Those who suggested we should remove slavery and segregation because of their religion were indeed engaging in liberal social engineering. They were not engaging in traditional norms. The traditional interpretation of the Bible suggested that Christianity supported slavery and segregation. It was a liberal interpretation which suggested otherwise. There was nothing traditional about removing slavery and segregation.

I understand what you are saying. I think I would say that freedom is soemthing we should strive to achieve for everyone. But if freeing one person presents a danger to others, we may not be able to provide that freedom. Criminals are not allowed freedom because they present a danger to others or because failing to punish crimes invites people to engage in them.

It may not necessarily be the most wealthy person who wins, but it is a wealthy person. It costs a lot of money to run for political office, and it either takes a huge political party to achieve that or a lot of personal funds. Ross Perot may not have won, but he came pretty close.

Well, I don't think that you're targetting the correct problem. In this most recent vote, for example, George Bush would still have been elected even if we got rid of the electoral college and implemented runoff elections. He had the majority vote.

The problem isn't that the will of the people isn't being followed. The problem is that the majority is not voting for the right people, that the right people do not have any chance at all of winning; the majority probably won't even know they exist, and if they did, they probably wouldn't consider it.

In our system, it's the people who can play the political game the best who win. It's the people who appeal to a relatively ignorant public eye, to a majority that is often more interested in themselves than the welfare of others. Runoff voting isn't going to matter if the people still vote for the candidates who have the most advertising money and who play the political game the best instead of the candidates who have the right position on the issues.

A better solution is to educate the people on the nature of good government and to allow candidates equal opportunities to present their opinions to the people.

With respect to instant runoff voting, let's imagine a scenario where a instant runoff voting would lead to a third-party candidate being elected. The vote would likely be split between two top candidates. Since those top candidates dislike the opposing candidate so much, they rank their favorite candidate on top and the opposing candidate on the bottom. When the vote actually takes place, some middle candidate who the people have barely heard of gets elected. Is this really a good thing? Do the people even know who they've elected?

Instant runoff voting might not be bad if we give candidates equal airtime, an equal opportunity to present their positions to the people, and the people are educated enough to understand the correct positions.

Now let me discuss the electoral college. The electoral college was not designed to necessarily be used the way it has. The idea held by the creators of the Constitution was that the President should not be elected by the majority; that would give the majority too much power, and the majority isn't necessarily going to elect the best person. Instead, each state would elect members of the electoral college, and each state would choose how to do this in its own way. Then, those politically-informed members of the college would use their best judgement to choose a candidate.

But states have chosen a very poor method of doing this. States simply allow the political party which recieves the majority of the votes to choose the electoral college members. Let me present a different method that might be used. This method might allow voters in a state to use runoff voting to choose the electoral college members before the presidential candidates are announced. Although those college members would have certain ideologies, they would not necessarily have to vote along party lines, nor for the top party candidate. Further, presidential candidates would have to campaign to the more knowledgable electoral college instead of attempting an incredibly expensive campaign to a rather ignorant public.

Now such a method is rather radical; it weakens the power of the majority instead of strengthening it. But the majority would still have the ultimate power to control who is elected. Whether this method would result in better or worse candidates is a matter of debate, but I think it is an example of an attempt at addressing the real problem.

As the electoral college stands today, it may not be the best method of electing presidents, but it still puts a filter on the power of the majority, and I think that is a good thing. That is, if we have an election based directly on the will of the majority, candidates will have to compromise on every controversial issue in order to get lots of votes in every state. That compromise is what leads to corrupted officials being elected; the people who won't compromise, who stand firm in their values don't have a chance. With the electoral college, candidates do not have to campaign in every state, which means they do not have to compromise as many values. Further, campaigning in less places means that less money is required to run a sucessful campaign.

Anyhow, that may have been a lot of boring political theory, but my point is that I'm not sure removing the electoral college is a good idea, and although runoff voting might be, neither one of those solutions necessarily addresses the real causes of corrupt officials being elected.