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How We Used To Vote
Mr. Slippery writes "Think hanging chads, illegal purges of the voter rolls, and insecure voting machines are bad? The New Yorker looks back at how we used to vote back in the good old days: 'A man carrying a musket rushed at him. Another threw a brick, knocking him off his feet. George Kyle picked himself up and ran. He never did cast his vote. Nor did his brother, who died of his wounds. The Democratic candidate for Congress, William Harrison, lost to the American Party's Henry Winter Davis. Three months later, when the House of Representatives convened hearings into the election, whose result Harrison contested, Davis's victory was upheld on the ground that any "man of ordinary courage" could have made his way to the polls.' Now I feel like a wuss for complaining about the lack of a voter-verified paper trail." The article notes the American penchant for trying to fix voting problems with technology — starting just after the Revolution. This country didn't use secret ballots, an idea imported from Australia, until quite late in the 19th century.
Wait, what?
Last time I checked more accountability for elected officials is always better.
Vote early and often! :)
Granted this was only way back in 2000, but I lived in St. Clair County, IL. It was a small township called French Village. At 8am, the mayor knocked on my door and informed my wife and I it was time to vote. We marched down to the fire station with him and twenty other poor people. They passed out leaflets stating which democrats we should vote for and why. There were no republicans running in our little township, so good luck dissenting. They also explained how important it was to vote democrat and how we should not consider ourselves welcome in the community if we failed to vote. We cast our votes and all went well. However, you had to fill your ballot in at a table with everyone else who could fit in the room at the time and the mayor literally acted as a monitor!!!
You mean so they can be held accountable even *less* than they're getting away with already?
Or did I miss some <sarcasm> tags in your post?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
the pro side would say that its hard to buy the house if they are secret... exact reason we have secret voting...
There'd be no incentive to bribing a Congressman..
..except to make corrupt proposals, which no one would have incentive to vote for.
Think hanging chads, illegal purges of the voter rolls, and insecure voting machines are bad?
Yes.
If card check legislation gets signed into law by the next administration, we'll see a return of the "good old days."
Some American please explain me: why do you have voter registration at all? In my country (Netherlands), everyone above 18 is registered by default. I assume this is similar in most of Western Europe. The only caveat is that you have to be registered with your municipality, which you have to do anyhow for various different reasons (municipal tax, getting passports/ID/driving licence ...). A few weeks before an election, you simply get your 'voting ticket' in the mail. You typically take this to a neighborhood school to cast your vote, usually electronically.
Making everyone eligible to vote by default would save a lot of those voter-fraud claims and a lot of effort by the campaigns to get the people registered.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
You mean so they can be held accountable even *less* than they're getting away with already?
Or did I miss some <sarcasm> tags in your post?
How can big business buy votes if they don't know who voted for what?
Slashdot doesn't seem to have adjusted for Daylight Savings. Tch tch.
Fill a circle in run it through a scanner, nothing could be more simple and foolproof. I am
really unsure why any voting district would want to use anything other than the scan card system.
Got Code?
What are you smoking!!!
If they could do this in secret then that allows them to be bought out more and nobody ever knows!!!
Last i heard they were voting for ME, not them so i better get to see how they vote.
A man carrying a musket rushed at him. Another threw a brick, knocking him off his feet. George Kyle picked himself up and ran. He never did cast his vote. Nor did his brother, who died of his wounds.
I'd like to see Karl Rove top that.
Now I feel like a wuss for complaining about the lack of a voter-verified paper trail.
In the face of something between malfunctioning and fraudulent electronic machines, aren't you a wuss if you accept the lack of such a trail? I think that complaining/protesting something like that is a sign of conviction, strength, and frankly just giving a crap about something beyond yourself that you stand for.
We sort of accept the rule of law in this country (bear with me), so complaining in its various forms -- soap, ballot, jury ... let's stop short of ammo -- is the way you assert your constitutional rights. While it isn't storming the gates, isn't it a modern counterpart?
The states actually determine who is a eligible voter. Some states deny voting privs to convicted felons, some can vote reguardless even in prison and others can vote if there imposed sentence has been served. Personally I think once a mans
sentence has been served he should be eligible to vote else it imposes (taxation without representation) on the individual.
A great many states have poll day registration you walk in with a utility bill, drivers license or something of that sort and
you can register to vote right then and there.
Got Code?
You slavery and jim crow laws (apartheid).
Then on what grounds would you be able to judge if your congressperson should be reelected or not?
Regardless of any possible benefits this is a terrible, terrible idea. A legitimate public financing system would be more of a step in the right direction.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
One could judge them on their speeches before Congress and on their proposed legislation - particularly if it was adopted by a fully anonymous vote.
"This country didn't use secret ballots, an idea imported from Australia, until quite late in the 19th century. "
Thanks Australia! We'll return the favour.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
So the various Congress Critters would all agree to vote "yes" for pay raises ... except for one who would vote "no".
Then, while campaigning, they can ALL claim to have voted against it.
And so on with every important issue.
The same way they buy them now: they wine and dine the pol, and make them think that X Corp are swell guys. Just like managers choosing IT products over a golf game.
Give the politicians a little credit. Most of them aren't corrupt, just ignorant as bricks.
This was a really fascinating article.
Interesting articles like this, that I may not find on my own (Don't read the New Yorker) really exemplify why I love slashdot.
That was a great use of my day to read that, thanks /.
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
Not everyone can kick the shit out of fascists trying to steal their vote. Nor are they necessarily aware that it's happening.
Well to be fair the UK's House of Lords is an unelected body that holds no accountability to anyone and they've looked out for the "average Joe" way more than the elected and accountable house of commons.
You'd be surprised how honest people can be when their job doesn't rely on what the average dimwit thinks.
There are about four groups of people working to rectify this problem. The one I've been following is Punchscan which looks like they have everything covered except fraudulent registration. Slashdot covered Punchscan here.
You'd be surprised how honest people can be when their job doesn't rely on what the average dimwit thinks.
... which is an excellent argument against electing judges.
But don't tell me that you are not already in 10 different databases from the moment you are born.
