Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

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That's incorrect. The will of the people cannot necessarily be expressed when it has to be channeled through exactly two parties. The fact of there being two parties is dictated by the first past the post system.

More detailed explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo (this is the famous CCP Grey video with the animals, for those who have already seen it).

Also, even if it WERE the will of the people, it's still wrong, and immoral.

Democracy is only as good as the demos is moral. I judge the American demos to be insufficiently honest and thus insufficiently moral. Basically, each half of the country thinks that about the other half; I simply agree with both sides.

Yes, there are trade offs with the US government's system of electing representatives within its government, trade offs the country seems to be willing to accept, given its lack of mobility on electing people who would make changes to that system.

And while it's true that, on the margins, the will of the people can be nudged one way or another, you still have to find a whole lot of people to vote for you in order to get elected, and those are your fellow countrymen who do believe those wars you mentioned made sense at the time (for example). You may call those people as many names (e.g. "immoral") as you like, they're still entitled to their votes, exactly as you are.

There is no "them", it's just "us". The divisive rhetoric you're employing is, in my opinion, more problematic than the voters themselves.

I don't agree with that, but let's not litigate it.

I only still reside in the US because I don't want to pay the exit tax to expatriate. I'm being kept against my will. But I'll make it out eventually, when I can make it make sense tax-wise. Good riddance.

By the way, I live in a US territory, so I have no federal representation, even in theory, personally, even though I pay federal tax. Which is OK, since when I lived in the states proper, my "countrymen" never elected people I believed to be reasonable.

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