@vanatos There's no conflict of interests if a moderator participates in the discussion about politics and religion, and in the same time issues warnings (including informal, in-thread messages) to other participants of this discussion, as long as this moderator doesn't do that (issuing warnings) on purpose to punish people who don't agree with this moderator.
Treat it like if this moderator kept putting off and on the moderator's hat.
You have been asked to follow the Site rules, and it is a completely fine thing to do, for a moderator, even if this moderator posts in the same thread as you.
In turn, you proposed to seize the spellcasting and come with you censor the current discussion and create a new one with the title that is already disrespectful to a group of people. This proposition doesn't follow the Site rules and won't be granted.
@semiticgod is participating in this thread actively and thus helping greatly to moderate heated arguments about politics. All major issues in this thread are being moderated by the whole moderation team behind closed doors, but you may not see it till the moderators' decision is made about you.
This is why it was fine that @semiticgod issued the first warning to @FinneousPJ , for example. Mind you, the second warning was not issued by @semiticgod. All the warnings are a result of discussions between all moderators.
Anyway, I see this issue seems to be settled for now. Feel free to tag me or any other moderator if something happens, and if you think @semiticgod is moderating issues wrongly.
In turn, you proposed to seize the spellcasting and come with you censor the current discussion and create a new one with the title that is already disrespectful to a group of people. This proposition doesn't follow the Site rules and won't be granted.
No, thread splitting is a common action meant to facilitate discussion by keeping discussion on-topic.
So this is quite incorrect of you to call it censoring.
moderators going on/off is a conflict of interest, the main thing is the appearance of possible conflict of interest, i have no problem with it because im fine with casual discussion, but pretending it isn't is intellectually dishonest.
-Splitting off another thread called 'criticism and why you hate Trump' so people can at least post in a thread that is honest with their intentions. (1) -Start a new clean thread, because many people don't want to touch this thread with a 10 foot pole with its absurd bias, spam and tribal posting. (2) -Stop participating in threads you moderate because you give the semblance of a conflict of interest (3) -Tell people to knock off the obvious spam to evidently derail a thread so badly that literally no other other country or their politics has a chance of discussion because the intent is to flood it with so much anti-trump articles no one can read or talk about anything else. (4)
(1) As I have said above, a thread with such a title is disrespectful to a group of people from the start. This proposition doesn't follow the Site rules and won't be granted.
(2) Closing this thread and starting a new one is censoring towards all other participants of this thread and its OP-r. The moderation team doesn't see absurd bias, spam and tribal posting here.
(3) Our rules doesn't prohibit moderators to participate in discussions they moderate, so there's no conflict of interest as long as a moderator doesn't issue warnings on purpose to punish people who don't agree with this moderator.
(4) There's plenty of discussion of other countries on these 400+ pages. We don't prohibit to discuss politics of any country here. There's no intent that you're speaking about here.
Thread splitting isn't censoring, because you carry the discussion in another thread. Fundamentally this is incorrect of you, as to the name was being sarcastic.
Your rules don't have to prohibit moderating participation, i am giving friendly advice on the appearance of conflict of interest which can cause problems, particularly since this thread has a problem retaining 'conservative' posters due to how its been going about.
And it is a conflict of interest, judges recuse themselves for even the appearance of it in court, of course i dont say we should be that serious.
I don't really care that much, not hard to say yeh it kind of is but we like everyone being free to participate so just let it happen.
Thread splitting itself isn't censoring (and we do it each day), but thread splitting for reasons you proposed and in the form you proposed - is.
Moderators are not judges. Moderators are your fellow forum users who have volunteered to become moderators and help handle stuff.
No, thread splitting that i proposed was for the exact reason why you do it, so to say it is censoring is incorrect, you can argue your fine with how things are here so there's no need, to claim its censoring is incorrect on your part.
Moderators are held to a higher standard then normal forum users precisely because they have power, btw the advice was to actually make it easier on everyone including SemiticGod, which you seem to not realize.
Yes, FPTP is a stuff-up of note but unfortunately no party that's in power will ever switch the system to true proportional representation.
The UK is due for a shakeup in politics, Brexit is dragging its feet which is sad considering its one of the few democratic referendums.
What are the other democratic referendums? How can we tell? Direct democracy vs. representative democracy is an interesting issue. The Brexit one has reminded me how careful it is to be clear about both outcomes, as everyone is still deciding what 'no' means.
Brexit is moving as fast as it can while suffering from the sprains & pains of internal contradictions. The Irish border issue for example.
What are the other democratic referendums? How can we tell? Direct democracy vs. representative democracy is an interesting issue. The Brexit one has reminded me how careful it is to be clear about both outcomes, as everyone is still deciding what 'no' means.
Brexit is moving as fast as it can while suffering from the sprains & pains of internal contradictions. The Irish border issue for example.