The database is a relatively recent innovation. Its use in government for the purpose of tracking citizens even more recent. A lot of citizens feel that a government that tracks the location of each person from birth to death is inviting abuses of government. That notwithstanding, that's what we have today, and the tracking is getting ever more thorough. In some places they install tracking devices in every auto, presumably to "more fairly" assess road taxes. The emergency services telephone operators have access to a cellular phone's GPS equipment to precisely locate a caller, and phones without this equipment are generally not available. More and more public cameras observe the comings and goings of citizens about their daily chores.
A tyrant with this much information would not find it challenging to silence dissent, discreetly.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The article makes the interesting point that our founding forefathers considered secret balloting cowardly. Clearly they did not anticipate violence as a tactic to tamper with elections. Our founding forefathers thought it was important to include an amendment stating that you could not be forced to quarter troops against your will in times of peace, clearly not anticipating that it would not really be an issue today. Some of our founding forefathers thought that slavery was alright. Not all of our founding forefathers thought separation of church and state as we take it today was a good idea.
It always strikes me as strange that people take the constitution as more than just a set of generally good ideas and precedents written by talented individuals. People act like because our founding forefathers said X, it was handed down by God himself.
I usually run up against this when the constitution seems to disagree with my liberal leanings (I'm sure someone will want to get into a pointless discussion of the second amendment, but we've all been down that road), but it's not limited to just that, and I'm sure it runs both ways.
More specific to elections though, isn't it about time we abolished the electoral college and go right to a popular vote? There is clearly no legitimate reason for it to still be around. Electors rarely switch their votes, and, as the article points out, the founders saying it's a good idea does not make it so.
You know, they really should bring back the scarlet letter and witch trials. I mean, if someone sitting next to you got a promotion that you didn't, you would be able to start the whispering campaign that your rival cut a deal with Satan.
This is my sig.
> Well to be fair the UK's House of Lords is an unelected body that holds no accountability to anyone
> and they've looked out for the "average Joe" way more than the elected and accountable house of commons.
Only in recent years, since most of the real power was vested in the House of Commons. It's not accountability that corrupts, but power. (And no, I don't have a solution. Well, I do, but it's worse than the problem.)
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Republicans in the USA tend to believe that not everyone should be allowed to vote. Specifically, we would ultimately prefer that only people who own property should be allowed to vote in order to prevent the socialist idea of masses voting themselves wealth transfers from upper classes. Therefor, voter registration would be a separate process as it was a different set of people.
However, we lost this debate utterly to the Democrats, and so, more or less, have this idea that everyone should be allowed to vote, but with the vestiges of a separate process until such time that we Republicans can really get back into power and repeal that god-awful Constitutional amendment.
This is my sig.
In Australia, we have the AEC (Australian Electoral Comission)
They run both state and federal elections.
As far as I or anyone else can tell, they are efficient and accurate.
In one day, 16million votes are cast and counted throughout the country with results known before bed time that same night.
How is it that our little country can manage this while there are lines around the block in the USA days before the election?
There's nothing that the Americans do that appears to be efficient or accurate.
I dont think in the entire history of Australian voting that anyone has questioned the validity of a vote.
There have been a few recounts, but they were shown to be surprisingly accurate the first time.
Time to sit up and look around at the world in which you live America. The world has far surpassed your technical and proceedural level. As harsh a blow as that might be to the collective ego over there, it's true.
This is part of what's costing your country so dearly in so many ways.
Somehow you're clinging to the superpower status, but just because our old uncle can still knock anyone out in a fight, doesnt mean the world doesnt laugh at his diminishing abilities.
i'm more worried about stupid racist white people rioting when he's elected. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Ejf5UCn0Y
Just because Company X can't be sure that Congress Critter Y didn't vote for Proposal Z, doesn't mean they won't still try and bribe them.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
that is possible, there are plenty of those too.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Actually, it *would* make it harder. "We can't be sure he'll *actually* vote our way... why bother..."
True having zero accountability and only unelectable people would probably lead to a dictatorship which would likely lead to something that's not favourable to most but like anything it's a case of not going to either extreme.
The UK has a situation where it sort of has both extremes and, imo, when you do that the unaccountable ones will always win out in the end because the Lords are human too and have the same needs as the rest of us. Having the threat looming over that they could lose that position probably helps but relying on people within power that are 100% accountable to the public through election would end up in some sort of pro Daily Mail government that bases its laws on Littlejohn, the immigrant, with anti immigrant rubbish rants and other laws based on rubbish the common masses read from the guy who sits comfortably in Florida.
It's unfortunate but most people aren't capable of voting in their best interests. In an ideal world Reagan's trickle-down economics were correct if you'd rework them to make them less extreme. It's a fine balance that needs constant adjustment to ensure no one gets too much power.
That's where the problem lies. To get things right requires constant thought and evaluation. People don't want that. They want to press a button and then it's sorted but that won't happen ever. Constant fluctuation to keep people on their toes and thinking is uncool and will never win. The house of common / house of lords setup, as it's currently working, is probably the best people will get.
You'd be surprised how honest people can be when their job doesn't rely on what the average dimwit thinks.
... which is an excellent argument against electing judges.
True.
Having 3 equal groups within a government and one that isn't accountable to the uneducated masses works best. It keeps thing balanced.
... which is an excellent argument against electing judges
You have it all wrong.
All judges get elected or put into their positions through some political process be it vocal or non-vocal. Ascension to such a job still will pass through other human beings with opinions of their own. It's an undeniable fact of life.
The correct question you should be asking is this. "How and by whom should judges be put into power?
Life is not for the lazy.
Isn't the greatest trick the devil ever pulled convincing the world that he didn't exist?
He helped steal an election, out an undercover CIA agent, formulated lies that led our nation to war, may not see one day of jail for it, and can continue to deny that he was involved (of course, not on record). He can now join G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, and many others of the faithful party who have broken US and international law, and yet are somehow immune to the legal system.
Only in the last few years with the accession of appointed peers; the old hereditary chamber was a bastion of reaction.
I'm going to guess that the reason it works is because the House of Lords acts as a check and balance against the House of Commons. I'd imagine the House of Lords is sort of like a random sample of the rich and educated. Which isn't necessarily the group you'd want ruling you, but perhaps as one of the groups representing you they aren't so bad.
