I agree with spmull06 and Principia Discordia, especially the line about acreage not voting. The number of people voting is a far stronger indicator of democratic opinion than where they vote.

However, I don't see much difference between a 51-49 victory and a 53-47 one. In both cases, you have close to one half of the population unhappy about the result. That can hardly be productive! In my opinion, a much stronger victory (at least 65-35) would result in something closer to democracy. Either that, or a wider choice of candidates so that you get something like a 40-20-15-15-10 win. This would avoid the kind of strong polarisation that usually would happen to any population in such a case. You just need to look at a few posts on this thread to get a good example of the latter!

An election shouldn't force you to choose between black and white... I would much rather prefer a selection from several shades of gray!

Democracy: three wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner..

Well that's exactly the advantage of the the French run-off ballot, the winner is elected with the votes of the majority and not of 40% like in your example.

In the first ballot everybody has a chance, but the non-mainstream candidates have either a small voter base or chosen bad strategies and were unorganised! (I mean, there were three trozkyst candidates
.. puh-lease)

Actually that's a very good question. If the federal government was not necessarily concerned with local issues and only focused and government US issues, then clearly specific locals having more control would not be a problem. However, the US government doesn't work on that simplistic approach. Every fiscal bill that comes out of the government has funding for local problems that has nothing to do with the bill itself. The system is flawed in that "pork barrel" spending is rampent. The East and West coast get a ton of money from the government. Example Washington got $700,000 for a theater. Politicians must bring back money to their constituents else they don't get re-elected. For a state like Florida who has a large number of members in Congress they bring home a larger amount of the pie than does South Dakota, who essentially gets nothing.

Exactly, so they have no idea what life is like in South Dakota, nor do they know what is a concern to them. I would be interested to know how many people from Massachusetts provided money to familes in Kansas that just got wiped off the map due to a tornado. 95% of the town is gone. Kansas has to be concerned with tornados. Florida Hurricanes, Massachussetts big cold fronts. Of these areas which get more federal funds to help protect themselves against natural disasters? The answer is easy.

Except for billions in farm subsidies...

...the world is a very, "us or them" kind of place...and it's sad that it is that way because we are all pretty dependent on one another. self importance is sometimes suffocating on a mass social level.

Who pays more taxes? Who contributes more to the US ecomony? What is more important to the health of the nation as a whole, protecting and rebuilding a major coastal internation port, or a Kansas town with a few dozen people? They'll get more than enough federal aid (The majority of which comes from blue state taxes) , not to mention private insurance, so where's the problem? Why should their vote count more than anyone elses?

There's something very wrong when the least educated, most religious, and economically depressed areas of the country have disproportionally more clout in displaying the collective ignorance required to elect a genuine Texan cowboy from Darien, CT to presidential office.

What?!? This link (http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/kbfiles/680/CharGiv_04.pdf) might provide some insight (latest year I could find is 2004).

How would you suggest we protect ourselves from tornadoes and cold fronts? Any specific preventative measures come to mind? Hurricane prevention would focus more on storm surges (e.g. levees...) and that, obviously, has been overlooked in many places. For most natural disasters, all government can be asked to do is help pick up the pieces. Of course, this is done a lot more quickly when your state's governor happens to be (or to have been, really) the president's brother.

isn't this the anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage vote spread?

Ah yes, silly me

Always the instigator, Lob...

here's an exclusive shot of Dubya after he won:

How about the bridge to nowhere in Alaska, a Republican state? Nice try attributing pork to the "blue" liberal states on the coasts, but this is just not accurate and is turning a blind eye to the allocation of pork money to red states. If you look closely, you will see that the pork is spread across the country. If South Dakota is not bringing in as much money as Florida, compare it to the *population*. More people live in Florida.

The top 10 pork states per capita, you might ask? There is a little surprise for you (The Dakotas!):

1 Alaska
2 District of Columbia
3 Hawaii
4 West Virginia
5 Montana
6 South Dakota
7 North Dakota
8 New Mexico
9 Mississippi
10 Vermont

Per capita pork per state

May I gently point out that you're all working with figures and statistics which (AFAIK) were mainly provided for political use? In other words, you'll probably find something to prove both points of view (or the suppliers wouldn't have done their jobs in obfuscating the true facts).

Maybe it would be a novel idea to work out what can be done together instead of who's to blame. The latter is a job already adequately covered by most politicians , the former has been missing from every campaign I've seen so far because it's not quite as entertaining and doesn't produce enough news coverage.

I know, it's a fairly original thought (sarcastic grin) but it strikes me as a more constructive use of brainpower. It may, however, cut short what was building up to be an entertaining fight. If that was the intention, ignore me while I go and get some popcorn

Just my $0.02 before tax..

I chose them because they're Republicans like the person against whom I am arguing.

I did no such thing, but nice try at putting words in my post to fit your agenda. Sometimes in painting a picture certain individuals, assuming they are unable to remove their bias, need a detailed road map.

Dakota got just $64 million total and is 70,702 square miles in size yet was ranked near the bottom on total funds. It's however the 17th largest state in the USA. DC got $257 million and is only 81 square miles, the smallest in the USA. So, my point is actually 100% factual, but you added a slant to imply it was incorrect.

States who got the lowest in total dollars.

1 Wyoming
2 Delaware
3 Main
4 Nebraska
5 Vermont
6 Rhode Island
7 North Dakota
8 Texas
9 South Dakota
10 Arkansas

Seven of of those states are not in the north east, west coast, or midwest.

If you wish to continue to make this political feel free. That's not my motive, but it is apparently yours. Thus, lets see how much of the pork pie was given to the blue states. There are about 19 fully devoted Blue States all of which are in the north east, west coast, and midwest of the USA (Except for New Mexico and Alaska). They rarely change their positions, although a few do at times. These 19 represent 38% of the total states in the USA. Most politicians come from these areas except for some states like Florida, Texas, Georgia, etc. By land mass the blue states represent (I am guessing here) 20%? (Feel free to adjust that figure slightly up or down, but I am guessing it's pretty close.) Out of the $9 billion which your site indicates as "pork" (curious how they came up with that number) the Blue States received 42% of the total amount. So these locations do have more people per parsel of land, they do get more total funds as a result, and have more influence over where that money goes. So, using your own arguement of

the blue states actually get more money.

The arguement against the debt is total debt, not debt dollars per capita. People are concerned because the total debt is too high. (I am more concerned with amount of debt relative to the number of citizens.) So, my concern assuming the debt is too high would be, what states take the most tax dollars, and how can we reduce the spending in those locations, and that includes Alaska? I am also in favor of an electoral college to help provide a bit more power (although very very very little) to those states with a smaller population.

OK, I get the picture. A good thing I got the popcorn anyway