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Quote by: ren  I think I touched on that, Tim, though perhaps it's worth a little more development. Our voice directly to the president is a momentary blip in time, once every four years. The Nation voted democrats into Congress in 2006; many of us thought that was a message about Iraq and this Presidencies many power grabbing policies challenging the very basis of the checks and balances of our system, since Bush came into office (actually it goes back a ways, and that in itself is a complex discussion involving the Unitary Executive Theory Cheney brought into office with Bush).
What did the President hear from the "People" in 2006? He's still blissfully spending his "political capital" as he called it from the thin margin, even questionable victory of 2004. Where's our voice after that? We vote, a momentary blip in time in a voting booth.
People are dying every day for whom we as a nation are responsible, our own troops and those others there, many just "collateral damage" a word that simply objectifies human beings who are murdered by war. I personally feel the angst of my sense of responsibility for what this nation does in the world, but where's my voice? Where's the supposed voice of the majority who have turned against these policies?
So I'm asking, how is that democracy? |
It's democratic in the sense that these are the people we voted for. That being said, the mainstream choices for candidates leave alot to be desired. Ideally, I would prefer to see more diversity among candidates in terms of background and ideology. I agree with you about the presidential aspect of it. the executive has far more power than I feel it should, and Congress really seems unwilling to make strong steps against that. The problem for you and I, I believe, is that we don't have candidates that represent our voice. I do believe that the system is too difficult to enter and not accesible enough to third parties or less affluent candidates. In that sense I agree, it is undemocratic.