1. Ranked choice is a bad idea. Promotes communism.

2. Plurality voting’s flaw is that it can’t scale gracefully past two choices. When there are 3 or more, the side with the more candidates is likely to lose (the spoiler effect), regardless of whether they are on the left or on the right.

   Indeed if Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen drew more from Trump supporters than Biden supporters (and Libertarian candidates usually do), she probably helped Biden win, as she won more than the margin of victory in several swing states.

   With RCV, whichever side has the majority is the side that wins.

3. RCV elects commies like in Alaska.

4. How do you define communism/socialism?

5. COMMUNISM — ANYTHING THAT IS NOT FASCISM ???
   —
   NO PRIMARIES

   P-A-T

6. Communism is the most extreme form of fascism. In theory, it’s an ideal utopian state where workers control the means of production, all property was held in common, everyone works as hard as they can and gets everything they need, and government is no longer necessary because everything is self governing. In reality, it’s a pipe dream. Instead of withering away, the socialist-fascist dictatorship of self-appointed representatives of the working class evolves into reign if terror, gulags, killing fields, mass starvation and totalitarian repression. Eventually, the communist managerial class becomes a de facto ruling class. It ends up becoming a capitalist or fascist ruling class after some period of time, as was forecast in Orwell’s Animal Farm and borne out in the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, etc.

   In countries where communists are not in power, given the horrible track record of those where it is or was, only a small fraction of communists operate openly as such. The rest operate incrementally as reformers under a variety of labels, rarely admitting or in some cases even realizing that communism is their end goal, but nevertheless moving relentlessly towards it. What else are “progressives” progressing towards, with “conservatives” fighting a rear guard battle to slow down this “progress” but hardly ever reverse it? Boiling the frog slowly if you will, with an illusion of choice.

7. As great as the Max Plan is, a fear is in theory a communist could still get elected in say, Seattle.

8. I mostly agree with MaxZim’s definition except that I think he conflates economic and social policies. To be on the left economically doesn’t necessarily mean on the left socially. Likewise, being on the right socially doesn’t necessarily mean being on the right economically.

   However, the US two-party system has traditionally done the same, not allowing voters to voice preferences towards fiscally conservatives who are social liberal. Until the GOP shifted to the left economically under Trump to become an economically liberal party that is social conservative, that segment was similarly underrepresented (now it’s social conservatives who are fiscally conservative that are left out).

   I explain more here:

   https://perfectlygoodink.com/2021/04/22/how-i-define-conservativism-and-liberalism/

   In this sense, both the Democratic and Republican parties are rather socialist now (notice that Biden has left in place Trump’s tariffs and has also used his industrial policy just for more environmentalist ends). The Libertarian Party is really the only fiscally conservative party left.

9. Tim, a communist would get elected to what with what powers? My proposed criteria for voter/officeholders would include male property owning head of household whose father’s father and his father’s father all owned property in the same area of roughly give or take 100k people. They would have to be of the majority racial and religious group in their area, members in good standing of a church which is recognized as legitimate by the area’s council of churches, married with at least two natural born biological children including at least one male heir, never divorced or remarried, owning sufficient numbers of guns in good working order and stock of ammunition, showing continued proficiency in their use, with military/militia/law enforcement/civil defense training and experience and continued eligibility for such service, and so on. They could not have criminal convictions, unpaid judgements, a history of mental insanity, drugs, etc. They would have to be independently wealthy, own a profitable business, or be gainfully employed, and willing and able to pay a substantial poll tax.

   If elected, they would be limited to enforcing the laws, with the laws being very simple and extremely difficult to change, basically covering serious mala in se crimes, with more minor matters resolved less formally. The population of gun owners would be substantially larger. Peacekeepers would be elected annually. Power would simply not be concentrated in the hands of government at all. What would a communist do as a peacekeeper to institute communism?

10. MAXZIM ASKED —

    What would a communist do as a peacekeeper to institute communism?
    —–
    GET SOME KILLER/ENSLAVER GOONS AND SHOOT A FEW AND TERRORIZE THE REST –

    SEE LENIN AND HIS GOONS 1917-1918 — ONE KILLER GOON = STALIN.

