Posts by BenWilson
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soz, read "only argument against against the lowest practical threshold..."
Doh -
So far the only argument I've heard for the lowest practical threshold of 0.8% (unless we raise the number of MPs) that isn't "I don't like minorities having any say", has been "It gives stability".
I'm surprised this is considered such a powerful argument. It's not like the instability means rioting in the streets or open revolution, it just means there would potentially be more elections, and only laws that were actually liked by the majority of the parliament could pass. To me that sounds like a good thing.
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However, if someone who is intersex and has gone through puberty with those very high (ie typically male) levels of androgen that give a person physically male muscle:fat composition (to single out only one thing) then I can't see how they can fairly compete against women in sport.
In much the same way that someone who has any other 'natural' advantage can. Being a naturally man-sized woman is an advantage on, say, a basketball court. Just because they are freakishly few and far between does not mean they should not be allowed.
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Heh! I think that "ganging up to seize power" might be an emotive word for 'democracy' (in that the majority calls the shots).
Yes, but it's an even better word for tyranny. Of the minority. Which is much worse than the (still bad) tyranny of the majority .
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I also don't buy the whole "small parties hold the whole thing to ransom" argument, period. If power is only held by a very small majority, and minor parties can take advantage by saying they will break off, then what is actually so unjust about that? The larger party must by definition not have a big enough majority to hold power. If the requests are too extreme then the larger party can usually count on the more moderate opposition party for support. To think that they should not do this, or cannot do this is to already have your head in the 2-party space. I don't see any problem at all with deals between the major parties and have long thought that a "grand coalition" would be an excellent wake up call for NZ about how MMP can work for moderation. The idea of government is "governance", not "power", after all.
This has been seen many times in our own MMP. When the Greens started making demands that Labour could not stomach, they were just ignored. They also lost some of their base. All of this worked towards making the Greens a somewhat more moderate and careful party. In the last government, Labour only held on by the skin of their teeth and were mostly unable to ram stuff through. So the Greens got their smacking bill, despite a very high chance of unpopularity. I disagreed with the final implementation of the bill, but I totally respect that the Greens had the right to do this, at that time. Does the bill get to survive? That's for this government to work out.
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Re: extremist groups getting in on less than 5%, seriously, if 0.8% of the population wish to be represented by a crazy, then fair do's to 'em.
Ditto to the idea of Indians being represented by an Indian. I think the word "extreme" is an emotive word for "minority". I don't especially like christian fundamentalists, but I don't see that denying them a voice is worth it, when the cost is denying any number of other not-whack minorities a voice too.
You could argue that everyone can get their voice by being in a bigger party. Please note this goes for whackjobs too. So it's kind of irrelevant, and an argument for not just FPP, but also a one-party-system. It's an argument people have to eat in China.
What I think is really at stake is "party power". Which, IIRC, was never really the intended use of representative democracy at all. It was something that took on its own life by virtue of the simple fact that a group working together is always more powerful than isolated individuals of the same number each fighting their own battle. That does not make it a good thing at all - ganging up to seize power is definitely time honored, but it's most often highly unjust.
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One can imagine various extremist groups mustering 0.8% as well, and then using the financial and admin base of an MP to bootstrap a larger organisation.
I can also imagine a lot of non-extremist groups doing it too. But that does depend on your definition of extreme. Under FPP, the Greens were considered extreme and fringe, and thoroughly worthy of the 0% representation they always scored in elections. Pacific Islanders probably waffle around the "fringe and extreme" numbers, and all the smaller ethnic groups do. Homosexuals do not, but quite possibly lesbians do.
MMP was meant to be something of an answer to the tyranny of the majority, which is taken to extremes under a 2-party only system. A threshold simply discriminates against smaller minorities.
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Actually, ACT, UF and Progressive all have electorates, so they'd survive.
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"To know Hertz is to love Hertz"
I always thought that ad had a strange masochistic air about it.
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Pitching is about deceiving the batter into swinging for a ball at the wrong time or place, and increased muscle mass isn't going to help that.
Not so sure about that...increased muscle mass can be linked to increased muscle control too. I say this because, as a long time goalkeeper, I found the really strong shooters in my sport (waterpolo) were also generally the most deceptive. The reason? Anyone can make a really slow shot look fast with appropriate trickery. But only really strong people can make a fast shot look slow and easy. Only they can add spin and other tricks to a shot that is already as hard as most other players can throw it. Extra power also makes for extra accuracy, it seemed, because there is spare power for control. But I agree, generally it's not the muscle mass, it's the training that makes for good shooters.
Longevity is not something that can be replicated with muscle-training at the gym, at least not with a day-to-day sport like baseball or even football, basketball or cricket.
That's definitely controversial. Most professional athletes do extra gym-training, so it's hard to get a baseline. Certainly in the off-season gym work is very good for retaining muscle, or even building on it. Put it this way, it's a much better base to be working off than having to waste time in-season accumulating that muscle. It's a fairly "safe" training method, by which I mean it doesn't draw so many injuries as sport, and having bonus muscle can protect you from injury as you reenter intensive sports training building up to a competition.
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