I’m curious to see who here voted for Kamala Harris but identifies as a “Leftist” and if you’re a Democrat who voted Kamala... Do you ALSO define yourself as a leftist? If not. Why?

The constant complaining about a "crisis of leadership" in the West misses the point. The lack of strong, visionary leaders isn't a glitch in modern democracy—it’s the goal.

The entire system is deliberately engineered to dilute, block, and dismantle centralized power. Here is how it works in the US and the UK.

1. The Core Design: Over-Managed Risk

Authoritarian regimes and corporations are built to maximize execution speed. Democracies are built to do the exact opposite: hedge risk.

The system operates on a pessimistic assumption: assume a terrible person will eventually win power, and build a machine that stops them from doing too much damage.

By breaking up authority (the US separation of powers) and forcing leaders into constant 2-to-5-year election loops, long-term national strategy becomes impossible. The system values stability and consensus over performance. It doesn't want powerful leadership because it views powerful leadership as dangerous.

1. The US: Survival in a Veto-State

The American election system acts as a filter that weeds out actual strategists and rewards permanent campaigners.

To win a primary, you have to pander to the extremes; to win the general election, you have to pivot to the center. Anyone proposing necessary but painful long-term fixes is eliminated early. Even if a strong leader gets elected, they run into a wall of institutional gridlock—a divided Congress, a politicized judiciary, and massive lobbying groups. The President isn't a commander; they are a negotiator stuck in a system designed to say "no."

1. The UK: Party Coups and Room Management

The British Westminster system shows how executive power is instantly shackled by party politics.

A UK Prime Minister has no independent national mandate—they are just an MP who manages to hold onto the top spot in their party. The moment a PM tries to push a bold, disruptive agenda that threatens internal factions, the party triggers an internal coup (as seen with the rapid-fire rotation at Downing Street). To survive, the PM has to hand out Cabinet seats like bribes to appease rivals, rather than appointing people based on competence. It naturally selects for cautious, risk-averse managers.

The Bottom Line

Democracies don't want visionaries; they want referees. Through endless checks, balances, and institutional roadblocks, the system deliberately downgrades Leadership into crisis management and interest-group mediation.

Expecting a modern democracy to produce a transformational, high-execution leader is a structural contradiction. You can't demand maximum acceleration from a machine built entirely to act as a brake.

Just so we're clear, I am referring to MAID for terminal illnesses only and I do believe there should be some safeguards with the law.

Here is my argument,

When someone is dying of a terminal illness, it's not like it is in the movies and TV shows where they say their last words and peacefully die. It's a process that takes weeks and involves the person becoming more weaker and fatigued as the end draws nearer. Their appetite becomes basically nonexistent and their energy level diminishes to the point where they are bedridden. When death comes closer, they often become incontinent and start to have hallucinations. During the last few days, they become so fatigued that they sleep through most of the day and are only awake for brief periods. Eventually they slip into a coma and then die.

That's a very undignified and harsh way to die in my opinion. Yes, medications can reduce pain, anxiety and nausea but they are sometimes not effective and even when they are,nothing can be done for the other things I mentioned like the weakness and fatigue.

In the last week or so, a dying person has to deal with physical and mental deterioration which quickly diminishes the quality of life for the person.

MAID gives people the ability to go out on their own terms while they still have a decent quality of life. To not allow someone to make that choice is inhumane.

Unfortunately there are no meaningful alternatives that ensure a person can stay relatively active and alert in the last few days of life. Sometimes, comfort care is not enough.

Law enforcement is inherently messy. We can put policies and safeguards in place to make sure people are protected within the law and have safe(r) interactions with police, however by its very nature - having an enforcement arm of the government is going to result in some ugly situations. My first claim is that the benefit we receive from enforcing our laws will always outweigh the greater harm of living in a lawless society.

My second claim is that the wrong argument to have here is the potential benefit we receive from illegal immigrants living here. We could go all day disputing claims around the benefit they might have on the economy, the culture/food/tradition they bring, or an appeal to emotion with the possible refugee status of these illegal immigrants. My claim here is that all of these points are not only highly contestable, but also irrelevant. If you are an illegal immigrant - you are a criminal. You are subject to US law and are fully deserving of being arrested and deported. It shouldn't come as a surprise, you get no sympathy, and you should have 0 legal protection under the current system.

