h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think that if we regular, average Joe American citizens could spend a little more time with the average British and any European nation average Joe citizen, we might find that we are much more similar...as long as we can leave out the politicians. When I started traveling, I expected a pretty much universal hatred of me being American...which is completely not true (except in Paris...but I think they hate everybody) Expect to find a Democrat as our next president. Bush has done enough harm to this nation and the republican party to guarantee that. Hopefully foreign policy will improve...tired of being the world's bastard child.

Ken

I do agree with you Ken on that just because you're an American you're not universally hated. If that were true, most of my years in college would've been rough as I had an international roommate almost every semester in college.

That said, currently I have to disagree with you on a Democrat becoming the next president - unless they quit this infighting between candidates. There are a couple of Republican candidates who are more moderate (some a little more giving on the side of the Democrats), so there is the possibility that there would be a Republican president. Then again, I can see an Independent or Green Party candidate actually make a statement if they ran this year, unlike Perot in 1992 and 1996. Lieberman would've been a good Democrat candidate, but his party pretty much lambasted him because he was seriously moderate (he voted both ways). I could see him actually make a run this election if he ran Independent like he currently is as a Senator.

Personally, I wish the parties would just quit saying "We're better than you" and start working together. What happened is in the past: Bush made mistakes, Clinton made mistakes (the treaty he oversaw between Israel and Palestine obviously hasn't worked), Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter, Nixon... all 43 presidents made mistakes. Even the shortest termed President (William Henry Harrison) made the mistake of having the longest speech on the coldest day of the year and catch pneumonia. He only was president for a month, and one wonders what could've been if he hadn't made that choice. It's time to learn from the mistakes, not rewrite them to color a party's term in office, and move forward to make progress.

I still think that the next President will be Clinton, regardless of her private war with Obama. It is wise for the republicans to lay low at this point..but hell, you have probably seen some of our tv shows...the general population thrives on drama...we eat that crap up....!

Ken

" ... some of our tv shows...the general population thrives on drama...we eat that crap up....!"

"Drama" is one word, "crap" is closer IMHO.

But I agree with your point. I read somewhere that although the candidates will all say negative campaigning is bad, it works, so they do it:

"Less than 48 hours after proclaiming he would never get personal with another Republican, Mitt Romney’s latest campaign missive focuses on the temper of Arizona Sen. John McCain."

http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/news/presidential_briefing/?p=161

As the Nixon administration famously said about previous denials, "those statments are now inoperable".

The mudslinging is getting worse than the whole issue about the chads back in 2000 (Florida ballots). It shows that the candidates are way unfocused on the important issues such as the possible recession, war in Iraq (outside of infighting), federal grants, illegal immigration, securing our borders, etc.

I personally have always felt that the Democrats have always been harsher toward Bush because they think he stole the election back then. This feeling did seem to show in the 2004 elections as well, especially with the Ohio recount.

As far as the 2000 elections, the chad issue started to get more and more controversial. Personally, I didn't mind them having to recount hanging chads, as some were hanging on by one corner or two and they are finicky as far as trying to get completely off. Bubble chads were a bit controversial, but even there I let my opinion slide on it because there are seniors who probably thought they punched the hole but didn't (poor eye sight is also a huge factor).

Now, when they were trying to count dimpled chads and barely nicked chads to "Figure out the voters intent," it became an issue of the Democrats possibly trying to steal the election IMHO. In the case of the marks they wanted to count, you would've had to have been unconscious and had someone just drop your hand on it or on your death bed to make that mark. There would've been legitimate reason to sue had they counted those marks and Gore won based on those.

From the look on Gore's face when he said that if Bush allowed one more recount he would accept it, I really felt he was not going to accept anything except the votes going in his favor. It was clear they were trying to steal the vote IMHO.

On top of this, they discounted many military ballots because of mailing and timestamp issues.

Of course, I also wonder - on Floridians' behalf - why if they made a mistake, they didn't take their ballot back to the judges, ask for another and watch their old ballot destroyed. In Texas, where we have the Scantron ones, if we make a mistake, we have the legal right to do just that. I know of several who have because of one mistake.

Come to think of it, that is an issue people need to watch out for as well - voting Super Tuesday (the primaries) and on Election Day, to make sure that nonsense doesn't happen again.

Crap is definitely more appropriate...why do you think that I have to buy older bbc series' to enjoy what little tv time I get (except for lost..completely addicted.

K

Why am I so cynical about US politicians? From Micahel Scherer at Time Magazine:

QUOTE

... candidates who say things they know to be misleading should not be excused for just "playing politics." What they are actually doing is much worse. They are hurting America. ...

