U.S. Government: How It SHOULD Work

Gardener

Proportional Representation

No

Try reading

How Proportional Representation Would Finally Solve Our Redistricting and Gerrymandering Problems
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/redistricting.htm

Or

Beyond gerrymandering and Texas posses: US electoral reform by Andrew Reding

http://rangevoting.org/Reding03.html

 

Gardener

You are purposely mis-stating the case here so that you can have something to bitch about.

People were NOT facing evictions because they had their utility shut off... To make that claim, you would need to show that at least a majority of people who were reported to the city were evicted because of it. That is not the stated case, less then 1% were evicted.

As for those 1%, people get evicted from houses ALL the time because the house they are in is condemned for any number of reasons.

It doesn't matter if you own a home or not, if it is a death trap to you and others, in the middle of an urban environment where fire and such can spread to others, then YES the government should have the right to protect those who also live in the city.

As for this whole case in the first place... this is an example of governments doing what they were supposed to... There was a problem with the way this issues was being dealt with, they changed it so it wasn't happening anymore.

You still arguing about how wrong it was for them to do... well, there are many things in this world that were wrong before they were changed for the better... shall we argue about all of them, or accept that the situation has since been changed?

 

I saw Yale come up and and as a quick side note I'd say you should never donate to Yale unless you really enjoy something by them in the fact a very contentious point here in New Haven, Yale does not pay taxes on what it owns. This has been the system for as long as everyone remembers. Yale's argument is that the thousands of students bring millions worth of business into New Haven and that Yale university itself is the only reason the property values around it and in downtown New Haven are worth so much as it is, and they are onto something, Yale is the only reason New Haven did not become like the dumps known as Bridgeport or Hartford.

 

That would take power AWAY from the government. That document didn't work at all.

 

Aristartle and balbus. i really feel that you guys provide significant thought to what you have said without personal hate/feelings/experiences interrupting the true flow of your ideals. in short, some amplitude in expressive writing, without the need to nurture an inner ego.



earth mother. i agree with balbus, that you do come across as vague. i can easily insert logic and clarity into your ambiguities. kin to filling in a mad lib...nothing is addressed save for your inner emotional reactions and uninspiring rants to any given topic.

press rat, straight up, you're not the know-all-end all on everything. get over it. your sometimes uneducated, underdeveloped, but yet supreme arrogance defecate any intelligent discussion. why agree to disagree. better to know nothing than to half-know things. why cripple your ability to holistically debate in an effective way. in short, insights, concepts, self-evident truths must be backed without retort or dissonance. rhetoric must be developed into negation. thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.






i hope this doesn't sound harsh and insulting. just my very honest opinions.

 

No, not in the slightest, hence why it had to be scrapped, state power is good, but states(or 1 state as the articles worked) can't and shouldn't be able to hold the federal government hostage on a bill at a whim

 

A majority of Yale's campus buildings and property is considered Municipal property - or privy to Municipal law, because it's protected as part of the Heritage district. In order to keep their old buildings up to code and such, Yale has to dish out millions of dollars to the Municipally approved contractors to do work on their buildings.

They pay taxes. They just work very closely with the municipality to keep the buildings in working order.

I've been to Hartford and Bridgeport. They're not dumps.

 

Oh, but they are, you have no idea

And most of Yale's buildings are and have been up to code for quite some time, the millions and millions and millions of dollars they own in prime real estate is still tax exempt

But then again the only reason that property and the non yale property around it is worth jack is because of yale

 

Not just up to code... if a building has a flood in the basement, or they want to install new windows, etc., they have to pay permit fees, inspections, and use the contractors from the municipality. Their buildings are highly regulated by the government - like other Heritage buildings are in the area and around the park.

 

So proportional representation would go some way toward reforming the US political system.

Another good step would be to try and limit the power and influence money has within the US political system.

I’ve begun threads on this theme before, (I’ll try and dig one out) but here are a few ideas to begin with.

Limited electioneering periods

Limited but free party political broadcasting on TV and radio of all political groups that received more than X% of the vote in the previous election (or get x amount of signatures on the adoption of the system).

A tax to be raised on money donated to political think tanks or lobbying groups (a percentage so a small donation wouldn’t cost much but a large one would).

Political think tanks are not to be tax exempt.

Businesses over a certain size would not be allowed to donate to political parties.

No contributions to political parties to be allowed from non-tax payers.

More later

 

I accept that the situation has changed. I applaud that. But it only changed when public opinion forced the change. It could happen in your community I was simply pointing out what has happened around here.

 

I hear you Balbus I just wanted you to address gerrymandering in your arguments.

 

Going back to state vs federal laws and policies and the extreme regionalism that comes up, on why it works so well here and why it shouldn't and never will be changed, this actually came up in another forum in a thread and the answer this random internet guy gave is by far the best I've so far seen and sums it up perfectly:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...serid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=8#post347423098