    HOW MANY DEAD/ENSLAVED DUE TO COMMUNISM

    1848-2023 ??? ESP IN OLDE RUSSIA / CHINA.

11. That wouldn’t work. He would clearly not be enforcing the laws, but rather violating them. He would be removed by other peacekeepers and community members. You clearly have not understood my plan.

12. Peacekeepers would also have extensive training and testing. They would also maintain their regular jobs or businesses and other community ties and obligations. They simply wouldn’t have either the powers or inclinations you project them as having.

13. “My proposed criteria for voter/officeholders would include male property owning head of household…”

    You’d implied that you are not from the US (
    https://ballot-access.org/2023/08/25/republicans-choose-houston-for-2028-national-convention/#comment-1172360), and I assumed you were probably from Europe, but this proposal gives me pause.

    What country are you from? Afghanistan? Saudi Arabia? The UAE? Egypt? Nigeria?

14. I’m from the largest city in Europe, Moscow. My religion is Russian Orthodox, and I spent time living in the US and UK in the past. My wife agrees with me politically and follows my lead on political questions, and I’m more than happy to follow her suggestions on home decor and accept her menu planning choices. I have some other matters to attend to, but thank you for your inquisitiveness; I’ll write a longer response to some of your other questions when time allows.

15. I suppose being in a country where nobody’s vote really counts can naturally lead to an attitude where one might want to take that right away from people in other countries.

    But I think your efforts would be much more productive if you spent more time and effort improving your own government’s responsiveness to the wants and needs of its own citizens. Russia does not score very well on many quality of life metrics.

    “When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, Russians gave it a 5.5 grade on average, lower than the OECD average of 6.7.”

16. Sorry, forgot to cite the source:

    https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/russian-federation/

17. @PGI,

    Bob regards “non-Sarah Palin” as a “commie”. His opposition to RCV is based on “it didn’t elect Sarah Palin”.

    You may have been confused with Max’s deeper understanding of what a communist is, having grown up in the Soviet Union, and since living in Russia. I’m guessing he was around 30 in 1991.

18. Jim,

    Very close. I was in my early 30s.

    perfectlyGoodink,

    I disagree with the contention that our votes don’t count. It also has nothing to do with my proposal. I don’t know what you think I would be effective at in influencing our federal government. I already engage in such political activity as I find useful here. In general, I’m insignificant in influencing a government of a 9 figure population. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect any more or less regular individual to have significant input into something of that scale. That’s why I’d like to see governments of 5-6 digit population.

    I don’t consider OECD globalists to be the most reliable source, although they are quite correct that Russia, much like other countries, has very serious problems that are unlikely to be solved soon. My recommendations are more along the lines of how such problems might eventually be largely mitigated to the best possible extent anywhere or everywhere around the world. If it happens, it probably won’t be for several generations from now.

19. If you think you are insignificant in influence Russia’s government, why are you posting political comments about US’s government?

    That being said, there do seem to be clear parallels. This blog is devoted to how the two-party duopoly shuts out their feared competition via ballot access laws — not unlike how Putin locks up or executes his feared competition in Navalny and Prigozhin. Also, your proposal of restricting the vote to wealthy males is actually quite similar to how the oligarchs currently have all the political power in Russia.

    Also it is a common tactic for populist elites like Trump to dismiss a source and leave it at that (inline with my definition of “elite” as someone who demands that their claims be believed just because of who they are). an we all agree that far more productive addition to a discussion would instead to point to a more reliable source so that we can all compare and judge for ourselves whether the US would be improved by becoming more like Russia?

20. Why shouldn’t I post comments about US government? I find it interesting. I’ve lived, worked, and studied in the US, have friends and business there, and I find out of the usual political thinking and comparative systems of government to be interesting. In particular, I have an obscure hobby of designing theoretically ideal directions for systems of government to evolve, and found US founding patriarchs and their writings to be a major contribution to my thoughts on that, among others. I’ve thought about what has not gone as planned in the quarter millennium since and what design flaws led to that.

