Refresher on American Politics

[MichiganMilitia]

Here's a little refresher on how America is supposed to work. Every American needs to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeYscnFpEyA


Take care, have a good night, and hold on to your guns tightly my fellow Americans.

-MM

[Elhuero]

lots of good points, mostly about congress.

however I am against abolishing the electoral college or instituting mandatory civil service.

[BadShot]

however I am against abolishing the electoral college or instituting mandatory civil service.

Out of curiosity.. why? I believe in this day and age the need for an electoral college is a wee bit out-moded given the rational for it's inception in the first place.

On the second point, I was heavily influenced by the Heinlein school of thought.. service for citizenship. That has stuck with me since my first reading of Starship Troopers.

I'm just curious to hear your thoughts.

[PogoManiac7]

I am also against the abolishing of the electoral college. We need MORE things to bring power to the states not less. You would see even more concentration of power in the cities and coasts and the heartland could conceivably be ignored completely.

That video is decent, a little bit much on the raving side. Mark Levin's new book "Liberty and Tyranny" shouldn't be missed if you want to read one of the best examinations on our country's liberty today.

[Elhuero]

Out of curiosity.. why? I believe in this day and age the need for an electoral college is a wee bit out-moded given the rational for it's inception in the first place.

On the second point, I was heavily influenced by the Heinlein school of thought.. service for citizenship. That has stuck with me since my first reading of Starship Troopers.

I'm just curious to hear your thoughts.


PogoManiac7 hit on it a little.

The estimated population of Montana is 967,440. Iowa, 3,002,555. Wyoming 532,668. Colorado 4,939,456.

Total 9,442,119.

Population of New York Metropolitan area: 18,815,988.
Population of Greater Los Angeles area: 17,775,98.
Population of San Francisco bay area: 7,354,555.

Abolishing the electoral college would put the presidency to a direct popular vote, and the large liberal cities would be able to dictate what happens everywhere else.

Without the electoral college algore would have been president. How you think he would have handled 9/11?

As for mandatory service, the less the government bosses us around the better. The draft was a major problem during the vietnam war. Our all volunteer force has a more esprit de corps, and kicks the shit out of all they meet on the field of battle. I don't think any of our guys out playing in the sand would want punkass draftees around. In a Heinleinian setting it would work great. Not so much in the real world.

[Bailey Guns]

I completely support the Electoral College system mainly because it works. Ironically, it was originally designed to solve a particular problem(s) and today it solves an entirely different set of problems.

Here's a great article with arguments for and against the Electoral College system:

http://www.uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_procon.php

I'm quite against mandatory service. While it sounds good on the surface, our entire system of government is based on the premise that we are free to choose and direct our own lives...within legal bounds, of course.

What, exactly, will be accomplished by mandating civil service for everyone. It's another erosion of freedom that I, for one, will not endorse nor tolerate.

[ColoEnthusiast]

The Electoral College also has unused powers as well, from what I have read.
1. They are supposed to vet presidential candidates for eligibility.
2. They are charged with ensuring those candidates also have no affiliations that would compromise their loyalty to U.S. interests, or make them partial to special interests.
They dropped the ball last year, big time.
Oh, and BGuns, I completely agree about no mandatory service. It is completely contradictory to a free society. Look at WWII, we didn't need it then and we don't need it now.

[roberth]

I agree with PogoManiac7, Elhuero and Baily Guns.

The United States was founded as a constitutional republic, eliminating the Electoral College would make us a democracy under which the major population centers would decide who we are governed by. The democrats refer to the middle of the country as 'flyover country' because they wish they could eliminate the Electoral College and elimination of the Electoral College would allow them to fly right over us on their way to either coast.

Mandatory service is a leftists dream, that's why 'dear leader' suggested it. Americans are the most charitable people on the planet, we help when no one else will, which is damn near every time there is a catastrophe. We don't need some holier than thou asshole to tell us when, where, and how much, we know and we respond voluntarily.

[PogoManiac7]

What needs to happen in response to the recent growth in federal government is a reaction against that federal government increase and instead focus on state governmental power. Why should the citizens of montana care/pay for what happens to a California road system? Why should the citizens of California care what Colorado does with its gun policy? Why should a farmer in Iowa pay for welfare for someone in inner city Detroit?

The framers designed our country to have a federal government to deal with the needs of a federal government. The majority of legislation should be taken care of at the city council level or state legislature. Why is it a mystery that no piece of legislation can come out of Washington with out being filled full of random payoffs? The country was not designed that way! States are designed so that if any one individual state tries something (i.e. socialist california) and fails then the U.S. as a whole is not destroyed. What we are seeing is the complete opposite. Socialist California is designing the new framework of government based on their ideas. The very same ideas that took the most prosperous and wealthy state in the union to billions and billions of dollars of crippling debt.

If they still taught history in high school maybe our citizens would understand this. However... they tend to focus on either unimportant things or things that advance the progressive agenda.

*Sorry for ranting... those are just my thoughts.