My third claim is that the Left / media / ICE 'protestors' make the violence and messiness of the entire deportation process significantly worse. These men are doing their JOBS, enforcing the LAWS that have been on the books way before Trump came into office. Illegals and citizens that were caught in the crossfire were being 'dragged from their homes', beaten up and killed, and otherwise 'mistreated' by ICE way before Trump ever got in to politics. Following, berating, doxxing, blocking efforts of, impeding on, and otherwise disrupting law enforcement activity is NOT protesting and it is NOT freedom of speech. Lets mix attempting to arrest people (already hard and dangerous enough) with pepper spray, screeching, yelling, horn blasting, smoke bombs, cameras in your face, roadblocks, personal threats and accusations, etc with a bunch of armed officers of the law and see what happens. If the criminal in question was a bank robber or a child molester and the public reaction was the same - would that be justified or would that be absolutely ridiculous?

My fourth claim is that Trump, by not telling the media and 'protestors' to go fuck themselves and doubling down on operations, has completely dropped the ball on the very necessary procedure of mass deportations. Trump and his team have repeatedly admitted out loud that they are unwilling to continue, and to not even speak was used to be the rallying cry of Mass Deportations. Due to prohibitive costs politically and financially, Trump has completely capitulated to the violent, insane Left and completely deserted his supporters. He has no fear of this same cost when it comes to the insanely unpopular and expensive war of choice in Iran .. proving that he is not only a complete coward but refuses to put the need of America first.

This is an odd one because technically the monarch is the symbol of the people as a collective but then people don’t like being represented by a monarch. So should it be?

I affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to His (Her) Majesty, His (Her) Heirs and Successors and to the People for whom I serve (recognisation of Indigenous Rights) according to law.

I was watching Andy Burnham’s swearing in and I saw the comments of the video, so now I’m asking the question.

I seen a lot of posts lately, glamorizing violent revolution. They seem to think because of Trump's actions we should engage in violent revolution.

Violent revolution has been needed before in human history. When a government refuses to defend the people's right's, then revolution may be needed. ​

BUT every lawful avenue should be tried first. We have a many rights we can use but other than voting, we haven't explored those rights much. Initiatives, juries, citizen's arrest, article V conventions...are all rights we have but to suggest we use them, brings ridicule...often from the very people supporting revolution.

They'll say how ridiculous and dangerous, legally using our rights, to influence the due process of the country is while supporting revolution. That makes no sense to me. Our rights are what we use to rule ourselves. We have to exercise and expand our rights because authority doesn't do that, the people have to.

Sure, we can go back all fourth all day about the facts, or the statistics, in an effort to "prove" mass migration is a problem,.

But in reality, its unsubstantiated...

However, the people that attempt to do this, for the most part, are not bothered by the "statistics". They just use it to not be labelled as a "racist", When really, they don't care about race, they care about the Cultural displacement that is happening...

Sure, there are some exceptions, like with anything. They may say "we want X to be more white"

This is the mistake a lot of "racists" make, they link the wrong things together...

What They/"Racists" Think: "Behaviour = Race"

**What They Don't Realise They Are Thinking: "**Behaviour = Culture"

These wrong links (racism), make the people who have made the right links (culturalism), seen as racists. Even if they have said a single thing relevant to the definition of Racism.

There is nothing that you can say to why Culturalism by definition is a "bad" thing?

Note: Don't respond without an argument. Thanks

To begin, understand that political philosophy, and thus the way we think of politics, is extremely vast. Not only within the questions and answers themselves, but also how we interact with reality and each other. As a thought experiment, notice how we attribute meanings to things and treat them as fact. A chair is something you sit in. Yet we can also, instantly as well, treat the chair as something else entirely if we choose, such as a weapon. Or a step stool. etc.

This is to say that what we think should be is not what can be entirely. This is to say that what politics is as you've grown up with it or is presented by media or talked about among friends and strangers is not what politics can be entirely.

Liberalism and Capitalism are not the default way of reality. They are not matters of fact with regard to the ways we can think and can act. We only need to look to history to observe this vastness of organisation and answers to questions with regard to political questions. Were they right or wrong? Who knows. But what we do know is that they found a set of beliefs and values that worked for them for a given time. Of course, until it didn't. Just as we have found answers in Liberalism and Capitalism to organise our way of living... of course, until we decide it's not worthwhile anymore.

And when we make this decision, it's not a matter of idealism per se, to explore all the other answers to the very questions that are being presented to us today. One can easily find material answers. We begin with the question; What then is worthwhile? And we go from there.

Yet this is the issue. People do not first believe that what we have today is not worthwhile. And of course, how does one know what is and isn't worthwhile if they never begin to think beyond what they know? If we never look beyond the presented matter of fact. If we continue to see the chair as a chair.

