[geeks] Fahrenheit 9/11

[Brian Dunbar]

On Jun 24, 2004, at 12:49 PM, Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Jun 2004, The Renaissance Man wrote:
>
>> And a sad reflection on how badly the system has broken down.  It's no
>> longer a question of voting for the candidate whom you think will best
>> represent your views and wishes in government, but rather looking over
>> the puppets and hacks that the political machine offers you and 
>> figuring
>> out which one requires the least diligence in holding your nose 
>> against
>> the stench.
>>
>
> The problem is IMO that the system in this country is set up as a 
> "winner
> takes all" which is not very representative of such diverse society.
> Ideally the system should have evolved into a more "parlamentary"
> approach, which caters to a more representative election process. There
> would be a tendency to still have two major parties (left/right) but 
> the
> smaller issue "centric" parties would also have a voice in the 
> process. A
> society as diverse as the USA should have been far more aware of the
> representation issues, the one size fits all to politics is rather
> dangerous. The current lack of differenciation between demos and 
> repubs is
> a clear warning.

 From the point of view of a guy whose belief system is all over the map 
(little Left here, little Right there) the differences between 
Democrats and Republicans are not as stark as the Party leaders would 
have us believe.  We're mostly just Americans, we believe in freedom 
and prosperity, no one likes a lot of government getting in our way and 
we want to be left the hell alone.

It's the extremists from both ends that can't get along with each other 
and are antithetical to the American tradition of getting along and 
compromise.  They're mucking up the program, in a big way.

~brian