Wouldn't greed and power always be apart of the equation? They are a common human tendency, are they not?

@Truth_Casual an unfortunate truth. so the only reason we need big religion and government is to suppress greed and power. that could really simply what the role of the government has today.

Any idea on how you might deliver such a test?

@Truth_Casual make it part of the voting process, pretest before the actual vote. If you fail, your vote does not count. Or, test to register before election. All voters get pre-qualified.

@JB313, a test like that would require an enormous amount of human proctoring... ergo money... otherwise someone would just make an app to pass it easily.

@Truth_Casual My thought is that we use voting machines, program algorithms to load questions from a pool and sort answers so that there are no 2 tests the same at any time. There is really no way to keep all fraud out of the equation. Hopefully, this could reduce the number of uninformed voters. Even if they learn small amounts of knowledge from attempts to cheat, that could be positive.

@JB313
I get what you're saying. I agree, we need more educated voters.
Hell, I just want comprehensive educational reform, period.

The responsibility to present viable platforms rests with the political parties, alongside guidance provided by the civil service. Voters do not need to be presented with a quiz, not least because the questions may be completely irrelevant to the issues they care about.

@InternetDorkWeb Leaving it to the parties to when they are the ones who created the mess? The people need to take the initiative and be accountable. We need to understand what it is we are voting for. If that is not possible, then we need not vote. Just letting the politicos handling has done us no good. They are the reason for the division we face today.

@JB313 The system is what created the mess, not the parties.

@InternetDorkWeb define "the system".

@JB313 The electoral system. It’s calibrated to result in domination by two political parties, making an ‘establishment’ inevitable.

The fact there are only two parties makes everything bipartisan and adversarial. Both parties will try and obstruct the other as much as possible. Everything is also portrayed as this massive struggle between the two sides... making it worse.

If you had a more plural system with more political parties, then compromise would be essential and fewer people would feel disenfranchised.

Wow! Now something like that could be used to only teach one side's political "news" right?

@Truth_Casual No, just facts like "Who's the current Minister?" or "How does the Houses of Parliament work?" etc. In UK schools we used to teach "Constitutional Studies" or "Citizenship". That doesn't seem to happen nowadays so many people seem to be remarkably ill informed.

@Incajackson, well I think that's a pretty good idea. I believe one huge thing missing is an actual world history as well. It helps conceptualize the world properly when we are given the perspective of where we came from as humans.

Do you honestly believe someone who doesn’t know what brexit is, would be casting a vote?

Why would someone with that level of ignorance go the trouble of casting a ballot? Would they even know which party they wanted to vote for?

Really not something to trouble yourself with in my opinion.

@InternetDorkWeb I speak from experience!

I know somebody who voted for Brexit because she was in dispute with our local council about her weekly bin collection. No connection there.

Also, other people voted for Brexit purely because they objected to Obama poking his nose in!

Others, especially the older generation, always vote in any election, as they feel it is their public duty irrespective of their knowledge (or indeed, interest) of current issues.

So...yes I do!

I guess, if someone's not in the UK, they might get the impression that Brexit is dominating every second of everybody's day. That's not the case in reality.

I notice InternetDorkWeb that you respond to other people's contributions, usually negatively, but what about responding to the original question?

What's one political opinion you have that might surprise people?

@Incajackson Well I don’t agree with the people here about most topics, but that’s one of the reasons I come... I like to discuss with people who disagree with me.

I’m not sure what opinion I have that would surprise people. Perhaps my views about childcare... I would extend maternity/paternity leave to three years and generally encourage people to spend more time with their young children. I would also implement policies that make it easier to have children earlier in life... the present situation where people will wait so long to have a child they experience fertility problems is madness in my opinion.

@InternetDorkWeb
What sort of policies do you have in mind?

@Incajackson Financial support for younger parents, extended paternity/maternity leave, ban companies from sacking people who take extended maternity leave... those kind of things.

Some background to this story is that I used to work as a pre-school teacher when I was in my early twenties, and it was apparent to me that there were many advantages to looking after kids at that age. You have more energy, you can relate to them easier, you probably have more patience with them etc. In contrast the parents who were looking after them were more stressed out by their children. Though that may be partially due to their work (we were a relatively expensive private school).

In contrast, having kids later in life means you need to worry about fertility, you don’t have the same support network (older relatives to help with parenting) and other things.

I think that there are many bebefits to having children at a younger age and the main reasons people don’t plan for kids earlier in life are economic. But it’s reaching the point where we are trying to extend biological windows when we could just reform social standards.

Not entirely set on this mind you, just something I think about sometimes.

Now this is curious. Why is that?

