This land belongs to me...

[A Black Falcon]

Nader was just the ant that broke the camel's back... all kinds of other things made the election unfair, like the Bush connection in Florida, mass black voter disenfranchisement in some southern states (and especially Florida), the Supreme Court going against all logic and fairness to elect the person they preferred, etc... Nader is just one thing. But it's a big one and his continued statements that he didn't directly help lead to Gore's defeat and that most of the people voting for him were either nonvoters or independants just doesn't hold up.

Our system is good. It's good having a balance of power. Three branches, all that have powers that balance eachother. In a parliamentary system one of them, the congress, has the vast majority of the power. The executive is a powerless figurehead in most such systems (not true in France, where the president is directly elected and is very powerful, but it's that way in all the British-styled parliaments). The judicial is the junior partner. I think it's better with a balance between them, and with a seperately elected executive. In a parliamentary system like Britain you don't vote for the leader! You just vote for your local representative... and if you like the representative and the party but dislike that leader there's nothing at all you can do about it. No, I'd rather have the executive elected by the people... now the Electoral College, that's a different story... we'd be better off without it, for sure. Direct election of nationwide votes would be the best way. Yes, it'd mean that small states like this one wouldn't matter nearly as much anymore and the whole political process would be turned upside down (since it wouldn't be 'this whole state will vote for one person or the other), but it'd probably be the better system. And quite unlikely to change anytime soon, unfortunately.