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Europeans To Monitor American Voters
shonagon53 writes "The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy. But since the Florida 2000 fiasco, things have changed.
Europe's famous Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) will now be monitoring the U.S. elections. The institution normally monitors elections in third world countries in transition, and in crisis areas or regions where civil wars have destabilized the political process. In november, the OSCE will be monitoring local and state elections in Kazakhstan, Skopje, Eastern Congo, Ouagadougou and... the United States.
As
the BBC reports, for some Americans this comes as a humiliation; others see it as a necessity, since they have lost trust in the American election process."
As a sovereign nation, our elections are our own business.
I RTFA but I couldn't find anywhere that stated who called this shot. Did the OSCE make the decision? Some aliens with freaky oblong bodies? Crazy extremist politico nuts? Or maybe all 3? I'm not saying I think elections should go unmonitored (although fucks up started well before 2000). I'm just curious as who's idea this was and how it was 'passed.'
What's the point... the turn out for voting is always at an all time low... the system is flawed... we need a better system to elect people to
Yep, it's called the popular vote.
If the popular vote was implemented before 2000 we wouldn't be suffering from the insane megalomanical texan from hell(aka as 'w' in the sheep-fucker/slave master circles).
Unfortunately I live in a conservative state, where my voice won't be heard. It's really demoralizing to know that a few scattered no-consequence swing-states will determine our next president in november.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Europe hates Bush, as does most of the world... or at least his war monger cronies. Someone has to come in and make sure ol Jeb Bush isn't messing with the results.
Considering the how the democrats have rigged elections in the past it would probably be the other way.
Making up bullshit seems to be a common trend with European advocates for some reason. It's almost as if they hope no one from the other side is smart enough to see through their ploy. Sad.
So we are going to let the Europeans try to teach us about fair democracy? WTF?
In 2000, when Haider became PM of Austria, the EU disliked him enough that they insituted seven months of sanctions to drive him out of power.
The underlying message to the citizenry of the EU is shockingly clear: Only vote for the people or parties that we like, or else.
There are 3 people in a room - 2 men and 1 woman. The 2 men vote to rape the woman, the 1 woman votes against it. The vote passes and the rights of the minority are trampled.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Let's see... He graduated from Harvard with an MBA. He spends too much, but Kerry would be worse. He's a far better leader than Kerry (Kerry has no direction). As for the world community, I hope he pulls us out of the UN and removes troops from Europe. I happen to agree with his "you're with us or against us" in the war on terror, and everyone has occasional grammatical gaffes. And, since I'm a lay preacher, I hope God speaks through me, too. To those of us who are in the Body of Christ, that God speaks to His children is of great comfort. Having been outside for many years, I can understand how it can also be quite frightening.
i knew it the rest of the world is tired of being in second place..(like the french) so in november when we relect The best president ever george w bush!they want to send in their spy to watch us and sew the seed mistrust in our goverment!
How absurd. The fact that the country did not break into civil war is because we ARE a bunch of lazy, scared, ineffectual morons.
One of the best ways to prevent uprising is to make sure your population is either constantly hungry, constantly scared, or constantly stupid.
Just to spell out the obvious:
There's a good book you might want to read up on that pretty much explains it all. Unfortunately, said book has become almost a cliche and therefor inadmissable in rational discussion.
You know, you're right.
The US has never been about democracy.
The US has always been about freedom.
Freedom to vote for whom I wish, even freedom to choose not to vote if that's what I want.
The fundamental basis of the American mindset is the "nobody tells me what I can and can't do" attitude, and that's precisely why Americans get up in arms when the rest of the world tries to tell us what we should and shouldn't be doing. That's why this country was founded -- because the Puritans, then the colonists 150 years later, were tired of being pushed around by the British.
Now, don't get me wrong. I agree with very little of what the current administration is doing. Nobody had better tell me what to do, but I'm willing to reciprocate that to the rest of the world: I don't feel as though I have the right to tell them what to do, either. That's why I have such a problem with the whole "war for democracy" idea. Who made us the world's police? The Republicans can argue about the moral relativism of the French and Germans until they're blue in the face, but I still don't think war against Saddam Hussein had anything to do with protecting American citizens, connections to Al Qaeda, or some perverted sense of altruism toward the people of Iraq.
BTW: Castro *is* a dictator. He may be less heinous than Pol Pot or Stalin, but if he is such a great leader running such a wonderful country, why are people always trying to escape from Cuba?
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
On the contrary, treaty provisions are given priority over the United States Code, and the Constitution assigned foreign affairs to the federal government. The monitoring provisions under the OSCE have the full force of law.
I will withold comment as to whether Republicans stand to gain by claiming treaty provisions are invalid.
What always confuses me, as an outsider, is why so often in discussions about the political system in America, the opinions of the 'founding fathers' are invoked as a standard by which the current situation can be gauged in terms of its democratic legitimacy. Who cares what they thought, or what their purposes were in setting up obscure systems like the electoral college?
Ah, the arrogance of the young ... the past can hold no wisdom for us, we are so sophisticated and wise now ...
For one thing, the states only agreed to join the union based on the compromises and assurances of the founding fathers. You may think that it is OK to just chuck that out once the deed was done, but it doesn't seem quite right to me ("whoops, sorry Vermont! We were just kidding about keeping huge population centers from making all the decisions. Hope you don't mind").
The Electoral System is weird, but it has a number of positive benefits, the most being that it makes individual votes more important. The 2000 election came down to a couple hundred votes(!) not 100,000 or whatever the popular count was.
The electoral crisis was caused by Gore refusing to back down after he lost. The Democratic party sent in an army of agitators, made up stories of voting irregularities (have you seen the infamous butterfly ballots? They're the same damn ballots we used in California for 20 years that noone ever complained about. But suddenly they were confusing and misleading) and started protesting. Go go Jesse Jackson, destroyer of faith in the American System.
By the way, Chinese people I know have never heard of that proverb / curse thingy you quoted.
Refusing immigrants citizenship has nothing to do with racism, that's just sound politics and economics, it is very costly to pay for these freeloaders.