Eldorion wrote:I'm skeptical of the idea that third parties will enjoy greater viability growing forward. The FPTP electoral system breeds two party systems. From a historical perspective we're already overdue for a party realignment, which I think the current struggles of the GOP as an institution will contribute to, but the most probably outcome is the Democratic and Republican parties carry on, just with somewhat different coalitions and ideological makeups.
Right; any number greater than 2 is thermodynamically unstable, because any two can form an alliance and beat the other one every time.
In fact, that's fundamentally what a political party is in the first place, only starting from a number in the thousands or millions.
yovargas wrote:Considering my general opinion about political parties (they're dumb), you may not be surprised to hear my reaction to that post (it's dumb).
If you are waiting for people to make a difference without any association with any political parties, you will be waiting a long time.
Yup. Yet. Donald Trump is not a Republican, he's an independent. Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, he's an independent. If either had ran the exact same campaign calling themselves independent, they would've gotten nowhere. If either had ran the exact same campaign calling themselves Rep/Dem, they are now worth taking seriously. Same person, same platform, same policies. Why should anyone anywhere care which label they arbitrarily choose to attach to themselves?
If Jill Stein runs for president under the Green Party: "I would be SO willing to vote for Green Party candidates who are starting at the bottom, grassroots, bottom up, building a third party, a viable third party. ... You don't start by running someone for f***ng president."
If the exact same Jill Stein runs under the Rep/Dem Party, oh, well now it's reasonable to consider voting for her as a serious candidate.
It's totally, utterly moronic.
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
Cerin wrote:I saw the headlines about plagiarism -- can it be that all the fuss is about these two simple phrases?
'He will never, ever give up. And most importantly, he will never, ever let you down.'
These are two very common ideas (never give up, never let you down), the use of 'never, ever' for emphasis is very common, juxtaposing 'up, down' would be an appealing device for any speaker.
I think attaching plagiarism accusations to such banal phrases is unbelievably silly and pretentious. As if there were something original or noteworthy in the utterances to begin with . . . Geez.
That line is being picked up as a joke, or a "RickRoll" after the famous Rick Astley song.
Michelle Obama 2008
“And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't agree with them."
Melania Trump 2016
“From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily lives. That is a lesson that I continue to pass along to our son."
Michelle Obama 2008
“And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values, and pass them on to the next generation."
Melania Trump 2016
“And we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow."
Michelle Obama 2008
"Because we want our children — and all children in this nation — to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.”
Melania Trump 2016
“Because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.”
The Rick Roll in Melania Trump's speech was either a prank on her or a subversive joke she played on everyone. But that's not the basis for the plagiarism accusations. Those come from an entire paragraph or so of her speech that appears to have been lifted almost verbatim from Michelle Obama's 2008 speech at the DNC. Who knows what anyone was thinking with that. The most parsimonious explanations I can come up with at that either the Trump campaign went cheap with the speechwriter and got exactly what they paid for or they just figured that Michelle Obama's speech went over really well and people have super short attention spans and no memory so they could get away with a blatant rip-off.
yovargas wrote:Considering my general opinion about political parties (they're dumb), you may not be surprised to hear my reaction to that post (it's dumb).
If you are waiting for people to make a difference without any association with any political parties, you will be waiting a long time.
Yup. Yet. Donald Trump is not a Republican, he's an independent. Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, he's an independent. If either had ran the exact same campaign calling themselves independent, they would've gotten nowhere. If either had ran the exact same campaign calling themselves Rep/Dem, they are now worth taking seriously. Same person, same platform, same policies. Why should anyone anywhere care which label they arbitrarily choose to attach to themselves?
If Jill Stein runs for president under the Green Party: "I would be SO willing to vote for Green Party candidates who are starting at the bottom, grassroots, bottom up, building a third party, a viable third party. ... You don't start by running someone for f***ng president."
If the exact same Jill Stein runs under the Rep/Dem Party, oh, well now it's reasonable to consider voting for her as a serious candidate.
It's totally, utterly moronic.
yov, you are better than that. You can express your opinion without being insulting.
That having been said, there is a reason why there has never been a country in modern times that has not had political system organized with political parties, whether a two party system or a parliamentary system. In order to get things done, people have to join together. That is a basic rule. And in the broad scheme of things, the president is a very small part of the system. You could have a charismatic figure run for president as an independent and potentially do very well (I actually think that if Bernie Sanders had run as an independent rather than for the Democratic nomination he would have really shook of the presidential race). But even if that happened it wouldn't change the fact that in order to get things done, people in general would need to group together. I think I have mentioned that here in Santa Cruz we have non-partisan elections. That works well on a limited local level (particularly since the vast majority of people who run are progressives). But if you just held all elections for all offices without any parties the result would be anarchy in the worst sense.
