No more "wasted" votes...

The first "common sense" issue I'm going to write about is an idea I've had for some years about what democracy, or more specifically the voting system in a democracy, should be.

I call my idea a Proxy Democracy.

It's a pretty simple idea that, IMO, would re-interest the masses in the politics of thier nation, and get them more involved in voting at the least, and perhaps in all aspects of public policy overall. What a proxy voting system will mean is no more wasted votes, or the perception that your vote doesn't matter.

First, let me set down the foundation for my reasoning on why a new type of voting system is necessary. I believe that only a tiny fraction of the American people see even a single candidate, for any office, in their lifetimes that they truly believe will represent their own views. I've searched all over for a study on this, and couldn't find a single one, so this can only be an assumption based on personal experience and conversations I've had with others. So, going with this assumption...

I further have found that most people I have spoken with view voting as a choice between the lesser of two evils. And now we reach the crux of why I think a new voting system is necessary. They view it as a choice between TWO evils. Not an opportunity to let their voice be heard, with a fair chance of their vote helping to choose our next leaders.

OK, here's how it would work. Let's take the current list of candidates and use them in the example. Leading the polls between the two major parties, depending on the spin of the poll and when it was taken, are Hillary and Obama for the Democrats, and Gulliani, McCain and Romney for the Republicans. Now, to spice things up a little, lets throw in an Independant candidate whom you like as well, since I really haven't heard of anyone for this yet, we'll just say Natre. Finally, lets add a generic name in for, oh I dunno, the Cookie Party, named Doughy.

Now, lets say your personal choices are as follows. You agree with Doughy most, then Natre, third Clinton, then McCain. In our current system, you assess the candidates by who you agree with most, which we've done, but now you have to decide who you think could actually be elected. Now, there's a small percentage of people out there who don't do this, and just vote for who they like regardless of whether or not they think that person has a real chance at winning, but realistically, most people won't do that because the feel like they'd be wasting their vote.

Now we have to wait for the primaries, and see who each party will put forth as their one and only candidate. We'll say it comes down to Clinton(D) vs McCain(R) vs Natre(I) vs Doughy(C). Following the above example, you don't even bother with Doughy because he has no shot. Next, you bypass Natre, because while his chances are slightly better than Doughy, the polls all still say he's a distant third. So you put on your hat and goloshes, and trudge to your local polling place and cast a vote for Hillary, your THIRD choice on the list, because she actually has a chance at winning, and you like her a little more than McCain.

Are you happy with this choice? Most people aren't, but they feel that the game is rigged, and all you can do is play the system, or as half the population does, not even bother voting because of the frustration over this. Now lets look at this again with a Proxy voting system, shall we?

With the same example above, and the same choices, what if you could vote for Doughy with the secure knowledge that if he cannot win, your vote can still be counted for Nater, then if he can't win your vote shuffles again to Hillary? Now THAT'S more like it! So you put on the same hat and golashes, and trudge to the same voting booth, but this time you cast your vote like this.

Primary vote: Doughy, then Natre, then Hillary. Your vote stops with Hillary by your choice, because you don't like McCain. However, if you wanted to your vote could continue on to him as well.

How it works.
The votes, once tallied, would rank each candidate, then take the votes from the candidate in last place and redistribute them according to the secondary choices, and this would continue until either all of the "and then" votes were run through, or there were only two candidates left, ranking first and second, whichever happened first.

You'd be much more likely to vote closer to your heart in this system wouldn't you? I know I would. I also think it would encourage much more participation of third party candidates who have a fair chance at each vote now, instead of having to rely on the small minority of people who are willing to vote outside of the two sure bets.

Want an example of how the country would change with this system? Think about this, in 1992 Ross Perot received 14% of the votes cast in this country. 14% is a huge chunk for a third party candidate, most don't get past 2 or 3%. How many more would he have gotten if people didn't think they'd be flushing their vote down the toilet? He may very well have been president of this country.