I mean, the chick in the scarlet letter was smoking hot. If smoking hot chicks that put out had to wear a scarlet letter, what's really so bad about that, if you are a guy?
This is my sig.
I knew this was all Clinton's fault, but I wasn't sure how.
All judges get elected or put into their positions through some political process be it vocal or non-vocal. Ascension to such a job still will pass through other human beings with opinions of their own. It's an undeniable fact of life.
The correct question you should be asking is this. "How and by whom should judges be put into power?
I agree. The point really is, I suppose, that once a judge is appointed, he/she doesn't have to worry about being re-appointed. Doesn't have to worry what the average dimwit thinks about an issue, for fear of not being re-elected.
The law is the law, and shouldn't be controlled by current community opinions.
They already edit the congressional record. What would be the point of secret ballots?
The law is the law, and shouldn't be controlled by current community opinions.
How is that not counter to "by the people, for the people"?
If enough fucktards want to change the law, move elsewhere and watch them get their just deserts.
Informed decisions based on public debate that includes experts on subject matter will probably lead to better decisions than the will of the average mob. But the law is the people's, not the elite's.
It's easy us to look down on people. But consider this: there may be smarter people than us who govern us. Would we want to be cut out of the loop because we weren't elite enough?
You guys should come up to Canada and see how we do it (essentially an Austrailian ballot). The thing is, Elections Canada is really on the ball. They could teach you guys a thing or two about how to run an election.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The problem with public financing is it would put the government in charge of who gets the money. Otherwise you would have to fund every party, no matter how crazy. Would you support the public financing of a pary dedicated to making the life of the Slashdot user amRadioHed miserable?
The Democrats couldn't figure out how to vote.
This is one of the problems we have these days, and one of the things that has lead us down this road of abuses of freedom of speech and so on. You, like many others, have this idea that the Constitution is just some document that we should ignore when convenient. Well, that's not how it works. Our legal system is such that the Constitution is the highest law of the land. All other laws must conform to it. It isn't just something to be disregarded when convenient. That's how our legal system works.
So for example if you want the electoral college changed or abolished fair enough, however that requires a constitutional amendment. In case you don't know what that requires, I'll tell you: 66% of both houses of congress need to pass it, then 75% of the states. It isn't easy to amend the Constitution, and that was done on purpose.
Also you might want to learn more about it because you might come to respect it as more useful. Barring a Constitution, any of the crap the Bush administration wanted to pull would be perfectly legal. If federal law was the be all end all, then so long as congress said "ok, it's legal." Now if you are ok with the government just trampling on rights, well then fine. However I don't want to hear bitching when they trample on the first, but silence when they trample on the 2nd.
I can make a compelling public safety and order argument for trampling on/abolishing ANY amendment.
The Constitution isn't just some quaint little document, it is the very foundation of the US government. It is what united the states in to a union, it is what defines the limits of the federal republic we live in (the US is a republic, not a democracy, there's a difference) and so on. It is also the document on which just about every other free nation has based theirs on. So it is something important to understand, especially if you live in the US and are thus subject to it's law. This idea that it is just a quaint piece of paper to be ignored at various times is extremely ignorant.
The fact that public voting opens the door to bribery is a problem.
Having a secret government, in which the people do not know how their congressmen voted, would be a much bigger problem.
So we pick the lesser of two evils.
In Arizona at least, we do the "fill in the circle" voting. When you are done, you go run the ballot through a machine that checks for you. If there's a problem, like you voted for too many people in a certain section, you get to go correct it. When you are done, the ballot is accepted.
I suppose there is a slight risk with early voting, but not a big one. So long as you actually read the directions, it isn't a problem. Goes double since it isn't as though a machine's count is taken as final. People still check over the result. So if one of your bubbles happens to not read on a machine, no problem so long as a human can recognize it and count the vote.
I don't think the grandparent meant that they are perfect because machines do all the work. He meant that they are easy, and there's not any of this bullshit about "Oh there's a hanging chad, what does it mean?" or "I'm too confused by the ordering to figure out who I'm voting for." It is a clear, easy system that is easy to use, easy to verify, and easy to count.
Actually, they're not voting for you.
You voted to elect them, so the implication is you found them to be a worthwhile representative.
But they do not have to vote how you (or even the majority of their constituents) would have voted.
They may not get elected again, but that's not the point. You can't fire them. You can just choose not to pick up the option on their contract.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/13/081013fa_fact_lepore?printable=true
Hmm...too bad then, that here in the US, we switched to allowing the populace to vote for our senators, rather than having them appointed.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The problem is that each state, and even districts within states, appear to have their own election laws and bodies. In Australia, and here in Canada, federal elections are all coordinated by one single federal body.
As for voting methods, I like Ontario's way of doing it for Provincial and Municipal elections. You fill in an arrow next to your vote (or votes, depending on how many things are up for vote) on a very easy to understand legal sized piece of paper, hide it in a folder, and then it's fed into an optical scanner that looks like a photocopier, and stored in a safe inside the unit. Instant tabulation, and a paper record of votes under lock and key.
Federal elections are pretty simple: One candidate, one vote. You put an X in a circle on a simple as hell paper ballot. That's it.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
A man carrying a musket rushed at him
Back in my day, we had to run at people on foot, with muskets. We didn't have any automatic weapons, or low riders. There was nothing like the fancy drive-bys you kids have today.
Just stay the hell off my lawn!
Have gnu, will travel.
By buying the whole congress at once: if the law is passed/failed as desired, everybody gets more bribe money. If the vote shows the wrong result, the company reduces funding.
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I was saying two things. One: it's not infallible, and does need to be changed occasionally. Two: one of the things that should be changed, now, is the electoral college system.
Nothing about how we should junk the whole thing. Nothing about it being trivial. Nothing about it should be easier to amend the consitution. Nothing about getting rid of the second amendment.
Calm down.
