"GET ANGRIER!"

[cmdr_zoom]

I used to love The West Wing. I was sad when John Spencer (and thus, Leo) died, and at how it all fell apart after Sorkin left. I was mad at how Sorkin used his next show to snipe at people he felt had done him wrong through convenient straw-men.

But when he's on, he's on.

Comments

[caluche.livejournal.com]

As a swing voter with no registered party affiliation, I can say that getting angrier would not help his cause all that much and those 47% likely to vote for McCain or who are polling for McCain right now aren't going to change their votes because the other guy gets angry.

The only thing that I'm really angry about is that with the presidential election system in the US and the fact I am a resident of Oregon, my vote is already decided for me and thus I may as well not bother voting.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

The last part's a little hard to get over sometimes, yeah.

[caluche.livejournal.com]

I was in Kiev during the Russian Duma elections (which are followed as closely as Ukrainian elections in Ukraine) and naturally the topic of election systems came up and I found it fairly difficult to describe the US as a democracy when reconciled with the fact that our presidential votes are separated from us by two artificial means - first that we're put into state sized, winner-takes-all votes, and second that we have only a vague connection to those that are actually casting our votes for us (the electoral college). It had been commented to me that even the Soviet election system was more democratic, and certainly modern eastern europe is more 'democratic'.

I'll be in Iraq during this election so I have to get my ballot forwarded to me (election mail not forwarded) and return it via a mail system that might not actually get the ballot back before the electoral college votes anyway. On top of that, Oregon is going to vote for Obama - I knew that months ago. It's all extremely frustrating.

[cathaus.livejournal.com]

I miss The West Wing.

But you know, that last season, where they did this crazy unthinkable story line about a hispanic guy winning the oval office - looks a lot more plausible now.

I didn't like how they'd always diss Oregon's assisted suicide law, or miscelaneous other "weird" legislation.

[deromilly.livejournal.com]

It's at this point in discussions that I usually get in trouble for jumping in to point out that we AREn't a democracy. We were never intended to be a democracy. We are a REPUBLIC. Related, similar, but not the same.

Oops I just did it again, didn't I?

So where's Senator Palpatine when we need him? Oh wait. That's not a good answer either.

[caluche.livejournal.com]

republic |riˈpəblik|
noun
a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

while your answer is correct, vaguely, democracy comes from the "demos" - the people, of which a republic is one form of. Note also that the dictionary definition of republic includes "elected president". In our system, the president is elected by the states, not by the people and there for is more of a stretch to call it either a democracy or republic (though it's clearly not a monarchy either).

None of this satisfies the feeling of disenfranchisement I was complaining about in the earlier comment.

[deromilly.livejournal.com]

While I agree that a republic is perhaps a subset of democracy, I don't think it's the one that the media and the government PR agencies hype.

And no, unfortunately it doesn't mediate the disenfranchisement. If anything, it exacerbates it, for me at least.

(I think we're really on the same page on this. I plead really bad allergic reaction to my corporate minder's perfume yesterday...)