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Is my primary maxim, which we've departed from rather broadly on the western side of the atlantic. Until we're counting every vote, there's little point in calling it anything but a republic.
I'm a salmon upstream. I've seen the california uber-democracy that is almost paralyzied there is so much choice. I've gone to the voting booth and ended up voting on the nicest sounding names there are sooooooooooooooo many choices... that what happens is that the concept of demos is destroyed, as demos is uninformed, or misinformed by media, which, in US terms are plutos. Even with the ever-so-handy california voting guide, plutos rules, and the name with the most recognition wins, hence schwarznegger.
The town i grew up in, malibu, was once a magnificent natural coastline, but greedy corprorate and private interests turned it in to a suburban sprawl, muliplying its population by 6 times what it was in my childhood. The prices of my home town are soooo expensive i can't afford to live there anymore... thanks to economics... so i learned that economics is a root issue in american politics, something that noboby gets to vote on, but that subverts all the serious choices in life.
I moved to downtown manhattan, and similarly, economics pumped the place until it became a yuppee magnet, once again driving prices up through the roof to again price me out of a place i had chosen as a home... so this repeated trend of economics, subverting basic living. And then when the corporate (government regulated) media attacked my buddhist meditation group, and made it such that i could only work abroad, by circulating black lists around the american industries... made me wonder what great utopia this democracy had become... one that i had to leave in order to make a basic living.
One vote, one dollar, which is the american way, is not a democracy, and should not be worshipped. So, now, years later, after a much healthier life in a social democracy (UK), i'm wary of the US form of one vote, one dollar.... disguised as one vote one person... all because the latter is, as you say, never an objective of the framers.
So, between an effective plutocracy in the US, and a representative democracy in the UK, one with flavours of timocracy... i find the latter to be a gazillion times more healthy, and most financial markets and social indicators show similarly... why is this.?
An uninformed democracy is a trash state, and america has become exactly that.... a massive refuse dump, where the lowest common denominator rules... and indeed, i've journeyed far from my birth place to be part of something less of a dump. I can't say exactly what is better in the UK, but i suspect the HoL is a large part of what has preserved the decency in this society, that which is lost in america, for which people leave the country to discover.
I wish i could say i was a believer in democracy, and in pure marxist terms, i am... just when you discover that perfect marxist utopia that accepts americans... let me know. ;-)
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