Our voting system is pathetic.

I do not vote on issues that I have not read up on. This past election had a ton of propositions that I did not vote on because I felt that I was not informed enough to make a vote even though I clearly saw the distinct political sides to their arguments.

 

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is dysfunctional and also corrupt and a banana republic political crime organization.

 

That is a great opinion. Congratulations!

 

You are a minority.

I've crunched the numbers in California for the past 16 or so years and came to the conclusion that 2/3 of California's voters are low information.

A few weeks ago John Thomas < https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2018-03-30-the-thomas-guide/ > came out saying that 80% of the voters in California were low information.

I'll go with 66 % of the low information voters vote Democrat and the other 14% are Republicans or independents.

Low information being that they have no freaking idea what they are voting for when voting for proposition initiatives on the ballot, have little clue who they are voting for and don't even know who their current elected members are serving in the state legislature or in Congress.

Over half of the voters went to the polls last week in California not knowing that Prop 6 was to repeal Jerry Browns and the liberals .12 cents per gallon gasoline tax and car registration tax increase.

15 years ago back in 2003 Governor Gray Davis was recalled for the exact increase in car registration fees !!!
Are Californians that low informed they don't remember ?

Most have no idea what a bond is and are completely unaware that interest has to be paid on those bonds by the taxpayers.

A $1 billion dollar bond usually cost the taxpayers $2 billion dollars but most think it's free money.

If Jerry Brown was California's worst Governor, what will Gavin Newsom end up being ?

Why would 2/3 of Californians vote for being a totalitarian state ???

 

This is just not a Cali issue. It is a function of our tribal politics. Most people do not have to time to read up on every issue. They will just look for some trusted source to tell them how to vote on the large amount of issues on a ballot that does not affect them as much as others. People focus on issues that affect them the most, but will just vote on party lines because they do not trust the other party. I wish it were different, but it s not. Finally, even if you try to read up on many of these issues, you need to get through a ton of spin on both sides to truly understand what the propositions do. Our political system has gotten much more complex and the amount of information you need to sift through has grown over the years. On top of this, people do not spend enough time on learning about the issues. This creates a high chance of being an uninformed voter that can be bought up and lead like sheep on both sides.

 

I concur but I'm willing to bet there are more or a larger percentage of low information Americans in California than the rest of the country.

In Los Angeles County 1/2 of the working age adults are illiterate or functional illiterates, I **** you not.

The working class who actually have real jobs and pay taxes have little time to keep up on what's happening or the time to actually read the actual initiative they are voting on.

Exiting polling shows that most voters make their decisions from the political commercials they see on television.

Most Americans no longer read the newspapers today.

 

Literacy rates are horrible, but to claim that 1/2 in LA county are functionally illiterate seems off.

That would mean that 1/10th of those 40 million are in LA county (has a population around 6 mil at the time). That is highly unlikely given that LA county is about 1/40th of the population of the US. There are huge amounts of education problems all throughout the south and midwest too. The illiteracy rates would be quite high in those areas too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

 

The study was launched in June 2003 by Mayor James K. Hahn and conducted by United Way with more than 100 private and public organizations participating. It produced some grim findings:

* Fifty-three percent of working-age Los Angeles County residents have trouble reading street signs or bus schedules, filling out job applications in English or understanding a utility bill. The national average is 48%, according to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey...
-> http://articles.latimes.com/2004/sep/09/local/me-literacy9


FYI:
When using Wikipedia always read Wikipedia's disclaimers and always go to the topic Talk Page...-> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Literacy_in_the_United_States

 

ELL compounds the issue. If you include, non-native English speakers these statistics climb quickly. LA county has large populations of Asians immigrants that also would have problems passing a literacy test given in English. As someone who lives in LA, you see many languages spoken here.

 

In California 50% of the population don't speak English in the home.

Assimilation and speaking English Is politically incorrect in California.

 

I have always resisted this argument for the need of assimilation. We are a nation of immigrants, and we were once proud of it. Now we are trying to shed that aspect of our country. I know of plenty of immigrants who do not speak English, but their children do, and their children have become quite successful. We should cherish diversity in our population because it helps make our country unique and gives us an advantage of having multiple view points when solving problems. We have focused too much on the negatives of immigration and not enough on the positives that it brings. This is a larger discussion probably for a separate post.

 

America has never been a nation of immigrants, it's a myth.

At no time has immigrants been the majority. The Native born has always been the majority.

Even when the Pilgrims got off the boat the native born outnumbered the Pilgrims.

