to build a cult around you so you've got at least somewhat of a support base.

Unfortunately the cult of unimported cheese lovers was not strong enough to save her. :(

Lol

Could they just roll back the last couple months, fix the economy and get a do over? Maybe get the Queen back too as long as they're reloading the save.

With her resignation, I am becoming increasingly concerned with the lack of news coverage over what will happen to the state of cheese in the UK.

Import ALL OF THE CHEESE!!! ^_^

Assuming we’re talking about Djinn from Islamic tradition, I’m just glad I l’m not being killed and eaten.

Legalize nuclear bombs. We don't need reform, we need reset.

I think it's only realistic if we ditch the voting system and replace it with betting on a winner. Instead of gaining a position of power through a broken system, politicians should have to fight to the death to earn their position. The first round/primaries would be Democrats vs Democrats, Republicans vs Republicans, etc. The second round would be Democrat winner vs Republican winner vs minor political party winner, and the last round would be between the incumbent and the newcomer. On that note, vp follows the same death match rules, president doesn't get a choice.

Of course these death matches will be televised at a reasonable time so the kids can watch too. It'll also replace football as our national sport.

Oh, and you're retarded for discouraging eurosplaining and/or real political arguments.

I am a big supporter of democracy and I'm sickened by the idea that it has somehow "failed". I think the solution is MORE democracy rather than less. Anyways I'll try to keep it brief without going into a crazy diatribe.

 

Problem: Direct democracy, where everyone votes on every issue, is the most accurate way to represent the will of the people. But it takes up too much time and energy.

 

Solution: Instead, we use "sortition", where you pick people in a random lottery. The way statistics work, it turns out that a truly random selection of 1000 people would be a shockingly accurate representation of the population now matter how large it got.

 

So here's what you do. You randomly selection 1000 people every few years, and they vote on laws. A law has to get 600 votes to pass, ensuring that there is solid support and that it won't just be overturned back and forth repeatedly. Maybe you also hold elections to pick "Lobbyists" (or some better term) who can write, propose, and argue for the legislation (but not actually vote themselves). In other words, if the people want very socialist laws proposed, then they'll vote for a socialist lobbyist who will propose socialist laws.
 

I think this is a simple but elegant solution. It might not always produce a perfect government, but it will ALWAYS, by definition, represent the will of the people. People will get the government they deserve. If they're stupid, then they get a bad government. If they're smart, they get a good one. They'll have no one to blame but themselves.

My answer is actually pretty boring so I was waiting for some funnier CYStian ones to trickle in. And thank you mizal for tirelessly policing the thread for foreign contaminants.

What I would do first of all is completely remove the terms "Republican" or "Democrat" from all political discourse, they are both infantile labels that make vast numbers of lazy and retarded people not have to do any thinking. Everyone looking for votes would have to present themselves solely as themselves and the issues they cared about.

Any person wishing to vote would then have to pass a basic class, the sort of thing a literate 8th grader should be able to understand, on critical thinking, checks and balances, ethics, the basic function of the legal system, human rights, and this will include a written essay portion where they have to be able to express three issues that are important to them and why, and what it means to them to be an American. The test will be available in whichever language they prefer and take disabilities into account of course, all the same rules that already exist for things like communicating medical information. This test has to be passed at one point in everyone's life but can easily be folded into school and church programs.

I think by this it should be obvious that I consider the main problem too be an educational one, but I really do think it's a sign of mental illness how people are allowed to vote and create their entire delusional world views based on something they saw on social media and did not attempt to verify. People who are so intentionally stupid or just lazy have no business involving themselves in things that effect the rest of us.

Furthermore, everyone physically able to would need to put in 80 hours of community service or else donate $1000 to be used for local infrastructure. Rich or poor, you have to give SOMETHING to your community to be considered a part of it.

I would also reserve the right to change things again in another 25 years, once there's been time to see how this has all played out and if things have improved.

If things haven't improved or have gotten worse, at that point I probably would just crown myself emporer for life and start mass executing the problem people to be honest. You all had your chance.

Have you met an 8th grader?

An 8th grader is about 15, we have had plenty on the site.
Pretty sure most adults in the US do not read at an 8th grade level and certainly couldn't write an essay, and all of these people would either apathetically shrug and get back in the welfare line, or else get very red in the face and yell about MUH RIGHTS without attempting to learn.

I would support the idea of most CYStians becoming emperor for life over the current situation anyway. Provided they had a storygame rated at least 5/8 and did reviews sometime. Meaning the OP and like half the posters in this thread are out.

Sounds like you just want to be emperor with extra steps.

And you're welcome, I just hope I got them all. Foreigners can be very sneaky and dishonest.

Well corruption is eternal, so might as well elect me as Supreme Ruler so at least I don't have to deal with the taxes. The election system will be dismantled, and the West Coast shall be sunk into the ocean so it may start over again. Then I'll just go about making the sweeping changes I want to see. If I ever feel doubtful, I'll read a bit from Eternal to brush up on the process.

Every human is a shaved monkey. All will become corrupted by greed and power. The thing to do is force unlucky humans, via Federal lottery, to take over key roles in government. There would be exclusions, like no one under 30 or over 75. The rigged lottery will have me as President, obviously, Mr. T as Ambassador to China, and Schwarzenegger for Interior or Homeland Security, but the rest will be fair and random. Everyone gets a three week crash course in how to run a bloated government bureaucracy during the transition. It's mainly backroom deals and lobbyist slush funds, so this is the fun part of the 3-6 years in office.  

Meanwhile in China...

Oh he's going to be in ill health alright.