the founding fathers were not aiming to replicate “pure” democracy. they were creating a democratic representative government. don’t forget that voters did not directly elect senators until 1914!
keep in mind the constitution was written in a time where nobody knew what real democracy would look like. perhaps the founding fathers’ fears that democracy could turn into mob rule were unfounded. but at that time they didn’t know what to expect.
[quote=“Flipper”]the founding fathers were not aiming to replicate “pure” democracy. they were creating a democratic representative government. don’t forget that voters did not directly elect senators until 1914!
keep in mind the constitution was written in a time where nobody knew what real democracy would look like. perhaps the founding fathers’ fears that democracy could turn into mob rule were unfounded. but at that time they didn’t know what to expect.[/quote]
Both of these suggest it is time to reform the system: Americans deserve a “pure” democracy, not a puree; a contemporary constitution, not an archaic one.
i have the greatest respect for mccain and he is the only politician i’ve ever made a contribution to(during 2000 primaries), but i disagree with him on his campaign finance reform arguments. you can’t control who spends money on a campaign. what if i spend $5000 of my own money making an anti-kerry website? are you going to shut me down because i’m indirectly helping the bush campaign? complete government control of the flow of information is untenable. what if i set up a kerry-bashing website in the bahamas? are you going to ban my ip because my advocacy is an illegal act of “lobbying” by a special interest?
the only way to deal with it is full and complete disclosure. energy companies give a few million to bush? just make sure it’s well documented and the media will run with it anyway. in the age of information, trying to shut down information is hopeless. you have to make such an abundance of information work for you.
so exactly what does a “pure” democracy entail? which country comes closest? should we abandon our current government for a swiss model?
Surely the point is that the sytem(s) should be representative of the voters’ choices. If a president is chosen expressly against the wishes of the masses, how is that democratic?
against the wishes? please. if you don’t understand the rules of the election before you participate, don’t whine about it if you lose. gore won the popular vote, bush won the electoral vote. according to the us constitution, the winner of the electoral vote is president. bush was chosen as president of the united states by the american people through the mechanism of the electoral college.
it’s also much more democratic than a government that doesn’t even directly elect its most powerful leader(great britain, canada, japan, sweden, etc).
The “whining” isn’t after the fact, it is extant.
You’ve said it yourself: Bush wasn’t elected by the “people”, he was “chosen” by a higher power. Granted it’s within the costitution, but this debate is about whether that higher power is fair in this day and age.
But Americans didn’t elect their leader; the electoral college did. And the powers of a, say, British Prime Minister fall far short of those of a President.
the us is a representative democracy with compromises made to the member states. if you think anything less than pure democracy is unfair, then almost every democracy in the world is unfair. i happen to think it’s fair, but then it’s all a matter of opinion, isn’t it?
[quote]
But Americans didn’t elect their leader; the electoral college did. And the powers of a, say, British Prime Minister fall far short of those of a President.[/quote]
americans elected their president through the electoral college. just as americans approve amendments to the constitution through their legislatures and representatives.
britain, sweden, canada, australia, and japan. ALL of them are nominally the subjects of hereditary rulers. and NONE of them have ever directly voted their most powerful leader into power. i still consider them democratic. do you?
Because the way the winner-takes-all system is set up, there can only be two parties. A vote for the Greens or Libertarians is a vote wasted. If you look at polls of people’s actual opinions, those parties aren’t fringe at all in their beliefs - millions of Americans agree with the Greens, the Fundies, the Libertarians, the Socialists, etc., but realize that realistically the only path to power is to hold your nose and go with either the Democrats or Republicans. In over two centuries of the American Republic, there has been only one successful third party - and that was a fluke that happened on the eve of a civil war. A proportional representation system would be much fairer than the winner-takes-all system we have now; it would ensure the rights of the minority opinions have a voice in government and increase diversity in public debate.
One of the problems that annoys me with a two-party system is that debate over the issues becomes so Manichaean. There is no room for honest debate in a two-party adversial system, because the whole point is to demonize the opposition - and because there is no other choice but between the evil opposition and you, you don’t have to bother with putting forward anything constructive or positive. The Democrats vs. Republicans comes down to which side can more successfully portray the other side as whacko nutjobs. The entire presidential “debate” in 2004 boils down to “who’s more of an asshole: Bush or Kerry?” Just look at the IP Forum - how many of the regulars are actually honest in their debating tactics? How many are actually posting with the intent of seriously contemplating the issues from more than one side? And how many are just out to score points off the enemy? The latter far outweight the former. You’ll notice that when there are more than two sides to a debate, there’s far more honesty and nuance - more is actually addressed. I realize that a multiparty democracy isn’t perfect, that all governments and political parties devolve into some level of corruption and mudslinging, but how could any changes to the American system be that much worse than what we have now?
Flipper,
You raise a valid point. (Insert snide remark here.) I’ve been living outside the US so long now – six years – that I wasn’t up on McCain’s positions until I did some research but my respect for him rose the more I learned about him.
How do you reconcile freedom of speech with limits on campaign contributions?
I don’t have a good answer because I haven’t put enough thought into the complexities yet but the first answer that comes to mind is ‘there’s no constitutional right to buy the government.’
That may or may not have any validity to it. I’ll get back to you on that after I sober up a bit (strung out on too much real work right now.)
There are two reasons why the majority of Americans don’t even bother to vote, ever:
a) Apathy
b) the realization that under the current system, their individual vote is far all intents and purposes - worthless
If the current system is so great, then why are are well over half of Americans eligible to vote so dissatisfied with the process that they don’t even bother?
