About liberals

[dampscribbler]

Did you know that "liberals" are all about "having fun right now"? The cute young blond at the next table at dinner last night shared that with her dinner date. "What I don't like about liberals," she said, "is that whole 'have fun now' attitude. Maybe they're having fun now, but how much fun will it be when they have 20 STDs and several kids out of wedlock?"

Yes, that is what she said. I feel so enlightened. Also, as a liberal, I wonder if my orgy invitation got lost in the mail.

Comments

Re: LOL

[chgriffen.livejournal.com]

Both you and Eric make some excellent points there.

Personally, I believe that in part, the electoral college system has screwed up the politics in this country. If there is no room in the electoral system for anything other than two big parties, people tend to either become apathetic, radical, or aligned with one of two camps. I was really hopeful that the current outrage would lead us to a stronger, more visionary demnocratic candidate (like Kucinich or even Dean, who's at least passionate about making a difference), but we ended up with the bland husband of one of the richest women in the world. I'm going to be really surprised if he actually comes through and does kick special interests out.

This system, by the way, is also why people like Nader are important. When a large group of people have no representation, and no chance of getting a new party elected, the only way to make a difference in politics is to take away votes from the big parties in order to make them change their attitudes to gain those votes back.

I just wish people would get less caught up in this taking sides thing, in order to think things through on their own, have positive discussions, and maybe come to some kind of understanding. I, too, see way too much of this with-us-or-against-us syndrome, which hurts this society immensely.

Re: LOL

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I tend to forget about the role of the electoral college until actual elections take place. Certainly it seemed to screw up the last election -- without the electoral college, would the supreme court decision re: Florida have even been required?

I remember learning about Germany's coalition government some years back, and while it's not perfect, either, there certainly are elements that would probably be great to incorporate into our own system.

While I agree that folks like Nader are necessary, I'm afraid that candidates like Bush make the guys like Nader even harder to take seriously. I don't feel like I've had many opportunities to vote for a candidate since I've been voting -- my vote against another is too important. I did vote for Nader in 1996, though.

I fear that most voters in this country don't want real conversations on the issues. If they did, we would have had a McCain-Bradley race in 2000, instead of the Gush-Bore race we got. Most people, for whatever reason, seem to want their politics as simple as possible. It's a damn shame.