    As mentioned previously, my thoughts are not confined to the US, not designed or expected to have any short term impacts in any country, and not posted under any delusion of having a significant impact on any nation’s political systems in my lifetime or my children’s lifetimes. Do you expect to have a significant impact on your country’s government? How’s that working out for you so far?

    I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Putin had anything to do with Prigozhin’s alleged death, which may have been faked. He may also have been killed by Ukrainian Nazis or their supporters, or perhaps his own partners, or any of a number of enemies he has made over the year at home and all over the world. Navalny is in prison for corruption, and I won’t jump to the conclusion that he was wrongly convicted. I’m also not an automatic defender of the President. In fact, I always voted against him every time he ran, although I currently plan to vote for him for the first time next year. I participated in protests against him in 2011-12, but I don’t buy Western propaganda as you seem to.

    As I mentioned, perhaps on another discussion, I think your illusion of an egalitarian voting scheme actually is very heavily manipulated, concentrating real power in the hands of about one in a million people, most of whom are not elected to anything. I propose a less formally egalitarian, but de facto more egalitarian, system that makes power much more local, primarily in the hands of a natural elite that I hypothesize might be roughly one in a thousand, with most real power not being political or electoral at all. I also believe this would actually be the best system in terms of results for average nonvoters. I still have not found time to write an explanation of why I think that for you, but it’s on my to do list.

    You are suffering under a delusion if you think I want the US to be “more like Russia.” In some ways the US is better, in some ways worse. My theoretical suggestions are not aimed at the US, Russia, or any particular nation state. They are generally universal in nature. I think nation states on the order of population of Russia and the US are several orders of magnitude too big, and hope that they break up into a thousand or several thousand nation states each. I don’t find it tremendously useful to compare behemoth aggregates of that size.

21. I agree nation states are too powerful and perhaps are counterproductive institutions due to the long history of imperialism and war. This is why I’m a Libertarian, to seek to reduce the size and scope of government, and that since alternative parties like the LP are shut out of many elections via ballot access laws, this is why I’m here. What sparked your interest in ballot access laws? If Navalny and Prigozhin are both truly outliers, how easy it is to register opposition parties in your country? Since a successful invasion of Ukraine would make Russia a larger nation-state, do you oppose the war?

    You are welcome, of course, to comment about anything you’d like, but much like how those with power typically face conflicts of interest that can interfere with acting in the best interests of those without power, there is always the question that your suggestions may instead be aimed at the best interest of your country and against those of ours, especially given your apparent reluctance to contradict any of Putin’s positions or cite any sources.

    “Natural elite” is how monarchs viewed themselves in the past (“royal blood”) and likely how Russian oligarchs and the “elite” that populists often attack view themselves now. What makes your elite any more likely to act benevolently than the current elite? What makes religious husbands and fathers less likely to be susceptible to propaganda than everybody else?

    You claim to have voted and protested against Putin yet haven’t actually voiced any actual disagreements or criticisms. Me, I’ve been critical of both Biden and Trump’s tariffs and industrial policies as socialist. And for the record, I voted for Jo Jorgensen in 2020 and supported Lawrence Lessig in 2016. Who did you vote for instead of Putin? What did Putin change to win you over to his side?

    Regarding propaganda, there is certainly plenty in both of our countries, but there is also plenty of lively competition between media sources in the US, which checks this somewhat. How about where you are?

    https://perfectlygoodink.com/2021/09/17/on-the-reliability-of-the-msm/

    Lastly, “globalists” merely think that free individuals ought to be able to buy with our own money. Those that oppose “globalism” want government central planners deciding for us. This is, of course, socialist.

22. That’s a lot of questions and misunderstandings, and each would take quite a bit to unpack. The most fundamental is your last point. Globalists want the exact opposite of what you say. They want a totalitarian global government, or as Alex Jones terms it, prison planet. They want global government central planners deciding everything, no free individuals, and 90% plus global depopulation as a sacrifice to Satan in the guise of environmentalism to usher in literal hell on earth.

