So?
Education.
Reacquaint them with their American history and heritage, reminding them of the sacrifices made and of their obligation as citizens to actually govern themselves and secure some form of Liberty for their posterity.
It doesn't hurt along the way to refute the commonly held and actively promoted notion that one's vote is merely (some would even suggest primarily) a means of selecting which of the dominant parties' "winner" will rule over us next term.
I can't imagine any political solution so I don't really waste much of my personal time in that arena. The original American spirit must be rekindled lest this grand experiment fail.
Sounds good in principle, but this ignores a couple of other issues that have a bigger role in the outcome than most people consider. First, our election system is rigged to favor "major" parties. All primaries should be open to every candidate that obtains enough signatures to be placed on the ballot; party affiliation should be irrelevant. Second, the primary/general election scenario currently used, coupled with the major party/minor party distinction, needs revamped. Doing the first will go a long way, but there are still other changes that would help. Until those two things happen, we will always be a 2-party country. Which means that even if the Republicans are replaced by the LP, the LP will find itself in the same position of having to choose between sticking to principle or being relegated to inconsequential status. Under our current system, you can't beat the party of "Free ****" by promising to give less free **** (or in the case of the LP, take it all away). The LP will never have success because part of being a libertarian means not compromising. I sincerely doubt the LP will ever replace the GOP under the current election paradigm, but by chance it happened to, it wouldn't last 2 election cycles. On a national level. Local is a different story.
I'd take Reagan back in a heartbeat over the last few options we've had on the GOP side.
A Republican could have won. The one on the ballot was the issue. Not his party affiliation.
Nope, because the VAST majority of the American public is too ignorant to understand why that's a bad thing. Individually, we don't feel the consequences of the debt. Not like personal debt. National debt consequences manifest themselves in ways different than personal debt consequences, and very rarely does anyone point out the connection for the low-information voter on the pinch/pain/pull he's feeling in his paycheck/pocketbook with the debt.
I think you're wrong. First, it's always a lesser evil strategy. Always. Whether the ballot contains 2 names or 10. Second, it's not an uneducated electorate that is the problem (well, not the driving problem), but the election formatting. Give people the option to vote for more than 2 candidates, and I bet you things change. Regardless of how uneducated they are. The real manipulation is in the way the elections are held and the fact that they favor 2 parties, 2 parties who have made it that way in the interest of self-preservation.
So, that was the only thing at stake? Guns? Romney would have caved to the gun pressure and we all know it... dude has more flip flops than a crowded beach, or a rural walmart..
You know that the conditioning pushes only two, as I stated, regardless of how many names are on the ballot. I asked some friends after they voted in the last general if they even recognized the third name on their Indiana ballot - most did not. When asked why they hadn't informed themselves on the options they would have to choose from... nothing. No excuse. They were conditioned to believe that any other choice or choices would simply be throwing their vote away (a very popular but flawed notion).
An uneducated electorate either doesn't recognize how the system is rigged or fancies the notion that those responsible will one day just "give" it back.
We will get back our election system the same way we get back everything else that has been hijacked from us - by demanding its return and then wrestling it away from those who currently hold it captive and manipulate it for their own gain.
That process can only begin when the masses withdraw their nearly unanimous ongoing consent from the two parties responsible and vest it elsewhere.
It wouldn't change much without educating and deconditioning the electorate. Remember, most had no idea who that third name on the ballot was this last time and worse, believed that that fact didn't even matter. This will take far more than adding a 4th, 5th or 10th to the list of names that weren't even worthy of a quick Google search for most Americans.
It's downright sad how right I am on this, whether you think you can agree or not.
