Political Frenzy

As usual, politically vocal residents of a politically divided region are approached first by parties and activists. As such your loyal blogger has received a generous invitation from yee-hawing Democratic leader Howard Dean to give them my money. First off, on this blog’s best month I made $6.50 off of it (so start clicking on ads, you deadbeats!) and I cannot get a job until school lets up because I’m not even a full-time student, I’m an over-time student. Howard Dean MD, as the letter touts, will make more money sucking out one old lady’s belly fat than I probably do all year. How about you give ME some money?

But it’s not that - they need donors, yea, I get it. The weirdest bit is that the words “Fellow Democrat” in the heading were crossed out with blue pen with my name written next to it. Wait, no, that’s not blue pen. Close inspection reveals that it is in fact pixelated and printed onto the page. They used a font and a computer to put my name there. And for what? I know this is mass-mailed, I know Howard Dean didn’t write this letter just for me. All you accomplished, DNC, is looking douchey.

The letter is also insulting to my intelligence, telling me I’ll be part of a “grassroots” campaign if I join up with them. No, my friends, voting for Lance Romance as the next King County Executive is a grassroots campaign. Voting for Barack Obama, while probably the socially responsible thing to do, is not at all a grassroots campaign.

In closing, me = awesome and very tired, Howard Dean = douche.

Howard Dean, DNC, Democrats, Lance Romance, The Briefs, King County, voting, grassroots campaign

A condescending and flippant series of comments on my article regarding Uncle Roger’s letter to me about Don Imus reached my inbox from a reader known as Colleen. This is one you want to read every letter, period, hyphen, quotation mark, and colon of.

Uh, yeah, not really quite sure if you purposely passed over some of the bigger hits that are actually out this year. Considering this past month is when the Don Imus controversy arose, shouldn’t we use more recent lyrics, and not 3 “soft” songs chosen from a history of violent, degrading rap songs?

Here’s a real list.

“Ima b pimpin
I dont be slippin
When it come down to these hoez
I dont love em
We dont cuff em
Man thats just the way it goes
I pull up in the Phantom
All the ladies think handsome
Jewelry shining, I stay stuntin
Thats why these niggas cant stand em
Ima chick mag-a-net
And anything fine im bag-gin it
And if she got a man, I dont care
10 toes and I wanna be, cause I gotta have it”

(R. Kelly, I’m A Flirt, presently NUMBER ONE on Billboard.com)

“U In Da Club U C A Bad Bitch Point Her Out”

(Young Jeezy ft. R. Kelly, Go Getta)

I don’t have time to go through all the hits these days, but you get the idea. Don’t ever try to make all rappers seem innocent and only preaching advice and such. Please.

What I also wanted to add is what I heard on a newscast recently, and I have to admit this world has absolutely caused it to be true:

“Everyone has freedom of speech except white people”. And after something like this? Yea, it’s true.

Frankly, I’m embarrassed by our nation.

Firstly Colleen, just as with any art form, rap is a spectrum - from crap to magnificent, from positive to negative. Even classical music has its crap - you just don’t hear it anymore. My point was just this: there is no blanket statement that can be made about rap, and I cited some of the most popular hip-hop songs of the now fairly mature decade. Any blanket statement you could make about any genre would simply be false. It was my attempt to avoid the broad sweeping generalization that plague our nation. Everyone is saying “Liberals are” or “Conservatives are” or “Rap is” or “Punk is” or “Iraqis are” or “Blacks are” or “Persians are” - what we really should be saying is “he is” or “she is” or “it is”.

Secondly, I would love to hear who said that White People are excluded from Freedom of Speech. I myself was personally involved in defending Seattle local college journalist Lee Myers when faculty at Seattle Central Community College threatened his position as an editor, and in fact the entire structure, of the City Collegian, the school newspaper. Myers produced an unpopular - but not original - article of opinion. The way some people tell it he tried to blame all black people for their systematic oppression for over a century. Others allege that he was simply pointing out what he noticed, which was black people working against their own best interests.

As an Iranian-American, I was personally hurt by Lee’s words - especially so since I know him personally - as they were so similar to the way many pundits speak of my own people. But instead, at a rally in the school’s Atrium, I got up with a microphone and defended Lee’s right to say what he wants to in the school newspaper - to an overwhelming majority of black Americans who booed me and tried to take the microphone from me. Instead I stood my ground because I felt that Lee Myers, perhaps the whitest man I know, was at least attempting to make an intellectual argument.