[quote=“mod lang”]There are two reasons why the majority of Americans don’t even bother to vote, ever:
a) Apathy
b) the realization that under the current system, their individual vote is far all intents and purposes - worthless
If the current system is so great, then why are are well over half of Americans eligible to vote so dissatisfied with the process that they don’t even bother?[/quote]
exactly. why should i bother? new york is a done deal. it’s stupid.
The fact is that this election is going to be decided by roughly eleven states - Missouri, Arkansas, Ohio, West Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Maine…etc., I forget the rest - the traditional swing states. Those are the only states where your votes matter. The rest of the states are sewn up - there’s no point; Texas is delivering its votes to Bush, New York to Kerry, it’s a done deal and nothing, nothing you can do is going to change that. You might as well throw your vote away to Nader or the Libertarians, for all the good it’s going to do, if you live in the other 39 non-swing states. Or more to the point for most Forumosans, if you’re sending in an overseas ballot - it’s wasted rubbish, it’s going to come in too late to count.
The reality of modern American democracy:
“This summer, swarms of Democratic Party lawyers, propagandists, harassers and assorted operatives have been conducting an unsavory war against my campaign’s effort to secure a spot on the presidential ballots in various states. It is not enough that both major parties, in state after state, have used the legislatures to erect huge barriers, unique among Western democracies, to third party and independent candidacies.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60689-2004Sep3.html
Interesting article. Masterful last sentence!
However can the American presidency be contested by more than two parties, realistically?
Would any further division of the electorate just guarantee victory to the side that did not split? If another party arose (Green, Reform, Libertarian, whatever) could it do so only by completely co-opting, and driving off the ballot, the party nearest to it politically?
Or is there room enough on the issues for a new party to draw support equally from democrats and republicans?
and while we’re on the subject of every vote counting, my own pet peeve as an Idaho, then California, voter:
They should a) open polls for the same hours in every state, time zones be damned, and b) outlaw calling the winner before polls close. The last hour or two of open polls in California see people voting in full knowledge that a winner is already known. Let alone Hawaii. This would require voting to take place on a holiday, which it should anyway.
I don’t think trusting the wisdom of James Madison more than that of Senator Clinton is stupid at all.
Anyway, look at Math Against Tyranny. This makes an intelligent/logical case for retaining the EC.
[quote=“Tempo Gain”]you are an American.
I am an American, not a citizen of big NYC or dunghill iowa.
this is 2004, not 1779.[/quote]
Indeed I am a citizen of the USA. However, as the USA was established as a republic and as it utilizes a federal system, I am also a citizen of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A popular vote would just about do away with the federal system that has served the US quite well for the past 200 odd years. I don’t know of any good arguments for doing away with the federal system. Do you?
As an aside, my favorite part of the essay I cited above is this:
[quote]How could a boy who grew up in the Bronx, played ball in the streets, and attended public schools in New York City not have absorbed the common wisdom? … The more Natapoff looked into the nitty-gritty of real elections, the more parallels he found with another American institution that stirs up wild passions in the populace. The same logic that governs our electoral system, he saw, also applies to many sports–which Americans do, intuitively, understand. In baseballs World Series, for example, the team that scores the most runs overall is like a candidate who gets the most votes. But to become champion, that team must win the most games. In 1960, during a World Series as nail-bitingly close as that year’s presidential battle between Kennedy and Nixon, the New York Yankees, with the awesome slugging combination of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Bill
Come now, it is not as if Senator Clinton dreamed this up. Tagging the idea with her name for the purpose of attacking it seems pointless to me. I have to agree with you about trusting Madison more though 
No need to do away with the federal system. The President is the executive head for the entire nation and leads under the federal system, I see a strong case for having him elected directly by his national constituency–each person in the country would have an absolutely equal and fair say in electing the national leader. my vote would count as much, no more and no less than any other American’s. As such it would have real value, far more than the largely symbolic value it has now in my case. I for one would be far more inclined to exercise my right to vote. A more representative voting procedure would be good for our democracy and bring our nation closer together.
[quote]
As an aside, my favorite part of the essay I cited above is this:
How could a boy who grew up in the Bronx, played ball in the streets, and attended public schools in New York City not have absorbed the common wisdom? … The more Natapoff looked into the nitty-gritty of real elections, the more parallels he found with another American institution that stirs up wild passions in the populace. The same logic that governs our electoral system, he saw, also applies to many sports–which Americans do, intuitively, understand. In baseballs World Series, for example, the team that scores the most runs overall is like a candidate who gets the most votes. But to become champion, that team must win the most games. In 1960, during a World Series as nail-bitingly close as that year’s presidential battle between Kennedy and Nixon, the New York Yankees, with the awesome slugging combination of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Bill
Did you read the article where he author explained mathematically that the EC gives your single vote more weight?
A popular vote would indeed harm the federal system.
[quote]
As an aside, my favorite part of the essay I cited above is this:
How could a boy who grew up in the Bronx, played ball in the streets, and attended public schools in New York City not have absorbed the common wisdom? … The more Natapoff looked into the nitty-gritty of real elections, the more parallels he found with another American institution that stirs up wild passions in the populace. The same logic that governs our electoral system, he saw, also applies to many sports–which Americans do, intuitively, understand. In baseballs World Series, for example, the team that scores the most runs overall is like a candidate who gets the most votes. But to become champion, that team must win the most games. In 1960, during a World Series as nail-bitingly close as that year’s presidential battle between Kennedy and Nixon, the New York Yankees, with the awesome slugging combination of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Bill