Both PP and GP are making jokes about secret ballot as if it is a bad thing.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Since many years ago now you have to show ID to become legally employed in the US. If someone hasn't shown it, the employer just fudged something. If they are working a job and didn't show any ID, they are working illegally and off the books most likely and not paying taxes. In other words, shouldn't be eligible to vote. All states provide non driver's licenses picture ID for free or very cheap, if someone can't be arsed enough to go get it, who cares? It isn't *that* hard. If you can't do the bare minimum to establish your legal bona fides, it isn't the states lookout to do it for you. Really, why not come out and say it out loud, why be a chickenshit about it, here's reality: the people claiming it is hard to prove you are a legal citizen over age of 18 and eligible to vote want to shoot the vote to 20 million ILLEGAL aliens. You know I am right, doncha? C'mon, admit it, that's the real scam here, amnesty for the illegals. And I worked hard back in the day (a long time ago probably before you were born) to help black folks and poor white folks get to vote, because they had a *legal* right to do so, and that was wrong, so this isn't racism, it's just reality, illegal aliens do NOT have a right to vote here and nor should they, and trying to run some scam claiming all the legal folks are having a hard time coming up with ID is just that, a scam.. And it has nothing to do with being middle class or not, even homeless *legal* folks can vote if they have ID, a recent court case affirmed the right of some dude to use a park bench as his legal address, but he still needs an ID to vote. Anything beyond that you are talking about completely crazy/insane/mentally incompetent people and...oh well, no vote, and do you really want those folks to vote? It wouldn't be those folks voting anyway, it would be their "handler" voting for them in the booth. Fail. People who can't establish a really low threshold of adult competency..well..we will always have some cracks to fall through, for 99.9999% of everyone else, it just isn't that hard to go get some three dollar picture ID.
Where does this magic number 3 come from? Is it just because you're American/French? Most democracies get by fine with anything between 2-5 groups. (Calling the groups "equal" is, of course, ridiculous and meaningless in any government.)
Don't feel too bad about complaining. You're in good company.
"We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections."
-- John Adams
How is that not counter to "by the people, for the people"
Maybe it is, but who cares? This country isn't built on the idea that anything that 51% of the people can agree on should happen.
Ever notice the Bill of Rights? That sort of thing would be pointless, indeed obstructionist, if the intent was to let the populace do whatever they felt like.
True, direct, 100% democracy does not work. Democracy is two lions and a lamb voting on dinner. The US is not set up as a direct democracy and this is a feature, not a bug.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
From the article...
"Voting, Mill insisted, is not a right but a trust: if it were a right, who could blame a voter for selling it? Every man's vote must be public for the same reason that votes on the floor of the legislature are public. If a congressman or a Member of Parliament could conceal his vote, would we not expect him to vote badly, in his own interest and not in ours? A secret vote is, by definition, a selfish vote. Only if a man votes 'under the eye and criticism of the public' will he put public interest above his own."
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
.
The modern House of Lords has only the power to delay legislation.
The representation of heritary peerages in the House of Lords was more or less extinquished in 1999. House of Lords Act 1999
When the House of Lords had the power to veto legislation it was very different institution and far less friendly to the "average Joe."
The application of the law is not "by the people, for the people", nor can it ever be. The application of the law, is by the law for the law with a smattering of justice thrown in depending on how just the law is in the first place. The people can(in theory) change the law, they can certainly change the people who made it, they can change the people who enforce it, and they can even change the constitution if enough of them want to.
They can't decide how the laws which have been written will be applied(without rewriting them at least), and should not be able to. It is the judiciary's job to decide whether the law is in violation of the constitution, and whether everything has been done according to the law. We have juries to decide facts, but we need independent and ideally impartial judges to decide the law.
We need this because neither the mob, nor the government can be trusted to protect the rights of those it believes guilty of a crime. If either group had complete control of the application of the law then anyone who the public(or government) believed was guilty of a crime would have no protections under the law. No judge who has to face reelection will ever throw out evidence against someone accused of a crime which the public finds particularly heinous because it was illegaly obtained. No judge who has to face reappointment by the government will protect the rights of someone who speaks out against that government.
The law must presume that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and must protect the rights not only of the innocent, but also the accused, and even the guilty. It must do this because the protection of those rights is what makes the USA what it is, it is, or at least was, the shining light of our society, it's what allows any degree of fairness in our legal system whatsoever, and allows us the freedoms which construct our lives.
The people have the right, and the ability to determine what those rights are, they have the right and the ability to determine both the content and the enforcement of the law, but they cannot control its application, because they cannot(at least as a group) be trusted to treat everyone, even the guilty, as equal before the law.
That doesn't mean that judges are perfect, or that they are always capable of the impartiality which they are charged to uphold, but an educated, reasoned individual has a lot better chance than a mob. If you want to continually reelect/appoint judges then you can kiss you rights goodbye if anyone ever accuses you(guilty or not) of anything which gets the mobs blood boiling.
The point that grandparent is trying to make(I think) is about rule of law. In order to have rule of law, law must be uniformly applied, as written, to the greatest degree possible. Allowing popular opinion to sway particular cases is anathema to that. This doesn't mean that "the elites" get to make law(The people directly or through representatives make law.) But it does mean that the people cannot be allowed to decide to apply or not to apply the law they have written in a given instance.
In essence, by having the people write the law and making its application as rigorous, uniform, and automatic as possible, we uphold the rule of "the people" with as little as possible of mob rule. In specific instances, with emotions running high one way or the other, "the people" are fantastically unreliable(generally aided, these days, by the shrieking emotion peddlers of the press). The best compromise we can strike between some sort of nonrepresentative rule and mob rule is a mechanism where the people write the laws first, to address society in the abstract, and then the laws are executed without regard for the emotions of the mob in any particular instance.
Your head is either in the clouds, or in the sand. If you think Bush pushed an Iraq invasion for any purpose but the acquisition of their oil resources, you're doing a great job of ignoring nearly one hundred years of history. This is the fifth time the US and/or Britain have invaded Iraq since oil became the most necessary component of the modern military. You may think it's a coincidence, but I urge you to read something besides opinion pieces.
The Bush White House may be saving him face for the moment, but I haven't seen any compelling argument against the dozen or so books that provide good evidence that he not only ordered the manufacture of the famed letter about Nigerian yellowcake, but went out of his way to have the CIA discredit all evidence - and there was a lot - to the contrary. Defending the president because he's the president is the sincerest imitation of soviet era politics, but so is destroying human rights for the sake of security.
