Saturday, June 9, 2012


So what exactly is so wrong with our current system?  It’s not exactly that there is something wrong, evil, or bad with the current system, but that the current system is just simply flawed.  For the last 235 years, American government has operated via the system of representative democracy, aided by elections, political parties and the tyranny of the majority.  It is quite true that our American system of government has worked correctly up till recent times, but until about the mid 2000’s, only the wealthy, powerful and wise had their opinions heard by the masses, but the invention of and mass availability of the internet has now given anyone and everyone a voice.  The internet has effectively rendered representative democracy, elections and political parties as relics of an idolized past America and replaced it with a world where corporations are people and one where candidates can spend unlimited amounts of their supporter’s money in their attempts to get elected to public office.  The internet, however, has not hindered the tyranny of the majority, if anything in recent years the court of public opinion has become even more influential in our system of government and politics.  The speed, of which information can reach the masses, means that now more than any other time in human history, everyone can and often does have an opinion about everything and the internet is an ideal place for anyone to voice their opinion.  The problems are though that it can be very hard to defuse the more learned opinions with those who don’t know a whole lot and there is no guarantee that anyone will even read about your opinion in the first place.  As a result of these problems, real, substantial and effective change is very hard to come by.  Progress, not only in the political realm, but in the social realm is plagued by gridlock caused by unlimited debate by those who do not have the authority to create change.  American society is more divisive now than ever in the past, and this is due to the increases in population and the diversity of the population.  Divisiveness, diversity and unlimited debate are perfectly fine, but we need an outlet for anyone and everyone to speak their mind and have the reasonable expectation of having a listening audience who is willing and ready to listen. 

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