roundup

[rone]

Via sanspoof: hundreds of people draw Batgirl.  Maybe the artist types who read my journal want to participate in the mindless nuttery, too.

Via jennyaxe: "[Alito's] motive... remains unclear."

Don't recall where i saw it, but this proposal for a one-party political system in the United States makes so much sense, i predict it will be widely ignored.

Comments

[cheesetruck.livejournal.com]

Leilei (miss theodore) did the batgirl thing. Haven't seen Pix's or Jayne's yet but they post less often.

Wait, there are 2 parties in the US? Recently? Are you sure?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yes, you can tell which ones are which by the scowls.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Bah, another "play to lose to bring the revolution" manifesto. I think Nader already did that.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Okay, that was a low blow. How about: We already know what happens with Trotskyites join the Republican Party. They turn into neocons.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

WHEN they join. Fingers broke.

[frosch.livejournal.com]

I've said it before, and I might as well keep on saying it: the problem with our system is an excess of democracy. The Republicans continue to win as they become ever more efficient at pandering to the mob. The Democrats continue to not give a shit, individually, as long as they can hang on to their seats.

The thing that allows our two current parties to get away with monopolizing the system is the biennial orgy of democracy that we've made of our federal elections. The founders intended them to be simple: each congressional district elects one member to the House, everything else to be taken care of by the state legislature.

Instead we have the bullshit we have, in which, for purposes of selecting federal leadership, our opinions as alumni of elite private universities are exactly equivalent to those of the illiterate schizophrenic who hit you up for booze money last time you were downtown and the toothless meth freak cooking shoplifted Sudafed in the john of my local Wal-Mart.

It doesn't matter how many parties there are, or how many rounds of elections we have. It turns out that most of the presidential primaries are an utter waste of time and money anyway; most of the time I can't vote for the candidate I would like to see nominated, because he's already withdrawn from the race by the time the local primary comes around. In effect, the first round of the election occurs only in Iowa and New Hampshire, which is yet another reason we shouldn't be surprised that the Republicans keep winning.

The real problem is that most of the electorate is not qualified to vote intelligently, and is thus putty in the hands of Atwater, Ailes, Carville, and Rove.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

If that were the case, why do Republicans spend so much effort on suppressing voter turnout and establishing ever more onerous registration and "fraud prevention" regimes, especially in poor and black neighborhoods? The 2000 presidential election in particular was probably swung by bogus enforcement of felon-voting prohibitions.

It's a nice idea that we'd have a better government if only qualified people had the vote. Who decides who's qualified: you, or the crypto-segregationists who keep complaining about unqualified voters in the National Review? I can guess who's more likely to have a say.

[frosch.livejournal.com]

It's a nice idea that we'd have a better government if only qualified people had the vote.

Go read the constitution. There's nothing in there about a popular election of presidential electors, or even of senators. In the original design, senators and presidential electors were chosen by state legislatures. Vote fraud was a non-issue, because everyone knew who the voters were, and who they voted for. Legislators (if they're interested in continuing in office) treat their votes as a responsibility to the public rather than as a personal birthright to be spent any damn way they feel like, and thus use them more responsibly.

This might seem intolerably antidemocratic, but it's essentially the way most of the rest of the first world governs itself. Everyone votes for his local member of parliament, and the parliament figures out how the country is going to be governed.

I don't flatter myself with the thought that I ought to be sitting in the state legislature. It just really gripes my ass that we spend millions upon millions of dollars every four years on this extravaganza when it's such an ineffective means of doing the job.