grrr
ok.. i have a habit of letting a general, non-specifically political rant get kind of political. i think it is in part due to the stress of this impending change. being an election and all. so fnord anyway, i don't know what would be the most of a relief: the election being over, or the election being over with the outcome i'm hoping for. i think it's fair to say everyone who knows me knows exactly what i want in this election. i'm fairly outspoken about my political convictions. but i'm also pretty sure that everyone is aware of how susceptible i am to rampant worry. so today i felt like whatever happens, i'll be very glad when it's over.
that said. i really don't want a certain president to win this election. i think he's genuinely unsound with his economic policy, and refuses to take the better advice of his associates. similarly his level of understanding of how to pay for his strange crowd-pleasing promises... those things really matter to me. his diplomacy is a problem. i'm waiting for him to say something i can't disagree with. but i've already got an adversarial relationship with him.. but still. .. i'm fairly convinced either he's lying through his smiling teeth or he's actually deluded into believing it's all true.. which would be a gross oversight, the kind for which you do not get a second term. and i'll make sure my own vote counts for something, but i know that in my state it's just another number on the pile.. i hope that bill in colorado passes. i hope it leads to the demise of the electoral college system. because it's f*&#ing retarded. deny it. defend it. i challenge you.
that said. i really don't want a certain president to win this election. i think he's genuinely unsound with his economic policy, and refuses to take the better advice of his associates. similarly his level of understanding of how to pay for his strange crowd-pleasing promises... those things really matter to me. his diplomacy is a problem. i'm waiting for him to say something i can't disagree with. but i've already got an adversarial relationship with him.. but still. .. i'm fairly convinced either he's lying through his smiling teeth or he's actually deluded into believing it's all true.. which would be a gross oversight, the kind for which you do not get a second term. and i'll make sure my own vote counts for something, but i know that in my state it's just another number on the pile.. i hope that bill in colorado passes. i hope it leads to the demise of the electoral college system. because it's f*&#ing retarded. deny it. defend it. i challenge you.
3 Comments:
It IS F*ing retarded. And I'm suddenly uncomfortable and I don't know why. But it doesn't have to do with Jorje. He just makes me angry.
Does anyone actually know why historically the Electoral College was created? It's not in my half of the universe, so I guess you do, Brett... But perhaps before we go destroying a system that's just not working for us right this second, we need to look deeply at the reasons it was implemented and try our damnedest to understand them. Also, they obviously didn't get rid of it the FIRST time different candidates won the popular vote and the electoral vote, so perhaps they knew something we haven't figured out?
Just Me being Devil's Bitchvocate...
Indeed.. we do understand why it was instituted. keep in mind that things were very different in the late 1700s, the delegates to the continental congress had entirely different beliefs about who were really going to be citizens. for instance, women, who weren't given the right to vote until over 100 years later, were to be counted as were slaves, but neither could vote. and the electors would then be allocated to represent the population, but the only voters were white males who owned property. tell me, if those were the only people who could vote now, would we have ever had anything but a republican president since lincoln was elected? no. the answer is definitely no. regardless, the electoral college was and institution to remove the common people a few steps from the actual choosing of government. the french revolution and the russion revolution were later, and actually took it a few steps further, so that people were more directly involved (at least in principle). our government was a step away from monarchy, but a small step. we talk as if it were a complete rejection, but we were afraid to do something completely unheard of, and so our constitution very specifically entrenched the power of the rich. and the electoral college is one big example of that.
as for the other times it's happened, i think tilden versus hayes was one of those, and it was a fiasco, and there have been really close elections, or three party elections where the winner doesn't have a good majority, but they win the states because of the winner-take-all system. i think the colorado idea would at least help, but i think we shoudl go all the way. the only people who would oppose this idea are people who understand they would not be in power if people actually had a say.
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