Arafat Calls for Democratic Elections in the United States

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by NY Hoya


you do know that the Supreme Court of Florida was overwhelmingly Democratic.

Which makes it even MORE ODD that Gore didnt win......if the Supreme court of Florida is strongly democratic, and Gore is a Democrat, and if 2 of the judges made speeches at the democratic national convention supporting gore for the precidency when he was nominated- then why the hell WOULDNT they side with him?

The obvious reason is because they were pressured not to be Jeb.

[Felch]

Originally posted by Vesayen
You have no proof over peoples intentions, or how they feel.......people dont care because we live in an entertaiment culture, and if its isnt entertaining no one cares......People arent complaining because A. theres nothing they can do about it and B. they dont care.

Take a deep breath . . . BECAUSE THE SAME APPLIES TO YOU!!! You do not have any idea how anybody feels except yourself, so stop pretending that you are the defender of democracy and all that is wholesome and good, and just realize for perhaps one second that maybe most Americans are okay with things the way they are.

Bush and Gore were very different on lots of important issues, abortion, the ENVIROMENT(why I VERY strongly support Gore), foreign policy etc....just to name a few.

If you think it would make a dime of difference when they got to Washington you are sorely mistaken. Money rules Washington, the presidents and Congresses are just figureheads of the corporations and major lobbying groups.

BTW from your previous post, why do you think a bi-partisant system is the best way to go?(I personally dislike political parties.......).

I'm registered to vote Libertarian. I'm not bipartisan, and I don't think it's great. I also don't think that we actually have two real distinct parties in this country, just one huge one. But I don't think that we need to change the Constitution to fix it. We need to organize at a grassroots level and stop *****ing about how everything is unfair and nobody knows what's really going on.

[NY Hoya]

Originally posted by Vesayen
Which makes it even MORE ODD that Gore didnt win......if the Supreme court of Florida is strongly democratic, and Gore is a Democrat, and if 2 of the judges made speeches at the democratic national convention supporting gore for the precidency when he was nominated- then why the hell WOULDNT they side with him?

The obvious reason is because they were pressured not to be Jeb.

you cannot be that cynical

[Zoid]

Originally posted by NY Hoya


I tend to prefer that made in scotland....I don't care for American whiskey...

Well, enough of this threadjacking...

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by NY Hoya


you cannot be that cynical

You cannot be that naive.

[NY Hoya]

Originally posted by Vesayen


You cannot be that naive.

No, I've already been through the youthful, conspiracy theory stage of life. And you are aware that the Florida court didn't find in Bush's favor...

[Vesayen]

They did however say the re-count was invalid, after the re-count began to favor Gore......its not a conspiracy lol, connect the dots(and no, I dont care who shot kennedy from the grassy gnol).

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Vesayen

Are you really naive enough to think that when Bush's victory was on the line, and the govenor of the state supreme court which decided the election-that decision would NOT have been effected by the state govenor, and Georg's brother Jeb?

He won it legally over the table, but illegally under the table......you honestly think his brother didnt influence that supreme court decision(though obviously not publicly)?

Its not a democracy because the minority can, and often do decide who becomes president, and more so because the people did not decide who is president......the Bush's decided who was president and im my eyes George W. Bush is a dictator who took power illegally.

You complain about another's naivete when your naivete and ignorance combined are truly staggering in comparison. Let's review the facts:

George W. Bush = Republican Presidential Candidate

Jeb Bush = Governor of Florida

Florida Supreme Court = totally dominated by Democrats

Ballots in heavily Democratic Counties = Heavily Designed by Democrats

U.S. Supreme Court = divided into liberal, moderate and conservative factions, with Republican appointees outnumbering Democratic appointees, but also tending to be all over the map idealogically. 5-4 rulings are very common here, as are conservative victories.

