MrWendal, I have no answers, either. Clearly, something must be done but, though I try to remain an optimist that leans toward realism, I see nothing positive happening that will bring about the results that I believe you and I share a hope of achieving, despite our divergence on how to go about achieving them.

I default back to my issue of time and that we simply don't have it. We first need to get Americans to view one another AS Americans - not as Asian, black, Hispanic, Native American, white, heterosexual, homosexual, transgender, feminist, conservative, liberal, RINO, Progressive, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, Pagan, pro-gun, anti-gun, hunter, vegan, drill, don't drill .... it never ends, does it? We are not a nation of citizens. We are a nation of OPINIONS and forcing our personal lifestyle decision down the throats of others has not only become the national sport, it's close to being an all-out blood sport .

However one views their Creator, we stand in shame before that Creator.

We first have before us the monumental task of uniting Americans AS Americans.

What do you think that'll take? 5, 6 decades of dedicated work IF everyone participates?

What has this week brought us? The damned Chic-Fil-A debacle. One man expresses an opinion and first we have Chic-Fil-A support day and then we have "all homosexuals kiss in the parking lot day." We had a "tolerant" man verbally assaulting a young woman at the take out window - but Mr. Tolerant SO had to prove his point that he waited an hour or so in a line for the sole purpose of verbally berating a young woman who is just trying to make a living doing what most folks would rather not do and, of course, he had to film his abuse of another so that he could prove his tolerance. WTH??!! WHAT did any of that solve? HOW did he know the young lady even shared the opinion of the owner of the company? THIS is what our Nation has come to.

Make that 7 or 8 decades of dedicated work IF everyone participates.

:: sighs ::

No, my realism wins out on this one. While I shudder to think of what the chaos would be prior to the change, I see the only hope of a really great change right now being one that rises out of the ashes of what we, as a Nation, seem h3ll bent on doing to ourselves IF we don't all decide very damned quickly that we'd better get our collective heads together, forget our differences and SAVE OURSELVES. While the Phoenix may be beautiful, the purifying fire is not for the faint of heart.

So, I stand with my viewpoint that opposes yours and that being that we ALL vote. Starting somewhere ..... here ... or a website (or 40 or 400 of them), we begin, as Americans, to identify and freely discuss our SIMILARITIES rather than our differences. We have utterly killed ourselves with our diversity and we must first create a cohesive citizenry. We must convince the 50 or so million people who live on government hand outs that it is the very provider of those handouts who have ruined their lives and will ruin the lives of their children. We must practice social censure within each "community" - each community must take responsibility to stamp out, by practice of social censure, all that is negative within their own community. Then we must unite those communities.

I do understand your stance on not voting and thereby declaring a state of illegitimacy, but my fear of dictatorial takeover in such an event says caution must prevail in such an endeavor. How can one declare illegitimacy without having Plan B already in place, waiting to literally spring out from the wings? Yes, it did work for Iceland and they came together, but we're talking 320,000 people there. We have 300 MILLION here. There are countless suburbs in the U.S. with three times the population of all of Iceland. How do we unite ONE suburb? If that can be figured out, someone might be onto something.

Despite all these differences, despite all the demands that one group or another "deserves" something beyond every other group, WHAT DO WE HAVE IN COMMON other than red blood? There must be something. In fact, there must be many things.

Once we can identify the commonalities (and we must hurry!), perhaps then we can decide for whom to vote and then we blatantly disregard whatever blue leg/red leg marching pants they throw at us.

Your idea of starting at Capitols was interesting. But who would we be backing at those Capitols? What would the demand BE?

Smaller? What if it was at the polls? How could we accomplish something such as almost everyone voting for Candidate "C" and then keep our own public tally at each polling station so that we could throw it into the face of the Electoral College and DEMAND the Candidate WE had chosen?

I have faith in my fellow citizens. Despite what I view as the government's blatant attempts to divide us, I believe we are bigger than that. We just need a 100 million or so to speak up.

I will vote...on issues, not on people to make decisions for me!!!

I will vote with my pocketbook by buying often from Chick-fil-a

I stopped voting over 15 years ago, I realized the truth that it doesnt matter what party a candidate belongs to or what they promise to do if they get elected, they are all the same. They only care about themselves and they will only do what their puppet masters ,TPTB, tell them to do. It doesnt matter who you vote for, the winner has already been chosen by TPTB.

my right to vote is too precious of a right to squander and dishonor by using it to vote for any of these pre selected criminal puppets of TPTB.