James Kirchick is the former Ralph Nader supporter who couldn't land any writing jobs until he unabashedly began parroting neoconservative talking points, right? Who graduated Yale barely two years ago? What are you, part of the McCain campaign?
And your other source, Norman Podhoretz, is a member of the PNAC. The bias is so deep and obvious I can't even come up with a witty analogy for these two. Bravo.
So which is it? Both of their momma's were white.
Also no way for the constituents voting for them to know if they got what they voted for.
He could just take their votes and letters and vote however he was going to vote anyway... how are they going to know?
So while it doesn't remove the incentive for voting, it does make it riskier for the voting constituents.
Thing to keep in mind is in theory (barring a good Diebolding) just beause you get lots of $$$ doesn't mean you get reelected. You still have to get votes.
If the constituents are actually voting those who get the most $$$ from companies, they're rewarding that sort of behaviour. They shouldn't be surprised then if they get "representatives" who don't actually represent them.
"Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. ... Kill the sons of bitches." -G Gordon Liddy, 1994, on his radio show
"It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great." -McCain, 2007, on Gordon's radio show
Oh, hypocrisy! Does your comedy know no bounds?
" View as a Single Page" :)
Congrats, no depending on a convoluted "Print This Article" button.
In all seriousness, nice article.
Yes, I RTFA'ed...it helps when the article was of reasonable length, rather than being a blurb.
I do come around to /. to read comments; it's gotten to the point where a great article is proverbial icing-on-the-cake
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
The law must presume that everyone is innocent until proven guilty
As we all know (no?), in criminal cases "proven guilty" means "beyond any reasonable doubt", whereas in civil cases the standard is merely "preponderance of evidence" (i.e. greater than fifty-fifty).
The independent judiciary is slightly less important in the case of civil trials as, generally speaking there are far fewer decisions of law in civil cases, and the jury(the people) are more heavily involved in the process anyway.
There probably would be few disadvantages and possibly some advantages to elected judges for civil trials(presuming you put a stop to being able to sue someone for damages caused by a crime they were found not guilty of), generally the mob doesn't care much one way or another in civil cases, and when they do it tends generally to be anti-corporate which fits the slashdot ethos fairly well.
That said, unless we want to have two systems of judges(and never the twain shall meet), then it's important that the judiciary be independent, because it's the only way for criminal trials to have any hope of being fair. They're still not generally fair because fairness isn't a particularly common human characteristic and juries are generally chosen based on their stupidity, but they're fairer than they would otherwise be. The police are nearly always "absolutely" convinced that the person they think is guilty is guilty even when there's no real evidence, and the mob is pretty much out for blood against anyone they believe committed certain kinds of crimes(particularly involving children), without independent judges all the problems of the modern jury system would be multiplied ten fold.
Yes -- if it will be a party with a few thousand members (on Slashdot it's entirely possible), and if Republicans and Democrats will not be allowed to spend more than Anti-amRadioHed-ians did.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Um...can you tell me why its tagged REPUBLICAN and not DEMOCRAT?
Seriously? Like the Republicans are the only ones trying to mess with the vote?
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
Baseball? - Like the "3 strikes and you're out" thing is the foundation of the judicial system. /ducks.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Here in Canada, the public funding is divided based on how many votes parties received last election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
(in best McBain voice)"Dat's da joke"
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
...How can big business buy votes if they don't know who voted for what?...
Simply promise the political critter that he/she will get the money only when the bill the monied sponsor wants becomes law.
All theory is gray
You'd be surprised how honest people can be when their job doesn't rely on what the average dimwit thinks.
... which is an excellent argument against electing judges.
I disagree, because the mindset of an upper-chamber Lord/Senator and the mindset of Judges are totally different. Even with our current system, Senators tend to be more concerned with getting things passed by consensus than Judges. Judges tend to be motivated by ideology more (on both sides). Witness the near-century long struggle in America between strict-constructionists and "Living Constitution" adherents.
In the US Senate, even Ted Kennedy or John McCain will eagerly cross the aisle to get something they deem important done. In the US Supreme Court, eh, not so much. It was not for nothing that Oliver Wendell Holmes described SCOTUS as "nine scorpions in a bottle".
I've come to the conclusion that A) perhaps electing Senators was a mistake... we simply turned them into Congressmen with longer terms, and B) perhaps court appointments, if not elected, should perhaps be limited. Set the terms to 10 years, perhaps. Because you're never going to know what you'll get in a judge, and some really do have a "God in black robes" mindset once they're in place, and essentially, untouchable. I think there were very few weaknesses in the design of the Constitution, but I think untouchable, lifetime judicial appointments may have been one of them. While there are checks and balances on the power of Congress and the Presidency, there aren't really on the power of federal judges, especially SCOTUS. Once SCOTUS rules on something... even if 90 percent of Americans absolutely disagree... that's it, unless you care to remove them by force. I don't know how the power of the SCOTUS should be balanced (perhaps a 3/4ths vote of Congress to override a ruling?), but I do think we should consider some kind of check.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The Republican party you're referring to has quite a few similarities to our modern Democrats.
Except for that part about being biblical and fighting wars for an ideological cause. Abe Lincoln === religious nut. You need to understand that in Lincoln's time a black man had about the same level of humanity as a fetus is considered to have today. The whole reason slavery worked was because in the western mind, blacks weren't really people... they were animals, didn't have souls, were more like horses or something and any display of intelligence they did was chalked up to simple mimicry rather than any actual intelligence.
It's like everyone talks about the likes of Frederick Douglas, but, in those days, people went to go see Frederic Douglas weren't going to see an eloquent speaker, per se... it was like, going to see a horse that can count... "oh dear, instead of seeing the counting horse, let's go see the speechgiving negro". There was no black civilization on the planet even close to within 500 - 1000 years technologically of what European nations had and so arguing in favor of equality was genuinely an act of faith. Even Lincoln pretty much said that, he didn't really think that blacks were up to the same level as whites, but it was a religious thing to treat them right.
This is my sig.
Why can't we use electoral ink in American elections to help protect against people voting twice?
