(August 23, 2012 at 12:32 pm)goddamnit Wrote:(August 23, 2012 at 12:16 pm)Minimalist Wrote: No. Our elections are a sham because of the two-party system ( about the only thing the two parties agree upon ) and the primary system.
Yes, and why do we have a two-party system? I can assure you it is not because of principled outliers like me. It is because of people who always vote for the two-party system and justify it with the "lesser of two evils" philosophy. As Noam Chomsky said, polls shows the population is left of both parties.
And let me just add that as we disagree, I respect you and I know we probably have similar political wishes. It is just the course of action we do not agree on.
We have a two party system for the same reason that the founding fathers made slaves count as 3/5ths a person, only gave land-owning, white males the vote, and created the electoral college, which was to ensure that our political system would be run by wealthy, preferably white males. Because the founding fathers were a product of their times, their views, however noble for their time those view may be, were still far from egalitarian by today's standards.
The system was made rigged. It'll take constitutional amendments to un-rig it. That takes congress. We need to worry about state and local elections. It's gotta start from the bottom up. Meaningful social change always starts at the bottom. Change that is simply handed down by the powers that be is seldom a no-strings-attached gift.
Within the confines of our current political structure, the lesser of two evils is the best we can hope for. I understand what you're getting at, but the American proletariats won't rise up until it gets a lot worse.