I refuse to trivialize my right to vote by being a pawn in their game of corruption.
I refuse to let them use my vote to try to legitimize their corrupt appointed puppets,and unconstitutional laws.

if you vote you have no right to complain because you got what you voted for.
May you get the government you deserve.

Yes, it did work for Iceland and they came together, but we're talking 320,000 people there. We have 300 MILLION here. There are countless suburbs in the U.S. with three times the population of all of Iceland. How do we unite ONE suburb? If that can be figured out, someone might be onto something.

What one man can do, so can one million. Stop and really think how hard it is for 320,000 people to come together? We must admit that is no easy task either, but they did it against what was viewed as a common enemy. If one country can do it, as you clearly admit they did, then why can't one suburb do the same against a common enemy? In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, whole neighborhoods came together and blockaded themselves to defend the whole neighborhood from looters... again, a perceived common enemy. So I do believe people will come together- with the right catalyst.

Your idea of starting at Capitols was interesting. But who would we be backing at those Capitols? What would the demand BE?

Backing? People. There is no Army, Organization or Police force that outnumber the population. What would the demands be? Independence. The stepping down of our Mayors, Governors, City Councils, Congressman, Senators and yes... even President. This simply takes an admission that most of us have already come to accept, our system is corrupt. So the first step to this road has already been taken, it's now a matter of what event will cause the next step.

Smaller? What if it was at the polls? How could we accomplish something such as almost everyone voting for Candidate "C" and then keep our own public tally at each polling station so that we could throw it into the face of the Electoral College and DEMAND the Candidate WE had chosen?

Well we should already be demanding public tallies of voting to begin with. It amazes me that people have not taken to the streets yet demanding reforms to the way our elections work and how votes are "counted". However, under our current system, there will never be a Candidate "C". Sure, there will be one on the ballot. This election cycle, Candidate "C" will be Gary Johnson- but how many debates has be participated in? How often is his name mentioned in any report about our Presidential elections? Do you see his picture next to Romney and Obama with an "Election 2012" banner attached? No you don't and you never will. All third party Candidates in this country are largely ignored by the media who reaches the masses.

I am reminded of a Ron Paul interview during the 2008 election after Paul endorsed Nader. in which he was asked why he runs Republican and not Independent or Libertarian. His reply was brilliant as he drew on personal experience and explain how as a third party Candidate you are ignored. You spend all your money trying to get on the ballots in each State that there is nothing left to actually campaign with to be heard. How if you are not a part of the big 2 Parties- you are not invited to the debates and you have no voice. The system is designed to limit the competition.

I have faith in my fellow citizens. Despite what I view as the government's blatant attempts to divide us, I believe we are bigger than that. We just need a 100 million or so to speak up.

Agreed, but as I have said previously, that 100 million will not speak up without the right catalyst that forces them to do so, and as I stated before I believe not voting is a great first step in that direction. It amazes me how many people will admit to the corruption of our system. They realize that no matter who they vote for- it's not one of "us" , and yet they still think their vote actually makes a difference. Our elections is like being forced to sit in one of two cars that are racing towards the edge of a cliff. In car "A", the driver is going 60mph. In car "B" the driver is going 15 mph. Does it really matter which car you sit in when they are both driving off the cliff?

Interesting, isn't it, Mr.Wendal, that we can have thoroughly opposing viewpoints on how to get there, yet the road we're hoping to travel is essentially the same.

Unfortunately, I can't agree that we are a cohesive society. Wish i could! Yes, we do have millions of citizens who see past color and personal lifestyle choices but it is those who do not that are the fly in the ointment. Worse, I think it is they who will provide that catalyst of which you speak and I believe they will provide it soon.

As macabre as may sound, 9/12/01 was one of the better days in the U.S. in a long while. We were all just Americans that day - in shock, outraged and thoroughly color/gender/sexuality blind. Just Americans buying every flag off the shelf as quickly as we could unless we were close enough to help at the sites of the tragedies, in which case we were there - helping hands, hurting hearts, devoted dedication and an indomitable spirit.

Yes, Iceland did it with 320k people. Yes, I think it *could* be done here ~ at least in one suburb, but it takes us back to that catalyst of which you speak.

And I most definitely agree with you about the catalyst; I just don't think it'll be a nice or initially positive one. In fact, I will go so far as to say I believe the collateral damage of that catalyst will be extreme - more extreme than anything we've seen in this Country since the Civil War. Thus my reference to the ashes.

I think we 'wash,' so to speak, on which method could more quickly produce a dictatorship. We worked pretty hard but came up with no answer. That's okay! If we could get those 100 million to do the same, someone WOULD come up with an answer, wouldn't they? Many bright minds working together would produce many promising results.