I actually expected the progress to be much swifter since the result was clear and unequivocal, communication has been horrible in my opinion.
Direct democracy vs representative is indeed an interesting topic, historically Direct democracy is considered bad after the continuing collapse of the Greek nation-states, one of the reasons why the Romans went for a Republic.
What are the other democratic referendums? How can we tell? Direct democracy vs. representative democracy is an interesting issue. The Brexit one has reminded me how careful it is to be clear about both outcomes, as everyone is still deciding what 'no' means.
Brexit is moving as fast as it can while suffering from the sprains & pains of internal contradictions. The Irish border issue for example.
Direct democracy vs representative is indeed an interesting topic, historically Direct democracy is considered bad after the continuing collapse of the Greek nation-states.
I don't think direct democracy is even feasible for any country whose population is greater than maybe, Andorra? I can't even think of a way it could be possible in a country as large as the US or even Japan. Maybe with computer voting, but that would be extremely prone to hacking and abuse.
Moderators are held to a higher standard then normal forum users precisely because they have power, btw the advice was to actually make it easier on everyone including SemiticGod, which you seem to not realize.
@vanatos I actually posted pretty recently about the conflict of interest issue in relation to the judiciary. I agree with you that a moderator also posting is a potential conflict of interest and, all other things being equal, that should be avoided. However, I don't think all other things are equal. @semiticgod posts here because he's interested in the topic and, if he were prohibited from posting, would presumably be less inclined to continue in his voluntary work as a moderator. In that situation I think the current arrangements give a reasonable balance - particularly since other moderators are available to intervene if there were in fact any questionable decisions made.
@vanatos I actually posted pretty recently about the conflict of interest issue in relation to the judiciary. I agree with you that a moderator also posting is a potential conflict of interest and, all other things being equal, that should be avoided. However, I don't think all other things are equal. @semiticgod posts here because he's interested in the topic and, if he were prohibited from posting, would presumably be less inclined to continue in his voluntary work as a moderator. In that situation I think the current arrangements give a reasonable balance - particularly since other moderators are available to intervene if there were in fact any questionable decisions made.
Personally im more worried about the draught of republican/conservative posters, seems like we lost another one, would be nice to have seen more after i came back.
No, thread splitting that i proposed was for the exact reason why you do it, so to say it is censoring is incorrect, you can argue your fine with how things are here so there's no need, to claim its censoring is incorrect on your part.
Moderators are held to a higher standard then normal forum users precisely because they have power, btw the advice was to actually make it easier on everyone including SemiticGod, which you seem to not realize.
I would advise walking away from this particular topic. Now that I have mentioned it, I will follow my own advice and not mention it again.
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re: that train derailment in Washington. You are probably unaware of this but I know how to drive a train--I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I am not unfamiliar with the control board an engineer would have when operating the train--so there is no way the engineer could be unaware of the current speed and that curve would already have had its speed limit set based on the weeks of live-yet-empty train runs sent down that route. Also, the closest control tower would have been aware of the train's current location and speed so that fact that it was allowed to be going 80 when it should have been going 30 is criminal negligence.
Sounds like a lot is happening over there in your neck of woods @Artona . Where do you stand on the state of Poland's government? Do you think the judicial changes are a good thing, bad thing or a bit of both?
What are the other democratic referendums? How can we tell? Direct democracy vs. representative democracy is an interesting issue. The Brexit one has reminded me how careful it is to be clear about both outcomes, as everyone is still deciding what 'no' means.
Brexit is moving as fast as it can while suffering from the sprains & pains of internal contradictions. The Irish border issue for example.
I actually expected the progress to be much swifter since the result was clear and unequivocal, communication has been horrible in my opinion.
Direct democracy vs representative is indeed an interesting topic, historically Direct democracy is considered bad after the continuing collapse of the Greek nation-states, one of the reasons why the Romans went for a Republic.
@vanatos you must be referring to a different referendum I think. The Brexit one I remember was very far from clear and distinctly equivocal . I agree with @Mantis37 that things are moving on as fast as could reasonably be expected. The only way to speed the process up would have been to agree at the start not to seek any continuing trade deal with the EU - and I'm certain that while a significant minority would have been very happy with that, a comfortable majority would not.