23. Proceeding with your points in reverse order, we have access to a variety of news sources here, including yours, many of which I scan from time to time. Much like your competing major media, ours operate within a certain range of opinion, which differs from yours. You’d do well to scan some of ours to at least familiarize yourself with that range of opinion, much as I do with yours. Otherwise, you’re liable to fall under the illusion that yours represent something like a full range of opinion, at least about some subjects.

24. Regarding your questions about our domestic politics, keep in mind that I think that government of hundreds of millions of people is absurd, and the notion that the average person can rationally assess their interests in a heavily corrupt, complex, manipulated political environment is a farce (no less true in either of our nations). Thus, I seek candidates who are entertaining and somewhat absurd. Secondly, I like candidates who stand up for our national independence from globalist internationalist institutions.

    Thus, I voted for Zhirinovsky each time he ran for President. Not because I took his rants literally, but I liked his style. I liked his style. I think he exposed political government for what it was. Much the same reasons I appreciate Trump in America. He passed away last year, and the new LDPR leader, Slutsky, does not impress me positively at all.

    At the same time, Putin has begun to impress me more, in that he has stood up to internationalist aggression more strongly in the past couple of years. Also, I’ve moderated some of my prior criticism as I’ve come to appreciate more fully how difficult a balancing act he is forced to carry out between various competing pressures. Previously, I criticized him on many of the same grounds as Prigozhin, Dugin, and others have. I’ve now more fully taken into account other factors I largely discounted previously.

    Perhaps, it doesn’t hurt that the last couple of years have been quite good for my business interests. A lot of money that used to go overseas to be spent, or was spent on foreign goods, is now being spent domestically, on domestically produced goods and services. While I do have foreign investments as well, on the whole this has benefited my businesses and investments.

    I don’t know how much you know about Russian domestic politics or for that matter history. It would take a lot of explaining if you are unfamiliar. I don’t usually get into it here because I don’t presume my audience has necessary context. I can discuss American politics easily, being quite familiar with your history, current events, etc; I don’t particularly care to explain Russian politics from scratch to an unfamiliar audience, particularly since it’s ultimately of limited interest to me.

    I’m here more out of my interests in theory of systems of government, and secondarily in my interests in general ideology and topics I expect the audience here to understand. I have other places to spout my opinions of Russian internal matters with others I expect to understand my context there. It is in any case not my primary interest, as I don’t expect real solutions to come from such a process.

25. My usage of natural elite is not along the line of divine right of kings. It’s actually quite the opposite. Natural elite rise to the top in a wide variety of fields, with politics being of limited use (not nearly limited enough currently, which is a big part of the problem). If you’d like some libertarian reading on this, try Hans Hoppe. I don’t agree with him on everything (anarchy, for example) but he covers this and a number of other topics quite well.

    The key points here are that we are not discussing an elite which maintains its power by force and a difference in scale. The royal elite, and the current global elite who rule just as absolutely behind a veil of egalitarian deception, are perhaps one in a million people, and their rule rests on force and fraud. The natural elite are perhaps one in a thousand, much more local community leaders whose power comes from talent, results and value in a wide variety of fields.

    As I’ve told you repeatedly, I’d like to give you a much more complete answer to this topic. The problem is that I have other matters to attend to besides typing answers to you every day and night, and you keep giving me multiple additional writing assignments in the meantime. I won’t be able to give this question the full answer it deserves under those conditions. This question is actually much more central to my interest here, as opposed to for example Russian internal politics or media environment.

26. You keep making the fundamental error that interests primarily exist at the country level. Perhaps that’s how it is in your mind, but I only see that to a very limited extent, in the interest of pan nationalism against internationalist globalism. I’m not for or against Russia or America or Hungary or Argentina, etc. I’m for all of them to not be subsumed to the blob.

    Much more importantly, I want much more local control from the national level down to regional. Again, my opinion of anything containing hundreds of millions of people and purported to represent them is it’s past absurd. Why do you think I would be here to act for the alleged interest of one against another? I’m far more interested locally in gaining more independence for my ancestral lands (in my family since at least the 14th century, which I reacquired many years after they were stolen by commies from my grandfather and great grandfather) and a few surrounding small towns and rural regions from the rest of Moscow region, and for Moscow region to shed the rest of the Federation to whatever extent possible.

