vovat | Hooray, I bet you can't wait to vote for President Kill instead

All the recent presidential election stuff has gotten me thinking about politics in general. The idea behind a republic, that people elect leaders to represent them, is kind of ridiculous when you think about it. We're supposed to assume that, once these guys get into the government, they're going to do what we want, and not what THEY want. I mean, I understand that, if they don't do what the majority of the voters (or the majority of the electoral college, in the case of the President) want, they won't be re-elected. The problem is, while the next guy who gets voted in might not be as bad, they're probably still not going to do what I, as a citizen supposedly being represented by this leader, want. So do I think we should go to a direct democracy, where everybody votes on every issue? This is probably more logistically possible than it was back in the days of the Founding Fathers, but I still don't think it would work too well. We need SOMEONE to represent the country (or state, or whatever) when dealing with the rest of the world. Besides, a lot of people are stupid, and do we really want these stupid people contributing directly to the decision-making process? Well, maybe. I mean, ideally, that's what a democracy is, right? The idea still makes me kind of uncomfortable, though. Maybe if people thought their votes actually mattered, they'd be more likely to do research into the issues, but there's certainly no guarantee of that. For that matter, while I don't consider myself stupid (who does? {g}), I'm not knowledgeable about everything that's going on in the country and the world. There are many areas in which I don't trust the government, but I suppose they at least keep things running smoothly. Of course, that's pretty similar to the people who said Mussolini made the trains run on time, so I don't know. I guess that, ideally, I'd vote for someone who holds my opinions, but is a better statesman and more intelligent in dealing with problems, but I can't recall seeing anyone like that running for office. Maybe more frequent elections and a gradual (not overnight, obviously) end to the two-party system (and the party system in general, for that matter) would help. And, while it's not strictly related, the electoral college needs to go.

I was thinking of putting in Winston Churchill's quote about democracy being a bad form of government, but still the best one we had. The thing is, a Google search gave several versions of the quote, so I'm not sure what the right one is. Or maybe he said the same thing in different ways on different occasions. I don't know.

Have I been making too many entries as of late?