At this stage I think it's also not at all clear that a majority of the population would eventually even wish to leave the EU at all. It's already been agreed (as a result of a first defeat for Theresa May) that Parliament will have a vote on the final deal with the EU and there are significant voices saying we should go further than that and re-run the referendum. I don't feel particularly strongly about that, but I think there are good reasons for considering it. For instance: 1) By the time such a referendum would take place it will be clear that a continuing trade deal with the EU would cost a comparable amount to the current payments for membership. While some people would say that's not a problem - just don't have a deal and make up the loss on trade by agreements with non-EU countries - there clearly were people who believed the Brexit claims that we could save the cost of membership and still get all the same trade benefits. Those people could well change their vote. 2) Ireland is a potentially huge problem. A form of words has been fudged together in order to get to the next stage of negotiations with the EU, but the problem over the border has only been postponed, not solved. If a trade deal is finally agreed there's no problem, but if there is no trade deal there is a major problem due to the fact that the Irish government will not accept a hard border and the DUP will not accept that Northern Ireland be treated differently from the rest of the UK. There is a way round this - that's to tell Ireland to stuff their concerns - but that would cause considerable upheaval and put in danger the peace process in Northern Ireland. Again therefore, this issue could easily lead to some people changing their vote. 3) Those against the idea of a referendum are now saying that shouldn't be held as everyone was clear that this was a once in a generation vote. I don't believe most people understood that to be the case - the idea of a one-off vote was far more discussed in relation to Scottish independence (and even there the Scottish Nationalists made clear that another vote could be held if the situation changed significantly - such as leaving the EU for instance). The cost of another referendum would be a concern and so would the possibility that would just deepen divisions. However, in a democracy I don't think the argument that a decision once made cannot be unmade is a good one. 4) A significant number of people wanted to leave the EU to take back control over our borders. There was a lot of blurring going on in relation to this argument, e.g. conflating European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights, and assuming that all our responsibilities in relation to refugees were related to the EU. With the passage of time and with slightly less pressure from refugees now, I suspect understanding about this issue has improved a bit.
At this stage I think it's also not at all clear that a majority of the population would eventually even wish to leave the EU at all. It's already been agreed (as a result of a first defeat for Theresa May) that Parliament will have a vote on the final deal with the EU and there are significant voices saying we should go further than that and re-run the referendum. I don't feel particularly strongly about that, but I think there are good reasons for considering it.
Well i am aware of polls trying to show mood has changed and such, but i think having 'constant referendums' wouldn't be feasible, at some point the country has to accept the result of some referendum.
For instance: 1) By the time such a referendum would take place it will be clear that a continuing trade deal with the EU would cost a comparable amount to the current payments for membership. While some people would say that's not a problem - just don't have a deal and make up the loss on trade by agreements with non-EU countries - there clearly were people who believed the Brexit claims that we could save the cost of membership and still get all the same trade benefits. Those people could well change their vote. 2) Ireland is a potentially huge problem. A form of words has been fudged together in order to get to the next stage of negotiations with the EU, but the problem over the border has only been postponed, not solved. If a trade deal is finally agreed there's no problem, but if there is no trade deal there is a major problem due to the fact that the Irish government will not accept a hard border and the DUP will not accept that Northern Ireland be treated differently from the rest of the UK. There is a way round this - that's to tell Ireland to stuff their concerns - but that would cause considerable upheaval and put in danger the peace process in Northern Ireland. Again therefore, this issue could easily lead to some people changing their vote. 3) Those against the idea of a referendum are now saying that shouldn't be held as everyone was clear that this was a once in a generation vote. I don't believe most people understood that to be the case - the idea of a one-off vote was far more discussed in relation to Scottish independence (and even there the Scottish Nationalists made clear that another vote could be held if the situation changed significantly - such as leaving the EU for instance). The cost of another referendum would be a concern and so would the possibility that would just deepen divisions. However, in a democracy I don't think the argument that a decision once made cannot be unmade is a good one. 4) A significant number of people wanted to leave the EU to take back control over our borders. There was a lot of blurring going on in relation to this argument, e.g. conflating European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights, and assuming that all our responsibilities in relation to refugees were related to the EU. With the passage of time and with slightly less pressure from refugees now, I suspect understanding about this issue has improved a bit.
Whether UK leaves or not to me is a matter of time, the EU is not doing well and in all honesty i expect many countries to leave the EU regardless of whether they do it early or they are forced because of macro-economic situation becoming dire.
Merkel's loss of her coalition party and the rise of right-groups becoming ever more prominent in politics across EU nations, EU countries that flat out just ignore the rulings of the EU on the immigration/refugee issue is going to be an ever-growing problem for the stability of the EU.
Of course this isn't taking into consideration the economic conditions, which i think virtually no one has a solution for the continuing influx of the immigrant/refugee's and how to handle them, particularly as their population either grows or ages.
Wasn't the leave vote a clear majority result though?
A majority, yes, but not what I would describe as a clear majority. I gave in my post some of the factors that could easily mean that result could reverse.
Well i am aware of polls trying to show mood has changed and such, but i think having 'constant referendums' wouldn't be feasible, at some point the country has to accept the result of some referendum.
I agree constant referendums would not be appropriate and I'm not particularly pushing for another one now. I do though think there's at least the possibility it will be required. Take for example the not particularly far-fetched scenario where Parliament votes against whatever deal is recommended by the UK government. That would provoke something of a constitutional crisis relating to which takes primacy - direct or indirect representation. In that situation, and faced with the possibility of getting a no-deal by default, the government could decide another referendum would be the least worst option.