 

Those natives were not counted as citizens when our nation was formed. Natives have not ever made up the majority of our population. Families have emigrated from other countries for generations. Unless you believe we are all majority native american. Thus, we are a nation of immigrants. Granted not all of immigrated at the same time, but at one point our families were immigrants.

 

Before the U.S. Constitution there were no citizens in America, just British subjects.

No such thing as a British citizen before 1949.

 

Okay, but as I said when our country was formed (i.e., between 1774 and 1791 depending on when you want to say there were citizens of US), we were a nation of immigrants because Native Americans were not citizens. Whether or not someone was a citizen or subject does not play into the calculation of immigration.

 

Did you know that before 1965 that about 1/3 of the immigrants who came to America just didn't have the American pioneer spirit to break a sweat and get dirt under their fingernails and returned to old country ?

There was no free stuff in America before the 1960's.



Return Migration
Another factor in intensifying the impact of immigration is a reduced rate of emigration — that is, more of today's newcomers stay for their whole lives, rather than returning to the old country after a few years. Note that in the 1930s, emigration was higher than 100 percent, meaning that during the Great Depression more people left the country than entered.






https://cis.org/Report/Legacy-1965-Immigration-Act

 

First of all, I have found the Heritage Foundation to be a common source of right wing lies. Hell, it's a THINK TANK!

Oregon has had no voting problems due to it's air tight monitoring and transparency. And it's rated among the highest in the country for reliability. But your favored system is subject, as we have seen all to often, to voting machine hacking, voter role purging, publishing of false voting dates and locations, and unreasonably excessive burdening of voting locations by providing too few for too many people in democratic districts.

Now why in hell would a Republican-controlled county, which means republican majority, BOTHER creating problems when they are as sure as can be that the Republicans will win there? LOL!!!! The far more likely situation is as we find in Broward and Palm Beach counties where the Republicans are cheating for all they're worth to try to win by any means against a majority of democrats. And that is what we're seeing.

It's always Republicans who cause corruption of voting and cheat like hell. ALWAYS. I'd probably be fine with your favored system in red states if it guaranteed an audit trail, transparency, end of gerrymandering, adequate voting locations so people don't have to stand in line for an hour, bipartisan operations front to back, and surveillance cameras. That would be a good start. But Republicans don't want that because then they can't cheat.

 

See why I don't vote anymore now?

Republicons and demorats can kiss my grits.

 

I am not sure how this refutes that we are nation of immigrants. If immigrants leave, they cannot become citizens; if they stay, they can become citizens. Either way, we have a nation of immigrants. All the people that stayed have shaped our culture and values. Unless you think we are still the same people from the 1700's that originally came here and started our country. All these people came here from other countries. They brought their culture and values. If you cannot see this, just look at the diversity in our food as an easy example of how diverse our culture is. I am not sure what you are trying to argue here, but it seems we are getting off topic.

 

Settlers were ask to come and they built this nation not illegals. Illegals come and not only do they not have to work but they also get to live basically free.
And we don't need workers anymore so it doesn't help our nation to bring in legal workers much less illegals with their large families and illnesses and crime.
Not all are criminals but many are and do have them in their family and they don't report them at all.
Most Europeans had the same type of cultures and spoke the same language.
They had skills and built things not so with the illegals.
They use to come here work go back home to their family. It benefited us both.
Now they come destroy n-hoods and live off welfare in most cases. Where I raised my kids years ago now looks like a Mexican ghetto, bars on windows, no signs in English on ' what few businesses left ' and totally crime infested. Almost the whole county is ruined and dangerous. Not so with legal immigrants from Europe.

 

True, but the natives did not ask them to come here. They originally came here illegally. Now, you are moving the goal posts of this immigration talk to illegal immigrants which is a qualitatively different debate.

 

Not at all .What if all Americans wanted to go to Mexico and all were poor and needy? It would implode like we are doing now.
I'd be glad to help them stay in the nation but since most leaders in both nations are crooks any money to help would be stolen or given to big biz.
I'd love to build them a nice city with hospitals and schools,but would they even use them?

 

There are a few false equivalencies here. The number of immigrants into our country is nowhere near the population of the US. Mexico's economy is much different than ours. These create a scenario totally different than our immigration. Furthermore, it is still not addressing the issue of illegal immigration which is different than the problem you are posting here.

 

The refute what I posted.

So you can't show any Republicans counties who have had similar problems.

Like where?

 

Soon America will be outnumbered by these people who will turn this nation into their own cultures that never worked in their homelands and won't work here.
Already the ones in office or trying to get in are almost all social communist . They think money falls down from heaven here and will always be there for the taking.
Their culture is nowhere near what made this nation great which is love for learning and education. And the nation will not wait for them to acquire the skills to keep it going.