Vote Naked
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This is a nice tale, but it's not true.
When moving, you do have to report your changed address to the DMV.
In the US, the authorities know exactly where you live and many many other things, just like in Europe. The difference is that they're legally obliged to pretend that they don't, resulting in the worst of both worlds: The state knows all about you, but you still have to tell them things they already know, again and again.
"This country didn't use secret ballots, an idea imported from Australia, until quite late in the 19th century..."
It was the 1890s when America went to secret ballots?
The UK had had them since Gladstone's Reform Act of 1872. Did the Aussies copy the UK, and the US copy the Aussies?
In addition to the point noted by one reply, that only males are legally required to register, Selective Service only tracks individuals young enough to serve as military recruits. While I registered with Selective Service at 18, they stopped maintining my information at 30.
The result is that they track only a relatively small minority of potential voters.
You Dutch inspired this grand democracy experiment, so you're an eternal friend of Americans. So in violation of Slashdot rules, I'll explain our system politely:
1) How voting is done is left to States. North Dakota, for example, registers everyone by default. The premise is that, except for in Federal Elections, each State knows best for itself.
2) We don't require any "voting ticket." Or ID. You walk in, tell them who you are, and you vote. It has been decided by our courts that requiring something as difficult to obtain as an ID card is too high a burden to prevent someone from voting. Many states require you to present ID, and if you can't, then they give you a ballot which you can still vote, but may be invalidated if someone else walks in and tries to use your name with an ID.
3) The reasons for ineligibility would include:
a) You don't meet the residency requirements (or else there would be a Mad Max style bus parade into every jurisdiction that was competitive every election day)
b) Being a convicted felon, becoming a citizen of another country, being dead, not being a real person are basically the only ways you can be disqualified from voting. Being mentally disabled may disqualify you, but rules vary from state to state, and enforcement of the rules even more so. There are states that literally ban "idiots" from voting today, and yet *Party_Opposed_To_Your_Beliefs* still gets votes every election...
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
I quite agree, and feel that many young people become disenfranchised under the current system. Because of increasing fear of crime, children as young as ten are being tried as adults in certain localities. Yet they (including teenagers up to 18) have no say in how that system is run.
Either they are able to make decisions for themselves, and should be granted the right to vote, or they are incapable of making decisions and should not be punished for crimes, etc.
Using the infant example, if an infant smothers their sibling to death, they are unlikely to be sent to a maximum security prison as they probably had no idea what they were doing. They also shouldn't have the right to vote, as they would have no idea what it is about.
Unity in Diversity
Sadly, it doesnt work very well. The Lords can reject bills and have them sent back to the Commons for a rethink, but if (IIRC) after 3 back-and-forths the Commons can invoke the Parliament Act and ram the bill through regardless.
Its even worse because Labour have a majority government and can simply send back the same bill unaltered (by out-voting any ammendments). They did it with ID cards, "extreme" porn and other laws no-one but Labour wants.
Well, if I remember correctly back then senators where quite dependent on the state legislature. So they were wiimply accountable to a different kind of fool.
>>>"The United States was founded as an experiment in eighteenth-century republicanism, in which it was understood that only men with property would vote, since they were the only people who could be trusted to vote with the common wealth, and not private gain, in mind."
>>>
This is the flaw with today's system. Too many people are voting for their own personal gain (free food, free housing, free money, or free replacement organs/pills at your local U.S. government-run hospital).
There is no other description for this desire to take money from neighbors' wallets, except as a way to increase your own private gain. Voting has become the enabling mechanism for thieves to ply their craft.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Are you using groups to mean political parties? The person you're replying to isn't.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They did vote against the poll tax. Maybe even twice.
If you consider that to be only a few years ago, then I'll get off your lawn right now.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That would be horrible, no accountability, and we would be left with empty suits and lofty meaningless feel-good speeches.
"A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." Hayek
You'd be surprised how honest people can be when their job doesn't rely on what the average dimwit thinks.
... which is an excellent argument against electing judges.
I think the argument against electing judges is that they should be chosen based on their understanding of the constitution, and not on how well they wooed the audience on their talk show circuit.
The remarkable thing about the UK house of lords is that it is a representative body that represents something other than the general population. This is nowadays a rarity, even in Europe.
In the US however, also a lot of individual office holders, like the president, are elected. This is less common in Europe.
Here in the Netherlands we elect five representative bodies (European, national, provincial, municipal, and water county), all by proportional vote. A sixth one, the senate, is appointed by the provincial parliaments. With reference to the US system of electors, one could say the senate is indirectly elected.
All relevant individual office holders (ministers, judges, governors, mayors, etc) are appointed by "the Crown". In the end it is obviously the parliament, as the formal legislator, that decides what the procedures for nominating candidates and appointment look like, and whether the appointment is limited to a term. The monarch signs every law and decree, and in that limited sense has a veto over everything.
We recently conducted an experiment with nomination of mayors through a referendum, but this ended tragicly with voter turnout below 30% and the political party that introduced it loosing two thirds of its parliament seats. People are not interested in voting more often and don't take democratic mandates based on a tiny voter turnout seriously. Skeptics will in addition question how an individual can represent a community: the diversity in opinions is immediately lost.
In my view the length of the term (judges until retirement, mayors and governors for 6 years, ministers for 4, etc.), the position of the office in the career path, and the prospects of having one's term automatically extended (mayors and governors can often stay as long as they wish) seem to me most determinative in how "political" an office is here.
The big problem of parliamentarians is that they are ambitious and generally want to end up as either a minister, mayor, or governor, or as a board of directors member or something similar in business. This makes them generally risk averse, easy to influence by lobbyists, and overly loyal to the party. The senate (only veto) on the other hand is usually an endpoint in one's career.
Judges, small town mayors, and the senate easily steal the show with integrity and honesty because they have nothing to fear from the people, from business, and from the party.
The obvious way to make parliament more independent is to make sure it is the endpoint of one's career, but any proposals of that nature would be terribly hard to get through parliament, as parliamentarians, modest as they are, would immediately argue that if parliament were to become an unattractive career choice, it would no longer attract the best people.
