Ooops, Aaron's comments

I just realized that the comments to which I referred in the last blog post (made by Aaron) were made on the MySpace blog.

Since they were so good, here they are, along with my reply:

Great article link, Tony! I really liked what you have to say as well.

I was with you until the third-party voter's paragraph. This sort of reasoning is exactly why we have to choose between people like John Kerry and George Bush. The two party system worked for many years. It's broken now. It simply could hold the weight of a large and diverse population. The problem we face now is that we have a nation that has no cohesive desire. This results in the splintering of ideals and resistance to accepting or aiming for common goals. How can anyone expect 51%+ of our nation to be happy and contented with any one candidate? I realize the presidential election is a ways off, but I think that Californians are in no danger of hiring a hard-liner Republican any time soon. Let's get local.

As for Arnie, I'm not sure how he's different than Davis or old Pete. The territory lines of the two parties are largely dissolved these days, and I think whether or not you vote Republican or Democrat, you're still going to get the same group of business giving them money.

Rather than support archaic and hegemonic structures, why not encourage people to move towards something more realistic and reasonable? The localization of government and the dissolution of current federal power structures is the only thing that will keep a teetering republic like ours afloat.

I voted Libertarian.

P.S. I <3[1] you for encouraging people to get out there. :)

[1] This is a heart.

Posted by aaron remembers caring is creepy on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 2:38 PM [Remove] [Reply to this]

popcultist

Why, thank you, sir. Despite your Liberatarian voting, I applaud you (and actually, I tend to lean that way myself). You're right about the two-party system; it is broken. But I'm going to keep voting Democrat until we have a practicable solution in place. Or at least until Dubya's out of office -- ceding control of the country to right-wing nutjobs for six years is plenty enough for me. We don't need to make Dubya's last two years any more comfortable. You're also right about localization being the means to save the Republic. [You see, everyone. I can dispense the carrot as well as the stick.]

However, I disagree that the dissolution of the federal power structure is the way to go. OK, mindless conservatives, this is where you need to pay attention. When our Founding Fathers™ envisioned our system of rule, they saw the dangers of a highly-centralized rule(r) out of touch with the views (and dare I say, values) of the nation. That is why they called it a Union. United states, if you will. Where the Republican party -- and conservatives in general -- formerly advocated the ideas of states' rights and localized rule within a framework of national federation, they have now embraced a powerful, centralized federal government as a means of foisting their beliefs and morals upon everyone else. Just as National Socialism was a misnomer for fascists, so, too, is the Republican Party misnamed. They've attempted to legislate away the democratic mechanisms (filibuster anyone?) that maintain the balance of power in a republic.

Basically, what I'm saying here is that the country needs to return to intent of the Constitution. Slaveholders and misogynists though they might have been, the Founding Fathers were smart men and crafted quite the ingenious document. All they were looking for: guaranteed freedoms, open roads to prosperity, and the security of the Union. The means to those ends? Powers balanced between states and the federal government. Checks and balances. Separation of church and state. The Bill of Rights. How many of these has the current administration (and its associated Republican cronies in Congress and the Supreme Court) attemted to circumvent or abolish altogether?

So back to the point at hand. Not dissolution, but perhaps a revisitation of the way our democracy was intended to be. Hear, hear.

Thanks for the thinking man's comment, Aaron.

Posted by popcultist on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 3:46 PM [Remove] [Reply to this]