Some of the more cogent and articulate anti-Collegian partisans, especially the leader of the United Feminist League, argued more specifically and cohesively that the Collegian was using money from the students of the college to print racist material, promoting ignorance. Since it was their money, they contended, it was their right to define the content of the paper.

My simple argument was that the money was not paying the authors of the Collegian, it was providing an open forum for anyone to say anything they wanted. Lee Myer’s article was published because the Collegian does not discriminate in what it publishes. The lack of opposing opinions was because those people who cried out when Lee Myers expressed himself had months ago decided neither to join the Collegian’s ranks nor contribute anything to the Collegian. I wrote as much and had my opinions printed without question in the next issue of the Collegian.

I tell you this story because it enrages me that I would be accused of siding with those who would silence free speech. I am a vocal opponent to any form of censorship, and oppose the FCC’s very existence.

Now, if you had bothered to actually read my article, you would have read this line:

I certainly don’t think this remark is worthy of the outrage it has incited.

Imus should have been ignored for putting his idiocy and ignorance on display. It was painful to hear him defending himself, and no one believed a word he said - if anyone accepts that half-hearted apology, they’re fools. And it should never have come down to forcing a man to apologizing for something he doesn’t truly believe was a mistake. Apology should not be a ceremony to wash away controversy like a media baptism, it should be the earnest expression of regret. By forcing him to his knees, all the establishment has done is forced Imus to cheapen the words “I’m sorry”.

For future reference, Colleen, read my articles before you comment on them, and don’t talk down to me like I’m some kind of idiot. I, for instance, never try and portray snarkiness by beginning my sentences with “Uh, yeah,” like an antagonist from a second-rate teen drama starring Lindsey Lohan. T’chyaa, like, what-evarrrr. OH NO YOU DI’NT!

It’s people like you - who polarize everything by ignoring certain things that I write - that make moderates like myself so damned invisible to the world. Instead of recognizing that I neither called for Imus’s resignation nor even called him a racist (Because he’s not! Being ignorant doesn’t make you a racist!) you instead focus on the fact that I don’t agree with Imus - which apparently to you translates to being some kind of censorship-happy politically correctness freak. And just like Imus, Colleen, you’re wearing your ignorance on your sleeve.

But I’ve probably lost you by now. I bet you read maybe 1/4 of what I’ve written by skipping around - probably zeroing in on your own name rather than reading the whole thing letter to letter. And you’re missing a lot, Colleen.

If that’s the way you read everything, it’s no wonder, either.

If you’re so ashamed of this country, Colleen, I hear France is doing amazing things with homogenizing their culture. No one will ever disagree! So either pack up and leave - give up on this “shameful” nation - or stand by your country like a real patriot, through thick AND thin, through the good times and the crap times. You stand by the country you love, like you stand by the man or woman you love. And to throw around a hackneyed phrase like “I’m ashamed of this nation” makes me want to spit to get the taste out.

I highly suggest you sit down and listen to some Palestrina. The Pope Marcellus Mass really centers me, and I think it could do the same for you. It’s a wonderful Kyrie. Perhaps it will get you to critically think and analyze instead of shooting out talking points of a television pundit at me.

Uncle Roger is apparently not in agreement with me on my last post.

Dear Attack, From the interviews of the students I saw many tried to include “cho” in their community. Do you really want to know who’s fault it was for the Virginia Tech shooting. The Shooter! The question is how many booger-eater silent clamed-up weidos do you have for lunch or have for sleep overs? If you, as an individual, wouldn’t do that why would you expect it of society. The fault of all this lies on the shoulders of the slime ball that pulled the trigger. In the following days you will see the hand wringers question themselves and society about how this boy (23years old) needed more love and understanding and eventually, in their minds, he will become the victim. Don’t fall for it.

The first most disturbing thing about this letter is that the man’s name, Cho, is in quotation marks. The implications of that sends shivers down my spine. It may not have been intentional, but that is, perhaps, far scarier. Although it would be easier to completely dehumanize a murderer, and surgically remove them from the society that created them, it is only denial.

It was not the 23 year old Cho Seung-hui who needed friends, it was the 8 year old Cho Seung-hui who needed them when he moved from South Korea with his parents to a foreign land with a foreign language.

In South Korea the Associated Press managed to track down the man whom Cho’s father rented his home from before the family moved to the United States, Lim Bong-ae “I didn’t know what [Cho’s father] did for a living. But they lived a poor life… While emigrating, [Cho’s father] said they were going to America because it is difficult to live here and that it’s better to live in a place where he is unknown.”