In my humble opinion, of course.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
V - that was a good rant to read. And that's exactly the beef I have with the Green Party and Libertarians and whatever - where are the people making a difference in my local community and in local elected positions? Where are the independents getting governing experience in the trenches before they aim high? But yov isn't wrong, either - we saw both sides' establishment candidates get a great run for their money from independents running under their party's colors - turns out there is a lot of support within both parties for the ideas of independents! But yes, Bernie Sanders would barely have gotten a mention if he was running as an independent. ( Donald Trump would have had his platform regardless, because he is a rich man and a media personality, which in no way qualifies him to be POTUS. )
In the case of the Republicans the independent won, and look at that ant hill go! Red ants everywhere, in a panic, carrying their eggs around, not knowing what to do. Sorry guys, you got usurped for this cycle. You have four short years to learn you lessons. You didn't learn them under eight years of Obama, let's hope you can learn them in the next four or on a national level the GOP really will collapse in a pile of rubble and that will be a damn shame. I've lived under a de facto one party system for the first two thirds of my life, first the NP and then the ANC, and both were disasters. In the case of the Democrats the sitting queen won but it is no time for gloating because she is very unpopular and might well cost them the election. If the Democrats had thrown a half-decent candidate out there, without all the baggage of Hillary Clinton, they'd be set for a landslide. But no, the establishment wanted Hillary to have her shot at POTUS come hell or high water, and they're getting a little soggy. Hope they don't get swamped.
Cerin - sorry, but the structure of that part of her speech is too similar to be coincidence. Sure, those things are basic platitudes, but they're phrased the same way out of many possible ways to phrase them, and for goodness' sake, even arranged in the same order!
So Melania Trump can pick from these choices: a) Michele gave a great speech and her speech pinched some of it, or, b) she independently came up with the exact same morals and thoughts as Michele Obama, that terrible enemy of all that is great and good in America. So, should she admit that the Obamas are not the terrible monsters and enemies of America conservatives make them out to be, or should she admit that she and her husband are also enemies of America? Hee hee.
PS: That Rickroll thing made my day. Sure, it could be explained away because Donald Trump definitely does not talk like a typical human being. He repeats phrases a lot. That doesn't help a whole lot though: if it was inadvertent it means that he sounds like a Rick Astley song when he speaks.
Cerin wrote:I saw the headlines about plagiarism -- can it be that all the fuss is about these two simple phrases?
'He will never, ever give up. And most importantly, he will never, ever let you down.'
These are two very common ideas (never give up, never let you down), the use of 'never, ever' for emphasis is very common, juxtaposing 'up, down' would be an appealing device for any speaker.
I think attaching plagiarism accusations to such banal phrases is unbelievably silly and pretentious. As if there were something original or noteworthy in the utterances to begin with . . . Geez.
That line is being picked up as a joke, or a "RickRoll" after the famous Rick Astley song.
The plagiarism is in the other content.
Someone played an enormous joke on the Trump campaign. This is hysterical. I no longer watch political conventions (high blood pressure, doncha know), but this would have been classic to see.
Griffon64 wrote:So Melania Trump can pick from these choices: a) Michele gave a great speech and her speech pinched some of it, or, b) she independently came up with the exact same morals and thoughts as Michele Obama, that terrible enemy of all that is great and good in America. So, should she admit that the Obamas are not the terrible monsters and enemies of America conservatives make them out to be, or should she admit that she and her husband are also enemies of America? Hee hee.
I in no way blame Melania Trump for any plagiarism that may have happened. I can't believe she wrote this herself (See: RickRoll), and can't conceive that she would be familiar with Michelle Obama's 2008 speech. Some hack wrote it, hoping to pass it off as original. Though it also may be calculated to make them look bad, again with the RickRoll - I mean SERIOUSLY!
yovargas wrote:
Voronwë the Faithful wrote:But if you just held all elections for all offices without any parties the result would be anarchy in the worst sense.
I find that a very strange statement. It would be democracy, not anarchy.
Parties are there to benefit the candidates, not to benefit the voters or the country.
In theory parties are not required. There's nothing in the US constitution specifying them. But the last time a US president was elected without a party was George Washington. It was also the last time someone got ALL of the Electoral College votes. So, no political parties not something that is realistic to expect. No matter how much they suck. I would prefer more diversity in political parties, but still, two parties are better than one party.
