The Flash
Dennis Wilcock did 9/11
I've long felt that letting everyone vote without any qualifiers is a stupid idea and democracy could yield a lot better results with qualifying mechanisms based on knowledge.
Coronavirus
- Thread starter Black Wizard
- Start date
I've long felt that letting everyone vote without any qualifiers is a stupid idea and democracy could yield a lot better results with qualifying mechanisms based on knowledge.
A lot of these people wouldn't have been out there looking at flowers or trees, I suspect, they'd be at the pub, or the cinema, or at some big and busy child-friendly attraction. I'm not making excuses for them, but advice has been 'you don't HAVE to stay in, just go somewhere with lots of fresh air'. And that's what they've done. Except there are thousands of people all heading for the same place, just as thousands of people are all simultaneously trying to shop at the same supermarket.
Travis The Dragon
AFTERGLOW!!!
Damn, an insanely huge spike in the number of US cases today.
The Flash
Dennis Wilcock did 9/11
Edit: Nevermind, I misread your comment.
Jer
'Til Tomorrow
You’re correct on principle, but good luck coming up with an unbiased way to assess someone’s knowledge and intellect to determine if they should be allowed to vote. And even if you came up with one, good luck seeing it enacted and never abused to disenfranchise voters that whomever is currently in power doesn’t like.
The Flash
Dennis Wilcock did 9/11
The latter is problematic, I agree, but I think it's doable. For example, I think a voting licence thing where people are asked a couple fundamental questions with regard to the political system could work. You'd have it run by an independent institution of law, with the questions determined by political scientists. You'd fish out a lot of ignorant morons, and if people don't bother to show up to get their voting licence, then you fish out the disinterested voters who just vote because it's the norm to do so. It'd get more unworkable the more filters you implement and the more you try to fish out uninformed voters, but no filters at all does democracy a disservice, imo. It could work in a much more meritocratic fashion.
The main reason I don't see it being implemented isn't that it's undesirable or impractical, but that there are politicians out there who specifically target that ignorant moron vote and would do anything in their power to prevent something like this. They'd obviously hide their actual intent by twisting the concept and using romantic populist rhetoric based on things like non-discrimination or equality or whatever.
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Travis The Dragon
AFTERGLOW!!!
Trump made 33 false claims about the coronavirus crisis in the first two weeks of March
www.cnn.com
Trump made 33 false claims about the coronavirus crisis in the first two weeks of March
President Donald Trump began March with a barrage of false claims about the coronavirus pandemic -- understating the extent of the crisis, overstating the availability of tests, inaccurately blaming his predecessor and wrongly insisting that the crisis was unforeseen.
www.cnn.com
DJ James
A coma stole my name.
Sounds kinda discriminatory imo. For example, in US politics, if you thought the African American voter turnout was low in 2016 (which it was compared to 08 and 2012), then adding those extra steps in to would lower it to abysmal numbers. And what about the young voters that didn't turn up for Bernie like everyone thought? Those would drop immensely too if it was made harder to vote. If anything, it should be easier to vote to encourage more of the population to come out to vote.
Black Wizard
Pleb Hunter
Trump made 33 false claims about the coronavirus crisis in the first two weeks of March
Trump made 33 false claims about the coronavirus crisis in the first two weeks of March
President Donald Trump began March with a barrage of false claims about the coronavirus pandemic -- understating the extent of the crisis, overstating the availability of tests, inaccurately blaming his predecessor and wrongly insisting that the crisis was unforeseen.
Midnight
The Ever-Present "It"
Here in India, we have no shortage of nutcases peddling fraudulent coronavirus cures. Everything from homeopathy to Ayurvedic medicine to this madness:
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
(from Eddie The Head Fan Club Facebook page)
Dr. Eddies Wingman
Brighter than thousand_suns
"He also said consuming a concoction of ayurvedic herb giloy, turmeric and basil leaves could help prevent coronavirus."
Might as well try parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme then.
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Meliegree
Evening The Odds.
No tests in Poland. Now we're testing mostly people with symptoms so severe that they require hospitalization.
My two friends had contact with infected people, both now have symptoms. After couple of phone calls to government department responsible for dealing with Coronavirus epidemy they heard that they need to visit the hospital. When they arrived doctor without any tests etc. Told them to go home by taxi.
There's many more stories like this in social media. If you didn't meet someone from Italy or Germany you're treated like it's impossible that you may have Coronavirus.
Government also banned masks from AliExpress - we can't buy them any more, we can't also do tests in private laboratories.
My two friends had contact with infected people, both now have symptoms. After couple of phone calls to government department responsible for dealing with Coronavirus epidemy they heard that they need to visit the hospital. When they arrived doctor without any tests etc. Told them to go home by taxi.
There's many more stories like this in social media. If you didn't meet someone from Italy or Germany you're treated like it's impossible that you may have Coronavirus.
Government also banned masks from AliExpress - we can't buy them any more, we can't also do tests in private laboratories.
I think that's the testing policy in a lot of places. If you have mild symptoms, you don't go out looking for tests, you isolate at home.
Dr. Eddies Wingman
Brighter than thousand_suns
It makes sense, however it does make it difficult to get an impression of the actual mortality of the virus. If only those admitted to hospital - and health workers and others in essential jobs - are tested, many with mild symptoms will not be part of the statistics.
But obviously, the most important is to find whether people admitted to hospital with serious respiratory problems have this virus or something else, so they can get the correct treatment.
Even if more and more test equipment becomes available, it is not realistic that everyone will have access to a cheap over-the-counter test kit any time soon.
The testing policy is dictated by the test capacity, as I'm sure every country is aware that they should test as many as possible in order to provide useful data.
Meliegree
Evening The Odds.
And that's not good policy since you don't know exactly who has the virus, you are doing nothing to stop it (and yes, we are told that if you are living with someone else and you have symptoms only you need to quarantine and other person can go to work etc. And since there is no test you don't know if you and this person is infected with Coronavirus so you are spreading this further). In case of pandemic 'others doing this too' is quite stupid strategy.
Agreed, but I'm pointing out that this is what's happening. People around here are complaining to the papers that they phoned the NHS days ago and still haven't been tested - but they're not going to be tested unless they are admitted to hospital or policy changes abruptly. And I agree with Wingman, I think policy is being dictated by capacity to test as much as anything.
Meliegree
Evening The Odds.
It's always like this. In Poland they want to push law that will lower your income by 20-60% and will force you to work 12h/day. This will be a disaster. Many families now are out of the work so that cut household budget by 50% and now some of those who are working will be earning 40-80% of what they make before.
My gf is out of the job thanks to this pandemic, I'm the only one who's making some money. If they will cut my salary by 50% we will be in nasty situation because there's no way that 50% of my salary will support three people.
Yax
Ancient Mariner
This seems to me, knee-jerk guesswork, like the Polish government is basically justifying draconian labour laws as means to combat the crisis, rather than actually finding measures that works for the people. Like, say if the crisis blows over - Will they really roll back this legislation, or not...? In any case, I am deeply saddened to read this and I hope you and your family will retain a living wage.
I have read a couple of interesting editorials, about the risk of authoritarian rule in the wake of the corona crisis, were measures taken and justified as means of fighting the implications of the virus, will create authoritarian governments and redraw the political landscape of Europe.