That's funny, I frequently argue that the problem with people today is that they vote against their self interest, a la What's the Matter with Kansas, having fallen for a bait-and-switch that promises some pie in the sky morality based culture but delivers tax policies that favor the corporate executive over the line worker.
Personally, I have more respect for people who can put together coherent arguments about supply-side economics than I do for people who prattle on about how letting gay people share benefits undermines the sanctity of marriage. (I won't, however, hesitate to point out how the current financial situation is the direct result of the laissez faire, deregulation-is-always-a-good-thing mindset of people like Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan.)
From where I sit if your neighbors are gaming the economic system for their personal gain at others expense, voting to take some of their money for your gain is an appropriate response. And lets not kid ourselves, since any tax policy is, by definition, redistributive people who rail on redistribution really just want a tax policy that favors them or that they perceive will favor them in the future (e.g. "Joe the Plumber".)
that change had more disastrous consequences than almost anyone today realizes. it fundamentally altered the balance of power between the state and federal governments far more than anything since the civil war (and one could plausibly argue which was a bigger effect). compare the growth of our military before and after that change, and notice particularly the progressive, gradual federalization of the state's National Guard units. the states no longer have any direct, systematic method of checking the federal government, and instead have to rely on ad-hoc and after-the-fact methods.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
1. So, you think that those men with property didn't vote for their own personal gain? I wonder where, say, those slavery laws came from. Right, from rich men trying to make it easier for them to oppress other humans.
The sad thing is, there is no limit at which you had enough and you start working (or voting) just for the common good. The brain doesn't even see absolute values, it sees deltas. Your happiness or unhappiness have more to do with how much better or worse you are than yesterday, than with exactly where you are. So someone who has 1$ wants to have $2, someone who has $1000 want to have $2000, but someone who has a billion will need to get two billions to get the same shot of "I'm happy" chemical signals in the brain.
So basically if you think that, "Voting has become the enabling mechanism for thieves to ply their craft"... well, then it always was. That discrimination just divided the class into already successful thieves, and a mass of victims to ply their craft on. The former voted to rob the latter.
2. So what was the improvement compared to medieval aristocracy? You still had a rich class who are supposedly smart enough to decide for everyone else, and a poor class who should shut up and do what they're told. And the former use that mechanism to exploit and plunder the latter.
What's the difference? That the rich get to elect a president? Well, that's how it worked for the HRE, medieval Poland, and a bunch of other places. Heck, medieval Poland was then actually more democratic, because everyone who ever had a noble as an ancestor could vote, so actually even some of the poor got to vote. That the rich also get a say in which laws they get? Again, see the HRE.
I thought that the whole idea of democracy was that the _people_ are in charge. You know, what with even its name being a combination of "demos"=people and "kratos"=rule or power.
3. You know, I wish you guys would find a better fallacy than the theft to justify your greed with. The moment you can function just as well on your own, without the rest of society, _then_ you can say with a straight face that it's 100% your money and anyone having any demands is a thief.
But the fact is, society works as a whole, and money is just a convenient abstraction for how we divde the cake we _all_ helped make. So somehow you think you're that important that you're entitled to a disproportionately larger slice, for the same number of hours worked. And woe if someone doesn't let you loot and plunder the pie as you see fit, at other people's disadvantage, 'cause then that's stealing.
You wouldn't have your job or your standard of living without at least a thousand or so other people working on making that shit you use as status symbols. And if we're talking taxes, your company _and_ its clients wouldn't be anywhere near where they are without the infrastructure built with those taxes. Without the roads to transport the raw materials, or the pool of educated potential clerks and researchers, or a pool of qualified unemployed people to absorb the shocks and bursts, or a gazillion other things, you'd be right back to the 19'th century standard of living.
So you're telling me, what? That all those should happen without you having to pay your share? Who's going to pay for it then? Oh, right, I forgot, you wanted to take the poors' right to vote, so you can plunder _them_.
I'm sorry, but that's not a God-given right, that's a parasitic attitude. Yes, you can pack it in some pretense that if someone doesn't let you take half a poor guy's slice too, it's theft, but it doesn't change the aspect: it's all bullshit rethoric for "I want half of those people's slices too." That's what being a parasite is all about.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You'd be surprised how honest people can be when their job doesn't rely on what the average dimwit thinks. ... which is an excellent argument against electing judges.
I don't know. I think that they picked the wrong branch for that. I'd almost have liked our president to be unelected except by the house/senate. Lately, I've really, really been thinking that I'd like any control over those damn federal supreme court judges. There is a part of me that thinks that they need elections to get in, and if large enough percentage of folks dislike how they've been judging crap, we need to be able to kick them out.
Of course, I think that if any elected official gets out of office with a 60% or more disapproval rating that they need to spend at least the same amount of time in jail for when they were in office. (Actually, that's kinder than what I really think.)
Democrats in the US still rely on fradulent votes. Even though Obama might not need it this election, the need for fraud is ingrained deeply into liberal democrats.
Does requiring ID to buy alcohol or tobacco discriminate against minorities and the poor?
Yet somehow requiring ID to vote is an unfair burden.
I'm 38 and I still have to sometimes show my ID to buy tobacco.
Being against showing an ID to vote is being pro-election fraud, and that's the stance of the national Democratic party.
I'll be brave and take the karma hit, as it's obvious who the realy minorities are around slashdot.
"The article notes the American penchant for trying to fix voting..."
That really sums up far more than the article itself does.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
three is significant, in that it's the minimum needed for a robust system. in a two-group system, if one gets "uppity" there's nothing to be done about it; it now has the upper hand. in a three-group system, there's more avenues for keeping the balance.
having more groups doesn't make the system less robust, although it likely makes it simply larger.
and it's true that they aren't "equal", but the point is that they're not subservient and that each has some checks over the others.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
OK, I'm not from the USA, so I really don't have any allegiance to either party.
That said, I'm fascinated that you complain about Democrats relying on fraudulent votes, when the last two elections were won by massive electoral fraud by the Republicans, and they're trying to do the same this time.
Show me how many votes have been switched in favour of each party, and I'll show you a Republican landslide. Show me questionable voting technology that shouldn't be allowed, and I'll show you equipment manufactured by companies with close Republican ties.