Now how exactly did Jeb Bush influence the Florida Supreme Court to hand the victory to his brother? The Florida Supreme Court decided for a recount against G.W. Bush! Way to go Jeb! At every step of the way groups supported the candidate who was of the same party (though there were some individuals who did not vote the party line). As for the bad ballots in strongly Democratic Counties, it is up to the county itself to design it's ballot. You can hardly blame Jeb or any other Republican for that. How can this have been a conspiracy? How come you are such an idiot? If the entire population of the U.S. was made up of people like you, then they deserve to ruled by an evil dictator. It's good to see that cognitive dissonance is alive and well amongst the brain dead American left.

[Sikander]

Oh Geez, I should have read the whole thread, there's more...

"People of high office often influence the Judicial system to get their way....for example Harry Truman added multiple more judges so he could get his new deal legislation through........added more judges with his political view, dilating the national supreme court, so his side would prevail. "

It was Roosevelt, not Truman, he was attempting to dilute (not dilate) the principled justices who refused to find in his favor with enough yes men to get his stuff declared constitutional, and in any event he failed.

"They did however say the re-count was invalid, after the re-count began to favor Gore......its not a conspiracy lol, connect the dots(and no, I dont care who shot kennedy from the grassy gnol)."

Are you capable of both forming and communicating a coherent thought? Honestly, you seem like some sort of moron who was raised around a bunch of rabid Democrats, or at least that is where the connected dots seem to be leading. Just in case you don't consider this random collection of people here at Apolyton part of the grand conspiracy that everyone is involved in to pis$ off people like yourself, who for the vast majority btw... a few more facts.

Florida SC ordered a recount of selected counties, rather than the entire state. They also decreed that because the time to decide the election was running out that the recounts had to be carried out in a very short period of time. Bush and company appealled to the U.S. SC, which held that the Florida SC made several errors in their ruling that violated the constitution of the U.S. No recounted votes (from the last recount mandated by the Florida SC) were validated, and Bush won a very narrow victory.

After the election a number of news organization pooled resources and conducted a number of recounts (there were a number of ways to count ballots in contention, and both sides took a number of positions in an attempt to get rulings favorable to their candidate). Amusingly, if either candidate had gotten his way with the recount rulings he would have handed the election to his opponent.

The bottom line is that the Florida election was a statistical tie. You can count and count and count, but the outcome is always going to lie in that grey area where the count lies within the margin of error for the system in place on election day. Both parties pulled out all the stops in an attempt to wrest victory from the other, and I am sure that both sides used arguments which ideologically they would normally oppose in order to give themselves just that much greater chance of victory. It was not their finest hour. Nonetheless, the system was designed to deal with a f***ed up election (or even no election) if necessary, and it did so.

Continued whining is not seemly. If Bush is an evil dictator then I suggest you summon the balls to do the right thing and overthrow him. If you are merely used to spewing hyperbole as an infantile reaction to the realization of just how little the world revolves around you, then grow up and learn how to deal with it like most adults and all worthwhile people do.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Sikander
The bottom line is that the Florida election was a statistical tie. You can count and count and count, but the outcome is always going to lie in that grey area where the count lies within the margin of error for the system in place on election day. Both parties pulled out all the stops in an attempt to wrest victory from the other, and I am sure that both sides used arguments which ideologically they would normally oppose in order to give themselves just that much greater chance of victory. It was not their finest hour. Nonetheless, the system was designed to deal with a f***ed up election (or even no election) if necessary, and it did so.

This is exactly right.

It was a statistical tie and went to the person it was designed to go for.

Jon Miller

[Roland]

"It was Roosevelt, not Truman, he was attempting to dilute (not dilate) the principled justices who refused to find in his favor with enough yes men to get his stuff declared constitutional, and in any event he failed."

No, he got what he wanted.

"Both parties pulled out all the stops in an attempt to wrest victory from the other..."

Indeed. And the winner was the one who happened to have been better at SCOTUS staffing.

Lectures by Bush about democracy after this election farce are really funny. Apart from the point that obviously, he has no problem with the democratic legitimacy of people like Musharraf.

