Intro from New Member
 

Just joined, so some background and putting some beliefs/wishes out there.

I'm a mid-50's CA resident, though I lived in TX for a bit back near 2000. I worked in tech for over 20 years in various areas, engineering, marketing, business development, project management.

I'm retired now and spend my time mostly reading, listening to music, and attending to family stuff.

I've been a Democrat for most of my life. Tried to change to Independent a couple of years ago when I moved, mostly because I got tired of being called by the party for fundraising/donations, but also because I got tired of the back and forth and extreme partisanship on both sides. But my paperwork must have gotten lost as I still seem to be registered Democrat. But I decided that's OK as I do tend to lean that way and voting in primaries can be a good option to have.

I don't adopt all my positions/beliefs based on what the official/traditional positions of the party might be. I don't like to be limited that way and don't think we need to fit into predefined belief boxes based on which way we lean or what we've affiliated ourselves with.

Like I'm sure many of you are, I'm disappointed by obstructionist politics and politicians adopting party line positions simply because it favors keeping themselves and their party in power. I'd like to think I'm open minded and will call BS on faulty logic and rationalization simply in an attempt to support a desired outcome, regardless of which side it comes from.

I don't particularly like the electoral college system because I think every vote should count and a winner takes all system (for a state's electoral college votes) doesn't lend itself to all votes counting equally. While it's true that this would currently favor Democrats, I'd feel the same even if it currently favored Republicans.

In my idealistic, simplistic worldview, when it comes to contentious issues that divide us, I wish that both sides could start out with a set of principles/rules/laws they can agree upon (even if the overlap is very small), pass legislation to put those in place, and continue an ongoing process to try and enlarge that overlap (or negotiate some acceptable compromises) so we things could move forward.

The end result may be that very few are extremely happy with the result, but the majority of people are generally satisfied and can live with the tradeoffs.

Look forward to engaging in some healthy debate and conversation, though you'll find me mostly steering clear of threads where the blinders are on and there's more name-calling than real discussion.

Welcome to the fray. Always room for another voice. Are you hailing from AK or did you just happen to wander by?

Thanks RickeyM. I am an occasional lurker on AK, so I'm familiar with the site and heard about this sister site from there. I recognize some of the names from there, but not all.

Glad to be here and thanks for the welcome!

Welcome Bryan.

Welcome to PC!

Welcome to PC.

Regarding your last paragraph, if you skip those threads, you will not have much to read here!

:)

Welcome ashore!!!!!!!

Welcome, Bryan! BTW, I'm Robroy on AK.

Like you, I went from party affiliation to independent, except I was Republican.

BTW, I noticed you mentioned the concept of "winner take all". I just thought I'd point out that all democratic elections are "winner take all". The selection of a president is only democratic in how each state chooses which candidate it will support. After that, the fifty states choose, "democratically" through their representatives (the electors) which candidate their state will vote for. The weight of their vote depends on the population of their state (number of congressmen) plus two more (matching two senators). It is why we are called a republic.

And if we elected a president today based on the popular vote, three counties would pretty much select our president. LA, COOK (Illinois) and New York.

That being said, I very much enjoyed your rundown and we are in agreement about a lot of political concepts from a foundational perspective. I get a lot of grief from the children here, but it can be a lot of fun. :)

I have a feeling you'll see/experience it first hand.

Ain't it the truth! :D

All democratic elections are not 'winner take all' when proportional representation is employed.

What is your point? That dirt and rocks deserve representation? The schemes that give extra representation to dirt and rocks, of course, actually give extra representation to those that own lots of dirt and rocks. The Senate is systemic oligarchy.