Why Does Congress Suck?
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- Опубликовано: 27 июл 2024
- In which John Green seeks to explain why the United States congress has become so astonishingly inefficient that it can't even reach a compromise to avert disaster, and why--thanks to clever redistricting--most congresspeople are now incentivized not to work seriously on policy. Along the way there's a bit of historical context, a lot of frustration, some screaming, and a celebration of the beginning of the 7th year of the vlogbrothers channel.
Thanks for sticking with us, nerdfighters. (And thanks for reading the entire dooblydoo!)
HERE ARE A LOT OF LINKS TO NERDFIGHTASTIC THINGS:
Shirts and Stuff: dftba.com/artist/30/Vlogbrothers
Hank's Music: dftba.com/artist/15/Hank-Green
John's Books: amzn.to/j3LYqo
======================
Hank's Twitter: / hankgreen
Hank's Facebook: / hankimon
Hank's tumblr: / edwardspoonhands
John's Twitter: / realjohngreen
John's Facebook: / johngreenfans
John's tumblr: / fishingboatproceeds
======================
Other Channels
Crash Course: / crashcourse
SciShow: / scishow
Gaming: / hankgames
VidCon: / vidcon
Hank's Channel: / hankschannel
Truth or Fail: / truthorfail
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Nerdfighteria
effyeahnerdfighters.com/
effyeahnerdfighters.com/nftumblrs
/ nerdfighters
nerdfighteria.info/
A Bunny
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'Congress, like a lot of rich people, lives in two houses'
Oh SNAP!
If the opposite of pro is con, what's the opposite of progress?
Literally just about to comment that.
lol, I thought the first comment would be KHAAAANGRESS
Zoravur Singh KHAAAANGRESS
How original.
this is genius
i have watched 6 years of vlogbrothers in about 1 month
Check out CrashCourse and SciShow if you run out of Green
i already keep up with those
That is very, very impressive, I bow down to you. I'm only just getting to this video, and I started back in 2014. People like you keep me going, so thank you and DFTBA :)
keep in mind, it was winter and i don't do much outside hehehe.
Haha, good point. I will be getting to that point eventually, once winter comes. For now, I'm at early 2013, looking forward to seeing how long it takes me to catch up !
I posit that congress in fact does not suck....wait , stay with me. My vacuum sucks; Some special friends :-) suck; These are both examples of action. Since congress is incapable of action they cannot suck.
"Some special friends :-) suck;" well said.....very well said
I'm told that the derogatory use of the word "suck" does in fact derive from cocksucking. The idea is that only cocksucking is something that only gay men and loose women do, and therefore it's shameful. If this is true, then using the word in this way is implicitly homophobic and misogynistic. I don't know if it's true, though--it's just something I heard and it sounded plausible.
Sarcasticron apparently, you are right: “Meaning ‘do fellatio’ is first recorded in 1928. Slang sense of ‘be contemptible’ first attested 1971 (the underlying notion is of fellatio)."
What shocks annoys & confounds me....is that in 2016, it'll almost surely be *_Clinton v Bush_*. Are you fucking kidding me? Have we just accepted that we live in a _dynastic oligarch_ now as if that's totally cool? Elizabeth Warren v Rand Paul would be a start...but even they're career politicians. -Why can't I vote for great -*_-ideas-_*-...instead of disappointing -_-hominids-_-? If only....- I mean, _'Yay Freedom!'_ ^__^
avedic I wonder. Now that we've seen about a hundred days of a non-politician run the show, how do you feel now?
"...Like a lot of rich people, lives in two houses." *bursts out laughing*
+
"... people won't lose faithi in America's ability to govern itself will be a process, it won't be one event, and it will be much worse than going over any fiscal cliff."
Famous Last Words
This video seems oddly prescient now that people REALLY seem to have lost all faith in government's ability to govern.
it's only gotten worse :(
@@CyborusYT Oof, I didn't really want the reminder to come back to this video. Maybe someone in 5 years will comment that things have improved?
@@utherism Ah sorry. One can hope!
John's rants are the best--they come with awesome, clever quotes. And history lessons.
Peregrination +
Peregrination +
Oh John of 2013... little did you know who would be your president elect now in 2017... *sigh
Belinda Weber, I was just thinking the same thing.
Belinda Weber
+ I thought that to. *face palms America*
+
I miss the good old days of 2013 when a historically unproductive congress was the most of our worries.
Errbody vote in 2018 please!
"It won't be an event, it'll be a process." Oh god, what a process it's been.
