A Journal about Electoral Tyranny, the dullness of mobs, and diminishing returns.

Friday, October 06, 2006

The American Crisis: Turns out we're jerks

Hi. I'm Citizen j, and i've been running for US President in 2008 since 2005.

It's the culminating sociopolitical pratfall of a life marked by unmarked sociopolitical pratfalls, except for that time i started singing the Guns 'N' Roses version of "Knocking on Heaven's Door" at a Gulf War 1 protest pockmarked with DeadHeads and acoustic guitars.

I do an excelent Axl Rose. You should hear my "Mr Brownstone".

I digress.

I'm running for President to remind everyone who dares actually approach the issue that the electoral system IS the issue. 2000 proved that; the arguement that "well, it's a once-a-century thing, and the margin was so slim" is not a sufficient counterpoint to the simple fact that the electoral college gave us Dubya when we chose Gore.

It's not a matter of the lesser evil, either. There's a very palpable connection between the 2 (one) Party System™ and the electoral two-step that forever separates the voter from 2/3 of the Federal government. See, i CAN'T win. Niether can Nader, Perrot, Anderson...

Not a chance in Hell. Litterally none, the electors are pledged to party, thus cannot legally cross over even if the popular vote was tied to the electoral, which it's not at the federal level. Some states like to think that they have instituted legislation which changes this in thier case. I would encourage all who think this to READ THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION.



The Constitution, Unplugged


Yes, i'm getting a bit tired of saying that one. This is because it is a big, jagged, toxic pill to swallow. It's the original red pill, and there's no rebirthing experience and no blue pill to bring you back into the loving tentacles of the Matrix. There is no Matrix, you were already born. There's one very simple step to change litterally all of political history overnight. Ask yourself why the founding fathers didn't make the article in question look like this:

Draft the first of Citizen j's Proposed Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States of America



The selection of President and Vice-President shall be decided by popular vote, each citizen of the United States, it's territories and the District of Columbia having one (1) vote upon reaching the age of eighteen (18).

The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

Submitted this the 17th day of September, Two Thousand and Six.


I swiped the last two paragraphs from the 12th amendment. I have my reasons. Remember, the colonies were easily traversed by horse, they held popular vote elections for most offices. They debated this, they knew it was going to come up. They spent very little time on it. Why? Who were these guys, anyway? Who WASN'T at the Constitutional Convention?

What was the reason, the purpose behind the posturing, in barring the common voter from having a direct hand in the choosing of this country's Chief Executive?