Comments by "buddermonger2000" (@buddermonger2000) on "The problems with America that nobody notices..." video.

  1. ​@toorero Something far more relevant here is scale. Yes, Germany is a federal system. But frankly, so are the states of the USA in many of them. The scale of the USA in terms of land and population is much more comparable to the whole European union than it is one state. The population of Germany is roughly two of the most populated states (which makes sense since there are 50 US states and 26 EU states). It also has less land area to compensate for than a few US states (this is important due to geographic differences). So, any real comparison must come to any US states. Of which, some do things much more like Germany than others. In other cases, they do things more like Greece. In relation to your comment about politicians getting things done, within states there's usually much more cultural agreement on actions to take which is why they'll differ so radically in terms of policy. But then you get to the national level and get deadlock (due to recent polarization might I add, much like in the EU because you have so many competing interests. Except the deadlock still isn't as bad as it is in Europe at that level because there is more cultural agreement than between EU countries. I haven't made a very good explanation and takedown of the topic here (I just can't seem to think that well today), but I think I at least got the broader point across.
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  2. I think a lot of this simply rests on the US having a very different political culture, and a political mindset when it was created. The idea for the USA was to have Basically property owners (people with a stake in the system) to vote. This is how most democracies historically have even come about as in most political systems the propertied classes have say, and democracies came from those societies where the average person was a property owner. The other idea was to base America more on Rome than on Athens, which means critically, that the framers went with a republican model, not a democratic one. Of Rome's model, it did something very specific: it had an upper and lower house (much like Britain). Today, that means very little after the 25th amendment allowing for direct election of senators, but before, that meant that the individual states had 2 representatives in congress, and then the people in each state had a representative per specific population. While not lords and commoners as per Rome and Britain, it was an elected position, vs an appointed position, with the appointed position having just a bit more power. The reason for this, the electoral college, and many other undemocratic practices, are to tame the worst excesses of democracy: namely, that tendency for radical factions to come about, and popular movements abusing the large minority population via democratic vote since as the saying goes "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner" and is a weakness often not understood. Entirely separately, Europeans never seem to understand that Americans do have a multi-party system, but, those parties being made of coalitions, it means that they have the outward look of being only 2, when that's not the case. America has primary elections, which means that people registered in the party, vote on who runs. So they effectively vote for which sub-party runs in any general election voting for candidates, not parties. Due to Americans voting for individual candidates, it means that much like the parliamentary model, it's still very much run by coalitions, but crucially unlike that model, candidates can break and even switch parties if they so desire, and still win anyway. Separately again, making something a "human right" does not make it right to declare it as such. America was designed under negative rights with freedom to not be bothered by others. The only way you can make things like Healthcare or post-secondary education "a human right" is by forcing it on people who would give the service. It may not be morally right to not help someone in need, and few if any healthcare workers would do so, but it means that should they choose not to, they must be forced to, at gunpoint. Related to this point, parents are actively punished for not educating their children by state guidelines already, via mandatory education. Also, not declaring these things human rights does mean less is paid in taxes, which Americans are quite sensitive to, and of course most Americas do not want to pay for someone else to do what they view as waste time in college. Separately again, yes gerrymandering is a problem, but it's a bit of an unsolvable one simply due to the fact that it can't be legislated away. So long as the districts change (because the population does), there will always be an incentive to draw them for your own party. And any wording you can think of to solve it via law will of course lead to other unintended consequences. Finally, I don't understand the confusion behind the differences between states. They are effectively different countries, why would they not have local laws which differ being made for their own populations? It's one big country, kind of. It's not a centralized country, nor does it make sense to be that way. Why would it matter if traffic laws are different, besides minor annoyances? Not to mention, the wealth gap between states is largely cultural, as it is with the wealth gap between say the Netherlands and Romania, or even Denmark and Bulgaria. Each state is a small country, why would they be the same?
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