@Truth_Casual coercive intimidation of a small branch of the government ment to administer truth and justice into our broken legal system. Truing to sway vote from the seat of potus does not sit well with me.

Address the whole court fine. Drawing sights on individuals of the court: shouldnt be allowed by potus.
It is a manipulation of the highest court through drawing the publics ire toward the individual

@CuriousFury,
I'm just not convinced that's as much of a problem as what happened to Kavanaugh for example. I think the media was far more effective at putting pressure on a Supreme Court nominee with their complicit part in promoting unsubstantiated accusations. Granted that was during a confirmation, but that seemed to bring quite a lot of hate towards him and his family.
What about free speech? I tend to lean towards protecting that for everyone, even the POTUS, even if they were a lefty and the judge a conservative.

@Truth_Casual the kavanaugh stuff does not apply to my stated politucal opinion, as he was not a scg. It is an opinion i have as an alarm bell. But since you dove in all the way:my, well, this is the first president that excersized his right tounhindered free speech, by operating his twitter account. I have not seen this as a healthy thing for the nation and i believe that it is a decoying ploy. Not only that, i have a firm suspicion that trump is getting kickbacks for all of the traffic he generates on twitter. If not now, then in a secure account waiting for him to show his retirement card from office.

Some of those strategic land bases have been hard fought and won with many lives.

@Truth_Casual if we pulled out of iraq completely to allow isis in, what value was the lives sacrificed in bagdad and everywhere else? Ask yourself "what actually is the strategy? 16 years, trillions of dollars, 100,000's of thousands of lives. Empire?

@CuriousFury
I'm not defending how Iraq was handled. I'm referring to the bases in Europe, Japan, South Korea. Those bases are points in which the US can quickly send reinforcements to an ally or launch an offensive toward an enemy. Many are critical positions that cost a lot of lives to obtain in the first place, and I guess I'm not prepared to spit on those sacrifices nor require more in the future.

@Truth_Casual i agree, to an extent. My position is more one of-- take our actuve and reserve units that get to play shootem up or are just polishing boots and crosstrain them for infrastructure repair. We are paying them anyway. Let us stop making war everywhere and make improvements here. I do not see it affecting our fighting force.

@CuriousFury
Ah, I see. That's not a bad idea. At worst, they will gain some good construction/trade skills and experience, right?

@Truth_Casual well betond that. True Team building built off if sweat and calluses, visualization planning and execution of complex tasks, blueprint reading, drafting, pride of ownership in the finished product. Logistics, Problem solving...up and down the ranks. Alot of abilities that are already in existance in the forces, just reapplied for a true one to one benefit of the people that they serve.

Do you mean their existence or their political backing?

@Truth_Casual Both.

@SpikeTalon, is it just based on your belief in workers' right to assemble or do you believe they serve a net benefit?

@Truth_Casual Worker's right to assemble.

I can get behind the worker's right to assemble, only when they are being treated poorly or unfairly. If the employer is within the guidelines set forth by the the government and of the contract agreed upon between the employee and the employer then i cannot believe there is any reason to assemble. Someone demanding more compensation than they are worth (dictated by the market not their inflated self importance) and using the mob to do it does not benefit anyone, especially the ones receiving the compensation. It is easy to claim victim-hood and wallow in self pity, people who demonstrate these attributes do not snap out of it by being rewarded for them. It takes courage to admit your faults and it takes determination to improve on them to actually make yourself worth more. Once this happens then negotiations can take place between you (not the mob) and your employer. If negotiations between yourself and the employer do not meet your desires then adjust your desires or find somewhere else to work. Strong arming an employer will only breed distrust and resentment and can do nothing to improve relations between employee and employer. Also if the market does not reflect the worth that the mob won for themselves, then the employer will ultimately lose money. Losing money can only result in downsizing if the negative trend continues, which will eliminate jobs. Then less production caused by the recently eliminated jobs will make the employer lose more money and so on and so forth until the employer prudently throws in the towel. Obviously this is over simplified and only one aspect of the union debate but is the aspect i find most damaging so the one i most firmly stand against. I have several friends in private sector unions who now do quite well for themselves (after struggling greatly on a production based income) who do not see the problem as it is nearly impossible to see when you are the beneficiary of such a system.

@Finnemore4 I get what you're saying, the only problem is there is no shortage of employers out there who seek to take advantage of people, so I'd say the door swings both ways on that.

@SpikeTalon I completely agree, as the first portion of my comment alludes to. I definitely think workers should be able to assemble when treated unfairly or in any way that violates the initial agreement. I'm sorry that my comment was so lengthy and kind of ran outside what you were saying, I just wanted to state my qualm with private sector unions.

@Finnemore4 Gotcha, all good.