Let's get rid of the Electoral College

@georgeob1,

Touche

The one thing the world should learn from Britain is that you cant impose democracy anywhere. And don't invade Afghanistan. Or Iraq.
I accept that Britain messed up, but that was in an age when strong military powers imposed their will on others: hopefully we have moved on.
The British empire is now viewed as a genocidal plundering machine, but a lot of people were sincerely trying to do good.
I hope the Americans learn from the British experience: and leave well alone.

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@Fountofwisdom,

Understatement doesn't seem to be you strong point, judging by your name, "Fount of Wisdom"! The Brits fought how many Afghan wars, btw? The Khyber pass was never taken, by them or by the Russians, or by anybody - it's same old, same old:

Quote:

In 330 B.c. Alexander started east. His direct pursuit of Bessus was, however, checked by revolt in Aria (Herat). Turning south, covering 75 miles in two days, he quickly subdued the surprised rebels and moved on into Drangiana (along the Hilmand) and from there relentlessly pushed on into Arachosia (Kandahar and Ghazni), on to Paropamisadae (Kabul-Charikar), up the Panjsher Valley and over the Khawak Pass to Drapsaka (Kunduz).

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@High Seas,

Learn to read: I said learn from Brittain. And don't invade Afghanistan.

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@georgeob1,

It's beyond me George how anybody can write such pompous, absurdly over-simplified, self flattering drivel as that post was. It beggars belief coming from a man of your experience.

It is as if you have projected a sense of your own perfection onto a vast and incomprehensible chain of events in which flawed human beings in their hundreds of millions wrestled with their history and with the breakneck pace of industrialisation when, for the first time, man had what seemed an unlimited energy source outside himself which was blowing his brains.

Do you really think you would have behaved significantly differently had you been in the place of any one of them?

Elemental forces were in play. It was not a fantasy.

Some people think that when you " poured troops into the Western Front" , and it doesn't get much more absurd than that what with it having not a drop of sweat even hinted at, the war was already won due to events on the eastern front and that you came for booty and markets. That you dived onto the wounded animal, your Mother in fact. So much so that Ike said the war would be over by Christmas in late '44. So he knew too. He meant "this is a breeze boys but it takes a while to get this show to Berlin." Obviously, it seems to me. And when it was over the President announced that your troops would be out of Europe in a year.

So you can see why your post created a good belly laugh. It reminded me of that scene in Ecstasy Girls when the father of the lady co-stars was holding forth on their purity and innocence. Very pompously and with appropriate rhetorical flourishes .

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@High Seas,

But all that doesn't mean the Khyber Pass will never be taken.

If the public were willing to give the powers that be the resources it would be accomplished sooner. It will be accomplished. It's our mission. Like it or lump it. How can they not want schools and hospitals and in-car entertainment and going on a site saying- "I asked this girl at a party if she wanted to hang out for a while and she slapped my face. What did I do wrong."

And the reluctance of the public is empowered by posts such as your's. So you are a force for dragging it out longer than strictly necessary in the service of other things you consider necessary. Which conveniently fits the position of those who want the Government to invest in themselves rather than in the future. The Isolationist position.

Don't get me wrong. It's a respectable position. But with modern technology I don't know that it stands up.

The difficulty I have with it is that it looks at the ground and not the horizon and is therefore not romantic. Things get a bit drab without Romance you know. Mind-numbingly so it is said. That's why people search for it and take risks and even at second remove. Expertly faked.

Of course there are costs to expansionism. Where would the argument come from if there weren't.

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@Fountofwisdom,

Fountofwisdom wrote:

The main argument against electoral college is that it results in bad leaders...

That is one of the worst arguments against the electoral college, which is probably why so few people make that argument. The electoral college didn't produce George W. Bush: the political primary system produced him. The two aren't the same. I have my own problems with the primaries, but that's an entirely different issue.

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@Fountofwisdom,

Fountofwisdom wrote:

Learn to read: I said learn from Brittain. And don't invade Afghanistan.

LOL, Fount! I'll learn to read the day you learn to spell - start with "Britain" Smile

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@High Seas,

You seem to avoid intelligent debate: your loss. I'm guessing you're American. Ignorance is bliss

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@Fountofwisdom,

Fountofwisdom wrote:

You seem to avoid intelligent debate: your loss. I'm guessing you're American. Ignorance is bliss

An interesting and revealing juxtaposition. Self-satisfaction and stupidity are always an amusing combination.

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@joefromchicago,

My argument is simple, if your electoral system continually produces duds, then finding a new one makes sense.
The American system has some obvious flaws. Obviously it takes far too long: it leads to power vacuums.
In England the result for each constituency is announced by a state official ---the returning officer: no result is official until this happens. It it better than having the result announced by radio stations.
Also you have to be super wealthy to stand. This rules out most of the population.
It is an outdated system designed for the 19th century. Ditch it.

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@georgeob1,

I've found your posts amusing,if not informative.

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@Fountofwisdom,

Your argument is without foundation. As Joe has pointed out, the electoral college does not produce the candidates. To the extent that you completely fail to understand how the system works, you completely fail to produce a cogent argument.

What is the more hilarious, is to hear this from someone who lives in a country in which there is no separation of the powers of government as between the legislative, the executive and the judicial; and one in which the chief magistrate is elected by no more than the electorate of the district in which he or she stands. Oh yeah, you guys have a wonderful system . . . not.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

An interesting and revealing juxtaposition. Self-satisfaction and stupidity are always an amusing combination.

