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[QUOTE=Roger Vick;2802745]Paulie -
With the right to vote, also comes the right not to vote. Plenty of people will say, as you put it: "You know what? I don't know enough about these guys to make an informed decision. I'm not going to vote."
Or, they'll say "I don't care." "My vote doesn't make a difference." Or some variation thereof. And that's fine.
There are a couple of problems when we start to think about our nation as a democracy.
First of all, it's not a democracy. It's a republic. Huge difference. In a democracy, every vote counts and majority rules. In a republic, individual entities (which we call states) elect national officials that they feel will best represent the people within their constituency.
I can see the logic in setting up a republic back in the late 1700s. Back then, interstate commerce was not a big factor. We did not have the infrastructure in place (and obviously the technology) to facilitate true interstate commerce. So, each state pretty much had its own economy and it's own views to represent. They also didn't have the technology to track each individual vote. It made sense, therefore, to give each state a certain number of electorates and have those electorates go represent their state in selecting the next President.
It makes no sense today. State economies are so interconnected that where we live no longer determines what is best for us. I live in Connecticut, but most of my customers are in the MidAtlantic and MidWest. My interests, and my family's well being, are tied to factors well outside of Connecticut. Yet, my state will cast all it's votes for one party, as it everyone in the state voted for that party. In this day and age, that's ridiculous.
The other major problem is the two-party system. It sets up a situation where people don't have to find reasons to support their candidate. All they have to do is find reasons to trash the other candidate. It makes for bad decisions, and bad politics.
Imagine if their were four or five legitimate candidates right now. You wouldn't be able to cast a vote that was simply "Anti-McCain", or "Anti-Obama". You'd have a real choice. And you'd have to really look at what each candidate represented. We don't have that today. The system we have today allows a lot of lazy people to simply say "I support candidate X because he's not candidate Y." Eventually, that argument reduces itself to: "Candidate X is great, and candidate Y sucks." It really dumbs down the decision making process, causes a lot of unnecessary division in the country, and we all get hurt in the end.[/QUOTE]
Interesting.
I guess eliminating the republic would cut pork, as these slobs will no longer be able to withhold their vote until one of their pet projects for their constituencies
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