We get the politicians we deserve.

T runner · 11-01-2010 2:24pm

dodgyme wrote: »

Turkeys dont vote.:D

Except when they are used as a metaphor for TDs. What would you give yourself for that joke?

Sleepy · 11-01-2010 2:34pm

T runner wrote: »

Irish electorate is smarter than you think. Unfortunately they ahve only Turkeys to vote for. Remember the irish electorate includes yourself and all the posters on this site.

I think you give them too much credit as half those elected to the Dail could not have been the best candidates in their region. We'll have to agree to disagree.

But who will get the legislation considered and passed? If the legislation is considered and passed before they are elected then they are unnnecessary?

That's why I used the word 'draft'. Prepare the legislation - show it to the electorate as the party's manifesto - Pass the legislation - Call a new General Election - Disband the party.

Government? You think this single issue party would be elected as the Government? (overall majority). Im not surprised you think the Irish electorate wouldnt vote them in. They are too smart!

See above. If done correctly, this could be a 'government' of a few days. The country currently survives without a Dail for nearly half the year as it stands, a few days before the election of a new government under a system designed to improve electoral results and governmetn performance couldn't hurt imho.

Can youi substantiate that? This change has been made in 80+ countries with success. Its real enough in these places. Ireland has less than 14% females, a perfect candidate.
Ivand Bacik getting "fairly elected". So if she does get elected it will be "unfair"?

As dumb as I think they are, I still can't see the electorate giving that idiot a seat unless they're forced to do so by some form of feminazi quota requirement. The woman is a misandrist and no man, or sane woman, would ever vote for her.

But if you are happy

Dont forget the other party with Turkey selection policies FG and also all the unofficial barriers to being a candidate/Councillor/TD which means mostly Turkeys do it.

I'm more than happy to discuss measures to improve the quality of candidates putting themselves forward for selection. Selection policies should be dealt with internally by each party imho. I wouldn't see anything wrong with a new misandrist party headed by Ms Bacik refusing to put men forward for election. Nobody sane would vote for them but they should have the right to run candidates if they want to imho.

The 70 hour a week TDs spent half their time wasted on public appearances and unnecessarty admin work. Only 35 hours is spent on their actual job. Are you defending the turkeys now?

A weekly concentrated 50 hours a week on good old public service work would be an increase for everyone and make the job more accessible to talented men and women.

Not defending them, just questioning the rational behind your call for these quotas and making public life more 'family friendly'.

That the current TD's waste half their time does not counter the argument that the highest achievers in business tend to be those prepared to put in the long hours.

If I have the choice between two women of reasonably similar capability and policies, one of whom is childless and prepared to work 70 hours a week as a TD and another who can "only" manage 50 hours a week because of her duties as a mother, I'm going to take the one who's going to work those 70 hours a week. She automatically has a 40% higher chance of getting her electoral promises met since she's on the job that much longer.

Obviously, if the first candidate is 50% better than the second, I'll take her despite the shorter hours but you can't discriminate against someone by stopping them from working hard so that others can catch up imho.

T runner · 11-01-2010 4:02pm

Sleepy wrote: »

I think you give them too much credit as half those elected to the Dail could not have been the best candidates in their region. We'll have to agree to disagree.

How do you know they couldnt have been? You dont know.

That's why I used the word 'draft'. Prepare the legislation - show it to the electorate as the party's manifesto - Pass the legislation - Call a new General Election - Disband the party.

Sorry you need to do more than show it to the electorate to get it passed.
You have to be in the dail and put the legisltion before the Dail and hope a majority of TDs pass it. How do they do that if they are not in power?

See above. If done correctly, this could be a 'government' of a few days.

What!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you crazy? You think your party will get a overall majority?

As dumb as I think they are, I still can't see the electorate giving that idiot a seat unless they're forced to do so by some form of feminazi quota requirement.

Stop being ridiculous please

The woman is a misandrist and no man, or sane woman, would ever vote for her.

Have you any evidence to back up that outrageous fallacious and insulting bar the fact that she supports quotas. I support quotas, am I a misandrist. Governments of 80 countries have brought in quotas are they all misandrists.

The only person with a problem with hatred seems to be you as fas as i can see.

I'm more than happy to discuss measures to improve the quality of candidates putting themselves forward for selection. Selection policies should be dealt with internally by each party imho.

I agree and when legislation comes in to stop them selecting Turkeys they can change the policies themselves. The only realistic chance

I wouldn't see anything wrong with a new misandrist party headed by Ms Bacik refusing to put men forward for election.

