A set of half-a-dozen or so candidates goes into the primaries as potential winners. Last time they were McCain, Romney, Guiliani, Obama, Edwards, and Clinton. Those were the only people who could have become president. The composition of that set of people is more-or-less outside the power of any democratic activity. The people who decide that are the only real voters.
Instead we should have a call-in show like American Idol, where any talented young American could win?
Each of those 'finalists' you mention won many elections to lower offices before becoming credible presidential candidates. That process may be long and arcane and in many ways twisted/irrational, but it's definitely democratic as well.
I'm not pretending there's a good alternative. Assigning a head of state to 300 million people is necessarily undemocratic. 1/300,000,000th of a vote? I have more effect on public life by bitching about parking meter tickets.
The real solution is moving power to smaller bodies...states, then municipalities....
But what happens then is that municipalities are going to need to coordinate their actions. They set up higher level bodies and those set up even higher level coordinating entities. You get a pyramid of layers delegating power and the entire thing becomes intransparent and corrupt. That's how the the soviet union "worked". "Soviet" actually means "workers council" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_%28council%29). To a lesser degree that's what the EU suffers from. Citizens have no way of influencing the most powerful institutions directly and therefore these institutions seem remote and aloof.
But it didn't work that way at all. Government action didn't start with the Worker's Council; it started with the Poliburo.
They liked the term 'democratic centralism', which meant that it was just like a Democracy except that you couldn't vote, but you were allowed to say anything you wanted as long as you didn't say anything negative about the state. It's very streamlined!
Of course it didn't work that way in reality, but it was meant to work that way. What I'm saying is exactly that a corrupt undemocratic top down system can be the result of a dysfunctional bottom up system that has too many layers. But I see that my post didn't make that clear at all.
I'm not sure I'd call that "viable", either. The vast majority of revolutions do not accomplish their goals, even if you only count the revolutions that succeeded in overthrowing an existing regime. The US War for Independence is remarkable in large part because it actually worked and the result was more freedom (for a while), rather than less.
The cynicist in me would like to point out that pretty most every revolution accomplishes their leaders´ goals. Pretty few of them have the same goals the leaders stated before the crowds that helped them with the revolution.
Revolutions are not a very safe solution. Quite the contrary.
So what is to be done? Tolerate a degenerate system of government? How can you elect officials to represent the people, when the very men and women that run for office have absolutely nothing in common with the average citizen? According to your position, maybe our founding fathers should have been more cautious.
The founding fathers didn't have anything in common with the average citizen either - if anything, they were relatively more wealthy than politicians today.
I don't know. It's possible for someone to be almost completely free now, if they have enough money and are familiar with the tools required (crypto, etc). My hope is that increasing technology will prove too disruptive for government as we know it to continue to be effective at protecting its local monopolies, but it doesn't seem like a sure thing, and with higher tech comes higher numbers of existential threats (biowarfare, etc).
Is there anything simpler? I often wonder what if all the activists, Reddit/Digg readers etc, focused on a single issue at a time, collectively phoned and wrote 1000's of elected officials every day. Would that effect some change?
Is there any way to channel of the internet peoples' energy into a single goal?
Except we used the 2006 election to enact a large Democratic majority in Congress, and yet nothing has been done by them since the election... What say you to this?
The main result was that a lot of officials in the administration resigned. ie: Rumsfeld.
The only inherent goal of any political party is to stay in power so it isn't surprising the democrats haven't legislated any drastic change. Allowing the mess to perpetuate itself serves to further their political aspirations.
There isn't a "large" Democratic majority in Congress. The Senate is basically evenly split. The House has 35 more Democrats than Republicans, out of 435. They have only been in office since 2007. They are ~50-55 members short of a veto-proof majority.
Democrats have tried mightily with what they have. Bush vetoed [via Wikipedia]:
1. July 19, 2006: Vetoed H.R. 810, Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, a bill to ease restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Override attempt failed in House, 235-193 (286 needed).
2. May 1, 2007: Vetoed H.R. 1591, U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007. Override attempt failed in House, 222-203 (284 needed). A later version of the bill that excluded certain aspects of the initial legislation that the President disapproved of, H.R. 2206, was enacted as Pub.L. 110-28 with the President's approval.
3. June 20, 2007: Vetoed S. 5, Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007.
4. October 3, 2007: Vetoed H.R. 976, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 ("SCHIP"). Override attempt failed in House, 273-156 (286 votes needed).
5. November 2, 2007: Vetoed H.R. 1495, Water Resources Development Act of 2007. Overridden by House, 361-54 (277 votes needed). Overridden by Senate, 79-14 (62 needed), and enacted as Pub.L. 110-114 over President's veto.
6. November 13, 2007: Vetoed H.R. 3043, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2008. Override attempt failed in House, 277-141 (279 votes needed).
7. December 12, 2007: Vetoed H.R. 3963, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007.[18] Override attempt failed in House, 260-152 (275 votes needed).
8. December 28, 2007: Pocket Vetoed H.R. 1585, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008[19]. A later version of the bill that changed a minor provision of which the President disapproved was quickly passed by Congress (H.R. 4986) and was enacted with the President's approval as Pub.L. 110-181 on 28 January 2008.
9. March 8, 2008: Vetoed H.R. 2082, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.[20][21] Override attempt failed in House, 225-188.
10. May 21, 2008: Vetoed H.R. 2419, 2007 U.S. Farm Bill.[22][23] Overridden by House, 316-108 (283 votes needed). Overridden by Senate, 82-13 (64 votes needed). Enacted as Pub.L. 110-234 over the President's veto. Due to a clerical error, this act was repealed by Pub.L. 110-246.
11. 18 June 2008: Vetoed H.R. 6421, 2007 U.S. Farm Bill, re-passed by Congress to correct a clerical error in HR 2419.[24] Overridden by House, 317-109 (284 votes required). Overridden by Senate, 80-14 (63 votes needed). Enacted as Pub.L. 110-246 over the President's veto.
12. July 15, 2008: Vetoed H.R. 6331, Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act.[25] Overriden by House, 383-41 (283 votes required.) Overriden by Senate, 70-26 (64 votes required). Enacted as Pub.L. 110-275 over the President's veto.
Thank you for the clarification. I had actually misspoke; I meant we had replaced a (relatively) large amount of Republicans with Democrats, as well as gained a majority in both houses. However, yes, even with majorities we can't ever get anything done because of the way the senate and vetoes were designed, regardless if you think the design is good or bad. My interests in political science classes at university have taught me to be far more cynical and pessimistic about our entire government... :(
I love how our president will veto water resource development and chant the infantile "offshore drilling" mantra when parts of our nation are experiencing very real and prolonged drought.
