BREAKING: The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.
https://www.propublica.org/article/alex-pretti-shooting-cbp-agents-identified-jesus-ochoa-raymundo-gutierrez?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #Minneapolis #AlexPretti #Immigration #Protest #CBP #BorderPatrol
@ZoidbergForPresident @reay @ProPublica
so we better fucking vote
Voting (democracy) assumes that the average person is intelligent enough to make a sensible decision.
This assumption might be false, especially in countries with a sub standard education level, or countries flooded by disinformation.
This is how we got where we are now.
@FransVeldman @reay @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
so what's the other options?
when you answer that question, i expect you to come back with full throated support for democracy
if you can't, you really haven't thought through the problem
a sick democracy needs to be healed, fixed. not abandoned
we can't question democracy itself, because the other options are far worse
We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Governing a country shouldn’t have to be any different from governing a company or an industry.
Do we vote among patients who is going to be entitled to yield the scalpel in the operation room? Do we vote among the airplane passengers who’s going to be their pilot in command? We already know that would going to be a disaster. Instead, everyone in the surgery room and cockpit is required to have the relevant education, and be screened for psychological features such as a proper balance between being decisive and cooperative, and be ruled out if any psychological features are found that are not compatible with being in charge with the safety of a few hundred passengers.
Why would we have to allow any politicians who don’t have a relevant education and have obvious psychological defects? Why can’t we just select politicians on their suitability for their job?
Why do we have a high court with judges, but not a high counsel which is seated by leading scientists, whom can block any regulations that harm our planet?
Democratus (the founder of “democracy”) never intended the voting proces to be participated by literally everyone, but only among the well educated.
If you were an alien, how would you look upon a governing system where the word of a highly educated climate scientists can be nullified by any nitwit? Especially while it is safe to assume that the nitwits outnumber the scientists? Would you be surprised that this planet turned into a big smoking mess?
Although I just like to pinpoint why the world turned into such a big mess, and don’t feel I have to provide a solution just to be qualified to point it out, I can imagine some ways to improve on this.
There are options, like answering a short questionare on the voting form, to show that at least you know the program of the candidate you vote for. If you don’t even know his/her policies, your vote is invalid. At least, this blocks any votes from people who don’t understand what they are voting for. Tell me why that wouldn’t make sense. Another option is to weigh votes based on a mix of education, society contribution, etc. The more you know, the more you care for your fellow humans, the heigher the weight of your vote.
Again, there might be other and better solutions, but I’m not the one who has to find them, just to be qualified to point out the problem.
The current concept of “democracy” is invented by capitalists, for capitalist, because they know that this will keep them in control. There is a reason why the government consists mainly by economists, billionaires, etc. It is not a coincidence that America has always been very aggressive in “installing democracy” in other countries.
This concept of democracy has been forced fed to us during our entire lifes, and has become to many as some sort of religion. It is the best and not worth any rethinking, right? And reject anyone who questions it as if it is a blasphemy.
You might disagree with (some of) what I have said. But I hope that at least we can agree that the world is a big smoking mess and that democracy doesn’t seem to be able to achieve a sustainable, safe live for all human beings.
@FransVeldman @reay @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
i don't disagree with anything you said
the issue isn't that you can envision a better democracy, a vision i agree with
the issue is *how* we get there
and how we get there is through participating in the current shit show
some have an allergy to this. that doing so is corrupting their soul or some other immature melodramatic bs
so many go "it's not perfect, so i prefer to not vote and let us slide into fascism"
that's the problem
@benroyce
Ben, I think we need to encourage people to think more like performance artists. You have to riff with the material you’ve been given. We have a long-running script and we all still have to perform with it; the innovation and the artistry comes from how you syncopate and harmonize within the set rhythm and melody. Think of the best jazz combo you’ve ever heard. You could start off with a car alarm as the inspiration, and those musicians will turn it into a dynamic evolving whirlwind of music.
Another way of thinking about it: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a future time” - Donald Rumsfeld, god help me for quoting that guy.
@FransVeldman @reay @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
@suzannealdrich @FransVeldman @reay @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
i love this analogy
i will hold it against you for reminding me of donald rumsfeld though 😆 (just kidding)
@FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @CStamp @ProPublica
yes. just like a person, a democracy can choose suicide
but the possibility of suicide is not an argument against human life
@FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
but that's because we're drifting from democracy, it's not a feature of democracy
on the flip side, consider the quantity of dead being talked about in iran from recent events
It is a feature of democracy indeed, if you allow a majority of dumb people to vote. Anything can happen. It just proves my point.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the US isn’t going to surpass Iran in the number of victims at some point. At the moment the only difference between the US and Iran is the number of victims. Both claim that protestors are terrorists and both use excessive violence.
@FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
your comment doesn't mean anything unless you propose an alternative
you did do that with your long comment but how are these supposedly intellectually superior chosen?
what you're proposing can be gamed to exclude people who aren't good at taking tests for example, but are quite smart, just in other ways
there are also plenty of extremely smart people who are fucking batshit insane, amongst the worst of the bigoted plutocrats
How do we choose who can be a pilot? How do we choose who can become a surgeon? How do we choose who can become a judge?
But hey, let the planet be governed by just any idiot who can misled enough morons to vote for him.
@FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
i agree for example the Fed Chair can't be some coke snorting corrupt stooge. Or the head of the CDC can't be a fucking human skin suit piloted by a brain worm like RFK Jr. There should be rules about who gets appointed according to classification of experience trust and credibility (not "intelligence", because that's a wonky playground)
But that doesn't have to anything to do with elected leaders
We just need higher voter turnout
Yeah let’s just bring out more morons to vote. By definition, half of the population has an IQ of less than 100. They are supposed to understand important issues like climate change and choose responsible leaders accordingly. What can possibly go wrong?