From the outside looking in, I can't imagine why your populace isn't begging the UN for election observers, except that of course, most of you don't trust the UN.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
If enough fucktards want to change the law, move elsewhere and watch them get their just deserts.
The United States was never intended for the people or by the people but rather to limit government to protect the majority from a powerful minority or powerful majority from a weak minority.
Historically, democracies with no limits on its power tended to be oppressive to its minorities.
Secondly, just picking up and moving is not always a solution especially when the majority puts restrictions on movement on said minorities.
Not to godwin this thread, but the Nazi's were technically legally elected by a democratic process which they dismantled from the inside once they go to power. The minorities such as the social democrats, socialists, communists, and others were made short work of shortly thereafter.
Many persons (especially those of the Jewish ethnicity) attempted to move but as the government increased its restrictions on them, those who had not moved early on could no longer escape the country after a certain point.
The key is that the best government is not one that simply empowers 51% of its population to rule, but to also protect the other 49% from being being treated as second class citizens (or worse).
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Riiiight. Because if a politician named Barak McCain (I) promised to provide a free car for all families earning less than $30,000 a year, and the voters rallied to elect him president, clearly it's okay to suck money from the working class in order to give "free" cars to the poor.
Bzzz.
I consider that theft. I work; somebody else gets the cotton I picked... ooops, I mean the car I bought for them. That's a human rights violation. ----- I prefer what the Constitution says, which limits taxation strictly to COMMON welfare, not just welfare for a few individuals. For example: National defense (benefits all).
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
... which is an excellent argument against electing judges.
Yeah. You can see how well that's working with eight years of Bush appointees.
We did well for a long time without such asshole decisions as the one that said seizing private property and turning it over to a private developer was "for the common good". Too bad that the "common good" was that the developer would make millions while returning a pittance in sales or real estate taxes to the local municipality.
This is no different from an older practice of taxing property "at its highest and best use". That made sure that business interests always trumped the interest of a homeowner or farmer who couldn't afford to build a tax-producing multi-story commercial building on his property.
For a while, this was mitigated by exempting agricultural land (at least in California) from unreasonable tax hikes. The intent was to preserve productive farmland. In return, the owner had to make a commitment to keep the land in production. Then they gutted the intent (and benefit) of the law by allowing a "window" of a year or so when the landowner could back out of the agreement and sell the land without penalty.
Naturally this happened at a time when CA property values were rising steeply. So the landowners, having been shielded for years from taxation, could now sell the land to developers fo many, many times what it was worth as a farm.
The least the legislature could have done was to have soaked the sellers for annual back taxes at the current value of the land.
That's odd. The contested areas, at least in the 2000 election, weren't using electronic voting. What a bunch of FUD your post is. Either you're just bashing the right or you're sadly misinformed.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Ah, more bullshit emotionally-charged rhetoric. "Free car"? No, really? Exactly which party proposed a law to give free cars? Oh, wait, it's just a bullshit strawman.
Or perhaps, the problem is that what is regularly proposed is stuff like "free medical care", or "adequate education" or such. And of course if you picked on _those_, you'd come out clearer as a greedy prick.
But ok, you really want to play emotionally charged fallacies? Ok. I see your "theft", and raise you, oh, "murder."
See that gal over there? She's got an early case of multiple-sclerosis. Go kick her out of the hospital yourself, don't try to pervert healt-care into doing that murder for you. Of course, she'll probably die on her own, but, hey, that saved you some money on the health insurance. Less people trying to "steal" your money to pay for those.
See that old guy with Alzheimer's and kidney problems in his own age? Same deal. It's guys like him who didn't smoke, didn't drink and stayed fit, that now suck a lot of money out of healthcare for a decade or two. The fat smokers died earlier and largely didn't get their insurance money out of that system. But that guy didn't. Go kick him off medical care yourself, don't try to pack it in fancy words about why it's stealing your money if we keep him alive.
That other guy over there? Genetic deffects. Dumbly enough, nobody found out until he was older, now he's on life support.
That other gal? Cancer. Lots and lots of fancy patented medicines, and if she's (un)lucky the chemotherapy will make it last for years, while it degrades the rest of her body more and more. You'd be surprised how many people get a cancer nowadays, that the other causes of death have been reduced. Go kick them out of the hospitals yourself.
In fact, be a sport and at least don't let them suffer. Go just put a bullet or two through their brains right now. It achieves the same result, with less suffering. And I'm _sure_ they'll understand that that's for such a worthy cause as you keeping a few more of your precious dollars.
Had enough of that? Good. Well, then tell you what: you drop that over-the-top bullshit about "theft" and I'll drop mine. Wake me up when we ca have a talk like civilized adults.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Witness the strawman.
For the sake of argument I'll grant that the difference between building roads, providing public transportation, and giving away free cars is a difference of degree, rather than one of kind. Even still, it is in fact possible to avoid going over the slippery slope from common good to full blown communism, as a country we've been doing it for more than 200 years.
I'm sorry, but "common welfare" doesn't mean it has to be good for everyone individually, it just means it has to be good for society as a whole. The taxpayer funded establishment of Washington DC didn't benefit everyone, nor did the establishment of the post office, nor the first and second banks of the United States, and the people who wrote the constitution were directly involved in those endeavors.
Regardless of whether you believe if we should have welfare, social security, public education, public roads, universal health care, pollution regulation, a minimum wage, or national parks, any (reasonable) argument will center around whether the benefits outweighs the costs, since they all address common welfare in one aspect or another. You can bloviate about taxation being equivalent to theft, and rail about how all government projects are unconstitutional until the cows come home, and no one will take you seriously, when you call it a human rights violation you look like an ass.
is that there's no way to prove that the "results" have been falsified. Seriously... just claim that the "looser" received a significant minority of the vote, and who's to say differently?
Paper trail? Please... so why is it illegal to record your own vote?
"Democracy: That ultimate triumph of quantity over quality." -- Peter H. Peel
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Well... Direct democracy does work. But it does not scale and has both upper and lower bounds. Communism, does not scale up, but thrives at a family level. While almost all democracies on this planet are representative democracies, Switzerland is the only country that comes close to a direct democracy.