To be 8 years old and be transplanted, all of a sudden, in Detroit Michigan. Americans, on a whole, know nothing of the kind of culture shock that a monolingual child goes through in a nation where no one understands the words you grew up speaking. Less than one person in a hundred in Detroit is Asian, and the Korean community is nigh non-existent.

The kindness and openness of Seung-hui’s classmates is what one can often call “too little too late”. Social skills are like language - there’s a window of opportunity for development.

The feral child Genie, whose real name was Susan Wiley, would excessively masturbate when bored, and when angry would hit and cut herself. Susan was raised in the California by a blind mother and depressed father. Since she was left alone and never talked to, she never learned to speak until she was 13, and foraged for food. Her behavior was extremely animalistic. (Genie: a Scientific Tragedy by Russ Rymer)

Victor of Aveyron was another feral child, who could empathize and loved to hug people. When upset he would cry and seek comfort. He never learned to speak, but he did love to express himself through music once he had been captured by Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre and brought into Bonnaterre’s home. Victor was never exposed to other humans until he wandered into the town of Tolouse. (l’Enfant Sauvage by Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre)

So why could Victor, who grew to the ripe old age of 12 without having heard or seen a human his whole life, empathize so much more than Susan “Genie” Wiley? Bonnaterre gives us some insight. He noticed that if the boy whom he had named Victor had been completely alone for the entirety of his life, he would walk and run like a normal human being, ceding to his natural physiology in the lack of a stimulus. Instead the boy ran most effectively when on all fours, like a dog, contrary to human biology. Bonnaterre extrapolates from this that Victor was raised by either dogs or wolves.

What is the implication of this? That a family of canines will be more likely to produce an emotionally stable child than some American families.

Still want to say it’s not cultural?

Uncle Roger just won’t leave me alone! Hey, you other people who read this site, email me a little too!

Dear Attack, Can you explain the difference of what Don Imus said and what the top 10 rap records say every day? Are white people the only racists?

Don Imus, radio personality and generally the anti-Howard Stern, is a satirist who I am, admittedly, not familiar with. But he did recently make headlines by, in jest, describing Rutgers University NCAA women’s basketball players “nappy headed hos” and saying they looked “rough”. He apologized four days ago for the comment, calling it “insensitive” and “ill-concieved”.

It was just that, insensitive and ill-concieved, and I don’t really find the humor in insulting a group of college athletes, especially ones who performed so well this last season. Attacking them on two levels - being black (nappy-headed) and being women (hos) - on things that are not a fault nor in their control is just shock ‘humor’ and the mark of a truly unoriginal and unfunny man. I certainly don’t think this remark is worthy of the outrage it has incited. I urge everyone to pity the poor ignorant and idiotic Imus.

As for the rap records, I’m not sure what rap you’re listening to at all. But here are excerpts from some of the top-charting rap songs in recent times:

Now little lisa is only 9 years old
Shes tryin to figure out why the world is so cold
Why shes all all alone and they never met her family
Mamas always gone and she never met her daddy
Part of her is missin and nobody will listenin
Mama is on drugs gettin high up in the kitchen
Bringin home men at different hours of the night
Startin with laughs–usually endin in a fight

…

Lisa is stuck up in the world on her own
Forced to think that hell is a place called home
Nothin else to do but some get some clothes and pack
She says shes bout to run away and never come back.
“Runaway Love” by Ludacris, peaked at #2 on charts

Me and your daughter
Got a special thang goin on
You say it’s puppy love
We say it’s full grown
Hope that we feel this
Feel this way forever
You could plan a pretty picnic
But you can’t predict the weather, Ms. Jackson
“Ms Jackson” by Outkast, peaked at #1 on charts

Windmill windmill for the land
Turn forever hand in hand
Take it all it on your stride
It is ticking falling down
Love forever love is free
Let’s turn forever you and me
windmill windmill for the land
Is everybody in?
“Feel Good Inc.” by The Gorillaz, maintained #1 on American charts for 8 weeks

It is a misconception by many that rap is somehow either A) self-destructive as a tool used by minorities and effectively self-oppresses or B) is anti-white. This is most often claimed by those who don’t listen to the music. Many amazing and creative artists - such as the late Tupac Shakur, the very much alive Andre Benjamin, the very mature Del the Funky Homo sapien, and puerile Ludacris - are creating truly beautiful works of art. For the true music lover, I highly recommend the albums “Demon Days” by the Gorillaz and “Stankonia” by Outkast.