I love this day in vlogbrothers history thing it's fun
Mollypop +
Holy fuck, HE ACTUALLY DID WRITE THE FAULT IN OUR STARS!!!
Is that news?
You don't say?
+Wayne “The Stone” Johnston its a surpise to alot people who say the movie first and then discovered his videos
It is impressive listening through some of these videos and seeing how on the nose their fears about the direction of the government were going..
And that's how the Tea Party was born. Screw gerrymandering.
Oh boy, your closing statement is proving correct this year
Finally! After 21 days I have watched ALL vlogbrothers videos up to my own year!
Like so many of their videos, they only become more true over time.
1:35 gerrymandering, thank you CGP Gray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CGP Gray? You didn't take social studies in middle school?
im in middle school. sooo, yeah... and so far, i haven't learnt about the american government system.
The shortest split line algorithm CGP Grey discussed is pretty cool.
David Ng Wouldn't you prefer an algorithm that divided everything into natural looking sections?
cuddlepartyatmyhouse Of course, but first, we'll have to define "natural looking".
"CONGRESS!" has become an exclamation of irritation and dismay for me.
We need to fix gerrymandering
Enforce term limits. Politicians focus too much on getting reelected that they don't bother to get anything done.
"That sounded creepy, but it's not." I think this sums up most of my conversations
There's an argument that a large part of why Congress is so polarized and unrepresentative is that the efforts to increase transparency in the 70s gave the wealthy more influence via lobbyists and think tanks and primarily negative advertising rather than giving the public generally more influence. It became easier for congresspeople, especially party leaders, to intimidate or bribe each other to vote for things in exchange for votes or holding discussion on other things. Amendments to bills are proposed to force other congresspeople to vote on things controversial in their districts to split their voters, rather than because anyone wants those amendments to pass. We have voting booths when we vote for representatives, but not when our representatives vote.
Happy 6th Anniversary Green brothers!
8:51 PM, 1/1/2017. 3rd Vlogbrothers video watched.( This time no longer called 'Brotherhood 2.0'.) 👍
Hello from 2019! Every problem you addressed in this video has gotten *EXPONENTIALLY* *WORSE!!!*
Thank /you/: it's extremely pleasant to be able to have a reasoned and polite discussion about politics - and in a RUclips comment thread of all places. (Thus demonstrating how awesome nerdfighters are, of course!)
Perhaps I'm naïve, but I believe that if people understood the hidden costs of government, they mostly wouldn't "just like" it. People may not be wholly rational actors, but when the costs get large enough, people usually /do/ act in their own interests.
Q: Do you like what Congress produces? (people say no) Equivalent question: Should congress be more productive? (people say yes)
I love John Green in a way that is probably unhealthy for a man who is sure about his heterosexuality, but where does beautiful beautiful John find the time to make all these videos (and write books).
The congressional lines were redrew a few years ago where I live, and the guy redrew them was running for reelection the year afterwards. The best part is, he lost. Not because he redrew them to have the odds against him, no it was the exact opposite. He lost because of a complete lack of wanting to be seen, no debates with the opposition just commercials saying how good he is. Sometimes a complete lack of competence will get your ass thrown of congress surprisingly.
Oh my goodness Mr.Green! After pulling an all nighter I have finished reading your books Looking for Alaska and A Fault in Our Stars. They were incredible and inspiring and intellectually sound! Watching your videos has proven that you would probably not put your book to shame if we met in real life. Like Hazel I hope to meet the author of my favorite book not to ask questions but to discuss and revel in the literature! Hopefully if the day comes the meeting will be more pleasurable than hers.
Getting through six years of Vlogbrothers in one year. (I mainly watched on the weekends.)
Started watching at the beginning back in April, probably going to catch up this month! (I watch all the time... ooops)
@@emilyfreas5768 Nothing wrong with that!
This is disturbingly prophetic.
The most influential country in the world has to rethink it's political system and the voting system alike. And no, I don't mean "socialism", for those who get itchy by the word "rethink". Same here in Europe by the way.
Whoo! Cruising through all the old videos, starting the 2013 playlist as of 4:09 pm PSA on 02/22/2017! See you on the flip side!
I love the fact that every time I happen to pause one of John's videos, his face is in a hilarious position.
Update: I have lost faith in the USA's ability to govern itself.
Separating districts had a name... gerrymandering
Nice article, but one quibble: the lines between congressional districts have to be drawn somewhere, so, in theory, the districts can "make sense" and still ALWAYS have situations in which neighbors live in different congressional districts.
I discovered Nerdfighteria almost six years ago! Thanks Charlie!
