It’s easy to look at California and imagine Churchill instead having said “Democracy is the worst form of government. No, really, it’s the fucking worst.” Between often electing unconventional politicians to high office, and a overly powerful ballot initiative system that makes it nearly impossible for even those few responsible leaders to govern, California is an example of democracy at its probable worst. And that\’s before you get to the eccentric rich people who like to exploit this system to do eccentric rich people things. This time it’s venture capital investor Tim Draper, who is funding a drive to...
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A two-party system
If the recent debate over health care reform has taught us anything, it is that the U.S. does still have a functional two-party system. The two parties, however, are not the Democrats and Republicans, but the Democrats and the Democrats. This is not to suggest that his is necessarily a bad thing—for the Democratic Party or America. The Republicans may have a substantial 41-member minority in the Senate, but being tied to their strategy of obstruction, just saying no, and refusing to cooperate or even compromise, have rendered themselves utterly and completely irrelevant. Consequently, the two teams...
Continue reading...Reader response time
Got a very nice email from a reader: I read your recent post about the possible fraud in Togo’s 2010 election, and your insight of the importance of democracy and deep concerns really impressed me. I think you might find this video interesting. Along with the point you mentioned in your post about how this election could be fraud and how this process could be really hard to challenge in such a political climate, this video covers from many perspectives about the current battle for power and people’s protests, it also briefly touches on Togo’s political history,...
Continue reading...Ready to die
With so much coverage over the past several months of the Green Revolution in Iran, it’s easy to forget how often disputed election results occur in nascent democracies, how often this leads to street-level protests, which end up, far too frequently, with street-level violence. And even without violence, disputed election results, whether caused by wholesale corruption in the worst cases, or honest mistakes in the best cases, damage presidencies and the overall reputation of democracy. Most recently, Afghanistan’s disputed election last year has undermined President Karzai’s government, while the disputed 2000 election in the United States—arguably the...
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