Whether UK leaves or not to me is a matter of time, the EU is not doing well and in all honesty i expect many countries to leave the EU regardless of whether they do it early or they are forced because of macro-economic situation becoming dire.
Merkel's loss of her coalition party and the rise of right-groups becoming ever more prominent in politics across EU nations, EU countries that flat out just ignore the rulings of the EU on the immigration/refugee issue is going to be an ever-growing problem for the stability of the EU.
Of course this isn't taking into consideration the economic conditions, which i think virtually no one has a solution for the continuing influx of the immigrant/refugee's and how to handle them, particularly as their population either grows or ages.
Since the Brexit vote the EU has had significantly stronger growth than the UK.I agree there are political strains, but it's quite possible to be much more optimistic than you in analysing the current situation. For instance the participation of a far-right group in Austria's government provides an opportunity to both reduce tensions in that country and to rebalance some of the discussions within the EU as a whole.
I agree constant referendums would not be appropriate and I'm not particularly pushing for another one now. I do though think there's at least the possibility it will be required. Take for example the not particularly far-fetched scenario where Parliament votes against whatever deal is recommended by the UK government. That would provoke something of a constitutional crisis relating to which takes primacy - direct or indirect representation. In that situation, and faced with the possibility of getting a no-deal by default, the government could decide another referendum would be the least worst option.
The biggest problem is if the EU, Brussels, is willing to concede the UK leaving most of the binding agreements.
Since the Brexit vote the EU has had significantly stronger growth than the UK. agree there are political strains, but it's quite possible to be much more optimistic than you in analysing the current situation. For instance the participation of a far-right group in Austria's government provides an opportunity to both reduce tensions in that country and to rebalance some of the discussions within the EU as a whole.
Its good the EU overall is climbing, if that result was consistent across Eu countries then there would be hope, however if there is stark inconsistencies, some doing extremely well, some doing extremely poorly, personally i think that would exacerbate the problems.
The immigration/refugee crisis was to me, a basic test whether the EU has any real worth, and so far it has shown to be extraordinarily disappointing in being any positive force to handle the situation.
The EU to me is one of those things that, if everything was going along swimmingly, it would be great, but as soon as there are some sort of tensions or stress to the system, it breaks down rather quickly.
its also a difficult setup to handle problems, because Brussels and Germany essentially has to come down hard sometimes on other countries, and that is by nature dangerous because your talking about sovereign states punishing other sovereign states, the EU can actually lead to war or spark a great conflict if one nations people feel oppressed by another nation.
@vanatos I actually posted pretty recently about the conflict of interest issue in relation to the judiciary. I agree with you that a moderator also posting is a potential conflict of interest and, all other things being equal, that should be avoided. However, I don't think all other things are equal. @semiticgod posts here because he's interested in the topic and, if he were prohibited from posting, would presumably be less inclined to continue in his voluntary work as a moderator. In that situation I think the current arrangements give a reasonable balance - particularly since other moderators are available to intervene if there were in fact any questionable decisions made.
Personally im more worried about the draught of republican/conservative posters, seems like we lost another one, would be nice to have seen more after i came back.
Trump's unpopularity has been surging since you've been gone.
Many fewer people are identifying as Republicans these days due to Trump. His attacks on the FBI and desire to balloon the debt and his identity politics has turned off a lot of people. He is polling at incredibly low numbers with good reasons.
Trump's unpopularity has been surging since you've been gone.
Many fewer people are identifying as Republicans these days due to Trump. His attacks on the FBI and desire to balloon the debt and his identity politics has turned off a lot of people. He is polling at incredibly low numbers with good reasons.
Not really, it depends on what polls you want to select.
All political polls are meaningless as an honest barometer, the vast majority of polling answers run down party lines, ergo most people don't disagree because of the question itself, they disagree because the question is about someone from another party.
Polling also tends to be flawed insofar as your living in an atmosphere whereby the public and media discourse is sharply insulting to a particular political party, most people aren't going to give straight answers.
Bumerous polls have shown that the publics impression of Trumps immigration policies tends to be actually in the majority, of course this is rarely brought up because the partisan discussion simply wants to focus on is Trump a bad man.
Less people identifying as Republicans isn't a unique phenomenon, generally the growth has been on the side of independents so both parties are in the dumps and have been declining.
So portraying it as a Republican specific phenomenon against Trump is going against years of trends, and seems cherry picked data for partisanship.
Trump's unpopularity has been surging since you've been gone.
Many fewer people are identifying as Republicans these days due to Trump. His attacks on the FBI and desire to balloon the debt and his identity politics has turned off a lot of people. He is polling at incredibly low numbers with good reasons.
Not really, it depends on what polls you want to select.