This is why it is so upsetting when Mitt Romney stands up at a press conference, or at Tuesday's debate, and claims he has virtually no ties to "Washington lobbyists." ... He knows this is misleading. He had just flown in from a week of campaigning in Florida, where a Washington lobbyist, Al Cardenas, who was also his state campaign chairman, stood literally at his elbow almost everywhere he went.

This is why it is so upsetting when Hillary Clinton chose to campaign before South Carolina's primary by intentionally distorting the words and record of Barack Obama. ... The key fact is that the American people--including, as it turned out, the Democratic voters in South Carolina--could tell that Clinton did not believe what she was saying. She was playing a game, and trying to put one over on us. ...

The same must be said for John "Straight-Talk" McCain, who at Tuesday night's debate continued to peddle the canard that Romney had once supported a "timetable" for withdrawal from Iraq. McCain's deceit is based on intentionally confusing two different meanings of the word "timetable." ... The key fact is that, like Clinton and Romney, McCain knows what he is doing. ...

END QUOTE

Amen.

http://time-blog.com/swampland/

I just ran across this forum and thought I'd throw in my .
first off all TV viewers in the US are probably fed up with political commercials. they waste your time saying the same thing over and over, and run up huge campaign costs for the candidates, yet nobody can think of a way to sway a large audience of voters without them.
Secondly I abhor the Electoral college, yet others think it is the perfect way to give the small states a say in the matter.
I even have a bumper sticker that reads: 'January 20,2009 the end of an error.'

Finally I believe every adult person in the US should get out and vote even if it messes up your schedule occassionally.

Curiousloy, last January a majority of informed people thought this race in November would be Hillary Clinton vs Mitt Romney yet neither of them survived the primary season.
The question now is how many people will 'hold their noses and vote McCain' that was a question in the primary season and it should be one now. I fully expect the Republicans will carry less than ten states in November, but I've been wrong before.

"Now, when they were trying to count dimpled chads and barely nicked chads to "Figure out the voters intent," it became an issue of the Democrats possibly trying to steal the election IMHO. In the case of the marks they wanted to count, you would've had to have been unconscious and had someone just drop your hand on it or on your death bed to make that mark. There would've been legitimate reason to sue had they counted those marks and Gore won based on those."

I really don't understand why you Americans use that ridiculous "punch card" system. What's wrong with a pencil/ink mark in a box? That's not really going to be hard to determine is it? It's what we use in the UK.

Shagbark

It's more hold their noses and vote for Palin. 'People' are more worried about Palin than McCain especially non-Ameraicans (though a friend told me an American blues singer, Wlater Trout, was berateing Palin at his concert last week and he is a major league Christian (thank Gawd on his albums before his family).

Why should they hold their noses? Does Obama smell worse? In the primaries McCains masters hadn't given him the Albatross that is the She-Bush.

Do Americans have a problem with having nearly-black president or do they just not want the next president (and first nearly-black president) to be assassinated in office?

I only get the views from the Daily Show and although they do take the p1ss out of Obama and Biden they really are of a Democratic bent.

I just looked at my OP. I agree with most of it still, (especially the Hilary bit), but did I really say,

> Greatest democracy in the world.< ?

I think I suddenly came over all Romantic hardcore at that moment...

I feel a bit embarrassed...I do have a fondness for the US and Americans, but I shouldn't have let my heart rule my head so outrageously with that statement.

It'll be interesting to see what effect the report on Palin's conduct has on the opinion polls.

greatest democracy in the world?

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/07/0029224&from=rss

Brazil votes on linux machines.

somebody once asked that they be shown something better. I think you just did.
Few people realise that the USA is a republic not a democracy. and feweer still can define those two words.

So name a few, if there are any, real democracies, if you please. (This is a serious question. Are there any countries that while carrying the name "democracy" actually *are* democracies rather than republics, oligarchies or tyrannies...?)

Y.

I am not that familiar with how other countries choose their leaders.
I would suspect almost all of them have some form of representation and a central person in charge.
I thought this was interesting about brazil.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/06/content_10154670.htm

>So name a few, if there are any, real democracies, if you please. (This is a serious question. Are there any countries that while carrying the name "democracy" actually *are* democracies rather than republics, oligarchies or tyrannies...?)

Genuine democracy is very difficult to implement. The Swiss are probably the closest: despite being a small country they have a federal system so even though there around only about 12 million of them they have strong local government and they tend to use referenda for any major issue.

"Republic" is one of those misused words; people tend to think it means a system with an elected or non-dynastical head-of-state whereas it's actually about how a state is governed politically. Most "constitutional monarchies" (such as the UK and the Netherlands) actually function as republics but retain a "symbolic" monarch; conversely many "republics" (such as Syria and North Korea) are not republics at all but autocracies calling themselves republics.

almost everywhere calls itself a democracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Democracy_claims_2.PNG