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| via cpalabama.org |
For well over 15 years, maybe even my whole adult voting life, I have been completely disillusioned with both political parties and even the minor parties seemed for the most part to be complete extremes of some thought or whim or another. Who was an intelligent, logical, rational person supposed to vote for? On top of that I was a confused mix of my own intelligence and the values instilled in me in my childhood. Maybe, more so than most regular, normal, girl or boy next door kids, I became a very eclectic mix of the conservative military values I was surrounded by and the over driven push for knowledge. Thus I have some very 'Republican' ideals and some very 'Democratic' ideals as well, but mostly I have ideals that are VERY unRepublician and unDemocratic.
First and foremost, I believe in the Constitution in it's truest form. Unfortunately, between the Republicans wanting to infringe on freedom of religion and speech and the Democrats wanting to infringe on the right to bear arms and both parties wanting to strip away the rest of the 1st Amendment protections for press and assembly and protest, as well as taking away most protections found in the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Amendments under the guise of national security within the intentionally very vaguely worded Patriot Act and NDAA, it makes both parties completely un-American.
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| via cliparts.co |
In keeping with the Constitution and the intentions of the founding fathers, the Constitution was written to keep government limited and as close to the people as possible, thus the emphasis on states' rights. Yet, states are constantly being given mandates from the federal government about what they can and cannot do and what laws they can and cannot pass. All of this violates the intent and spirit and even letter of the law of the Constitution, however, being that the Supreme Court is political due to the rise of political parties, the Court no longer uses the Constitution as its measure, but merely as its means if it happens to benefit them or as a door mat if it does not. Neither party has any desire to have a limited government, their only differences are the areas of government that they want to be the largest. Republicans want the military/police arms of the government to increase in size; whereas the Democrats want the social/economic arms to be the largest.
Political parties create division and prevent unity. The first elections were 'independent' men running 'singularly'. Our Presidents and Vice Presidents were determined by the 1st and 2nd place finishes of candidates in the election, supposing that one had the majority of the vote. Sometimes you had 2 men that were from different political thoughts, but they worked together, they compromised, and came together for the good of the nation. These are things that do not happen today, politicians do not come together for the good of the nation, only for the good of their wallets.
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| Taxpayer Protest via wikipedia |
As an American and a voter, there are a couple things that I would like to see happen in the electoral system; first, I think that any candidate should have to have a clear majority of the popular vote, so over 55%, not just of those that got out and voted but of the whole voting population, and to encourage ALL voters to get out and vote, give them a NO vote, which says that they do not accept any of the candidates: second, either do completely away with political parties, or make them 'equal' in how they nominate candidates, another words you have candidates that do not even get a simple majority of the voters that voted in a state primary instead of only receiving their percentage of delegates they get all of them, and the Super-Delegates need to be completely done away with, that completely usurps the democracy of the primary process. Another change that needs to be made, the Electoral College needs to do their voting in public, it needs to be a televised event so that voters truly understand their input and limits of their wishes when it comes to deciding who runs this country.
Monday morning quarterbacking will not change anything. Working with your own little click will not change things. Attacking each other will not change things. All the splinter groups need to work together on their common interests! There are members of all sides that want the same changes, maybe not for the same reason, but that can be handled later. Look for reasons to work together and make the common changes! Start with the local levels and state levels first! If petitions were successful in three-quarters of the states for say term limits for Congress then Washington would see that an Amendment by the people would be possible. The voting public needs to come together for EVERYONE'S right to vote and be fairly governed.