Admittedly the current holder of the number one spot on the rap charts, “This Is Why I’m Hot” by Mims, is a shallow piece of work with lyrical content that is just a clone of every damn thing Snoop Dogg ever came out with in the 90s, except without the drug content. It also lacks any musicianship at all. But that’s pop! You get a lot of cruddy clones of something someone made popular a long time ago. Even in this song’s lyrics, however, there’s nothing really racially charged about it, except maybe the use of the word “nigga” to refer to all men - which is an entirely different issue. But as far as making pejorative remarks and singling out a race, this song is harmless.

For more eclectic tastes and adventurous spirit, Uncle Roger, the truly ingenious fusion of rapper Del, and producers Dan the Automater and Kid Koala resulted in one of the most amazing albums ever created. “Deltron 3030″ is a hip-hop album where every sound has been specifically crafted by the hands of Dan and Koala to create a futuristic cityscape of debauchery and governmental decay, and Del the Funky Homo sapien weaves a story through his lyrics of a single man who takes on the mission of restoring democracy to the galactic empire in the year of 3030 AD.

It’s easy to make judgments about that which you know little about.

Uncle Roger just keeps emailing me!

Attack, didn’t we live under a confederate union before the founding fathers formed “a more perfect union” Did the Articles of Confederation fail?

Yes we did. But we won the Revolutionary War under the Articles of Confederation, and any constitution that can guide a fledgling nation through a war as gruesome as that can hardly be called a failure. No, I blame Alexander Hamilton for the Federation. Hamilton was the most vocal of the Federalists and became iconic of the Federalist movement. He also authored the majority of the Federalist Papers, along with James Madison and John Jay.

See, the thing is that the Federalists reasoned that in a Republic, there would be no need to guarantee personal rights because those in government would all be elected, and therefore would never harm the people they represented. Although good in theory, it’s very odd to me that they wouldn’t be more ready to ensure the personal freedoms of the citizens after fighting such a bloody war for exactly those reasons. It should have been painfully obvious that without personal freedoms guaranteed, the government can always be perverted to invade and harm the citizens’ lives.

The Confederation was designed with personal freedoms in mind, and the Federalists wanted to put all of our freedoms in the hands of the government. If you notice, the original Constitution, as written by Federalists, mentions nothing of the ordinary man. It was the Bill of Rights, written by those who had supported maintaining the Articles of Confederation, that maintained the liberties of John Q. Public. The Bill of Rights would later become the first ten Amendments of the Constitution, the last testament to the libertarian Articles of Confederation.

Damn you, Hamilton.

Another letter from my Uncle Roger.

Dear Attack, After reading your April 3 blog questions came to me that only the great one could ponder and hopefully answer. If you could jettison yourself back in time and be a strapping young voter in the 1864 election between George Mc Clellan and Abraham Lincoln; who would you voted for? After nearly 3 and a half years and approx. 500,000 Americans killed would you have voted for “cut and run” McClellan who believed the war too costly and wanted to negotiate with the south for separate nations. Or would you have voted for honest Abe, who wanted to put the pedal to the medal and end the war with absolute victory. This absolute victory would later cost more American lives (between Nov. 1864 to April 1865) than all the American wars from Korea onward. We know what happened, but what would have happened if McClellan would have been elected?

I would have voted for McClellan and I would have supported the South’s secession. If the southern agrarian states attempted to secede today, I would support them again.

In the American Civil War, the Union paid in blood to retain a territory it did not need, and keep citizens who did not want the title. Why? What for? Abraham Lincoln and the United States Congress didn’t want the fissure of their nation on their hands, and out of a convoluted sense of ego and nationalism, they sent men to their deaths to “maintain the union”, and prove that “united we stand”.

The facts are the states that would become the Confederation had a radically different economic structure, based on agriculture, and had a near irreconcilable culture with the north. Regardless of what modern pop-history will tell you, the Civil War was not about slavery, and the issues of economy and culture were primary in the conflict.

I feel the same way about the Civil War as many feel about World War I - why? For God’s sake, why? Some distorted sense of honor? Some puerile pissing contest? Oh, you can quote me rhetoric:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. ~Abraham Lincoln

But that is just so much nationalism, not a logical attempt to do what is best for the people whom he was sworn to protect. Separately, the agricultural economy of the southern states and the industrial economy of the northern states would have been better regulated, and the interests of the culturally disparate regions would have been better served. To this day the fissure between the north and south has put a strain on American politics.

