A View of the American Democratic System

I was taught in school that America isn't a direct democracy, it is a representative democracy. That means the the people don't elect the president they vote for electoral candidates who elect the president. The way it was explained to me in school was in revolutionary times it wasn't possible to know the presidential candidates and what they stood for, communications being what it was. So we voted for someone we knew and trusted, to vote for the president for us. I can see that this was a good solution for those times. It seems there was a lot more trust going around then. It seems to me a lot more trustworthy people too.

When I look at the electoral system today it seems a little inefficient when serving the will of people. The president has a lot of power in this system to be independent of the will of the people and press his will on the people even if that isn't really the current will of the people. It seems to me that past presidents have acknowledged the current will of the people by acknowledging polls. Most presidents in the past have tried to gage the current will of the people, as they knew it, and used it in the deciding process.

For example President Roosevelt knew that it was in America's interest to help Europe in WW2 but he understood that with war, the will of the people is more important than his will. The president waited till he knew the will of the people would support the sacrifices and hardships that would be required for war. He didn't minimize the impacts or duration of the war, but described the purpose of the war in a way Americans could understand. In contrast the current administration did minimize the impacts and failed to define an accurate threat to the American people. Finally his administration tried to spin, support of the war as the only choice the American people have, without giving them a valid reason.

Have you noticed that polls in our new age of communications have gotten really accurate + or – 3 percent. Well, maybe not that accurate, but when a poll says that 60 to 70 percent of the people do not share the will of the president, well that seems like something a smart man representing the will of the people would take into account in his decision making. In fact, not using it would mean he is not doing the job he was elected to do.

The current president has given me reason to rethink the trust I have that the president will serve the current will of the people. In the face of an election in which the Republican party lost the majority in the House and the Senate and polls which show and overwhelming majority of Americans are not in agreement with his current policy in Iraq, the current president is pressing his will over the American people. I'm not sure this is what our for fathers meant when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

I'd like to think that stonewalling the will of the American people is a power the President of America lost, when he could go on prime time TV make his case, and the polls show he doesn't have the support and will of the American people. In other countries like Great Brittan and Israel, the legislature can vote no confidence and the Prime Minister has to prove he has support to stay in power. It seems to work. Brittan is getting out of Iraq.

Do you want another president in the future to take America to war in spite of the will of the American people. Do you want another president in the future to start a preemptive war that disregards the lessons learned in Viet Nam and now in Iraq.

Then you better start asking hard questions to candidates about how they feel about the current will of the people. Because nobody asked Bush, he thinks he is a king who can tell the American people to, sacrifice their young people in spite of their will.

American people have long trusted our leaders to work the will of the people while in office. Current events seem to show that this trust is not warranted. It is not right for American elected officers to benefit from instant communication to the public while disregarding elections and polls as true measures of the current will of the people.

I'm back...

Well I got locked out of my blog, but Google has helped me get back in. I am working on my current impressions of the American Democratic system, of which I am not an expert but just an American.