How democracy functions in the USA

From a Congress debate regarding the election modus in the USA:

* Fox News comes to mind.
** I could name a few (no longer in power)
*** The Kennedy lawyers?

But no, we have come so much further since then! This debate took place in the 1780s, the Congress in question was the Continental Congress.

So why the hell, 225 years later, are the elections still held in the same manner? People at least have the opportunity to be better informed than back in the days when it was all swamps around D.C.; you don't have to bundle your votes with one man willing to travel while you hold down the claim and fight back the Indians; it should be the duty one of the largest democracies in the world to hold truly democratic elections (free, equal, secret, direct and simultaneous).

The times of the Founding Fathers are over, let's get modern.

Please read De la démocratie en Amérique . Your concerns are well dissected there.

I'm still not convinced Billy Trailertrash, in all his NASCAR loving, Britney Spears idolizing glory, should have the same vote that I do.
I don't see anything wrong with poll tests. After all, if you can't understand the language, or the issues, why should you be allowed to vote.

How to implement a fair poll test remains a problem, and no doubt, there's no simple solution; but, I still think generally there is nothing wrong with the concept.

I have often thought that the point of democracy is not so much to represent the people - how do you represent the individual views of 300 million people - but to keep government looking over its shoulder, worrying about what the people might think. Even if it is Joe Nascar.

Because what's the alternative? A government that didn't fear the mass of own people, that was only made up of the clever, educated, well-informed citizens has been tried: it was called the DDR.

California is a good example of why direct democracy doesn't work. The idiots in California are allowed to influence taxation via ballot initiatives. So of course, the vote up social programs, but refuse to vote in a greater tax burden upon themselves. So you end up with a bankrupt state.

California is not only able to affect taxation, but also civil rights, via ballot initiative, if you consider last November's Prop 8.

Here in Minnesota, in an effort to avoid the kind of circus we had with the Coleman/Franken senatorial-race virtual tie last November, proposals have been made to allow instant-runoff balloting. Instead of choosing just one candidate, voters would be asked to rank candidates according to preference. In a close election, the winner could be decided by who got the most second choices. (There was a strong third candidate from the Independent Party in the 2008 senatorial race, as well as a few other candidates.)

But some state legislators are actually arguing against such a ranking system, on the grounds that some voters might not understand how it works. (If you choose just one candidate in the run-off balloting scenario, you will have, by default, put all your electoral eggs in one basket and only one will count.) Why this "logic" should stand in the way of creating a fix for a situation that cost the State tens of thousands of dollars, and cost the State and the US Senate a legislator for months while things were sorted out, is beyond me.

A great case of unrealistic expectations of the voting public, of government programs to provide services at no cost to the residences.

If I'm not mistaken, we vote for Senators directly, in the same manner as we do for State Representatives in the House. That's the way it works in the Volunteer State, at least (Go Vols!).

That's not what I meant when I said direct democracy, I was referring to when issues are put to popular votes - like Californias ballot initiatives.

Direct Election of Senators

so sad to think about it when we remember the solid foundation set by gettysurg address

Four score and seven (87) 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. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for
us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honoured dead
we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have
died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and
that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish
from the earth.

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." -- Benjamin Franklin

How do you see the Gettysburg Address as being relevant to the topic at hand, aswd? Gettysburg Battlefield as a metaphor for US democracy in the 2000's?

I think this is on topic enough. Especially the second bit.

I'm not accusing aswd of being off-topic, as much as I wanted to know how s/he sees the Gettysburg Address in general as being relevant.

I mean, I could copy and paste the Bill of Rights or the Preamble or the Battle Hymn of the Republic or something, and just leave everyone here to his/her own guesses of what the hell I am trying to convey by doing so. Not very enlightening, though.

Quoting the last sentence and naming the source would have been sufficient, of course. Then again, it's always worth reading and pondering on.