And that’s what many of us are tired of. This stupid noble sentiment where we jerk each other off about how we lost the right way, the honorable way. Because it just ignores pragmatic strategy and the fact that we lost. And when we lose, how does that help anyone? Congrats, SCOTUS stacked for generations.

The reality is we have a FPTP voting system. In such a system, two party control is all but guaranteed mathematically. It looks binary because IT IS BINARY.

Are you claiming the spoiler effect doesn’t exist?

People place different values on time, money, energy, etc. Just because you find it too expensive for the effort, doesn’t mean someone who has more money and less energy would make the same judgement.

The problem is the spoiler effect. It’s a well documented shortcoming of FPTP.

We need to all ask ourselves what is the biggest impact I can make politically with the energy I am willing to spend. For me, energy spent voting should never be LESS than energy spent complaining about politics.

The real problem is no one votes. It’s the bare minimum level of effort. It’s the participation trophy. They can do all that because we put them there with embarrassingly bad voter turnout. We spend more time complaining than actually voting.

All of those problems are the symptoms of an unrepresentative government, and a government tends to represent the people who vote for them. If no one votes, they’ll listen to the highest bidder.

So what do you propose? Do what instead of voting? Seems like the lowest hanging fruit to me. The left tends to win with turnout. The left tends to be more progressive and more conducive to evidence based problem solving. Fixing the parties at the primary level seems like the lowest effort solution for the largest pay off.

Encouraging voter apathy is counterproductive, unless you are going to propose we do something else that’s more effective for the same energy expenditure.

I truly believe that if every person who complained about politics spent as much time voting as they did complaining, we’d have a more representative government.

We complain about a government that is corrupt, run by the wealthy as if we’re not the ones who put them there. Inaction is an action. Why should they represent our interests if we don’t even vote? All not voting tells a politician is that you aren’t their constituent.

Oh and one more thing.

Most competent people would just pick: destroy the group responsible for the attack at all costs.

Yeah, and how’s that been working out for peace in the middle East? Doesn’t feel like the whole region is enjoying the decisions of the “competent” people. For decades. Maybe the problem is itchy trigger fingers like yours. Justice and Vengeance are rarely the same thing.

Example? Just so I’m not beating around the bush, here’s what I mean by being kind, and you can let me know if Israel has been kind to Palestinians by this metric.

You cannot rule without consent of the governed. I’m not super well versed on what’s been tried, but violence, terrorism, and crime are generally carried out by unhappy, stressed people.

From what I’ve gathered, Palestinian areas in Israel are basically little more than glorified prisons with terrible living conditions.

My question is, what control does Israel have over their living conditions, and what control do the Palestinians have over their local government.

Can they meaningfully improve their lives on their own? How has Israel been kind?

My question is a statistical inquiry. Your question is a bit more complex, I’m not even sure what that data would look like.

I was able to find this at least.

How common are faithless electors?

No, it holds regardless. Your argument is the same as saying there’s no point in voting if you don’t win.

Your real problem is as I said, Primary Elections, where we have EXCEPTIONALLY terrible voter turnout. The primaries are where you choose your party representatives. If you are complaining about the General election, the fight was already lost.

What are you talking about? When I say consent of the governed, I am referring to living Palestinians.

Nope, I simply answered nonsense with nonsense. You don’t get to create some nonsensical Kobayashi Maru scenario with vague definitions and ambiguous starting parameters.

Let’s get real. You want to know what I would do in response to the initial terrorist attack that Israel faced? It wouldn’t be genocide against Gaza. My response would be rooted in the truth that you cannot rule without consent of the governed. The entire reality that Israel was trying to live was a sham that was never going to be a stable solution.

They can’t, my people are now immortal. I give Hammas infinity raisins.

Lol. Ok. Easy, I declare peace. And immortality. GG. What’s next?

Oh I did? Well, I would need the specific problems to provide specific solutions.

Why did terrorists kill my population? Let’s get problem solving.

Here is why you should never vote third party in a FPTP voting system. If you are not happy with your candidate choices, then we need to increase voter turnout in local elections, mid terms, and most importantly, primary elections. Primary elections are where you actually can change the spirit of the political parties, but hardly anyone votes in primaries despite them being arguably the most important.

How would I deal with this? By being kind.

Yes, you definitely need to be vigilant these days about the fees. A lot of places are passing the costs to customers or offering lower prices for cash and debit.

Personally, I pay off before next billing cycle. However, I have been fortunate with my finances. I know friends of mine who carry credit card debt, and they have successfully managed to balance transfer from one card to another using periodic balance transfer deals that let you transfer all your debt from one credit card to another with a 0% interest rate for 12 months or so. They have managed to do this for years.

So there are definitely a variety of options!