[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Everyneurotic

the only way democracy could be a little more legitimate is for it to legalize and count abstinence, since that's a part of the population that disagrees with all candidates. when only votes are counted it's just a fraction of the people that's counted, meaning just a few decide for all and that's unfair. that's a way of making the actual form a bit better.

but of course, democracy is very flawed and a new form of government should be started, but that's a way to make democracy a bit more fair.

i null my vote so that no one else can use that ballot for their convenience and so that (at least in theory) they can see that i'm not for any of the choices (of course this is wishful thinking).

again, there should be something new but, as i posted earlier, the people in power can manipulate democracy so well for themselves that they won't give any other form to be even considerated. that's the sad truth and the reason there have not been any other government form proposals in decades (or even centuries now).

new forms of government will enter the picture once democracy fails the people who benefit from it.

you remind me of that woody allen character who said he hated reality, but it was the only place where he could get a good steak. now i don't know what your steak is, but i'm sure you want something out of life, don't you?

i think you are suffering from delusions brought on by idealism. you want a perfect world. there is no such thing. those who learn to deal with the world as it is are neither conformists nor sellouts-- they are just people who have learned that reality and ideals are universes apart, and that's the truth about the world.

in a way, the idealist, taking refuge in the cocoon of his dreams, is the true pussy, unable to face reality for what it is. now, i'm not saying let's give up on ideals-- ideals are great. but no matter how hard you try to implement them they are going to have flaws and failures, because that is the nature of the universe-- it does not correspond to our dreams of crystallized perfection.

you see, im a materialist, i believe that matter comes first and ideas are born of matter, and energy, inside our brains; so i don't think that ideals have any real existence outside our brains. metaphysics is nothing but a collection of our dreams. ideals are abstractions-- guides at most, but they never have had an exact correlate in the world. find me a perfect circle in the non-mental world and i will give up on my argument.

when you throw your hands up in the air in disillusion and do nothing about reality simply because it does not conform to your ideals, you are missing the chance to do something about that reality. reality can be improved if we work at it, and we should all work at improving it, but shirking that work with the excuse that there will always be imperfections is the actual reason why we are the way we are. it's easy to sit aside and throw rocks at what other people do, it's much harder to actually try to do something and fail and try again and maybe get a couple of things right before you die.