So gerrymandering is the problem.
It is a big part of the problem. It is called "things aren't going my way? Well lets change the map so I'm not the wrong person, and now all is good for me."
Lets not forget Fillibustering. Once one of the most difficult and dramatic gestures in politics, now all you have to do is declare that you're fillibustering. Hell I don't think you even have to stand up any more.
fundude365 The filibustering that you can no longer do? Yes it is a wonderful system when one of the only tools that forced compromise is taken from us.
and corruption
And let's not forget that the Supremes legalized bribery in Citizens United.
If the prefix "con" means opposite of what comes after... what does it mean if you put it in "progress"?
It would mean with progress in spanglish
I could not love this joke more. You even put in a subtext reference to the cause of the problem (con = conservatives). Sheer brilliance.
"con" means "with" or "being together". Joke killer strikes again!
Jajaunit1 I confidently contradict your conflation of two different senses of the prefix "con." It is also used as a short form of the Latin "contra," meaning "against."
John Green, I love your Crash Course World History videos they are a great supplement to the information that I teach. Also one student asked me where you were from? Because of your closing in your Crash Courses video "like they say in my hometown don't forget to be awesome!" I just found out that your from my hometown. Indianapolis. GO COLTS! GO PACERS! AND EVERYTHING ELSE THAT HAS TO DO WITH THE HOOSIER-STATE. "BEST WISHES TO YOU JOHN GREEN!"
Say what you want, but your shirt matches your wall, like...exactly.
This seems even more relevant now
Sounds like you suffer from some bad Gerrymandering
michigan was recently un-gerrymandered and in the most recent election, we flipped both the michigan house and senate to be democratic and i think that's neat
Little do you know 2013 John how much trust in america's self governance will be lost in one election.
More people approve of Nickelback than Congress
The importance of this & relevancy in 2016/2017!
They named themselves ... from the Wikipedia entry on the subject "The term teabagger was initially used to refer to Tea Partiers after conservatives used tea bag as a verb on protest signs and websites. Members of the movement initially adopted the term, and referred to themselves as teabaggers."
They vote against laws presented by the other side, making the assumption if the 'enemy' made the law, it must be bad. Cooperation and compromise are impossible with the 'enemy'.
I feel like the John and Hank in the top right corner painting are staring into my soul.
If you notice, Congress has no term limits and reelections in the House of representatives and the Senate are at 98%. I would impose term limits in Congress both the House and Senate. 1 term and you're out!!! In order to get rid of the Alligators, you have to drain the swamp!
+Robert Di Giovanni then you have a lot of people who are in-experienced in office also...
Absolutely, all they care about is just wanting a high paying job with endless benefits, experienced or not.
+Robert Di Giovanni
Maybe term limits on the House. But the point of the Senate is to be less representative-based, more experience-based.
I mean, I disagree with the entire premise of the existence of a Senate, but that's how it goes.
+Robert Di Giovanni All we have to do is get congress to agree to destroy their job security!!
Or get Martians to annihilate them with laser guns... yeah that seems more feasible.
The T.C. Yep, I agree. Take their job security away. Once they're out, they can't run for any other office including President or Governor or any other election because they've already served 1 term. Like I said, 1 term and they're out and they hope the door don't hit them in the ass on their way out.
Yes, get the Martians to annihilate them with laser guns. That seems very feasible.
Thanks for sharing your comment. Best regards.
Good morning John! COULD YOU PLEASE RUN FOR PRESIDENT as soon as legally possible!?? I woke up this morning and had this wonderful epiphany that you have the wherewithal to run a very successful campaign, and, more importantly, reinstate my faith in the American government! :)
I'm writing him in next time around whether he runs or not. :)
On an entirely unrelated note, two questions John. 1. If and when there is a The Fault in Our Stars movie will you be one of the authors/creators who choose to appear in the movie or not? 2. There is at LEAST 5 TFiOS fan songs I have come across, all of which are fantastic, would you consider the soundtrack of the movie being made up only of those? Or at least including those?
That is actually a really good system. Problem is, that was Iceland, 1050 A.D., and this is the entire planet, 1012 A.D. Most people just like government, and I'm part of that group. But this has been a really engaging and educated discussion. Thank you. I certainly learned something.
John, I'm not gonna blame Congress for it's failure. I'M GONNA BLAME YOU FOR NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT.
John predicted it eight years ago
Transportation is 2% of budget, Education is 2% of budget, science/health research is 3% of the budget. While essential to a functioning society, these things could be accomplished with a much smaller government and fewer taxes.
