Arnie Tells It Like It Is

[quote]PB-Crawl wrote:
HG Thrower wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

I don’t see how redistricting changes the inherent flaws of democracy.

It doesn’t change various factors you are concerned about but that doesn’t mean it must be useless.

Here is an example to illustrate:

Suppose a state or other political entity is comprised of 55% intelligent people with good judgment, and 45% complete parasites, gelatinous tapeworms, and solipsistic amoebas.

Now if these were homogenously distributed, in every district the voters with good judgment would prevail.

However, let’s say they are not even distributed.

And let’s say that politicians who cater to the parasites are in control of districting.

It will be fairly easy – at least if allowing lines that appear insane – to draw lines where there a majority of districts which for example are 60/40 parasites, and thus won every time by politicians who cater to them.

Let’s say for example there are a million people and there will be 100 districts.

We have a total of 550,000 persons who are responsible for themselves, and 450,000 parasites.

Let’s say we succeed in drawing 60 districts that are dominated 60/40 by parasites. This uses up 360,000 of the parasites – leaving 90,000 – and only 240,000 of the self-responsible people, leaving 310,000.

The remaining 40 districts can then be at a ratio of 310 self-responsible people to 90 parasites.

Result: the parasite-heavy districts win about 60 of the seats every election, and the low-parasite districts win only about 40 seats.

Thus accomplishing political control via districting.

Very accurate analogy to what has happened here. A key reason why the idiots remain so entrenched in Sacramento. Also the reason why they campaigned and spent VERY heavily during Arnie’s first term to defeat his re-districting ballot measure.

Actually this hasn’t been the problem for Cali as you explained it. 2001 Gerrymandering was fully embraced by both parties, districts were drawn up as “safe democrat” and “safe republican.” This wasn’t a case of one party drawing squiggly lines to save itself.
[/quote]

As so often happens, my edit to my post, while appearing at the time, vanished in some refresh of the system. I had added a line stating that the above was only one of the purposes of gerrymandering and is not the only one with adverse effect.

The other purpose is as you say.

Both can be accomplished at the same time: a party locking in overall power this way, while individual politicians of the other party get their positions locked in and thus agree to the deal.’

Whether it is the case in California that one party obtained more districts than would be the case from overall voter percentage, I don’t know. It is doable with gerrymandering, however.

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

Now the obvious question:

How do you know who the parasites are and where they live?

…[/quote]

Why, the same way you know who are “the natural elite.” Of course.

Everyone can cool their hard-on about Arnold. He isn’t as “cool” as you think. Basically, he ran his campaign on no new taxes and anti-unions. Then he caved in to pressure to unions and trying to pass Prop 1A, a tax increase and extension which was voted down. He is on his way out, and just doesn’t care anymore. He was a very soft republican.

Doesn’t seem to get called the Governator much these days.

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
artw wrote:
Maybe this state will get a real Governor instead of some jerk who thinks the political world is some fucking jungle you hunt Predators in.

Californian voters are the reason California sucks. You aren’t going to change that by voting for some other Californian that is “different” from Arnie.

You need to replace all the CA voters. Good luck.[/quote]

Same here in MA.

Life sucks.

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

Now the obvious question:

How do you know who the parasites are and where they live?

Why, the same way you know who are “the natural elite.” Of course.[/quote]

But I do know who they are once they’ve been observed. I presume so do you.

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
I was explaining a general principle. I used terms I thought you might enjoy.

As to how you know where voters of given sorts live, politicians DO know which areas are rich in voters of the type that vote for them.

That’s why gerrymandering is done.[/quote]

Yes but in your example you begin with a pretense of knowledge that no politician can have.

You know where rich people live. Do you know if they are parasites? Do you know if maybe they are not parasites themselves but support parasite type legislation “for the good of humanity”. We could only make an educated guess at this. Is this educated guess enough? I argue that it is not.

Gerrymandering in theory is a nice idea but it is still flawed at achieving its stated end. There are just too many variables to consider. And then there are the unintended consequences that no politician cares about because he’ll eventually be gone. Better to try and get it while the gettin’ is good, as they say.

The thing with Arnold, is that he tried every scam tactic in the book. The world would end if we didn’t raise taxes, the world is just fine. Because he would not hold his ground, he had to rely on cutting firefighters and police from the budget than cubicle workers. Imagine that, who would you prefer to see getting laid off, a cop or a worthless number cruncher? He caved under pressure, so much to the point that any lobbying group would just turn up the heat on him when they wanted something done.

Then this moron borrowed $2 Billion to get over the financial hump. He won’t cut welfare to 5 yrs like other states, which is why California has 1/3 of all he welfare in the country, while having only 12% of the country’s population. Vote me in, I will fix shit in a New York minute.