We've had some good discourse and I am grateful to you for that but I fear we've come up with no conclusive answers. We simply wait on that catalyst.

All that said, I would like to add this: no matter what happens, I would be proud to stand beside you, MrWendal, as we tried to work our way through that which is to come. I believe we've proven to ourselves and to others that it takes only a small amount of manners and a little courtesy to learn that We Are All Related (Mitakuye Oyasin) and, though our approach and our words may be different, our hearts yearn for the same thing.

If only we could get that 100 million to give it a shot.

Be blessed, sir, and thank you for such a great exercise. Your thoughts on this matter will not leave my head and will forever color a slightly different hue to how I view the voting process and the ways and means which have have at our disposal other than the traditional ones.

You are an asset to humanity and this site and I am humbled to have been the beneficiary of your thoughts.

There was one SF story, I can not remmember the writer, where one guy tried to explain the politics in USA to another guy. You see, if you throw a coin, if it falls on one side, Republicans are to win elections, if it falls on the other side, Democrats are to win. Some third party to win, that is of the same probability as the coin to fall lateral, on perfectly flat solid ground...

Here is an idea(and it would have to start at the local level before the national level would take it serious) we add another option at the voting booth. We need an option to vote for no one. There needs to be an option to reject all the candidates. A vote of no confidence for all candidates on the ballot. It should simply say `No candidates are acceptable.` If no candidates get a majority then we have to vote all over again and the the same candidates cannot run again. All parties would have to offer a new set of candidates and we do it all over again until one candidate wins a majority of votes. And the popular vote must have final say. I have never been a big supporter of the electoral college.

The local level would be a good place to try this because at that level there is still a lot of direct democracy. The actual votes should decide who wins an election. That really is the best way to choose a leader.

Currently I'll still vote, but it's likely for somebody from neither mainline party that won't win. A vote on principle and to make a point of how broken the party system is. If enough people actually did this, that percentage of "other" should be a good indicator of public dissatisfaction with the current status-quo. The way it's set up, not voting at all seems more like a pass and letting it slide. The act of voting for "unlikely to win at all" is the "no confidence vote" when it comes to how things are actually presented.

However if it were my call to really change things, sortition would be implemented for at least one section of representative government. That would take a lot of the politics out of it. It would be the best excuse not to vote for a representative, simply because no voting would be needed in that case. Representation would be by people picked randomly from the district which they reside. No more of this popularity contest crap, party nonsense, and bought media exposure which means only the rich or well-networked get to play.

Imagine if any random citizen plucked out of society by a lottery was the one voting directly on the issues. This could also include yourself. Now think of how many people would pay attention to what the hell is going on in the world, given the chance (even if small) that they may be directly and personally responsible at some point. I know many who would act much better in regards to the public interest, even if faced with a burden like this they never wanted. (Pretty much the opposite of a politician.) Think of how many overly wordy and obfuscated laws would be thrown out. (I know I'd do a tl;dr=vote against, if in such position.) Also a lot of special interest laws that I'd vote against, simply because they were never in my best interests to begin with.

Now imagine going back to dealing with what you left behind after your term is up, and going back to being an everyday citizen. There would be some reward for doing such service while active (the pay should be good enough, given the task involved), but I don't think there should be any special perks or protections once the term is done. This makes sure that anyone selected by such lottery understands accountability does come to into play.

It's not a new idea. It's still used to some extent for jury duty selection. (Albeit with more restrictions than not.) And it was instituted in one of the first known democracies, that of Athens, which seems to be what most western societies hold as an ideal.

However sortition seems grossly overlooked in the history books, but given what it could do to corruption or at least the mechanisms which foster it seems to have a lot of potential. And this is the basic reasoning behind it: once a population becomes too big for everyone to know everyone, it becomes way too difficult to vote for somebody which you could personally know to be trustworthy. This lotto mechanism seriously levels the playing field in terms of who gets to represent and be represented, and could be considered fairer overall. It's an idea that needs to come back to the forefront and explored as a valid concept in future models of governance.

Participation is an instrument of conquest because it encourages people to give their consent to being governed....

Deeply embedded in people's sense of fair play is the principle that those who play the game must accept the outcome. Those who participate in politics are similarly committed, even if they are consistently on the losing side.

Why do politicians plead with everyone to get out and vote? Because voting is the simplest and easiest form of participation by masses of people. Even though it is minimal participation, it is sufficient to commit all voters to being governed, regardless of who wins.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
The US is a Representative Constitutional Republic not a "Democracy" I wish people would get that straight.

Same as Republic of Afghanistan.

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