How are you all? Hot under the collar?

[Paulo]

By choice or work? Have driven through it but had no inclination to stop..........

My brother in law lives about 20 miles south of AC so we are going for a visit for Xmas and New Year. It really is a weird place of rampant US Republicanism. To me it epitomises all that is wrong with USA

[notdeadyet]

My brother in law lives about 20 miles south of AC so we are going for a visit for Xmas and New Year. It really is a weird place of rampant US Republicanism. To me it epitomises all that is wrong with USA

A lot of New Jersey is surprisingly nice. A lot of it is a crime-ridden shithole. Not dissimilar to Dublin

[Paulo]

A lot of New Jersey is surprisingly nice. A lot of it is a crime-ridden shithole. Not dissimilar to Dublin

Christ, war torn Mariupol is nicer than most parts of Dublin

[MarkA]

A lot of New Jersey is surprisingly nice. A lot of it is a crime-ridden shithole. Not dissimilar to Dublin

Around Princeton is very pleasant. Stayed in a scabby hotel in Newark after my flights got messed up. No desire to stay in Newark again. Must be lucky as the parts of Dublin I saw were OK. Maybe too much Guinness.

[notdeadyet]

Christ, war torn Mariupol is nicer than most parts of Dublin

And that's with all the infrastructure we left you and all the EU aid money. Imagine what it would've been like if we hadn't owned it. If ever there was a good argument for the benefits of colonialism it's Dublin.

[Paulo]

And that's with all the infrastructure we left you and all the EU aid money. Imagine what it would've been like if we hadn't owned it. If ever there was a good argument for the benefits of colonialism it's Dublin.

Yes, then we could be like Glasgow with its superb infrastructure and junkie : syringe ratio

[notdeadyet]

Yes, then we could be like Glasgow with its superb infrastructure and junkie : syringe ratio

We used to produce some of the best junkies in the Empire, they could survive anything. Now a strong wind is enough to kill them.

[Chrisch]

And that's the problem. Big chunks of our population don't have a huge amount of choice in what they do but it doesn't stop anyone lecturing them. ....

They might not have a choice about their life circumstances but they have a choice who they vote for. If one believes that democracy works then they need to vote a whole lot smarter than has been the case for the last 50 years.

The question to consider therefore is whether or not one thinks that democracy works or not. Like you I want to examine the other side of the argument for that subject.

[Paulo]

We used to produce some of the best junkies in the Empire, they could survive anything. Now a strong wind is enough to kill them.

That"ll be Brexit reducing the standards!

[notdeadyet]

They might not have a choice about their life circumstances but they have a choice who they vote for. If one believes that democracy works then they need to vote a whole lot smarter than has been the case for the last 50 years.

Again it comes back to opportunity. Take energy. Renewables tariffs over the last few years have always been significantly higher than general tariffs. I'd guess to most people on here paying for green energy would have been an inconvenience but they could accept it on principle if it was the only option. To the lower end of the economic scale it was the difference between being in fuel poverty (or deeper in fuel poverty) or not. Are you going to vote for someone who tells you that green energy is the only way forward or the side that insists that everything can continue as normal knowing that the "right" choice is going to mean a hell of a lot of hardship for you? The same goes for any number of issues. People are not acting irrationally.

The question to consider therefore is whether or not one thinks that democracy works or not. Like you I want to examine the other side of the argument for that subject.

The idea of representative democracy works. Groups of people elect one person who is best suited to make decisions in that group's best interest so that they don't have to waste time on it and can get on with their lives.

The reality doesn't. No party acts in the electorate's best interest. Both sides are bogged down in dogma, have candidates who are utterly incompetent and balls deep in corruption and an electorate that is never given the full picture.

It's like going into Tesco, shittest supermarket in the country. If they want to sell you either apples or oranges, you're getting either apples or oranges no matter how much you want a banana.