What are you on about? I thought she is a member of teh Labour party. Have you heard that she is forming misandrist party for women only?

Agaon you digress to attack Ms Bacik. If not then please stop your strange attacks on her, they are bileful and distasteful. Keep your hatred to yourself stick to the issues here.

Nobody sane would vote for them but they should have the right to run candidates if they want to imho.

They dont exist. Its insane of you to continue with these weird attacks!

Not defending them, just questioning the rational behind your call for these quotas and making public life more 'family friendly'.

Ive explained my rational in detail in my first post on this thread, which you repied to with anopther starnge hateful attack on Ms Bacik for some reason.
If you now want to reply to that in a ratyional manner-feel free.

That the current TD's waste half their time does not counter the argument that the highest achievers in business tend to be those prepared to put in the long hours.

A woman or man doing 50 hours concentrated hard work a week, is more productive than a woman or man putting in 70 half of which half is wasted.

If I have the choice between two women of reasonably similar capability and policies, one of whom is childless and prepared to work 70 hours a week as a TD and another who can "only" manage 50 hours a week because of her duties as a mother,

Yes and both of these would be an improvemnet on the current situation where TDs only do F All real work in the week. Dont you agree?

I'm going to take the one who's going to work those 70 hours a week. She automatically has a 40% higher chance of getting her electoral promises met since she's on the job that much longer.

Your not getting it. The woman who works 50 hours a weeks on only public rep work. Or the man who works 70 hours 35 hours what he should be doing and 35 hours trying to get re-elected?

These 70 hour hard weeks dont exist. Stop defending teh Turkeys.

but you can't discriminate against someone by stopping them from working hard so that others can catch up imho.

Youll find that the 70 hour weeks will mysteriously disappear once the public appearance time disappears.

You think the current Turkeys are working ahrd do you? They only work 35 hour weeks, the rest of the time is public appearances and functions. They are not working hard 70 hours a week.

TDs days should be set hours: except for genuine emergencies. And A Set monthly time for public appearances.

Sleepy · 11-01-2010 4:24pm

T runner wrote: »

How do you know they couldnt have been? You dont know.

One name: Jackie Healy Rae. Do you really think there was no-one more capable in his constituency? Really?

Sorry you need to do more than show it to the electorate to get it passed.

You have to be in the dail and put the legisltion before the Dail and hope a majority of TDs pass it. How do they do that if they are not in power?

What!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you crazy? You think your party will get a overall majority?

TBH, no I don't. It's a flight of whimsy, a mechanism by which we could fix this country by peaceful means. The only other option I can see involves mass murder.

Stop being ridiculous please

Have you any evidence to back up that outrageous fallacious and insulting bar the fact that she supports quotas. I support quotas, am I a misandrist. Governments of 80 countries have brought in quotas are they all misandrists.

The only person with a problem with hatred seems to be you as fas as i can see.

Supporting discrimination against men is misandry.

I've rarely seen Bacik's name attached to anything that wasn't advocating placing men's interests behind those of women's. She's one of those misguided feminists who seem to believe that equality is a zero - sum game.

I agree and when legislation comes in to stop them selecting Turkeys they can change the policies themselves. The only realistic chance

I'm not saying I like the vast majority of candidates the parties are putting forward any more than you are but that's an oxymoron. If legislation is put in place to stop them choosing candidates you don't like, they're not free to choose who they want to run.

A woman or man doing 50 hours concentrated hard work a week, is more productive than a woman or man putting in 70 half of which half is wasted.

I didn't disagree.

Yes and both of these would be an improvemnet on the current situation where TDs only do F All real work in the week. Dont you agree?

Your not getting it. The woman who works 50 hours a weeks on only public rep work. Or the man who works 70 hours 35 hours what he should be doing and 35 hours trying to get re-elected?

These 70 hour hard weeks dont exist. Stop defending teh Turkeys.

Youll find that the 70 hour weeks will mysteriously disappear once the public appearance time disappears.

You think the current Turkeys are working ahrd do you? They only work 35 hour weeks, the rest of the time is public appearances and functions. They are not working hard 70 hours a week.

TDs days should be set hours: except for genuine emergencies. And A Set monthly time for public appearances.

For the love of the flying spaghetti monster, read my posts rather than just looking at bits of them you can attack.

Why should a TD's day be set hours? They're the equivalent of senior executives of a company. Any director of a real business works long, hard hours.

What you seem to be suggesting is that we artificially limit the amount of work a highly paid employee of the state can work in order to allow people who don't want to have to make the necessary sacrifices to do that job have a chance of doing it.