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
I was explaining a general principle. I used terms I thought you might enjoy.

As to how you know where voters of given sorts live, politicians DO know which areas are rich in voters of the type that vote for them.

That’s why gerrymandering is done.

Yes but in your example you begin with a pretense of knowledge that no politician can have.

You know where rich people live. Do you know if they are parasites? Do you know if maybe they are not parasites themselves but support parasite type legislation “for the good of humanity”. We could only make an educated guess at this. Is this educated guess enough? I argue that it is not.

Gerrymandering in theory is a nice idea but it is still flawed at achieving its stated end. There are just too many variables to consider. And then there are the unintended consequences that no politician cares about because he’ll eventually be gone. Better to try and get it while the gettin’ is good, as they say.[/quote]

You really don’t think that political parties know, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, what percentage of the vote they obtained last time, as well as any number of elections back?

Well, you have maintained many unrealistic positions before, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that you are maintaining the above unrealistic one.

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
I was explaining a general principle. I used terms I thought you might enjoy.

As to how you know where voters of given sorts live, politicians DO know which areas are rich in voters of the type that vote for them.

That’s why gerrymandering is done.

Yes but in your example you begin with a pretense of knowledge that no politician can have.

You know where rich people live. Do you know if they are parasites? Do you know if maybe they are not parasites themselves but support parasite type legislation “for the good of humanity”. We could only make an educated guess at this. Is this educated guess enough? I argue that it is not.

Gerrymandering in theory is a nice idea but it is still flawed at achieving its stated end. There are just too many variables to consider. And then there are the unintended consequences that no politician cares about because he’ll eventually be gone. Better to try and get it while the gettin’ is good, as they say.

You really don’t think that political parties know, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, what percentage of the vote they obtained last time, as well as any number of elections back?
[/quote]

I am sure they think they do. I am also sure they are deluding themselves.

Just so you know we are in agreement that this only has to do with maintaining power. But power just for power’s sake is not good and is the cause of all the problems.

What I am disagreeing with is the fact that gerrymandering doesn’t ultimately solve any problems. In the end it is still politics.

You know, if you want to make a good and also interesting argument – instead of this one that supposedly politicians don’t and can’t know the voting tendencies by location and thus gerrymandering is a nice theory but supposedly doesn’t work – there is the interesting aspect that greed of individual politicians works against their party when it comes to gerrymandering.

For the best interest of the party, districts should NOT be drawn to overly-heavily favor the party. All this is needed is to win a district. Winning it with for example 90% gives no extra power to the party.

Drawing districts that are likely to vote say 90% for the party means leaving fewer party voters for the state as a whole.

For example, let’s say that a state is comprised of 550,000 members of Party A and 450,000 members of Party B and has 100 districts.

Party A is plagued with politicians who are extraordinarily (even for politicians) selfish and powerful within their party.

They would like their districts to be so rock-solid as to give them say 90% of the vote. Say that 30 of Party A’s politicians have enough party influence and happen to have districts where some contorted drawing can yield such a result. (And believe me, there are some astoundingly contorted districts, or really going beyond contortions to the truly bizarre.)

So that eats up 270,000 of their voters, and 30,000 of Party B’s voters.

Leaving 280,000, and 70 districts remaining.

While Party B has 420,000 voters remaining for those 70 districts.

If Party B doesn’t blow the deal with similar individual greed of politicians for the most secure districts possible, it should not be too hard for them to reliably win more than 50% of districts, having in 70 districts, a total of 420,000 of their voters vs only 280,000 of the other party’s.

So it’s an interesting conflict of interest between the party as an overall entity, and the politicians individually.

THAT would have been an interesting argument for you to have made.

It still wouldn’t show that gerrymandering “doesn’t work” (and to adverse effect for the people) but does show that it’s not necessarily an easy juggling act between optimizing the party’s power and satisfying individual politicians’ desires for overkill regarding the security of their own districts.

If you’re so sure they are “deluding themselves” that they know how given neighborhoods vote, why don’t you take a f’in look at the matter and discover for yourself the facts on how districts vote historically, rather than operate out of ignorance and assume out of some wrong theory of yours that this can’t be known.

It is quite predictable.

We are dealing with statistics here of numbers substantial enough for statistics to work. But more importantly, it’s long-demonstrated fact.

/end

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
If you’re so sure they are “deluding themselves” that they know how given neighborhoods vote, why don’t you take a f’in look at the matter and discover for yourself the facts on how districts vote historically, rather than operate out of ignorance and assume out of some wrong theory of yours that this can’t be known.

It is quite predictable.

