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A Political Thread pt. 2

I think it would be really valuable if schools taught kids more about our electoral system, political parties and basically the responsibilities of being a voter. I know some of that may be covered by some optional subjects but it would be good if it was made mandatory in order to get kids interested in politics from a young age.

There is far too much uninformed / ill informed voting going on and it's mainly down to voter laziness and all the BS that we are fed through the media. It would be good if we taught kids the importance of investing a bit of time looking into what political parties stand for. It would hopefully lead to more informed voting which would you hope would give fairer election results.
Do you not have civics classes? Cause i learned about the british voting system just when they contrasted it to ours?
 
Do you not have civics classes? Cause i learned about the british voting system just when they contrasted it to ours?

Not sure about the rest of the UK but in Scotland there is an optional subject called Modern Studies which covers politics and modern history but it's optional.
 
Do you not have civics classes? Cause i learned about the british voting system just when they contrasted it to ours?
When I was at school only learnt about our voting system when I did A-level politics when I was 17/18. Not sure whether it is still the case for current children under 17.
 
Interesting reading the BBC website suggestion the West Lancashire by-election result doesn't suggest a landslide for Labour with a 10.5% swing. Which was considering they got 62.5% of the vote a thing I wanted to look up because we know there are hard limits in support people will vote blue no matter how bad things are and vice versa so there is a point no matter how good you are you will hit those people. There is only so much you can swing.

So lets look up what a landslide nationally is in West Lancashire and 1997 and oh its only 60.3%.....I know by-election are hard to get real gauge but that does say landslide territory.
Also compared to 1997 Cons only got 25.4% as opposed to 29.1% back then.


So I'd say Labour were pretty much in best result that could achieved territory despite the small swing.

Just foolish analysis of expecting uniform national swing on all places.
 

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When I was at school only learnt about our voting system when I did A-level politics when I was 17/18. Not sure whether it is still the case for current children under 17.
Not sure about the rest of the UK but in Scotland there is an optional subject called Modern Studies which covers politics and modern history but it's optional.
I can't speak for all states cause education is so varied here. But in Pennsylvania at least we learned US history plus constitution in year 8. Year 9 was civics so we learned how the federal government worked (really think more time should have been spent on state government. Year 12 i took comparative gov so it was a survey of different nation states (uk, china, iran, france, i think) while most students took a geography/geopolitics class. I ended up taking the comparative class again college anyway.

The only real years we take history are 10 and 11 and that's essentially divided by WW1 and stops at reagan.

In elementary school we learned a lot about the founding and pennsylvania history but I was 8 so how can i recall anything.

Pennsylvania has above average voter turnout and I imagine that is partly due to education.
 

I would treat the numbers with a pinch of salt but these are WW2 casualty rates. I know Russians are casualty immune but something has got to give here.
Compared to your earlier comments regarding being cautious about Ukraine's chances given recent Russian advances, has any new info come out that has changed your perception?
 
Compared to your earlier comments regarding being cautious about Ukraine's chances given recent Russian advances, has any new info come out that has changed your perception?
Not really. The core of the Russian forces both state and private are not suffering these heavy casualties it's the newly mobilzed/prisoners who are taking it for the team. This will mean the Russians can keep mobilising and throwing bodies at the problem while the Ukrainians who are taking similar casualties don't have that luxury. Russia is also getting Chinese tech which can do all the naughty stuff the Ukrainians were doing 6 months ago like targeting SIM cards etc and Mr Musk has turned off starlink so the one area Ukraine had the advantage (Tech/Comms etc) they are now on the back foot. The attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure not only stop civilians from switching the lights on but also stop the repair workshops/weapons manufacturer's/training facilities working to capacity so while the Russians seem to getting their **** together the Ukrainians are finding things increasing hard.

I really hope I am wrong but things look pretty grim at the minute for Ukraine.
 
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In a show of just how corrupt the Republican party now is, Matt Gaetz is seated on a committee to investigate the FBI and justice department for being "weaponised" against conservatives (yes this is completely partisan and will not look at how it was weaponised against anyone on the left). The issue? Well funny thing is, Gaetz himself is under investigation by the FBI, so he is now in a position to pass judgement on the very body that is investigating him. I think we all know what the outcome of this will be.

The USA can kiss goodbye to any semblance of justice if those on the far right continue to corrupt the entire system.
 
Got to love the Conservative defence.

"You're spending too much money."
"Yeah, well you spent more so *blows raspberry*"

Edit: It's the same argument they always make. We're not the shitest so we're good. No, just because others were **** doesn't mean you can't also be ****.
 

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