All political polls are meaningless as an honest barometer, the vast majority of polling answers run down party lines, ergo most people don't disagree because of the question itself, they disagree because the question is about someone from another party.
Polling also tends to be flawed insofar as your living in an atmosphere whereby the public and media discourse is sharply insulting to a particular political party, most people aren't going to give straight answers.
For example numerous polls have shown that the publics impression of Trumps immigration policies tends to be actually in the majority, of course this is rarely brought up because the partisan discussion simply wants to focus on is Trump a bad man.
I suppose if you cherry pick one issue out of the greater whole you might find something that most people agree with. But once you consider the spectrum of issues and his approval ratings they are terrible. He's in a league of his own in his unpopularity.
If you are convinced otherwise you may be in a conservative bubble. That majority of americans do not identify as republicans or conservative - as I just posted.
This tax cut for the rich bill - which most americans do no approve of - will be unlikely to have a positive affect on his historically low approval ratings.
I suppose if you cherry pick one issue out of the greater whole you might find something that most people agree with. But once you consider the spectrum of issues and his approval ratings they are terrible. He's in a league of his own in his unpopularity.
Approval polls are bunk and always have been, because they cannot be verified, there's nothing to test them against.
Polls on what a state is going to vote is actually testable, thats why we actually know how far off they can be.
Btw Hillary's approval poll's are declining lower then Trumps, which apparently is a unique phenomenon since losing candidates usually rise.
Approval polls gets trotted out frequently when we need the next round of Trump bashing.
First, the debt numbers under Obama look much worse than Bush's because he brought the Iraq war properly into the budget. For years it had been funded with supplementary appropriations, which kept--depending on estimates--30-70% of the war cost off the books.
Second, Trump's historically low approval ratings despite a good economy should scare the bejeesus out of Republicans, since the economy is usually the greatest factor in the approval ratings. More people identifying as independents and not Republicans was also a hallmark of Bush's low approval rating, so it can't be hand-waved away on partisan identification, either.
Trump's unpopularity has been surging since you've been gone.
Many fewer people are identifying as Republicans these days due to Trump. His attacks on the FBI and desire to balloon the debt and his identity politics has turned off a lot of people. He is polling at incredibly low numbers with good reasons.
Not really, it depends on what polls you want to select.
All political polls are meaningless as an honest barometer, the vast majority of polling answers run down party lines, ergo most people don't disagree because of the question itself, they disagree because the question is about someone from another party.
Polling also tends to be flawed insofar as your living in an atmosphere whereby the public and media discourse is sharply insulting to a particular political party, most people aren't going to give straight answers.
Bumerous polls have shown that the publics impression of Trumps immigration policies tends to be actually in the majority, of course this is rarely brought up because the partisan discussion simply wants to focus on is Trump a bad man.
Less people identifying as Republicans isn't a unique phenomenon, generally the growth has been on the side of independents so both parties are in the dumps and have been declining.
So portraying it as a Republican specific phenomenon against Trump is going against years of trends, and seems cherry picked data for partisanship.
Have you worked in polling?? Because I have. And this is another argument that you made months ago. That no polling anywhere is reliable, but your real goal is to dismiss any post that cites polling, as if there is any other way to gauge public opinion outisde of elections that generally occur once every year or two. You frequently used to dismiss every single polling example, at which point I simply stopped citing them. Can't discuss Trump, and can't discuss polls about Trump. Not just one poll is wrong, ALL polls are wrong. By how much?? You never even offer a baromemter for that. And if the polls are correct, it's because of media and cultural atmosphere. Moreover, you apparently BELIEVE the polling on immigration, but not the rest of it. Amazing.
Sounds like a lot is happening over there in your neck of woods @Artona . Where do you stand on the state of Poland's government? Do you think the judicial changes are a good thing, bad thing or a bit of both?
@Balrog99 Well, since last elections our government focuses it's energy on eliminating any independency judiciary has in our country. They already violated Constitution multiple times: illegaly appointed judges of Constitutional Tribunal for already taken seats, and illegaly neglected to publish rulings of Tribunal. They also passed the multiple bills that violate constitutional independence of court system - about Constitutional Tribunale, Supreme Court, about National Judiciary Council (the body that chooses candidates for judges) and about courts in general. For an instance, bill about Supreme Court stipulates that judges should retire once reaching certain age, and that it should apply to currently seated judges. If that happened, then we should choose next judges - and bill reforming NJC says that NJC composition is to be politically appointed by Parliament (earlier it was mostly chosen by various bodies of judiciary). In Parliament government's party has majority, so they would basically changes judges into governmental agents. They plan to do the same (that is - reform the bill so the current composition would be forced to resign) with National Electoral Comission, the highest body regarding - amont other things - validity of elections.
So I am strongly opposed to our government politics and I consider it to be directly against rules and values of liberal democracy.
