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I'm a little confused by some peoples point-of-view on this thread. Political parties aren't custom-designed to appeal to the sensibilities of one specific individual within society are they? It's unlikely that any party/MP you vote for is ever going to be 100% what you want. Waiting around for that shiny, golden, fantasy political party to arrive seems like a waste of time.
to quote myself from earlier in the thread:
it seems quite valid to ask how unlikely it is that any candidate will ever meet all my desires. then again there have been plenty of elections where neither candidate was someone I could stand to vote for. not just "this candidate does not have the same views as me on clams" but "there is not a single candidate who is not, blatantly, either a crook, or a proven liar, or basically just a scumfuck who obviously wants to be in office to get rich and powerful and not to represent me or anyone else".
I'd be interested in what people would prefer in place of the representative democracies many of us are living in, by the way. It may be better in another thread, but I think the criticisms of our current system doesn't really work so well without some idea of a better alternative.
I'm with Quantum here - though I can dream of various robotopias with the best of them, I'd be happy to just take the idea of democracy and run with that - the problem being that our current version of democracy is not what it should be.
It is my understanding that many democracies in Europe have better restrictions on campaign donations than we have in the US. that'd be a great start. less influence of money on elections.
another thing would be viable parties besides the big two. again, I believe most countries in Europe have this figured out and I think it's a wonderful thing. Politicians would actually have to (pretend to) stand for something, instead of just be *against* the only other alternative.
and a more pure, less representational democracy - scary but I think much less scary than it was when this country was set up. originally the idea was that the average American was a lumberjack or a tobacco farmer who was illiterate and uninformed. today between free public (shitty) education and (almost) universally available internet, these shouldn't be problems. if we can get umpteen million people to vote for American Idol in 0.5 seconds we ought to be able to do more things with the popular vote. less elections of people according to weird rules and court appointments, more elections of people who actually had the most votes. less someone deciding for all of us that we need Congresspeople to have a raise, more people voting to not be in another war. hopefully.
yes, America, like everywhere else (and maybe worse than most), is full of idiots who will vote for scary stuff. but I think the average American these days is literate, is required to have at least a junior high level understanding of government/history/geography, and has access to a cell phone or the internet even if it's at the library. there is no longer so much of a justification for Representatives.
perhaps some sort of general test for Informedness could be required for your right to vote - show that you have some idea what a President does before you vote for one, make you find Iraq on a map before you vote about whether or not to invade it...naw, I'm probably dreaming about utopias there again.
personally, I feel but cannot prove than in any "real" democracy people will end up voting for a more and more socialized system - as much as everyone wants to be rich, people don't want to starve or get sick even more. on the other hand, people always seem to want to vote against taxes too, so maybe we're stuck... |
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