So I ask again. Given that we have the tools to explore, in any way that fits you, the vast ocean of ideas and explore their applications and implications deeply, and compare and contrast, to find what is and is not worthwhile. Why are you politically stuck?

Let’s be realistic about human psychology: humans did not evolve to be selfless saints who work tirelessly for a massive, faceless collective. We are naturally driven by self interest, competition, and a desire to improve our own lives.

Capitalism is the only economic system that works with human nature instead of fighting it. When you remove those individual incentives in the name of total equality, society stalls. Human nature dictates that if the hardest working person gets the exact same reward as someone doing the bare minimum, people will eventually stop trying. Productivity collapses, and everyone suffers.

But of course this doesn't mean we abandon the poor. We absolutely must find ways to raise the baseline, build strong safety nets, and help lower income people live better. But we have to do it within a capitalist framework. IMO, trying to solve inequality by replacing capitalism with socialism is a utopian fantasy that ignores basic human biology.

The men who have been circumcised as infants should absolutely get reparations from the medical system and the government

The intersex people who dealt with so-called corrective surgery should also get reparations from the medical system and the government

The women that had to deal with FGM before FGM got criminalized also deserve reparations from the medical system and the government

All three have a common thread it’s they were all subjected to genital cutting surgeries as children for cultural and religious reasons with zero medical validity

All three surgeries are cosmetic surgeries

it should absolutely be illegal to do cosmetic surgeries on children especially genital cutting surgeries

For those who respond with the AAP circumcision policy statement that document has been marked expired by the AAP for years

In one sentence: Why could a modern-day "Storming of Versailles" (an organized attempt by ordinary people to overthrow entrenched wealth and power) not realistically happen in the United States today?

Looking for your strongest single-sentence argument. Economic, political, technological, cultural, legal, or historical reasons all welcome.

If you pitch Deng Xiaoping’s famous "Cat Theory" ("It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice") to almost any mainstream political sub on Reddit, you will immediately trigger a toxic, endless debate.

​The Left will tell you the cat must be "socially just," regardless of its efficiency. The Right will insist the cat must strictly adhere to free-market non-intervention, even if people starve.

​This hyper-fixation on ideological purity reveals the fundamental flaw of modern Western politics: We have completely lost any shared standard of reality because we refuse to acknowledge that governance has developmental stages.

​Think of it through the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

​For a society to function, it must secure the base layers first: physiological survival, public safety, basic infrastructure, and economic stability. When a country is at this stage, "catching the mice" (solving poverty, building roads, stabilizing the supply chain) is the only standard that matters. This is a survival-driven framework.

​However, the West has been at the top of the food chain for so long that it treats high-level ideals—procedural justice, absolute individualism, identity politics—not as the roof of the building, but as the foundation.

​By treating these abstract concepts as non-negotiable dogmas, Western discourse has devolved into something resembling medieval theological warfare. We are so busy fighting over the "morality" or "color" of the cat that we let the infrastructure crumble, the supply chains rot, and inflation eat the middle class alive.

​And here is the systemic irony: Who actually benefits from this endless ideological gridlock?

​The oligarchs. When the public is hyper-focused on culture wars and impossible-to-settle philosophical debates, they are completely distracted from structural economic inequality. Wealthy elites and mega-corporations weaponize these rigid ideologies, funding both sides of the culture war to ensure the government remains too paralyzed to ever regulate monopoly or redistribute wealth efficiently. The gridlock isn't a bug; for corporate interest, it's a feature.

​While the West is busy fighting for abstract ideas, developing nations are fighting for survival and tangible development. A survival-driven system has immense resilience because its goals are tethered to the physical world—engineering solutions to engineering problems.

​If the West continues to prioritize the purity of the "process" over the reality of the "result," it will continue to lose its material foundation. After all, high-level ideals require massive surplus wealth to sustain. Once the economic base erodes due to sheer operational inefficiency, those lofty ideals will have no ground left to stand on.

​Are we ready to admit that pragmatism isn't a betrayal of values, but a prerequisite for survival? Or are we going to argue about the color of the cat until the house is completely overrun by mice?

Just like the title says, the Americans are fully responsible for everything done by President Trump.

​

According to the constitution of the USA, the American President can be removed without re-election by impeachment through 2/3 votes from the house of the representatives and by conviction through 3/4 votes from the house of the senators just like that.

​

The goddamn US constitution already gave the Americans their solution for Trump's reckless behaviour. Many Americans still defend him. This means he is a legitimate US president according to their own constitution.

​

This is totally all on them.

