>
>At 9:45 PM -0700 6/8/02, Dennis Robert Redmond wrote:
>
> >The US political system is fundamentally hostile to second parties.
To second parties? You mean third parties.
The
> >first-past-the-post system, which only the UK continues to use, ensures
> >that you get monopolies -- the 51% rule,
Well, that's not a monopoly.
the 49% get turned off from
> >politics, etc.
How come voting is so much higher in lots of two party systems that are hostile to third parties, like most of Europe? Maybe it's a social rather than a political feature: you have active independent strong union movements with labor parties that offer people a wider range of real choice.
We need a parliamentary system run by proportional
> >representation, where a vote for a small party equals a seat in a
> >legislature.
I'm not sure that Italy or Israel, which have these feautures, are thereby more democratic.
Instead, we have an 18th century theocracy of finance
> >capital, which swears fealty to a mysterious, all-knowing, omniscient
> >Constitution, into whose text every issue of import is somehow to be
> >allegorically read.
A confusion. There was no finance capital in the 18th century, indeed, no capitalism proper. 18th century America was anation divided between yeoman farmers, petty commodity producers, merchant princes, and in the south slavocrat planters.
It's also untrue that "every issue of import" is "allegorically read" into the Constitution. The C is a document of limited govt that establishes a basic framework for govt. Most election law, indeed, most federal election law, is statutory. You have failed to locate the most obnoxios undemocratic feature of the C, namely the 2-Senator per state guarantee.
jks
>
_________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com