Unfortunately people like a big military. Also, people need healthcare, which is a huge portion of spending
Your videos are totally cool! And whatever stimulant you're on, I want some!
"Sounded creepy, but it’s not." Lol
So John, now that you are rich, will you be moving to the other side of the street? ;-)
Boy does this hit different in the future
Oh 2013. How wonderfully naive (and remarkably prescient) your problems were. Sincerely, spring 2020.
I, for one, am glad that President Obama will go around congress this time. Finally, we'll get something done.
you're an idiot it says that the president can not pass laws if not pass through congress and the reason we are in this mess is congress is afraid that the president will, pass laws with no concent like they have done before, I do hope I spelled that word correctly also, the house majority passes alot but then the senate majority just says no to 90% of it so don't say that congress is unproductive if the president would work with congress we could get something done. Of course I don't expect you to understand because people like you will just defend obama no matter what he does.
He isn't passing laws, he's exercising his executive power by issuing a series of 12 executive orders.
***** A power that shouldn't he shouldn't even have. The Executive Order is another way of saying Presidential Mandate (literally it is the same thing) and Presidential Mandates have always been criticized by most people. Changing the name didn't make them any less controversial
xblazex1514x
Laws, orders, and declarations of war were always supposed to be passed through congress. The first time a president did anything without going through congress first was the day we started getting more powerful presidents who half the country hates.
Well I certainly wasn't paid
So all of your work is not because you're smart and work hard, but because we have a government.....
Man, talk about a false choice. Of course being smart and working hard are part of it. Why don't people accept that there's a framework to success?
theonlyguyontheleft Because the framework has to be well defined. Otherwise, it cripples the creative works he mentions.
For instance, you don't want an overbearing government. Look at China or North Korea (which may or may not be the same). They have a very powerful government, but squelch the creative resources. There are material on par with the Vlog Brothers coming out of either of those countries.
Furthermore, you need a sustainable government. 30 years ago, the USSR competed in technology with our government, but it couldn't survive. A government that is first today, but collapses tomorrow, is hardly ideal.
Michael Viselli
Firstly, China and North Korea are not the same at all. There's no 'may' about it. Secondly, the United States isn't even close to being like either.
Also, everything Gizmo said.
theonlyguyontheleft "Firstly, China and North Korea are not the same at all." You lost the argument here.
Michael Viselli
Seriously? You think the nation with the second largest GDP in the world is the same as a country that can't even produce electricity outside it's capital? Escaped North Koreans often have to be trained in the idea of work ownership and currency. It's nothing like China. I lost the argument? More like you have no idea what you're talking about.
Redrawing districts based on political party is called "Gerrymandering" and is frowned upon. In fact many state legislators have tried to stop gerrymandering, for instance in Florida only geographic landmarks and major boundaries can mark a change in district.
Neat stuff
Reminds me of something one of my friends once said: If pro is the opposite of con, then isn't progress the opposite of congress? It would be funny if it wasn't so true.
I didn't know you wrote the fault in our stars! just went on amazon and ordered it!
God I miss the playlist...oh well. LAST YEAR OF MY WATCH ALL THE THINGS QUEST BEGINS!!!
And thank you for making videos for 6 years.
John, I love that your shirt and wall are the EXACT same colour!!!
So what it seems you're arguing is that the process of getting the paperwork is time consuming, not on the citizens end, but on the bureaucratic end (that more citizens making requests backs up the process so that "a hunting trip take(s) YEARS"). I totally agree, the government side of it should be as streamlined as possible ... automation (standardized forms with character recognition software), interlocking databases, and information sharing would go a long way to help that along.
Happy 2017!
Great video.
FYI, your shirt matches your wall paint :P
An interesting point to note is that in the Icelandic system, there wasn't a distinction between civil and criminal law; all crimes were punished by the imposition of damages, rather than (say) prison or a death sentence. This actually worked surprisingly well; you never got rich people going on a murder spree just because they could afford to pay the wergeld. After all, if you do that, some goðorð, sick of you killing his clansmen, will kill /you/ and just pay the one wergeld.
"Can you evidence to the contrary?" ... from "Does Child Abuse Cause Crime?" by Curie and Tekin, Georgia State University, 2006 "We find that maltreatment approximately doubles the probability of engaging in many types of crime." (the entire paper is available online and the National Bureau of Economic Research did a nice summary as well) So if half the population had been maltreated as children, 2/3rds of crimes would be committed by those so abused.
That doesn't directly stop the current bill, because it only bans 'some' pistols. Revolvers, for example, would not be affected.
