US Midterm Elections

[Rusienne]

Well I voted today, and I wasted my vote on the Green Party. But that's another discussion-- First Past The Post is a terrible electoral system.

I expect two years of stagnation in Congress, regardless of what happens. But I'm watching the results on the BBC, so irritated I get with American channels.

[Kazzerland]

Yeah politics in this country are so warped and strange these days. However, through all of the chaos there is one certainty: the Tea Party is a bunch of flippin' nutjobs. Absolute crazies.

[Neo Nibu]

lol agreed

[Rusienne]

Hear hear. I'm going to lobby strongly for Palin-O'Donnell 2012.

[Kazzerland]

That ticket has my vote!

[Kardas]

According to Wikipedia, the Dems have a Senate majority, but the Reps got the House of Representatives. Any thoughts? Honestly, I've heard a lot of pessimistic things about this election. And frankly, it's a pity for Obama. I hoped he could do more, but it seems he'll be paralyzed the next two years...

[Neo Nibu]

Sometimes I think Democracy's dumb....

[automaticz]

I have to say America's first past the post is one of the worst possible,
The electrol college makes it even more unfair than here in the UK and it is odd having these mid term elections, things like these just serve to damage a government's ability to get things done.

[Rusienne]

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the Westminster democratic system. But that statement is relative, because large-scale democracy generally irritates me.

[austinset]

I actually think american should be a DIRECT democracy so more people can vote...i say have a democratic way of making money and a republican way of cutting spending...since the american goverment is full of idiots who dont look up to their promises THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN

[Rusienne]

Oh God no. Direct democracy will only work in a small nation. If you have it so the population votes for each and every bill, we'll be voting once a month, often on different versions of the same bill. Not to mention someone would have to collect all the propositions.

Assuming you've solved that, the only people who would vote are the ones who care about what the referendum is about. The results would be completely unrepresentative of the country as a whole. And then there's the whole problem of the American people in general lacking any sort of long-term vision; everyone seems to just want to focus on the now. Too few think about what sort of world they'd like to live in 50 years from now. Even more threatening, would be voter turnout, which is low enough as it is: a measly 29% of Illinois voted for governor two days ago. If elections are more frequent, people would get bored and that vote would decline.

Direct democracy in a large nation is one of the worst systems of government-- including those that have already been tried. It would work in Liechtenstein or Barbados, but not the United States

[automaticz]

Direct democracy lends itself to the extremists and is increadibly inneficient as Rusienne has said.

In Scotland we have a hybrid system which i think is the best of both worlds, this is from the BBC website which explains it better than i can,

* 73 members representing individual constituencies and elected under the traditional First Past The Post system.

These will be the same as the 72 Scottish constituencies at Westminster with the exception that Orkney and Shetland will be divided into two, each electing its own MSP.

* 56 members selected from 'party lists' in the country's eight electoral regions.

These regions are the same as the current European parliamentary boundaries and each will elect seven MSPs through the Additional Member System, a form of proportional representation.

So as you can see the majority of MSP's are elected by first past the post, but some are elected by proportional representation which means even if your vote is redundant in the first past the post part, it can still count for the regional msp.
You also divide your vote, maybe in FPTP you choose a more realistic vote but in the porportional representation part you can choose a more minor party like the green party (which has 2 msp's) if you wish.

[Kardas]

Well I'm not well-read in types of democracy, but my grain of salt is that a two-party system is not that good. The US provides a nice example of political deadlock which the system often causes (and infighting as a bonus). As much as I hate to quote Bush, he has a point with "You're either with us or against us."
Of course really fragmented systems are just as bad- pre-Mussolini Italy is a nice example.

[sap3179]

Ah, I saw in Britain and US the real job crunch and ultra-high taxation will start from 2013, even 2015. Is it true?
oh and US currently has a poverty level of 15% right now, and continues to increase is it true also? has the birds finally come to roost? sadly only negative thing I found is that these all happening in the obama regime.

[Neo Nibu]

"ultra-high taxation will start from 2013, even 2015. Is it true?"

Well the Bush Tax cuts on the wealthy expire soon bring back Clinton's taxes, so in a sense yes, so long as the Republicans don't succeed in making them permanent like they want/trying to do. It would help alot we're in debt something like 13 Trillion, and these taxes alone will generate roughly 3 Trillion which is a step in the right direction.

"US currently has a poverty level of 15% right now, and continues to increase is it true also?"

Probably true, my family was upper middle class like before this all started, now we've poor as hell cause my Dad's business went under.

"sadly only negative thing I found is that these all happening in the obama regime."

I wouldn't agree, kinda true, but he hasn't been in office very long a year now I think, and our "Democratic" system has the Republicans blocking everything Obama attempts to do, so he's been strong armed abit. Bush is one of the people who really messed things up, him and a number of other politicians feeding from the hands of lobbyists. Not to mention that a scary number of politicians are from families who own Oil Companies and other big corporations, guess there the only one rich enough to run for office. >_<