Have you worked in polling?? Because I have. And this is another argument that you made months ago. That no polling anywhere is reliable, but your real goal is to dismiss any post that cites polling, as if there is any other way to gauge public opinion outisde of elections that generally occur once every year or two. You frequently used to dismiss every single polling example, at which point I simply stopped citing them. Can't discuss Trump, and can't discuss polls about Trump. Not just one poll is wrong, ALL polls are wrong. By how much?? You never even offer a baromemter for that. And if the polls are correct, it's because of media and cultural atmosphere.
Yes i've been involved in analyzing methodologies in companies, as a general rule either you validate the methodology or you at least have a history of validating the results, ie poll of voting.
Neither of which qualifies for approval polls, approval polls tends to be trotted out simply as a partisan attack on Trump.
I could give the very practical reason why he might be polling low, because the media is extraordinarily harsh against him, something which even Carter stated, to which the narrative becomes inconvenient because you'd have to acknowledge the fault of the media.
More people identifying as independents and not Republicans was also a hallmark of Bush's low approval rating, so it can't be hand-waved away on partisan identification, either.
More people are identified as independents then Republican or democrat every year for a very very long time, both Democrat and Republicans have had a downward trend for many many years.
Have you worked in polling?? Because I have. And this is another argument that you made months ago. That no polling anywhere is reliable, but your real goal is to dismiss any post that cites polling, as if there is any other way to gauge public opinion outisde of elections that generally occur once every year or two. You frequently used to dismiss every single polling example, at which point I simply stopped citing them. Can't discuss Trump, and can't discuss polls about Trump. Not just one poll is wrong, ALL polls are wrong. By how much?? You never even offer a baromemter for that. And if the polls are correct, it's because of media and cultural atmosphere.
Yes i've been involved in analyzing methodologies in companies, as a general rule either you validate the methodology or you at least have a history of validating the results, ie poll of voting.
Neither of which qualifies for approval polls, approval polls tends to be trotted out simply as a partisan attack on Trump.
I could give the very practical reason why he might be polling low, because the media is extraordinarily harsh against him, something which even Carter stated, to which the narrative becomes inconvenient because you'd have to acknowledge the fault of the media.
Polls are not perfect but they are the best system we have. Approval polls exist outside of Trump, they existed before Trump and they will exist after he's gone from office. Saying that polls are just attacks on Trump is not true.
The media is against Trump? That is also not true, one of the major networks has 24/7 glowing coverage of Trump. It's Fox News.
The other TV media, such as CNN, regularly have Trump people on to explain their views which usually clearly devolves into spin overdrive (Kellyanne or Gorka or a thousand others). These people are given equal time - more than they deserve frankly because they are clearly presenting alternative facts. And the stuff he's doing is not popular and objectively not defensible in many ways.
Sinclair broadcasting, a hard right conservative organization, sends biased conservative talking points to local news reaching about 66% of the country.
Trump's low approval ratings - even declining on fox as I showed above are in spite of a massive propaganda effort by right wing media companies.
More people identifying as independents and not Republicans was also a hallmark of Bush's low approval rating, so it can't be hand-waved away on partisan identification, either.
More people are identified as independents then Republican or democrat every year for a very very long time, both Democrat and Republicans have had a downward trend for many many years.
It ran through Obama's presidency.
People identifying as Democrats have gone up 7 points since Trump's election while people identifying as Republicans are slumping.
Comments
@vanatos There's no conflict of interests if a moderator participates in the discussion about politics and religion, and in the same time issues warnings (including informal, in-thread messages) to other participants of this discussion, as long as this moderator doesn't do that (issuing warnings) on purpose to punish people who don't agree with this moderator.
Treat it like if this moderator kept putting off and on the moderator's hat.
You have been asked to follow the Site rules, and it is a completely fine thing to do, for a moderator, even if this moderator posts in the same thread as you.
In turn, you proposed to
seize the spellcasting and come with youcensor the current discussion and create a new one with the title that is already disrespectful to a group of people. This proposition doesn't follow the Site rules and won't be granted.@semiticgod is participating in this thread actively and thus helping greatly to moderate heated arguments about politics. All major issues in this thread are being moderated by the whole moderation team behind closed doors, but you may not see it till the moderators' decision is made about you.
This is why it was fine that @semiticgod issued the first warning to @FinneousPJ , for example. Mind you, the second warning was not issued by @semiticgod. All the warnings are a result of discussions between all moderators.
Anyway, I see this issue seems to be settled for now. Feel free to tag me or any other moderator if something happens, and if you think @semiticgod is moderating issues wrongly.
So this is quite incorrect of you to call it censoring.
moderators going on/off is a conflict of interest, the main thing is the appearance of possible conflict of interest, i have no problem with it because im fine with casual discussion, but pretending it isn't is intellectually dishonest.