    Likewise, I’m far more interested in greater autonomy for, say, Washington and Aroostook counties in Maine, eastern Oregon, or Unorganized Borough of Alaska than whatever idiocy happens in D.C., unless perhaps it were DC seceding from the USA (if that was ever to become a real possibility, the different wards seceding separately would be even better).

27. Your question about Ukraine seems to presume that we are interested in simply conquering Ukraine. I’ve seen no such operational aim. The then elected government of Ukraine was overthrown in a 2014 coup by a corrupt alliance of convenience of Nazis, fascists, Zionists, organized crime, and NATO/EU foreign agents. They proceeded to attempt ethnic cleansing against the Russian majority in areas of Russia which Stalin and Khrushchev added out of the blue to Ukraine, which then got grandfathered into the nation of Ukraine when the USSR broke up.

    I’d prefer Donetsk, Lugansk, Crimea etc be independent. But global realities as they are, I understand the necessity of the special operation. You’d have to have a bit of grounding in the history of the Napoleonic and Fascist invasions from the west on the two preceding centuries to fully grasp the context which makes it so.

28. Let’s what I didn’t address. Ukraine would then end up with a government not beholden to NATO/EU globalists.

    My interest is not so much in ballot access laws as in systems of government theory. It is not easy enough to register opposition parties. There was some fear of foreign intrigue and extremists gaining traction. I tend to think such fear was much overblown, and would support a return to more liberal registration laws we had at one time, pending my local access proposal.

    I don’t refuse to cite sources. I refuse to go searching for them again on command. If and when I come across some that I wish to share in the moment, I will then.

    Hopefully that’s everything, as I am overdue for entirely different matters to attend to.

29. I don’t know anybody who wants nor thinks a global government is desirable nor achievable. Such idealism died with Wilson when his League of Nations failed in favor of a weak and ineffectual UN. Alex Jones is not a reliable source in my experience.

    https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/infowars-alex-jones/

    After all, it’s the populists that want tariffs, where central planners dictate what individuals can and cannot buy with our own money. That’s socialism.

    As I understand it, NATO wants security from invasion from countries with aggressive militaries, which is exactly why the Russian invasion of Ukraine rather predictably prompted Finland to join and Sweden to apply. So, if the desire was for a weaker NATO, sending a reminder to Europe of why NATO exists was doomed to backfire. The EU merely aspires to be a counterweight of the US, but the problems of a shared currency is that it means a shared monetary policy when the economic interest of countries like Germany usually diverge widely from countries like Greece, so it is likely to fail even at that.

    If you like a natural elite that rises to the top via meritocracy, you should prefer one based on business success against the broadest competition possible (i.e., global). Those who win also happen to wield more political power because of the political power of campaign donations. Personally, I think this is undesirable (thus my support for public campaign financing), but the current elite sounds much more like what you say you want than the elite you propose (propertied married males with two kids that subscribe to the dominant religion).

    But in short, while I appreciate your honesty in admitting you are from Russia, our countries are essentially in a proxy war with each other, and you are defending Putin’s propaganda that this “war” is just a “special operation.” And I’m familiar with Hoppe and have pointed out to his supporters that he was basically advocating monarchy. I note that you still haven’t addressed the questions of why your elite would be any more likely to act benevolently than the current elite, what makes religious husbands and fathers less likely to be susceptible to propaganda than everybody else, nor what prompted your interest in ballot access (a rather obscure topic for most people).

    You also continue to make numerous claims without backing any of them with any evidence (typical elite behavior as I defined it), and for a business owner, you have a rather surprising amount of free time to write pages and pages of text. And despite claiming not to be a populist, you support right-wing populists like Trump, Jones, and Zhirinovsky. As such, I am convinced that your actual aim here is to sow chaos in an enemy country. Good bye!

30. Hilarious reply. I’m not sure now whether to bother answering the more interesting question I was trying to find time to address more fully for the benefit of other readers. Given your absurd level of presumptuousness and ignorance, it wouldn’t be worth answering for your benefit, especially given that I’ve addressed it here in any number of conversations with others.