Nowhere did I disagree with you that the time TD's spend on public appearances, functions or envelope openings should be reduced and that time spent on actually running their departments. If anything it seems that my views on this are more extreme than yours in that you'd be happy with a TD working for 50 hours a week whereas I'd rather they worked the same sort of hours as the corporate CEO's they bench-marked their salaries to.

cm2000 · 11-01-2010 5:08pm

Of course we get the politicians we deserve.

We can all say it made absolutely no sense to inflate a property boom. However, we all voted for that. We voted to inflate the property boom by urging lower taxes in income and stamp duty at a time when regular and property inflation was extraordinarily high. When you have no control over monetary policy you must use fiscal policy to stabilize prices. Therefore, when we have high inflation we should raise taxes or cut spending radically.

The problem is that if that was the manifesto of any party at the general election, if they're slogan was "we'll raise your income tax and stamp duty, and not expand services but simply keep the money in reserve" they would not have gotten election.

Any party who rants against Fianna Fáil for their conduct should indeed look in a mirror. They criticise their policy yet at the last election they all pretty much adopted their policies. Labour were now for low taxes, as were Fine Gael and pretty much everyone.

Had any of these manifestos been implemented they would have had the same effect. And furthermore, they were completely up front about them. We all knew the policies. There was little or no deception. This is why we deserve what we get.

If anyone has a problem with government, or with the sheepish nature of the opposition then run for an election, create a party with a new manifesto and then see how you do.

T runner · 11-01-2010 5:52pm

Sleepy wrote: »

One name: Jackie Healy Rae. Do you really think there was no-one more capable in his constituency? Really?

You said half of these elected. Have you backtracked to one of those elected

TBH, no I don't. It's a flight of whimsy, a mechanism by which we could fix this country by peaceful means. The only other option I can see involves mass murder.

Or a quota system

Supporting discrimination against men is misandry.

So half of the governments of the world are culpable of misandry?
Am I as misandrist? I clearly support quotas for candidacy?

Quota legislation actually enforces quotas on both men and women.
Ofcourse as you say its only discrimination when it happens against you.

I've rarely seen Bacik's name attached to anything that wasn't advocating placing men's interests behind those of women's. She's one of those misguided feminists who seem to believe that equality is a zero - sum game.

There are 80+ countries in the world that advocate quotas. Are they all misguided feminists? Youll ignore this awkward fact as usual.

I'm not saying I like the vast majority of candidates the parties are putting forward any more than you are but that's an oxymoron. If legislation is put in place to stop them choosing candidates you don't like, they're not free to choose who they want to run.

If you flick a coin a hundred times the chances of getting less than 30 harps or heads is .01%.

Do you understand this???????

In the dail every time the coins are flicked the heads are getting less than 13. Every time!!!!!!!!!

That is because 50 or 60 Donkey, Turkey F'd Up coins are being allowed in.

Demanding that the results of the coin toss stays between 30:70 and 70:30 ensures that the parties must clear the donkey coins out of the purse.

This means you have better quality harps and heads and no Donkeys coins!

Again with a fair toss the chances of going below 30 is .01%.

How you can accuse people of misandry for replacing a system which discriminates against women and talented men for one taht doesnt but might affrect a man or woman in .01% of cases (probably never) is beyond me.

I didn't disagree.

You did disagree and you have disagreed in this post.

Why should a TD's day be set hours? They're the equivalent of senior executives of a company. Any director of a real business works long, hard hours.

They are not the equivalent. An executives job is to make money for the company. A TDs jobs is to do whats right for his constituents (men, women and children and his country). Some of the experience he will need will come from spending time as a citizen in the community, being a father/mother, seeing the problems for citizens from personal experience.

50 hours a week gets family friendly, talented candidates and not clueless power hungry candidates who spend half their time promoting themselves.

How do you expect to get honest TDs to do whats right for citizens when they dont even do whats right for their families?

Nowhere did I disagree with you that the time TD's spend on public appearances, functions or envelope openings should be reduced and that time spent on actually running their departments.

Who will reduce it? Turkeys dont vote for X-mas. With a quota system they are forced to reduce it to attract women and talented men.

Sleepy · 11-01-2010 7:03pm

T runner wrote: »

Or a quota system

Jaysus, will it cure cancer and make the tea as well?

All a quota system does is ensure that a minimum amount of those put forth for election are women. Not talented women, not capable women just women.

So half of the governments of the world are culpable of misandry?
Am I as misandrist? I clearly support quotas for candidacy?

Quota legislation actually enforces quotas on both men and women.
Ofcourse as you say its only discrimination when it happens against you.