If we can’t admit that the current form of democracy is failing miserably, we will never get out of this mess. More voters is not the answer.
Again, as a starter, it should not be possible to elect anyone without relevant education, with psychological treats that are incompatible with power, just as that you can’t elect someone to fly an airplane without the required licenses and approved psychological background.
@FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
There are physics professors who can't diagnose what's wrong with their car. Diplomats who can't hold a conversation with the opposite sex. Economists who can't balance their checkbooks
Meanwhile you can meet an illiterate day laborer who can enunciate a political issue more persuasively and insightfully than 99% of the population
Frankly your approach is a dangerous false elitism as you can't even gauge "intelligence"
Where did I say “any professor will do”?
To become a pilot in command, you need to:
Not anyone who can fly can become an airline pilot. Not anyone who is intelligent can become a pilot. Only if you tick all the above boxes (and a couple more), you can become a pilot in command.
Being a professor is clearly not enough. Being able to hold a conversation with the opposite sex is not enough. But you have some hundred million people to choose from. There is no reason to have someone as Trump lead the country.
@FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @benroyce @ProPublica Voters aren't supposed to understand all the important issues. They're supposed to have a decent-enough idea of which candidate represents their interests best. And indeed, they do. It's incredibly hard, not impossible (nothing is ever impossible), but incredibly hard, to convince over half the population that their interests are something other than what they actually are.
Moreover, intelligent people aren't any less susceptible to manipulation than unintelligent people. Reducing the number of voters only reduces the number of people propagandists have to deceive to put bad people in power. Making it so that only "smart" people can vote makes that easier, not harder.
The current form of democracy is failing miserably not because stupid people are allowed to vote, but because the state is still a weapon of class warfare wielded by the bourgeoisie. No matter what the general population tries to use the state for, no change can actually be made unless the bourgeoisie allows it. Look at what ICE is doing now. The capitalists running the show demanded an unaccountable terrorist paramilitary, so they got it, and no amount of court orders or pointing at the constitution can save any significant amount of their victims.
The solution is to abolish the class dictatorship. To make it so that people with money and property can't unilaterally impose their will on us. Exactly how we do that, I admit I don't know. But that's the solution.
Having a filter who can become a political candidate, just as how we have filters who can become a pilot in command, or surgeon, would be a very good first step.
Somehow you only picked up something I implied about intelligence. But equally, I advocated to scrutinize political candidates on psychological treats, just like we do with airline pilots and a dozen of other jobs with high responsibilities, like commanding a nuclear facility.
To become a president, you can’t be an authoritarian, a narcissist, a sadist, a bigot, and you have to prove you can cooperate, find the middle road, negotiate for a solution that is fair for everyone, etc. How we we can do that? Ask the psychologists who filter out bad pilots. It can be done. And it would already have prevented the mess we are currently in.
@FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @mikelovesbikes @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
So the bigots just get a bigoted psychologist to greenlight them, and then also say that nonbigots are prejudiced against the aww so poor innocent bigots and are therefore disqualified
You can't have any of these filters you want because the filters are just as prone to the corruption you're trying to oppose
@tokensane @FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica @mikelovesbikes
true but that doesn't mean there can't be alternative, more equitable allocation schemes. doesn't have to be communism. i feel like there's many other options, more sophisticated ones, and we've barely scratched the surface on how sophisticated they may be
just as "govt sucks and will always suck" doesn't mean much because you and i don't live at the whims of an absolute monarch anymore:
we can do better
@tokensane @FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica @mikelovesbikes
"but how?"
and i have no answer. but it is what we must do. so we should figure it out
@tokensane @FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica @benroyce We already tried something like that and the bourgeois parties only allowed it for a few decades before plunging everyone into an equally long period of neoliberal austerity, deregulation, and union busting.
It seems that an extensive welfare state is only possible in "middle power" countries, where the capitalist dictatorship is less strong. In its home base of America, or its slave plantations of the global South, forget it.
@tokensane @FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @benroyce @ProPublica The bourgeoisie doesn't allocate resources, it gatekeeps them. Workplace owners don't produce jobs. The workplace and the tools already exist, the owner's only purpose is to decide who gets to use them, how, and for what purpose.
That decision will always need to be made by someone, that's true. But what if that someone was elected?
@mikelovesbikes @FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @ZoidbergForPresident @benroyce @ProPublica
> "But what if that someone was elected?"
Management is a skilled job requiring training and practice. In a small org such a thing can work, but a multi-national org with tens of thousands of workers, most of whom have little idea of what managers do? I doubt it would either select qualified people or hold them to account. You yourself point out how ineffective elections are in national government.
@FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @mikelovesbikes @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
Our problems are bigotry and plutocracy. If you got rid of people you consider dumb according to some "test' you are still left with plutocrats and bigots
Nevermind that plenty who failed your arbitrary intelligence test are still smart in ways you don't consider, and plenty who passed your test are fucking morons according to the real issues and the real stakes
All of us are smart in some domains and dumb in others
Agreed, my suggestion doesn’t result in a 100% perfect solution. So let’s continue with the current state of affairs where hordes of idiots can shove forward other idiots to lead the country.
One by one the countries in Europe are falling, the US has fallen, but hey, maybe bringing out more voters is the solution, because we just prefer refusing to discuss how we can improve the democratic process.
@FransVeldman @reay @cpr320 @mikelovesbikes @ZoidbergForPresident @ProPublica
These so-called idiots I trust
Because the problem are the bigots and plutocrats. Some are quite clever
The problem with democracy is corruption, money
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