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re: Decisive versus democratic - Deathmatch, Tonight at 9, on CNN!
Joe_Nietzsche — (archived)

Regarding Senators, fair enough,… although I would suggest that in practice, as it does amount to the representation of dominating business interests, given that big business represents such massive power and finance and thus near effective monopolies in various markets (particularly with federal bail out and subsidy), the power may as well be hereditary for the controlling families.

I am familiar with the anachronistic qualities of the college. This is among the reasons at to why it’s not inaccurate to suggest I’m paranoid in terms of the level of concern I have. As to that fear being unfounded, it is the lack of a law binding of the members to the will of the people that makes me wonder. Your paraphrasing of Hamilton’s statement regarding it’s function outlines pretty clearly to me a damn fine reason to be concerned. The point of a representative democracy is that the people’s mood, up, down, or just plain raucous, rules. I would disagree on the point of checks and balances in connection to the people, as this is generally assigned to those representatives that wield power in the people’s name, and as such need to be guarded against stealing it for themselves. The power should reside ultimately in the people, not ever in the officials. The only question, I believe, is how to mitigate the wielding of that power.

Yep, things have worked out fairly well so far,… but as we’ve already established, I’m a bit paranoid. :P

The infusion of enthusiasm is exactly why I believe neither of the two parties will ever effect change in the electoral system without massive pressure from the public. I think Samuel Huntington summed up the sentiment best when he said, (paraphrasing) ‘the successful operation of a democracy usually requires the non-participation of some groups’.

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