So, that's alright then? Should we have quotas to ensure that a certain pecentage of our candidates for election are gay? black? from the traveller community? non-national? socialist? republican? people above a certain IQ level?

There are 80+ countries in the world that advocate quotas. Are they all misguided feminists? Youll ignore this awkward fact as usual.

They're certainly misguided if they think it does anything beyond provide a minimum number of women, possibly at the expense of better suited male candidates.

If you flick a coin a hundred times the chances of getting less than 30 harps or heads is .01%.

Do you understand this???????

In the dail every time the coins are flicked the heads are getting less than 13. Every time!!!!!!!!!

That is because 50 or 60 Donkey, Turkey F'd Up coins are being allowed in.

Demanding that the results of the coin toss stays between 30:70 and 70:30 ensures that the parties must clear the donkey coins out of the purse.

This means you have better quality harps and heads and no Donkeys coins!

Again with a fair toss the chances of going below 30 is .01%.

How you can accuse people of misandry for replacing a system which discriminates against women and talented men for one taht doesnt but might affrect a man or woman in .01% of cases (probably never) is beyond me.

Because all men aren't donkeys and all women aren't talented. TBH, what your proposal would most likely result in is the wives of the current 'donkeys' being put forward for election.

You did disagree and you have disagreed in this post.

I can't see where I said that "A woman or man doing 50 hours concentrated hard work a week, is more productive than a woman or man putting in 70 half of which half is wasted.". I said that artificially reducing the hours involved in a job i.e. limiting the person in that position to 50 hours when they could be doing 70 hours reduces the capacity for that person to perform.

They are not the equivalent. An executives job is to make money for the company. A TDs jobs is to do whats right for his constituents (men, women and children and his country). Some of the experience he will need will come from spending time as a citizen in the community, being a father/mother, seeing the problems for citizens from personal experience.

50 hours a week gets family friendly, talented candidates and not clueless power hungry candidates who spend half their time promoting themselves.

How do you expect to get honest TDs to do whats right for citizens when they dont even do whats right for their families?

A TD's job is to represent his/her constituency, correct. When that TD can be made a minister, however, he/she has to be capable of running a department many times the size of most companies in this state. When they have the potential to become Taoiseach, i.e. the one in charge of the whole country... you should be getting the idea by now.

Why can't someone who doesn't need family friendly hours be talented? Most of those who suceed at the very top levels of their chosen career (be it business, the arts, science, whatever) do so at the expense of other aspects of their life. You're suggesting punishing these people by introducing a system where they can lose their shot at election in order to allow someone who may not have the same commitment to that profession have a chance.

Who will reduce it? Turkeys dont vote for X-mas. With a quota system they are forced to reduce it to attract women and talented men.

A quota system won't reduce it. Not on it's own. Introducing it in conjunction with limits on working hours for TD's compounds problems by lowering the barriers of entry to the process for those who don't want to put in the work. Yes TD's work should be more focused but there's no good reason to say that it must be kept to beneath a certain number of hours in order to be 'family friendly'.

A reduction of numbers of TD's and implementation of larger electoral regions may help reduce the level of time TD's waste on appearances as they'd be moved towards a position where their performance would become more central to their electorate's voting decisions than who's path they fixed or funeral they attended. But I can't see the turkey's voting for that any more than they'll vote for your magic quota system which simply by introducing minimums on the level of women put forward for election will magically fix everything else!

I'm not defending the inept bunch of idiots we currently have in the Dail. I'm pointing out that this quota system is sexist rubbish. The inference of this policy is that women are more capable at running countries than men. That is sexist.

I see no reason why any piece of law, whether constitutional, legislative or case law, should have reason to refer to gender, race or sexuality. If an act is illegal, it should be illegal for all. Not to mention the nonsense in our constitution about the state recognising "that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved".

11-01-2010 7:49pm

Sleepy wrote: »

I'm not defending the inept bunch of idiots we currently have in the Dail. I'm pointing out that this quota system is sexist rubbish. The inference of this policy is that women are more capable at running countries than men. That is sexist.

I see no reason why any piece of law, whether constitutional, legislative or case law, should have reason to refer to gender, race or sexuality. If an act is illegal, it should be illegal for all. Not to mention the nonsense in our constitution about the state recognising "that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved".

Spot on. There is nothing inherent in the sex of a person which suggests that they will be any better than the opposite sex. Any quota system put in place would just place women above men. Its not as if we ever see quota systems for men being put in place in female dominated industries. Its just another ploy to give unnecessary leverage to women. And that is Sexist.

Good post, Sleepy.

We get the politicians we deserve.

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