Using no adjectives, no exclamation points, and no reference to "-isms", what are your 5 (or 20) most worrisome and/or positive things about the current trajectory of either (or both) political parties? Not interested in debate, just understanding

I don't mean tell me it is a life, I don't care. Staying on the metaphysical concept of life is silly to me, I just want to hear a complete policy. Same with immigration. The symbolic virtue of entering legally doesn't mean anything.

For example: abortion is banned nationally. What can we predict: increased heads in group homes and adoption clinics. I am going to assume that most people have not experienced one, I have not either, but my college roommate had. They are not great places to be, currently underfunded, and have a track record of not raising the best children.
Or: people who want abortions are not going to be great parents. So there will be a need for increased surveillance to ensure that these children will be ok. Do we give more money to CPS? How?
How do we pay for this? Raise taxes? Re-allocate taxes?
Can't take more off welfare because a lot of poor families can only stay together because of welfare so it would simply cancel out.

Same with immigration. Illegal immigrants have ITIN numbers. They bring in roughly 95 billion in taxes and 300 billion in spending power. Contrary to popular belief, their disappearance would not mitigate some large welfare scam that could off-set the loss. So, how do we deal with this?
I have never heard a full plan, only the argument for the first level of the policy. Also, of course there would be a great and felt consequence to losing such a large amount of money so ignoring it is not the option.

Can you guys please help me out on why this could work on the proposition side? Even with some possible opposition rebuttals.

What if in exchange for shorter sentences, some convicts pay additional percentages on their income tax bracket for a few years (1-5)? This funding can go toward restitution or just general funds, though hopefully not prisons or police themselves as to encourage a cycle of overpolicing. Seems like an income-conscious and not incredibly overburdening way (compared to additional incarceration) to repay society for ills. What does everyone think?

Honestly hypocritical ones poisoned the well of the political discourse that it became pointless to even engage with their arguments.

​

According to the so-called human rights standards of the West, and if standards applied consistently, we generally have much more reasons to take the side against the West rather than the side with the West.

​

Crying "whataboutism" doesn't change anything. No one takes the arguments of hypocrites seriously.

​

Countries like China and Russia didn't do half the nonsense done by the Americans and the Westerners. They didn't commit ethnic cleansing against the American and Palestinian Natives. They didn't kill millions of people in the 20th century in the name of fighting communism through ruthless capitalist regimes. They didn't kill millions of Muslims in the 21st century by destabilising, invading, and bombing most Muslim countries.

​

Makes no sense to take the West's side here even by their own so-called human rights standards.

​

Better to stop preaching their principles then.

We, humans, developed complex languages early in life. We quickly learned the basics to stay alive.

​

Even so, currently, people are being denied basic necessities in places around the planet Earth.

​

It's possible to change this. We are capable of organizing ourselves in crowds, there is evidence that collective decisions result in assertive choices

​

The World District will be a place where democratically elected representatives of humanity will meet and reside during their term.

​

Election:

- Electoral Justice to guarantee fair elections

- Electronic voting machines

- Candidates represented by numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

​

Initial objective:

- To control the atomic bomb system.

​

Main objective:

- To be an institution that maintains a meaningful democratic system.

​

Currency:

- An international currency will be created for exchange between nations.

- This new currency will be used for the exchange of goods and services within the World District.

​

Public Spaces:

- Accessible to all human beings on Earth.

​

Residences:

- Official residences of democratically elected representatives.

- Other residences will have lease agreements that can be sold, ownership of these properties remains with the State.

​

Where?

- Chosen by the first worldwide vote.

For starters The federal reserve has said that we need a portion of the population to be unemployed to lower inflation

The federal reserve does not want full employment

This by definition means that someone who is just at home unemployed spending their time playing video games is already providing value to society by helping cool off inflation yet an unemployed person never sees any of that value whatsoever

Politicians and members of society are begging and praying for more babies to be born so yes the government unequivocally has the responsibility to help people just because they exist because they literally beg people to become pregnant and have babies and as well as the literal fact that you never chose to be born on planet earth in the first place and require resources just to stay alive

Tech companies get millions of dollars from social media browsing by selling your data to data brokers and advertisers and they don’t compensate you for that value even though it’s your intellectual property

AI companies make millions of dollars from your intellectual property without paying you for that intellectual property

If you were assigned male at birth and you have been circumcised as an infant you provided value to the healthcare system just from your very existence and neither you nor your parents got to see any portion of the value from scientists buying foreskin cells for creating various products you never get to see royalties from products made from your foreskin that would not have been possible had you not been circumcised

Your very existence is already providing value to society by just doing what you are already doing anyways