I remember an idea about drafting people for positions as representatives like it was jury duty... maybe from a pool of currently unemployed but qualified, and even a small number of seats for even the technically unqualified.

I think the U.S. system has a lot of good points though, more individuality among people aligned to a party at least at one time though john McCain was a recent example, but you have got to take the big money out in all areas as it really means someone can buy a politician like the NRA/gun makers or big oil certainly have. Can you imagine having televised politics restricted to say CSPAN and PBS/NPR? I can. If commercial channels don't want to air something without being paid then who needs them, they package everything as shallow entertainment which does an injustice to the gravities of some of these offices and to having well informed voters.

Maybe it's the people I hang out with, but what I see on the left is a lot of people who want freedom from an intrusive right-wing government.

Everything I've seen from recent "conservative" administrations is that they are just as happy with government intrusion as any "socialist" government. It's simply where they focus their intrusions that is different.

Expressing an opinion is not against the rules. It is even encouraged, and I am glad that Michael can provide a different viewpoint; that is the very nature of discussion.

I found his post about the kind of socialism he doesn’t want very interesting, because it allows us to talk about precise realities rather than labels. I would argue that it is not socialism he dislikes so much as government intrusiveness, which can be encountered in any type of system. I am pretty much against intrusiveness too... once the basics are covered, I prefer to leave people masters of their own fate as much as possible. Naturally, if maximum freedom is one of our goals, there must be a few barriers (paradoxically enough). We cannot be free if Google or Facebook get a monopoly on internet control, which is why anti-trust laws are a good thing. Freedom from the fear of disease is also something I am ready to pay higher taxes for, especially since overall we know that socialized medicine costs less and provides a greater life expectancy than a privatized one. But that’s precisely where discussion plays a role: so we can sort of agree on what we’re ready to accept and what we’re not.

I see Elizabeth Warren announced her 2020 campaign this morning. It's seems hard to find a center more and more. I have seen Democrat administrations in Washington State and California going too far in social engineering and spending and not admitting when they get things wrong (like the CA gasoline additive they mandated that actually caused engine fires after it broke down some hoses, plus measurable toxins increased in the environment party linked directly to the new gas). The kind of fired-up, true believer, moderate is bad liberal is to me the flip side of the tea Party coin... no thanks! Bike-lanes-a-palooza, no free parking anywhere, businesses that survived decades going under because of that and other construction funded by their taxes (Seattle tunnel changing traffic routes). I'm not for simplistic less government is good but in some areas they need to do a lot less, at least until they are sure and not foisting new untried designs that take longer, run way over budget, and use crap Chinese steel that is also a hazard. Taxes have gotten to a point in some category of killing some too never mind providing homeless shelters or ending poverty or other pie in the sky schemes.

How do we get to a middle, a moderate majority without the crazy swings. One gets in tears up the last guys stuff, people vote for change and then that one is redrawing rules for hallway widths and what district you are in. But it's hard to get a base excited/mobilized about 'yay compromise', or 'we'll get some stuff we want and they'll get some stuff they want, rah rah'. To be moderate is to 'lack vision', 'old ideas', and to be boring... but politics and government should be boring... boring as hell but functional. I have always wondered where these people with balloons and hats and all that crap came from, and also having little kids involved much at all or even present at events. I just want to know what works, what is made up or guess work and conservatively let's go what what works and is sustainable for the majority.

I'm also seeing enemies built up and exaggerated for the excuse of the supposed 'good guys' going 'dark' or down to those levels themselves.... they are the phony tough guys (you know, the bone-spurs and alternative duty in the National Guard sorts, Congressman Dad pulled strings) who are trying to make up for something I guess, they want the slightest excuse it seems and revel in being 'strong'. But I see the left exaggerating even Trump who certainly shouldn't need it... and now Kelly-Anne Conway being grabbed by some fanatic woman in a restaurant! This is not going very well and I think the kind of reactionary race to the bottom is well enough underway it's going to take awhile for enough people to get really burned by it before this can go back toward a decent balance and civility.

Never vote for a Trump, that was self-sabotage. And if you really did think this was a successful business man with ten billion dollars and connections to all the best people well shame on you for not bloody doing some actual research on what you were empowering with a mandate of minus three million! A vote for fubar, and a few people did used to openly admit to that. People should be desperate for a solid qualified type of candidate after two years of this bad joke, but I guess it'll take a lot longer to get to that becoming the majority desire, it looks like we'll have to burn off the extreme liberal thing in reaction to the extreme right having it's day next.

Kurdistan: yea or nay?

I’m all for it. And %$#@ to all the countries who always oppressed their Kurdish minority and now find themselves facing a destabilizing situation.

Not that it’s likely to happen... too many important alliances in the balance.

Elizabeth Warren is an odd character. By all accounts, she was a corporate neoliberal for most of her career, yet she's trying to placate the Sanders/Cortez crowd now with dem-socialist stances. Is it all lip service or is she actually moving further left?