(2) Closing this thread and starting a new one is censoring towards all other participants of this thread and its OP-r. The moderation team doesn't see absurd bias, spam and tribal posting here.
(3) Our rules doesn't prohibit moderators to participate in discussions they moderate, so there's no conflict of interest as long as a moderator doesn't issue warnings on purpose to punish people who don't agree with this moderator.
(4) There's plenty of discussion of other countries on these 400+ pages. We don't prohibit to discuss politics of any country here. There's no intent that you're speaking about here.
Fundamentally this is incorrect of you, as to the name was being sarcastic.
Your rules don't have to prohibit moderating participation, i am giving friendly advice on the appearance of conflict of interest which can cause problems, particularly since this thread has a problem retaining 'conservative' posters due to how its been going about.
And it is a conflict of interest, judges recuse themselves for even the appearance of it in court, of course i dont say we should be that serious.
I don't really care that much, not hard to say yeh it kind of is but we like everyone being free to participate so just let it happen.
Moderators are not judges. Moderators are your fellow forum users who have volunteered to become moderators and help handle stuff.
Moderators are held to a higher standard then normal forum users precisely because they have power, btw the advice was to actually make it easier on everyone including SemiticGod, which you seem to not realize.
Brexit is moving as fast as it can while suffering from the sprains & pains of internal contradictions. The Irish border issue for example.
Direct democracy vs representative is indeed an interesting topic, historically Direct democracy is considered bad after the continuing collapse of the Greek nation-states, one of the reasons why the Romans went for a Republic.
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re: that train derailment in Washington. You are probably unaware of this but I know how to drive a train--I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I am not unfamiliar with the control board an engineer would have when operating the train--so there is no way the engineer could be unaware of the current speed and that curve would already have had its speed limit set based on the weeks of live-yet-empty train runs sent down that route. Also, the closest control tower would have been aware of the train's current location and speed so that fact that it was allowed to be going 80 when it should have been going 30 is criminal negligence.
At this stage I think it's also not at all clear that a majority of the population would eventually even wish to leave the EU at all. It's already been agreed (as a result of a first defeat for Theresa May) that Parliament will have a vote on the final deal with the EU and there are significant voices saying we should go further than that and re-run the referendum. I don't feel particularly strongly about that, but I think there are good reasons for considering it. For instance:
1) By the time such a referendum would take place it will be clear that a continuing trade deal with the EU would cost a comparable amount to the current payments for membership. While some people would say that's not a problem - just don't have a deal and make up the loss on trade by agreements with non-EU countries - there clearly were people who believed the Brexit claims that we could save the cost of membership and still get all the same trade benefits. Those people could well change their vote.
2) Ireland is a potentially huge problem. A form of words has been fudged together in order to get to the next stage of negotiations with the EU, but the problem over the border has only been postponed, not solved. If a trade deal is finally agreed there's no problem, but if there is no trade deal there is a major problem due to the fact that the Irish government will not accept a hard border and the DUP will not accept that Northern Ireland be treated differently from the rest of the UK. There is a way round this - that's to tell Ireland to stuff their concerns - but that would cause considerable upheaval and put in danger the peace process in Northern Ireland. Again therefore, this issue could easily lead to some people changing their vote.
3) Those against the idea of a referendum are now saying that shouldn't be held as everyone was clear that this was a once in a generation vote. I don't believe most people understood that to be the case - the idea of a one-off vote was far more discussed in relation to Scottish independence (and even there the Scottish Nationalists made clear that another vote could be held if the situation changed significantly - such as leaving the EU for instance). The cost of another referendum would be a concern and so would the possibility that would just deepen divisions. However, in a democracy I don't think the argument that a decision once made cannot be unmade is a good one.
4) A significant number of people wanted to leave the EU to take back control over our borders. There was a lot of blurring going on in relation to this argument, e.g. conflating European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights, and assuming that all our responsibilities in relation to refugees were related to the EU. With the passage of time and with slightly less pressure from refugees now, I suspect understanding about this issue has improved a bit.
Merkel's loss of her coalition party and the rise of right-groups becoming ever more prominent in politics across EU nations, EU countries that flat out just ignore the rulings of the EU on the immigration/refugee issue is going to be an ever-growing problem for the stability of the EU.
Of course this isn't taking into consideration the economic conditions, which i think virtually no one has a solution for the continuing influx of the immigrant/refugee's and how to handle them, particularly as their population either grows or ages.
I agree constant referendums would not be appropriate and I'm not particularly pushing for another one now. I do though think there's at least the possibility it will be required. Take for example the not particularly far-fetched scenario where Parliament votes against whatever deal is recommended by the UK government. That would provoke something of a constitutional crisis relating to which takes primacy - direct or indirect representation. In that situation, and faced with the possibility of getting a no-deal by default, the government could decide another referendum would be the least worst option.
Since the Brexit vote the EU has had significantly stronger growth than the UK.
