:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh
Well played sir...well played.

Elections are a money making process by the elite to bilk the dimwits who think they have some kind of voice out of whatever cash they can.

Noam Chomsky has said, and I believe him, that americans have not truly elected a president since Kennedy.

Given the choice between Wikipedia and GFY, GFY of course is the benchmark of higher learning.

Really? So how come they are "spreading democracy" over oil countries around the world if they are not democratic themselves?

And what is the system if not democracy there?

Well according to that definition - there is no single democratic country in the world.

Aint that the truth.

it appears that I'm the only one here who actually read the article and not just sound bites of other's opinion on it.

can't really add to an argument where people don't use the actual source of the argument to form their view. Peeps should appreciate having access to original documents so we can read them for ourselves and form our own views on them, not read other's views on them and form an opinion based on an opinion.

Nevertheless, the report delves deeply into the various interpretations of our democratic republic via policy and not once refers to the USA as a democracy based system.

What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly constitute
troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want governments to respond
primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our Gilens and Page Testing Theories of American Politics 23
23
findings indicate, the majority does not rule -- at least not in the causal sense of actually
determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or
with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias
built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy
change, they generally do not get it.

https://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/G...s%203-7-14.pdf

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49."

majority of people don't know this. Maybe this helps them wake up, so the study is not for nothing.

Take the rights away? That's not usually the result. People are quire good, and from practical point of view, there is not usually that uniform 51 % of people that they would agree to take the rights from the rest (rest who?).

But even your scenario is more democratic and better one, than 1 % of people deciding for the rest, based solely for their own benefit.

So, how many of you USA folks are going to change your voting behaviour to change America to more democratic direction?

My two cents is that it requires voting some other party, than the ruling two (or one).