In the evolution of nations, a Confederate South and a Federal North would have been a natural progression. Slavery would not have long endured in the south, with economic and cultural pressure from the other civilized nations of the time, so I am wholly unconcerned about the repercussions of that. Instead, a powerful alliance could have been forged under McClellan’s United States and Lee’s Confederate States if the diplomacy had been handled properly, and I believe that the two Americas would eventually have united under a common flag, each nation being a larger governing body more like the E.U.

Instead, Lincoln pushed for “absolute victory”, letting rivers of blood flow towards a botched “reconstruction” and hostility that exists to this day between conservative agricultural culture and liberal metropolitan society. Absolute victory does nothing but cripple the victorious and humiliate the defeated.

The only time absolute victory ever worked was when the Romans decided that Carthage had no right to stand, exterminated the Punic people, and leveled the city, leaving not a brick standing. I don’t think that’s the kind of thing Americans should aspire to.

George McClellan, 1864, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War

I received another letter from one of my many conservative fans (who thought?), my uncle Roger

Dear Attack, I do have a few questions from reading your blog on DL. Do you believe we should have a national govt. or fed govt? Should the will of the people always be served? And have you ever really listened to Rush for an extended length of time? Or are your thoughts and beliefs molded by people who hate Rush? I can understand your thought process if you listen to Rush once in a while, because he does have many inside jokes, but I would be surprised if you called him names after listening to him for 6 weeks. It must be 6 weeks to wash away all your pre-conseived notions. Now there is a challenge. I have done the same with Air America and National Public Radio. I believe as you listen to Rush your teeth grinding will be less and less each day.

Answering the last question first:
As a full-time student, I’m on the bus and in class from 9am to noon, when Limbaugh’s show is on. And I don’t have three hours to just sit and listen to anything - I have hardly any time just to blog. Believe it or not, I don’t even watch the TV news, and rarely read the newspaper. My information primarily comes from books and the internet press.

My beef with Rush comes from the basic fundamental hypocrisy of his political stances and his personal actions. There are some things I wholeheartedly agreed with him on, for instance this quote: “Too many whites are getting away with drug use…Too many whites are getting away with drug sales…The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too”

He’s right, many rich white people get away with severe drug use while inner city youths are put away for years for possession of marijuana because selling drugs is the only job they can find in a crippled economy. The problem is that Rush Limbaugh became one of the rich whites doing drugs, becoming addicted to OxyContin and hydrocodone eight years after making the above statement.

In his path he has left a wake of divorces: a three year marriage to secretary Roxy McNeely, seven year marriage to Michelle Sixta who was a college student at the time, and the marriage to aerobics instructor Marta Fitzgerald which didn’t last a month. So much for sanctity of marriage.

All I need to know about the man is his fundamental philosophy and his personal actions. I can have no beef with men like John McCain, who lives the philosophy he preaches, but Limbaugh’s “do as I say, not as I do” way about things leaves me with little faith in the man’s moral character.

For the record, I don’t listen to Air America, and the last time I heard or read anything from Al Franken it was on a YouTube video of him on Conan. And to balance my criticism of Limbaugh, here’s a little of what I think of Franken.

Al Franken was a very funny liberal satirist with a keen wit and wonderful delivery. And then I read the first chapter of “The Truth (with jokes)”. It was so filled with self-righteousness and total moral outrage, I just felt that he had turned himself into Luke Skywalker and I expected Dick Cheney to jump out of the pages and cry “I AM YOUR FATHER”. Franken has turned politics into a life-or-death struggle of right and wrong, painted his knight’s armor in brilliant chrome, and thrust a crown of tyranny on the president’s head. As a moderate, I find this kind of epicism very unsettling and rather irresponsible.

Answering the first question:
I believe you’re asking if I think a Federation or a true Union would be better. I believe both have the capacity to serve the American people greatly. A Federation where the independant States have great autonomy and are federated in the interest of regulating commerce would be wonderful, but could possibly fall victim to regional cultural discrimination (see: Southern Reconstruction) and while this form of government is originally what the Founding Fathers had in mind, the invention of national parties and federal crimes - which have no precedence in the constitution - have made a Federation impossible in the U.S. A true Union, which has the national government working in preeminence over subordinate provincial government, is what the U.S. has been trying to become for decades, but cannot due to the electorate system and the bicameral legislative branch. The imbalance of influence per capita is not congruent to the influence of the federal government on the individual. There is no way to rationalize Rhode Island’s two senators and New York State’s two senators with the current powers and influence of the Congress.

