Yeah it’s important for me because I have shit handwriting. I also draw zeroes with a bar in the middle because one of my college teachers used to subtract 1 point on tests for every zero with no bar.
We all hated that but tbh I’m glad I have that good practice ingrained in my brain now because I can’t accidentally mix up 0 and O
I had an old friend who weighed about 300 lbs, didn’t look ugly but he wasn’t pretty, terrible health and dressed like a street person … but he had the personality of an angel.
He was a lifelong salesman and he could charm you into paying his meal and giving him extra money at the end. He could walk into a restaurant and become friends with everyone including the owner and walk away with a free meal. I saw him walk into businesses and strike up complex deals worth millions.
He was also his own worst enemy and every penny he made he spent five more and he owed money to just about every rich person in the city.
When he was younger, he wasn’t the most handsome but because of his personality he was surrounded by beautiful women … his first wife was drop dead gorgeous.
But it was great to see him interact with people in a restaurant. He would have all the older women hanging around his table and all the young girls gigging. In another life, he could have become an influential politician or even the leader of a country.
As easily as he made friends he had endless enemies and even his family didn’t want him … he died alone about ten years ago. It was all sad, tragic, inevitable, and completely disappointing. He could have done so much more.
I think I sold that guy a motorcycle around 22 years ago! He was around 300 pounds and looked like a bum. He was a salesman and his wife had a super-model quality appearance. We were all shocked when we met her and shocked when we learned how much money he made. When we asked how he swung a wife like that he smirked and said “I’m a salesman”.
A: the system is able to elect candidates who win despite only getting a minority of the vote. This problem becomes worse the more parties participate.
B: in order to maximise the chance of an acceptable compromise taking office, very fringe groups must vote for a very mainstream party. Usually that leaves only two parties that make sense.
C: as these parties become the political space, voting for a specific interest can erode support for the nearest main party, guaranteeing a victory for the other main party.
Bonus: D: growing comfortable with their voter base, it is in parties’ interest to grow more radical.
In fact, without McCarthy and the Red Scare, I would find it strange that the American political scene has developed a nationalist “Republican” party and a moderately conservative “Democrat” party. Many more sane parliaments and governments develop their left to be a socialist or labour party.
So our choices in America are between conservative and slightly-less-conservative? So there’s a growing demand for a socialist party that doesn’t exist, but if it did exist it would lead to the domination of conservatives in politics?
Sounds like ranked choice voting would really help out with a lot of the issues that you presented. It’s too bad that the people who make our laws were voted in using the old system and changing that system in any way is a conflict of interest for them.
I guess things will only ever change if we force the issue.
It’s one of the reasons why I think America is institutionally fucked & rotten, that it’ll take the better part of two centuries to fix it, and that if instead we want stuff to be fixed within a generation, we may need a violent uprising.
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