Again, if it were just a question of electing a president, I could see a circumstance in which an unaffiliated candidate could be successful. But I could not picture a circumstance in which a sustainable government (particular in a country as large and complex as the U.S.) existed without some kind of political affiliation. I think it would be unsustainable anarchy.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
How many of us who are parents have not attempted to pass our values on to our children, taught them to respect others and encouraged them that dreams are achievable through hard work? Anyone?
How many of the above, being put in a position of having to introduce ourselves as a wife and mother to a large number of people through a public speech, might consider the above universal tenets of life to be important enough to mention as defining values?
Whatever.
Avatar photo by Richard Lykes, used with permission.
Cerin wrote:How many of us who are parents have not attempted to pass our values on to our children, taught them to respect others and encouraged them that dreams are achievable through hard work? Anyone?
How many of the above, being put in a position of having to introduce ourselves as a wife and mother to a large number of people through a public speech, might consider the above universal tenets of life to be important enough to mention as defining values?
What does that have to do with anything?
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
There are lots of ways to structure and phrase a speech about such sentiments that don't come off as a complete rip-off of a speech given by another wife and mother eight years ago. It's not the subject matter that's brought the plagiarism accusation. It's the manner of the delivery.
If I'd done something similar with my dissertation to what Melania Trump did with her speech I would have been denied my degree and probably expelled or otherwise disciplined. I probably would have been expelled or failed for the term if I'd tried a stunt like that with even a simple stupid little homework assignment, actually. In fact, I know I would have because a student in my cohort got pushed out of our program for a similar offense.
Cerin, I went to look up Laura Bush's convention speech, and while it does express similar sentiments, the wording has absolutely nothing in common with either of the two speeches involved here. If there were only one way to express an idea in English, poets would be out of business.
While the fault is largely with the speech writer, it does speak to the campaign hiring unprofessional staff, which may or may not (I bet on may) predict the potential quality of the other staff choices President Trump might make.
tinwë wrote:He's never gonna give you up, and he's never gonna let you down, but he will almost certainly run around and desert you!
As Twitter pointed out, delivering this panegyric to Trump's values and loyalty is his THIRD wife.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.
If a student of my school did what has been done in the speech of Melania Trump his work would be counted as fraud and if it happened during graduation exams the whole session would count as failed. It's not the same idea, which is a broad general idea but it is the same wording and, especially considering that Melania Trump is not a native speaker, not the most likely to be chosen spontaneously. In Germany the minister of Defense got sacked a few years ago for plagiarism in his thesis.
Beside that, even in Switzerland where most of the decisions have to be voted by the people directly, political life goes through parties. We have discussed this with friends this weekend too and I just think that a majority system like the American does not encourage the creation of small or new parties.
Cerin wrote:It's not a rip off. These are basic platitudes and cliches that every candidate uses. No one owns the idea that:
Our parents pass on their values to us, and we want to pass our values on to our children.
It's good to keep your word, work hard, and treat people with respect.
We can achieve our dreams if we work hard.
I mean, give me a break.
Of course no one owns those ideas. But the manner in which these ideas were expressed - ie: basically identical in phrasing, word choice and inflection to Michelle Obama's speech - is what has given rise to the accusation of plagiarism. It seems obvious that whoever the speechwriter was had access to a number of speeches and for whatever reason, choose (unwisely) to use some very specific phrases and wording from Michelle Obama's speech.
It is not unlike a songwriter "borrowing" a specific musical phrase from another composer and infringing on copyright. One or two notes, a measure or two - maybe okay. But an entire phrase or theme? Not so much.
"Live! Live! Live! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Auntie Mame
JewelSong wrote:It seems obvious that whoever the speechwriter was had access to a number of speeches and for whatever reason, choose (unwisely) to use some very specific phrases and wording from Michelle Obama's speech.
It doesn't seem obvious to me; the ideas expressed are so universal, the drivel spouted at political conventions so predictable, that I have no trouble believing two candidates' wives (or two seasoned speechwriters) could inadvertently come up with a similar sounding portion of a speech. However, if a speechwriter was stupid enough to review past speeches and lift a portion of one with so little effort at disguise, I would expect him to be quickly unemployed, wouldn't you? So has anyone been fired yet?
It is difficult to put into words how fatuous I find the fuss over this speech. It makes me want to go out and vote for Trump, out of sheer irritation.
Avatar photo by Richard Lykes, used with permission.