    However,for the benefit of other readers, PGI’s first paragraph makes the idiotic assumption that totalitarian globalists would go around frequently and publicly trumpeting their plans, or that he’d be someone to know them. Both assumptions are utterly naive, at best. What drives these nefarious evildoers is certainly not idealism.

    His “fact check” site is utter garbage, as those sites generally are. Alex Jones has been a far more reliable source than the establishment pablum PGI seems to think is reliable.

    The idea that tariffs are socialist is equally laughable. The idea that average consumers have some meaningful input into the decision of behemoth multinational corporations is equally off base to the idea that individual voters have anything approaching a rational basis for decisions and meaningful input into the decisions of governments of hundreds of millions of people. Bringing things down to a human scale actually gives regular people much more meaningful choices and input.

    PGI buys into, or at least repeats, the idiotic nonsense that NATO and EU are defensive. This is of course far from the case. I won’t bother with greater detail unless more interesting inquisitors demonstrate some interest at a bare minimum.

    I don’t know why this idiot thinks I should be dishonest about where I live, or why it should be of such great importance. At best, his moronic notion of what is and isn’t propaganda is derived from ignorance and the naive belief that the propaganda prevalent in his country isn’t propaganda. Out of the two of us, only one consumes a range of news and opinion from both Russia and the US.

    Hoppe writes that monarchy is a lesser evil compared to democracy, but he actually prefers anarchy. As I said, I do not agree with all his arguments.

    I already explained above that I was trying to find the time to answer the question of why my proposal would be better than what you have currently, and have not addressed it because of all the questions posed in the interim, in addition to misconceptions to correct. As stated earlier in this comment, I’ll know cease trying to find the time to answer this particular person, but will note that I’ve addressed it at length in a number of past conversations with others here, and might again when time allows and if someone with a better attitude wants to know.

    I addressed what prompted my involvement in conversations here, which was discussion of theoretical ideal systems of government, not ballot access per se. It’s a theoretical interest of mine, and I’ve put a good amount of time into studying related materials and developing a set of directional proposals. I seek people interested in discussing such subjects, and for the most part this venue has been a disappointment. I continue to seek suggestions of better venues.

    Again, I’m not going to look up things I’ve already looked up for the benefit of proving them to someone here. That takes more time than I’m willing to devote to it. Ironically, the aforementioned idiot decries that I have not spent even more time than I did, after asking me numerous questions which prompted me to spend as much time as I already had. In retrospect, perhaps I should have just ignored his barrage of questions and presumptuous statements. I gave him more benefit of the doubt than he earned.

    He seems to think he understands my business schedule as well. He does not, nor is my business any of his. Nevertheless, he’s quite correct that he got a lot more of my time than he should have, since he continues to repeat the same misconceptions regardless of them being addressed.

    I don’t have any “enemy countries,” my true aims are exactly what I’ve said, and the bulk of what I address when not responding to other people’s questions is regarding theoretical questions that are not applicable to one country as opposed to another, but rather general in nature.

    It’s touchingly naive, but quite entertaining, to imagine that conversations here would somehow serve to sow chaos in your country if in fact that was my aim. It should be obvious to any adult that if that was my aim, typing comments here would be an utter waste of time. This child, or childish adult, claims he convinced himself that I would be stupid enough to imagine not only that such a goal would be worthwhile, but that it would be somehow served by these conversations. That’s just sad.

    He can continue in this vein, or not. Any future responses would only be for the benefit of other readers. The notion that there are any here worth the effort is likewise largely unproven. There have been occasional worthwhile conversations, but they’ve been few and far in between. I was hoping this was going to be one, but in retrospect, I should have realized that such a level of presumptuous delusion would come with a rather well ingrained set of defensive mechanisms to confine permitted thoughts within narrow tracks. Oh well.

31. Max, don’t throw pearls to swine. Take it from a professional pig farmer, it’s just not the best choice of pig slop, for a variety of reasons.

32. On the one hand, you’re correct. On the other, I write with potential lurkers in mind. However, it’s true that he dissuaded me from a lengthier writing assignment I contemplated but didn’t complete while I was giving him excessive benefit of the doubt.

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