[Deathwalker]

America doesn’t have fair elections, and for two reasons:

First the way each state is divided into voting zones, after every election E.G. Miami's five mile long 50 meters wide zones along the beach as to make sure all the OAP's don’t effect the overall state vote.
Second of course is the Electoral College, what a crap system.
This from the greatest Democracy in the world, I don’t’ think so

[Rogan Josh]

I don't think the outcome of the last US election was rigged or unfair because of the Florida vote. I think when the election is so close the statistical fluctuations of voting patterns make the choice of president effectively random and not refective of the people's choice.

It was just pure bad luck that the vote was so close, and had the sun been shining more strongly or had it been raining on the day of the election, I am sure that it would have effected the outcome much more strongly than the Florida recounts.

Indeed, I do not even believe that the system in place is sufficiently accurate to refect such a small voting difference clearly. A difference of 0.5% between the candidates is not sufficient to declare one candidate more popular than the other in my opinion.

For this reason I would like to see a complete nation wide revote if the candidates are within 1% of each other in any state. Alternatively, if this is considered too disruptive, one could disallow the electoral votes of any state where the difference was less than 1%, or perhaps insist that they slit the electoral votes equally between the candidates. This would not be depriving the state of its democratic right but merely stating that the state has no preference between the candidates. Of course, with such a system, Gore would have won....

But laying this aside for a moment, I think a much more damning inditement of US 'democracy' is the choice of candidates themselves. It is most ceratinly not true that anyone can become President. You are, in practice if not principle, required to be born into a wealthy family of the US 'aristocracy'. How many US Presidents in the last 100 years have not been millionaires before coming into office? Indeed, how many of them were not born into millionaire families? Very few I imagine.

This is very much exampified by the current choice. How many other truely 'democratic' nations have a President who is the son of a past President, or the brother of the governor of one of the most populous states?

Does anyone truely believe that someone born into a poor family in South Dakota could rise to become US President, or even someone born into a middle class family in Pennsylvania?

[Roland]

"Does anyone truely believe that someone born into a poor family in South Dakota could rise to become US President..."

As it worked for Arkansas, it has to be possible. Although that president was hated with a vengeance by the feudal lords for his humble origins....

[Victor Galis]

Bush and Gore weren't different enough to fight over. You'd have a tough time figuring out where they differed on issues, and an even harder time convincing anybody that they wouldn't immediately give up on their "principles" if it seemed like the politically expedient thing to do.

-I disagree. The difference would manifest itself in foreign policy. And Ashcroft would certainly not be in charge of the DoJ I always preffer to think of Ashcroft as the guy who lost a senate race to a dead guy.

To be entirely honest, I took several candidate matching tests online, and Bush almost always ended up below Harry Browne, and well below Gore.

and just realize for perhaps one second that maybe most Americans are okay with things the way they are.

-Yes. That realization is much easier to come to after you remember that most Americans are stupid.

U.S. Supreme Court = divided into liberal, moderate and conservative factions, with Republican appointees outnumbering Democratic appointees, but also tending to be all over the map idealogically. 5-4 rulings are very common here, as are conservative victories.

-The US Supreme Court, has 5 conservatives and 4 liberals... Bush won 5-4

Originally posted by Sikander
The bottom line is that the Florida election was a statistical tie. You can count and count and count, but the outcome is always going to lie in that grey area where the count lies within the margin of error for the system in place on election day. Both parties pulled out all the stops in an attempt to wrest victory from the other, and I am sure that both sides used arguments which ideologically they would normally oppose in order to give themselves just that much greater chance of victory. It was not their finest hour. Nonetheless, the system was designed to deal with a f***ed up election (or even no election) if necessary, and it did so.

-This is precisely the problem with the system. A state can be so evenly divided, yet all of its votes go to one candidate They should have just split the florida electoral votes evenly 12(Gore)-12(Bush)-1(Nader).

In any case, the American electoral system is flawed in many ways including the way voting districts are designed after every census.