The USA in particular has one of the lowest voter turnouts and the lowest registration levels of most developed countries.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/21/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/

In 2016 only 61% of eligible citizens voted and only 70% were registered.

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/p20-580.html

And that was a good year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#Trends_of_decreasing_turnout_since_the_1980s

Today's political climate has all sorts of terms being thrown around with varying meanings and history behind them. There are Liberals (political ideology for FREEDUM), and Liberals (foreign policy), and Liberals (economic policy), and Liberals ("conservatives"), and Liberals ("centrist, anti-absolute monarchists"), and Liberals ("democrats"), and Liberals (some other field that annoys the shit out of me). There are Progressives, and Conservatives, Nationalists, Socialists, Social Democrats, unreconstructed Monarchists, Reconstructed Monarchists, Anarchists, and I'm sure some other political identity that I've missed.

So, given the rather long list of ways to identify politically, and the just about as long history for those ways to identify politically, I thought we should have a discussion focused exclusively on the political history of the terms we used.

So, the questions:

1. What terms do you commonly use to describe yourself and others in your political environment? 
2. What is the relevant history that informs the way you use common political terms to describe yourself and others?
3. Got any links, movies, books, etc., that delve into that history?

This has the potential to get hairy because of how broad it is, so I'm going to try to remind people of some best practices that I use when engaging in meaningful discussion:

• Understand before criticizing. - Be able to frame someone's view in a way that they can agree with themselves before critiquing their view. Questions are your friend, but make sure the questions are focused on better understanding someone's view, not on biasing reactions to a view.
• Assume good faith. - Calling people "trolls" makes me very angry. Don't do it. For any reason. To anyone. If your case is so bulletproof that you'd be willing to call someone out for it here, take it to @Deimos instead. I don't want to read it here.
• I Could Be Wrong - There is nothing wrong with having confidence in your view, but there should be some part of you that recognizes you can be wrong about whatever claim you make. Nothing is 100%. Absolutely Only Sith Deal In Absolutes, etc.

I'm a bit behind the news cycle, but I saw the first images of the families being separated on the news last night. I'm aghast. I'm just so utterly confused. Not addressing the issue of immigration or even the splitting up of families...

We don't fucking lock people in cages.

(Sidepoint: I know prisons exist, but this is a very different situation.)

This thread isn't supposed to be about debating issues, just more of a conversation about the consequences/responsibilities for holding certain views. So what's the best way to talk to people with fundamentally different values from you?

There's been a bit of a fuss about the Australian Broadcasting Commission over the past week or so, since the Federal Council of the Liberal Party passed a (non-binding) resolution that the ABC should be privatised.

In this context, I found this opinion piece by the President of the Young Liberals, explaining why he thinks "the ABC is an indulgence we can no longer afford", and thought it was an interesting read.

It's hard to have a neutral position or tone about sexual assault. I think we can all agree that sexual assault is bad and should be punished when credible evidence exists, and I think most of us can also agree to the corollary that it's hard to prove allegations of sexual assault on a good day, let alone 10, 15, 20, or 30 years after the event happened (which is after the statute of limitations expires in many states anyway).

So from this starting point (sexual misconduct = bad, proving sexual misconduct = hard), let's talk about that lovely and unique junction we've been finding ourselves in, in the current year: (1) the use of social media to amplify stories of sexual misconduct and (2) to organize economic punishment of famous persons who have engaged in such conduct (when it is credible enough).

Let us take the case of Kevin Spacey. After Anthony Rapp publicly accused Spacey of sexual advances while Rapp was 14 years old, about a dozen similar stories surfaced to show a fairly similar trajectory of behavior. Even if nothing ever crosses the line into "rape," a clearer picture seems to emerge from these myriad stories of a pretty damn creepy, repressed dude. Spacey lost several acting jobs as a direct reaction to these stories.

We might also look to Al Franken for further insight. In this case, eight women to my knowledge have separately accused Franken of violating behavior, with one pretty outrageous photo as proof of the most famous initiating accusation.

There are plenty of other serial predators that have been exposed in the last year and change too. Let me be clear on this: I see exposing serial predators as a good thing. I hope you do too. There can be a problem of believing claims too quickly, which I think we're all aware of and need to be careful of, but as far as exposing and at minimum economically punishing serial abusers, I think that's pretty much a good for society as a whole, especially when done through legal channels (i.e., a Hot Cosby).

So to the questions:

1. How should we as a society deal the increased ability to share horrific stories of sexual misconduct and abuse?
2. How can our governments adjust to better handle cases of unaddressed sexual assault?
3. How should we individually react when someone we know (famous or otherwise) is accused of sexual misconduct? Along these lines, should we make economic choices based on the allegations that surface about some person?