You're going to find this guy to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys--on the basis of that criterion, he's a laugh riot.

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@Setanta,

I've found your posts amusing,if not informative.

I've already made your joke: perhaps it was too subtle for you.
Surely the debacle of 2004 should suggest that the American system needs tweaking> I understand Americans patriotically cling to the most stupid things: the second amendment. Refusal to join any attempts to form world bodies. Even GATT ---the general agreement on tariffs and trade. Not to mention conventions on human rights,torture etc.
Electoral college has not been taken up by any other country in the world: there is a reason for this.It sucks.
The world has been waiting a year for America to get its act together. It basically has been in a state of paralysis for that time.
When I say America produces dud leaders, I don't just mean Bush: Nixon, Regan, Palin, Rumsfelt.
In fact it is representation for the dumb,by the dumb.

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All of which is to say, that you don't understand why the electoral college exists, how it functions, nor that the college is not in the least responsible for the candidates offered for election.

You are, of course, fee to c0ntinue to display your ignorance and your hysterical, anti-American bigotry. We're accommodating in such matters.

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Setanta, I accept your argument. America has a constitutional right to have a dumb system to form bad government.
I don't think the problem is really the system. It's the electorate.
No wonder its motto is "in god we trust" . God help us all.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

What is the more hilarious, is to hear this from someone who lives in a country in which there is no separation of the powers of government as between the legislative, the executive and the judicial; and one in which the chief magistrate is elected by no more than the electorate of the district in which he or she stands. Oh yeah, you guys have a wonderful system . . . not.

I hope A2Kers are not enabled to know that rubbish. A democratic nation's choice and operation of a particular system in elections is a matter for itself. It is always far too complex to be remotely understood with the "bill-poster's bucket" technique.

FoW- The same applies to the American choice. One cannot "tweak" it. It is exploited by experts who are synergistically in line with gold-medal winners.

We really didn't ought to undermine the Anglo-Saxon project. Which is a sub-division of the Christian Faustian project. Not just to score points of personal dignity. Such things are seen as attempts to stave off a general feeling of worthlessness. And thus doomed.

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@Fountofwisdom,

Fountofwisdom wrote:

My argument is simple, if your electoral system continually produces duds, then finding a new one makes sense.

No, your argument isn't simple, it's simplistic. And if you want to assign blame to the electoral college for the "duds," then you have to assign credit to it for the "not-so-duds." Remember, the same system that produced George W. Bush also produced Barack Obama.

Fountofwisdom wrote:

The American system has some obvious flaws. Obviously it takes far too long: it leads to power vacuums.

What "power vacuums?" What are you talking about?

Fountofwisdom wrote:

In England the result for each constituency is announced by a state official ---the returning officer: no result is official until this happens. It it better than having the result announced by radio stations.

You mean the UK doesn't have its media report on the election results? What are they all doing, covering a cricket match?

Fountofwisdom wrote:

Also you have to be super wealthy to stand. This rules out most of the population.

That is more a function of the fact that, in the US, we don't have the parties controlling which candidates run for the highest office, as is the case in parliamentary democracies.

Fountofwisdom wrote:

It is an outdated system designed for the 19th century. Ditch it.

Your arguments certainly won't convince me of that.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Fountofwisdom wrote:
Also you have to be super wealthy to stand. This rules out most of the population.

That is more a function of the fact that, in the US, we don't have the parties controlling which candidates run for the highest office, as is the case in parliamentary democracies.

Of course you have the parties controlling which candidates run for President. The mere fact that the parties, in turn, choose a method that even allows non-party members in certain states to weigh in on the question which candidate would be the most viable to nominate for the presidential elections doesn't take that control away from the parties.

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@joefromchicago,

You're missing the main point Joe. The assertion of what constitutes a "dud".

Who can say what the alternative to the alleged" dud" would have done. Had the alleged "dud", aka Mr Reagan , been defeated by the peanut farmer you might be all squeezing oil out of peanuts now in a mass cottage industry designed to reduce dependence on imported oil. And eating peanut butter sandwiches three times a day. And holding hands with you wife when you go shopping in order to make some point or other.

Mr Obama has not yet been introduced to the "DUD" maker.

On the "power vacuum" idea, do you think the initiative in Gaza has come at this time for any other reason? The fireworks have been going over for a long time.

Quote:

You mean the UK doesn't have its media report on the election results? What are they all doing, covering a cricket match?

We have all that ****--don't worry your little head about that. We have a point in time when somebody is elected. It's when Mr Returning Officer says so. And some of them are right Charlies. We don't really trust Supreme Courts. They get corrupt you see. Have you not read Rabelais? Did it scare you?

Most of the people who cover it would give their high teeth to be in the cricket network but you have to have captained, or at least been a leading light, to get your nose in that lush tent.

I consider the American system to be a work of art. I have enjoyed it no end during the last frenzied period. It looked like an exciting suspense movie designed to take everybody away from the realities of the situation. A collage of fascinating sound and vision bites not unlike a 300,000 piece jig-saw.

Don't change it. There's no need to "tweak" it as FoW suggested. It will tweak itself. Please don't ditch it.

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Let's get rid of the Electoral College

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