American democracy

TapTheForwardAssist

The American form of democracy sucks.

Voting rules are different by state. In one place, you get a mail ballot and can just send it in; in another, you may have to walk a mile and wait in a long line to vote in person. Makes no sense.

We do everything else online and with mobile devices. Why is voting stuck with balloting systems from 1982?

People in big empty states like Wyoming get two senators — the same as densely populated states like New York. How is that fair?

Why are we living in a system where 41% of Senators representing 21% of the people can block any bill from passing? That’s “democracy?”

I want more choices. People representing third parties have very little power in America. Democrats suck. Republicans suck. Not much of a choice.

How about legislators drawing district lines to insure they get reelected? My vote doesn’t seem to matter if you’ve gerrymandered the crap of it. What a stupid way to determine who represents me.

For that matter, why am I lumped in with people who live near me? Maybe I’m more like people two states over. Why do geographical units vote for legislators and governors, instead of groups with common interests?

How did we end up with a system where justices who ended up in place by the luck of who was president when the previous justice died get to invalidate any law they want?

Money from mysterious sources floods our media with attack ads filled with lies. Is that really supposed to help people make wise choices?

Of course, we can also vote based on what we read in slanted media that only shows one side of the story. Not much better.

Our system favors people who are good-looking, make feckless promises, and have money. Are those really the best people to have in government?

Smart people get the same vote as stupid people. Moral people get the same vote as evil people. How is that supposed to make things better?

And we’ve picked some absolutely moronic people to put in government. And we’re generally stuck with them for the years of however long their term is.

Let’s face it. American democracy sucks.

But if you prefer to reject it, toss it aside, and take control and attempt to retain your position by invalidating votes, intimidating vote counters, and mobbing the capitol, I want you to pay.

Because yes, our democracy sucks. But it’s the only thing between us and fascism and dictatorship.

God bless our awful system. I may hate it, and it may be wicked hard to improve, but let’s keep voting and counting votes as fairly as we can.

Eventually, our democracy tends to correct itself. Awful people get voted out. Laws change. Judges find unfair things and block them. Our system can’t get any better if we give up on it and take up arms.

So let’s punish people who do that, okay?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

6 Comments

  1. “Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.” –Winston Churchill

  2. “But if you prefer to reject it, toss it aside, and take control and attempt to retain your position by invalidating votes, intimidating vote counters, and mobbing the capitol, I want you to pay.

    Because yes, our democracy sucks. But it’s the only thing between us and fascism and dictatorship.”

    This. All this.

  3. As much as this Representative Democracy sucks, and it certainly does, it is clearly better than anything else we can see (as Sir Winston said). Most suggestions for improvement have a negative effect that would likely be as bad or worse that the original rule. The three branch system was meant to slow things down to prevent emotional or flip / flop decisions. Our current 50 / 50 divide takes that slow concept to an extreme and nothing seems to get done. There has not been an adult in the government to build any type of consensus for at least 2 decades. I pray for this nation every day, that it will rise from its current disfunction and begin to focus on our common interests instead of what separates us as a nation.