I don’t have a preference between Federal or Union - they’re both awesome when used properly. But right now we’re in some kind of diabolic limbo, which will only result in a total self-destruction and ill-serves the American people. As for the other part of your question, yes, as a populist, I believe wholeheartedly that the interests of the people should be served at all times. But this is not an invitation to tyranny of the majority. I will never say that the majority of the people’s interests should be made law, but that all people should be afforded their basic Lockean rights.

Hope that answers your questions!

Rush Limbaugh, Al Franken, a bunch of smegheads

A fellow 451press blogger, Paul of toybender.com, has decided to take issue with my analysis of the Stallone’s Australian Steroid Adventure. Paul is 451’s resident doll expert, who has been decidedly snarky to me. His comment warranted response, I believe.

So if a foreign movie star comes over to the us and gets busted for something… like I dunno… getting a bj from a hooker, would that mean they are representing their country then and would you get all fired up about it? Stallone is an individual, not a government official in any capacity.

America is, without question, the number one exporter of culture in the entire world. How do we export this? Not on ships or planes or trains, but through the image of Americans in the media. Stallone doesn’t have the right of celebrity, he has the responsibility of celebrity. His actions reflect upon the culture he comes from, which is ours. He has done a great disservice to us all in Australia. That is my opinion on the social aspect.

However, legally, American celebrities are notorious for abusing foreign law *COUGHMADONNACOUGH* and getting away with it. This needs to stop. The “American royalty” has gotten away with too much, and I say Australia should string up Stallone as a warning to other celebrities: your movie credits are not a shield. Obey the damn law.

Sylvester Stallone, Australia, Human Growth Hormone

I received a letter today, and decided to share it with all of you!

Dear Al-Attack,
I wonder what is going on with the voter fraud front. It seems we heard alot about it in 2000, 2002, again in 2004, but when the democrats took both houses in 2006 the howls of voter fraud quieted down. Can you enlighten me on this subject o’ wise one?

I have heard no specific allegations from anyone, so I can’t form an opinion or whether or not there were voter frauds in the 2006 Congressional elections. Although I do believe that voter fraud wasn’t the problem with the last elections - it was a matter of poor organization, bad tallying systems, and a hugely incompetent structure.

Americans, as I have recently pointed out, are so eager for their problems to be an epic battle against good and evil that the failing structure of an outmoded system gets pinned to a specific person. No one “rigged” anything, the problems arose from trying to use a system designed for a few million people in an election for hundreds of millions of people. Jeffersonian Democracy is failing under the weight of parties (Thomas Jefferson himself expressed the belief that political parties were the enemy of democracy, and the US electoral system was designed without them in mind) and the massive population of the American people.

If, dear author of the letter, you are trying to imply a liberal cover-up of a Democratic plot to fraud their way into the house of Congress, I’d have to say I believe that even less than I believe Bush and crew rigged their elections. Although Bush’s first election was quite suspicious, the last one was little more than a systematic break down.

Although I may be labeled unpatriotic, I see two possible options to solve this problem: either implement a Parliamentary system, or outlaw parties. You see, in the original vision of Jeffersonian democracy, each region picked a representative from its best and brightest to go to Washington. Now we vote for a party, one of two usually. Instead of the more than a half-dozen candidates of our nation’s earliest eras, any one district will have three candidates on average. If we assume that the Democratic and Republican candidates are the only ones who are likely to win in any given district, and then assume that forty-five percent of every single voting district’s registered voters are ardent Democrats and the other fifty-five percent are staunch Republicans, we will, by Jeffersonian Democracy, arrive at a one-hundred percent Republican government.

Although I know this could never happen, it is a perfect example of how Jeffersonian Democracy and political parties are completely incompatible. Now take into consideration the massive numbers of people in the United States currently, and we have a serious problem.

Under a Parliament, if only 12% of the voters vote for some party, they still will receive a seat at the table. That is representation, that is democracy. We have a system in place that ignores the minority, and encourages the tyranny of the majority. And to those who would claim I’m anti-American for saying all this, I counter that America is not the way we make laws, but how we use them. America is not who is president, but who is living under them. It’s American to want a better way, and anti-American to want them to stay so obviously wrong.

Election, Jeffersonian Democracy, Letters, Parliament