Check out what happened with Canada and tossing some $18 billion down that sink hole and that was just for fighting Taliban. The military under the Libs Paul Martin shifted the agreed mission from hunting for Bin Laden to fighting Taliban who can never be beaten. Yes, Stephen Harper gives me the same impression as does Gov. Romney. He gives me the impression he'd gladly fight Iran. The fighter jets the PM wants to be buy are attack jets. Experts from the USA say that is not right for Canada as we should be more on defense.
Voter Bias - not prejudices is a better word where voters vote their bias and against their interests and fail to hear the messages the politicians are REALLY delivering. This is quite historic and one can see the worst extreme in Germany where Hitler reigned as folks didn't believe he'd actually do what he did.
The easiest example is this. Voters in Canada and the USA will vote for someone who professes their faith in God yet practices policies that violate the "What would Jesus do?" question. George Bush loved my aunt and uncle - highly devout fundamentalists - but not my the sister (my mom nor dad) who while good Christians don't vote for people for those reasons but look to see has preferred policies.
The old adage that kept the Liberals in power for over 75 years mostly in Canada was among many older voters "Tory times are tough times." My father and mother -in-law voted the Libs for that reason for their whole lives!
What has happened in Canada and the USA is that candidates go for the sound bites that play into the biases of the electorate despite actually having policies that these same voters will be hurt by. Voters don't vote their self interests as you'd expect.
The pols use polls to find out what the public want to hear and they go to the message box and repeat until the folks get it. People love to vote the winner so they use the polls if undecided to be on the right side of history.
We are now looking for our grumpy candidate who talks like I think even if he is offering policies that harm my interests. Gays in right wing parties and gays voting right wing. Fundamentalist Christians vote for stingy people who would not help the poor. And on and on.
Voters in the west have fragmented along more narrow lines looking for the party that talks like we think rather than at the bigger policy picture.
That is how the right spends so much money in Canada and the USA. That is why our PM is allowing the Chinese to gobble up oil and gas deals which we should be alarmed about but give him a pass as he is conservative.
China Trade Deal a '31-Year Ball and Chain' on Canada
Expert says treaty gives Chinese corporations powers to override Canadians' self-determination.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, 19 Oct 2012, TheTyee.ca
China Investment Treaty: Expert Sounds Alarms in Letter to Harper
Toronto-based authority urges PM to halt ratification, laying out numerous 'deep' concerns.
By Gus Van Harten, 16 Oct 2012, TheTyee.ca
Gus Van Harten
Gus Van Harten is associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and author of Investment Treaty Arbitration and Public Law (Oxford University Press, 2007).
I am not flagging this as some sort of anti China person - I am opposite but is this deal a good deal for Canada. This is scary but silence from voters.
If voters didn't vote biases voters in the USA would elect Obama again in a romp as the lesser of two evils as they surely must know for the other guy to give the tax breaks he wants for all will be have to be paid by the masses at the bottom. Most voters are listening close and trust too much. Yet studies consistently show this to be wrong (see link). Romeny is committed to a tax deduction that costs $5 Trillion but has not said which loopholes they must close. He also said sort of casually the rich will not pay more as a % of total fed. inc. tax paid now. That means by logical extension someone else has to pay more. That is the Middle Class who now get a mortgage ded. etc.
His job projections (mitts) of 12 million have never been done and are being assailed as nice to have aspirations but this has never been done.
We might not have hit bottom yet in this fragile economy. Businesses are sitting on cash waiting. Not hiring. Not expanding. Waiting for the US to settle where they are going.
The US has undergone a massive structural change and those old manufacturing jobs are not coming back - not now, not ever. This means they must do what the USA has done best and that is innovate and create and the best folks to go down that path are the Dems now who want to move funds from war back home. Wow that would be great too for us.
The Myth of the Rational Voter
Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies
by Bryan Caplan
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa594.pdf
Even placement on the ballot favours those listed on the top of the ballot. What does that tell you about voter bias. This is factual and the same in Canada:
ttp://
www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/opinion/04krosnick.html?_r=0
Op-Ed Contributor
In the Voting Booth, Bias Starts at the Top
By JON A. KROSNICK
Published: November 4, 2006
Candidates listed first on the ballot get about two percentage points more votes on average than they would have if they had been listed later (flipping a 49 to 51 defeat into a 51 to 49 victory). In fact, in about half the races I have studied, the advantage of first place is even bigger — certainly big enough to win some elections these days.
How do we know this? Well, consider this: In California’s 80 Assembly districts, candidate name order is randomly assigned. In 1996, Bill Clinton’s vote tally was 4 percentage points higher in the Assembly districts where he was listed first than in the ones where he was listed last — a difference that persisted even after we took into account pre-existing Democratic registration levels in the districts.
In 2000, George W. Bush’s vote tally was 9 percentage points higher in the districts where he was listed first than in the districts where he was listed last — again, persisting with registration taken into account.