Another big change? I think the primaries would mean much less. As it is, each party winds up nominating an extreme version of it's ideals. The Dems usually nominate some radical left winger who's out of touch with what moderate even means, and the Republicans usually nominate some extreme right winger who's just as out of touch with the average Joe. Time and time again it's been shown that the nominated candidate does NOT represent the majority of the party in the least. A great example of this was Joe Lieberman in his 2006 re-election run. He actually lost the Democratic primary, but won the election as an Independent. His own party turned on him because he wasn't radical enough.

Politicians are growing increasingly out of touch IMO, and this system would either force them to pay more attention to us by taking away their sure bet at one of their own getting in, or it would replace them with more in touch candidates from Independent third parties, either way the American people would win here.

I, for one, am sick of having only two choices, each with some agenda that doesn't reflect my ideals, or the ideals of Joe Q. American. I want real options from both third parties and moderates within my chosen party, how about you?

Comments welcome.

Where is the Moderate voice in the Media?

As a relatively politically active member of society, I have been wondering for some time now where exactly one is to go to get a center view discussion of the topics at hand, and I have to say, I don't think it exists.

Most of the media is so biased it's not even worth discussing, but that's a given in our country, and everyone with common sense and a brain sees it. What I mean here is, where's the normal, everyday MODERATE in the blogiverse? There are tons of left wing blog, plenty of right wing blogs, and hoards that claim to be moderate but show is one extreme or the other with a few seconds worth of analytical reading of their content.

Just as important, where is the actual discourse on reality based subjects? I have tried the standard chat sites, like Hot Soup but like everywhere else, idealogical babble almost immediately drags the topic away from what it started as, and both sides start spinning as hard and fast as they can in an attempt to out-spin the other side.

In all of that; zero actual debate that is relevant to the topic. Sure, there's a ton of BS statistics that everyone knows are skewed one way or the other to prove someone's point, the questions in those "polls" are always things like "Do you believe that poor people coming into this country should be ostracized and detained." if they're pro illegals(which, of course they call "undocumented 'workers'"), or if the poll wants to spin to the other side the question is more akin to: "Do you think it is fair for criminals who broke our immigration laws should be allowed to bypass the immigration system and jump ahead of those who have followed the proper path towards legal citizenship?" How about just a straight forward question? No spin, no BS, just "Do you think illegal aliens should be allowed to stay?"

I'm sick of the word games. They're illegal aliens, not undocumented workers or downtrodden oppressed immigrants. You're either pro-abortion rights or anti-abortion rights, you're either crazy, or you're not. I'm sick of "pro-life pro-choice" and "alternative lifestyles" instead of just plain homosexual. And where the hell did the term "trans-gender" enter the common sense world? It's called a drag queen, or a transvestite, softer sounding, politically correct labels don't change the realities.

As for common sense, I'm going to start making some connections here that I see that no one seems to be looking at. Since no one reads this I'll be doing it more for my own sanity than anything else, but hey, at least I get to lay out my case. If anyone agrees or disagrees they can comment and I can respond. Disagreements are more than welcome, but personal attacks(something else I'm sick of in the media and everywhere else) will get your comment deleted. That's right, I mean you, one person who happened to stumble upon my blog by mistake.

As a quick example of the types of "common sense" posts I'll be writing about, here are a few that I have been annoyed with in the past.

The real connections that no one will make:
1) Illegal Aliens can find jobs, why? The short answer is: Unions have given businesses no choice but to look for workers they can afford that can't join the union and get paid 80k a year to drive a forklift, or move offshore because it's cheaper to make something across the planet and ship it back here and distribute it than it is to make something in Illinois or Ohio like things used to be.

2)When Michael Jackson paid that kids family millions and millions of dollars, why weren't the charges simply changes to child prostitution, for both him AND the parents?

3)Why are we fighting a war by a set of rules that only we are following? Geneva conventions are great, but the enemy isn't playing the game by those rules, so why are we? The Geneva conventions say that military must be clearly marked as such, and these terrorists damn sure aren't in uniform, so why are we treating them like real soldiers captured in war than like the terrorists they are? Take off the damn kid gloves and get the damn job done!

Comments welcome...

***EDIT***
I've decided to delete all old posts, so as not to mix too many different aspects, and to get a fresh start with this new idea for my lil space on the intarwebz