We are dealing with statistics here of numbers substantial enough for statistics to work. But more importantly, it’s long-demonstrated fact.

/end[/quote]

Historical data does not predict the future. It would be nice if it did.

The only things that seperates Arnold from the rest of the hacks in charge right now, is that he has balls. He is not a conservative and has no idea what he is doing.

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
You know, if you want to make a good and also interesting argument – instead of this one that supposedly politicians don’t and can’t know the voting tendencies by location and thus gerrymandering is a nice theory but supposedly doesn’t work – there is the interesting aspect that greed of individual politicians works against their party when it comes to gerrymandering.

For the best interest of the party, districts should NOT be drawn to overly-heavily favor the party. All this is needed is to win a district. Winning it with for example 90% gives no extra power to the party.

Drawing districts that are likely to vote say 90% for the party means leaving fewer party voters for the state as a whole.

For example, let’s say that a state is comprised of 550,000 members of Party A and 450,000 members of Party B and has 100 districts.

Party A is plagued with politicians who are extraordinarily (even for politicians) selfish and powerful within their party.

They would like their districts to be so rock-solid as to give them say 90% of the vote. Say that 30 of Party A’s politicians have enough party influence and happen to have districts where some contorted drawing can yield such a result. (And believe me, there are some astoundingly contorted districts, or really going beyond contortions to the truly bizarre.)

So that eats up 270,000 of their voters, and 30,000 of Party B’s voters.

Leaving 280,000, and 70 districts remaining.

While Party B has 420,000 voters remaining for those 70 districts.

If Party B doesn’t blow the deal with similar individual greed of politicians for the most secure districts possible, it should not be too hard for them to reliably win more than 50% of districts, having in 70 districts, a total of 420,000 of their voters vs only 280,000 of the other party’s.

So it’s an interesting conflict of interest between the party as an overall entity, and the politicians individually.

THAT would have been an interesting argument for you to have made.

It still wouldn’t show that gerrymandering “doesn’t work” (and to adverse effect for the people) but does show that it’s not necessarily an easy juggling act between optimizing the party’s power and satisfying individual politicians’ desires for overkill regarding the security of their own districts.[/quote]

Great points, but I’m not sure where you are going…

I was saying that there is at least the one above regard in which the interests/demands of many individual politicians within the party are at cross-purposes to the party’s overall interest.

Typically, it seems to me that both the Republican and Democratic parties at least largely succumb to this pressure, both typically having many districts that are rather bizarrely drawn and which reliably yield utterly crushing victories for the party. More crushing than necessary.

Not exactly the same thing, but somewhat related is a story my father told me. He had been on the fencing team in college, and at least in those days, the way intercollegiate teams competed was that the #1 men of each team would face each other, as would the number #2 men, all the way down to the #5 men.

My father, being a mathematician, did not consider this optimal strategy.

He proposed to the coach that he should put the #5 man up against the other team’s #1 man, thus allowing the team’s #1 man to face their #2 man, the team’s #2 man to face their #3 man, etc.

Thus losing one match for sure, but having much improved, in typical instances, chances for the other 4 matches. If they couldn’t win 3 out of those 4, they probably couldn’t have won 3 out of 5 the regular way either; but it’s entirely possible they might win 3 out of those 4 while having been unable to win 3 out of 5 the traditional way.

Didn’t happen though. The reason was stated as it being “unsporting,” but without specifying exactly why. For example it might have been because of being unsporting to the team’s #5 man, rather than necessarily being concerned for the feelings of the other team. If so, then the interests of the #5 man were at cross-purposes to the best interest of the team.

Similarly, for all I know there may be strategists arguing, for the reasons I gave, against drawing districts that will highly probably yield wins on the order of 90/10, yet in many instances such districts are drawn anyway, due perhaps to selfish desire of individual politicans for maximum overkill virtual-certainty of winning re-election.

Having a large number of districts which are non-competitive is in at least one regard not in the best interest of the public, of course, but that is another matter which I wasn’t discussing.

[quote]Valor wrote:
The only things that seperates Arnold from the rest of the hacks in charge right now, is that he has balls. [/quote]

not even close

[quote]PB-Crawl wrote:
Valor wrote:
The only things that seperates Arnold from the rest of the hacks in charge right now, is that he has balls.

not even close[/quote]

PB Crawl is correct, you need to forget the Arnold we know from bodybuilding and movies, because he is not that person in politics. He took in the ass, without lube, for just about any political lobby who wanted something done.

Lol. “Barney.” Haven’t heard that one in awhile.

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:

You really don’t think that political parties know, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, what percentage of the vote they obtained last time, as well as any number of elections back?


[/quote]

So…you have never been to Chicago, huh?