Defending the Truth

I agree Practical doesn't really factor into it. Most governments are not practical.

Um... Actually, both the US revolution and going to the moon were perfectly practical. I just wrote a paper about the American revolution with that premise yesterday.

Nice job misquoting Elie Weisel, by the way.

I think runoff voting is a pretty good idea, because that way, more ideas are introduced into our system. However, changing the system would be confusing and impractical for the average American. It's hard enoguh to figure out who wins in an election with two candidates. Can you imagine how amazingly confusing a new system would be now? People have been whinging about how silly our system is for years. Jello Biafra called it "a one party state masquerading as a two party state."

Personally, I think that you have to work with what you've got. That's what practicality is. If you have a rocketship, a billion dollars, and you need to one-up the Soviet Union, then by all means, go to the moon. Changing the electoral system now would be like telling someone to go to the moon in a refrigerator box.

If you want real change, join a party with a lot of people, and change the objectives of the party though sheer numbers.

Do you know how amazingly difficult it would be to change one of the current parties from within. No, I absolutely agree with hevusa here, we need to reform the whole system. We need to adopt instant runoff voting. Not only is it less confusing than the current system, but by design it would be much harder to dispute. We should not fear change, we should embrace it when it is for the benefit of the people. Embracing the two big parties continues to fuck the little man.

As it stands, the republicans just don't care about the poor, and democrats want to keep the poor, ignorant and poor so that the Democrats can advance themselves and their agenda off the backs of the impoverished.

We need change.

It isn't that difficult. Heck, it's happened in the past few years to the Republican Party. Compare Eisenhower to either Bush. There's your answer. Or even Lyndon B. Johnson to John Kerry. All it takes to change a party is enough people (or enough money...), and I think enough people in America are pissed off with not being represented. The problem is, those poeople aren't keen on embracing a more than two party system simply because it is unfamiliar. There is a reason why incumbents have an over 80% change of getting reelected.

I would love instant runoff voting. Seriously. It would be very nice. I just think implementing an entirely new system is way harder than working with what we've already got. Plus, there's the constitutional issues to contend with. The Supreme Court would declare instant runoff voting unconstitutional faster than you can say "unconstitutional" because it contradicts the electoral college. I'm not a fan of that either, but it's in The Constitution, and it's not one of those things you can interpret.

The electoral college is not in jeopardy in regards to the IRV so far as I can understand.