The immigration/refugee crisis was to me, a basic test whether the EU has any real worth, and so far it has shown to be extraordinarily disappointing in being any positive force to handle the situation.
The EU to me is one of those things that, if everything was going along swimmingly, it would be great, but as soon as there are some sort of tensions or stress to the system, it breaks down rather quickly.
its also a difficult setup to handle problems, because Brussels and Germany essentially has to come down hard sometimes on other countries, and that is by nature dangerous because your talking about sovereign states punishing other sovereign states, the EU can actually lead to war or spark a great conflict if one nations people feel oppressed by another nation.
Many fewer people are identifying as Republicans these days due to Trump. His attacks on the FBI and desire to balloon the debt and his identity politics has turned off a lot of people. He is polling at incredibly low numbers with good reasons.
All political polls are meaningless as an honest barometer, the vast majority of polling answers run down party lines, ergo most people don't disagree because of the question itself, they disagree because the question is about someone from another party.
Polling also tends to be flawed insofar as your living in an atmosphere whereby the public and media discourse is sharply insulting to a particular political party, most people aren't going to give straight answers.
Bumerous polls have shown that the publics impression of Trumps immigration policies tends to be actually in the majority, of course this is rarely brought up because the partisan discussion simply wants to focus on is Trump a bad man.
Less people identifying as Republicans isn't a unique phenomenon, generally the growth has been on the side of independents so both parties are in the dumps and have been declining.
So portraying it as a Republican specific phenomenon against Trump is going against years of trends, and seems cherry picked data for partisanship.
If you are convinced otherwise you may be in a conservative bubble. That majority of americans do not identify as republicans or conservative - as I just posted.
This tax cut for the rich bill - which most americans do no approve of - will be unlikely to have a positive affect on his historically low approval ratings.
His approval ratings even among Fox News viewers have declined.
Polls on what a state is going to vote is actually testable, thats why we actually know how far off they can be.
Btw Hillary's approval poll's are declining lower then Trumps, which apparently is a unique phenomenon since losing candidates usually rise.
Approval polls gets trotted out frequently when we need the next round of Trump bashing.
First, the debt numbers under Obama look much worse than Bush's because he brought the Iraq war properly into the budget. For years it had been funded with supplementary appropriations, which kept--depending on estimates--30-70% of the war cost off the books.
Second, Trump's historically low approval ratings despite a good economy should scare the bejeesus out of Republicans, since the economy is usually the greatest factor in the approval ratings. More people identifying as independents and not Republicans was also a hallmark of Bush's low approval rating, so it can't be hand-waved away on partisan identification, either.
edit: clarified
Well, since last elections our government focuses it's energy on eliminating any independency judiciary has in our country. They already violated Constitution multiple times: illegaly appointed judges of Constitutional Tribunal for already taken seats, and illegaly neglected to publish rulings of Tribunal. They also passed the multiple bills that violate constitutional independence of court system - about Constitutional Tribunale, Supreme Court, about National Judiciary Council (the body that chooses candidates for judges) and about courts in general.
For an instance, bill about Supreme Court stipulates that judges should retire once reaching certain age, and that it should apply to currently seated judges. If that happened, then we should choose next judges - and bill reforming NJC says that NJC composition is to be politically appointed by Parliament (earlier it was mostly chosen by various bodies of judiciary). In Parliament government's party has majority, so they would basically changes judges into governmental agents.
They plan to do the same (that is - reform the bill so the current composition would be forced to resign) with National Electoral Comission, the highest body regarding - amont other things - validity of elections.
So I am strongly opposed to our government politics and I consider it to be directly against rules and values of liberal democracy.
Neither of which qualifies for approval polls, approval polls tends to be trotted out simply as a partisan attack on Trump.
I could give the very practical reason why he might be polling low, because the media is extraordinarily harsh against him, something which even Carter stated, to which the narrative becomes inconvenient because you'd have to acknowledge the fault of the media.
It ran through Obama's presidency.
The media is against Trump? That is also not true, one of the major networks has 24/7 glowing coverage of Trump. It's Fox News.
The other TV media, such as CNN, regularly have Trump people on to explain their views which usually clearly devolves into spin overdrive (Kellyanne or Gorka or a thousand others). These people are given equal time - more than they deserve frankly because they are clearly presenting alternative facts. And the stuff he's doing is not popular and objectively not defensible in many ways.
Sinclair broadcasting, a hard right conservative organization, sends biased conservative talking points to local news reaching about 66% of the country.
Trump's low approval ratings - even declining on fox as I showed above are in spite of a massive propaganda effort by right wing media companies.
People identifying as Democrats have gone up 7 points since Trump's election while people identifying as Republicans are slumping.
https://www.usnews.com/news/ken-walshs-washington/articles/2017-06-07/fewer-americans-call-themselves-republicans