However, for pretty much all of the firearms I mentioned, you would have to get an FFL license (which is currently only required on actual machine guns), which would prevent a whole list of activities that is too long to put here.
Since the FFL thing is constitutional, what I said about a whole shit ton of guns getting set on fire is a very, very real thing.
I LOVE YOU; thank you for explaining a lot of this. I am an attorney and I learn so much from you in every video.
Well, this has aged simply perfectly
that was actually very informational and interesting...
I LOVE YOUR BOOK
Thank you for boiling down the first two months of my AP Government class into 2minutes..
Doesn't make me feel like I've wasted time at all...
The example he Sean provided and you responded to is exactly the sort of never ending cycle of retribution that occurs when you don't have impartial actors on the scene to break things up.
I shot Jane because she was cheating on me -> Jane's friends stop selling food to me to try to punish me -> I rob Jane's friends because I have no other source of food -> Jane's friends shoot one of my guys when we're robbing them -> I shoot one of Jane's friends because they shot one of my guys -> etc.
It people like you and the Green brothers that give me confidence in our country
Congress: Oh magic conch shell, what should we do? *pulls string*
Magic Conch: ...nothing...
Congress: All hail the magic conch!
My government teacher showed this video in class today. After the video ended, I preceded to tell the entire class about the vlogbrothers at my teacher's request.
Government is not the only way to accomplish infrastructure goals. It is only the most popular. Example of a project was reported by CNN: "Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii's Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park -- for free." Oh and that was done in 8 days.
In the same light of "when your only tool is a hammer then everything looks like a nail" with Congress when your only tool is legislation then every issue is the same. More legislation doesn't solve problems. Here is an example that we all know to well. As a nation we've experienced so much pain due to gun violence. We feel powerless to stop this so Congress helps us feel better through gun legislation. Murder is illegal, shooting another person is illegal, etc. There are already so many laws that are broken that another law doesn't fix anything. Why is legislation ineffective? Because the authorities enforce the law, they don't prevent laws from being broken, nor should they. The Soviet Union was fairly effective at preventing laws from being broken by eliminating freedom. We need to stop looking to the Congress and government to resolve the issues they face. Consider this hypothetical. A Constitutional Amendment is pass to overturn our "right to bear arms". Congress gives the President a magic wand and it is used so that all fire arms in the country disappear. How long will this utopia last. Maybe a few minutes as guns are shipped to the U.S. from Mexico.
*slowly stands*
*claps slowly*
You, sir/madame, deserve an award.
0:29 John there are no words to describe how much I agree with your reaction.
The problem is that the most ambitious, ruthless and self-centered tend to push themselves forward as leaders. We tend to end up with the worst, not the best of the population in charge. That being said, I agree with Carlin. If our "worst" needs to be better, then the average needs to be better.
I thought he was going to say thank you America for running well so I can criticize for how you are run
He kinda did actually.
Informative and very interesting approach to passing political history, and knowledge. Thanks. Now to answer the question of why. I have no Representation, I am a person not a corporation, therefor I have no Representation. I wonder if there are others that not only feel the same way, but also share my values, and other fundamental believes. Then maybe People, Real People, 'We, the People' will finally have representation in Our Nation Again.
Maybe I'm not the only one.
Its more likely I am.
John - Charlieissocoollike did the nerdfighter sign at the end of his newest video! Awesome!!!
Just gonna point out the major flaw in this argument is that under this theory the House of Representatives, which is the one effected by gerrymandering (redrawing of congressional districts) would be the one hurt by gridlock, but the Senate which doesn't have any congressional districts because they represent the entire state. However as he said in the video, both were badly hurt.
This was a helpful use of an example of gerrymandering. Thanks
A recession is two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth of GDP, and a depression is either a drop in GDP of 10% or more or a recession that lasts more than two years. We're not technically even in a recession as of June 2009 because US GDP began to grow again, if slowly, as of that quarter. We haven't recovered yet, but the economy stopped getting worse three and a half years ago. That recession lasted 18 months and GDP didn't fall 10%, so it didn't qualify as a depression.
Good job at simplifying this. Shows why Congress people stay forever and never fear getting voted out.
There is a difference between "Criminals ... the majority had traumatic childhoods." and "maltreatment approximately doubles the probability of engaging in many types of crime."
For most criminals to have had childhood maltreatment, at least a third of the population would have had to have been maltreated, and I don't think it's likely that it's that high, so childhood trauma is, based off of that study and that assumption, not the leading factor for criminality.
Why is the 2013 playlist completely backwards? It makes it really hard to watch them all in order!!!