"free world leaders", you think Russia is free?
Russia is a democracy and holds free and fair elections.
Like the UK, France, Germany, and many other free world countries.
Just because you lefty liberals hate Putin, doesn't change that reality. ....
The US isn't even a Democracy.
It doesn't hold free and fair elections. I could waste time proving it for you, but you might be a piss taker, or you might be something else, but I know it's not worth it.
I don't hate Putin. But I know what he is.
Reality? Are you going to go and prove this "reality" you pulled out of your ass?
The US is a Constitutional Republic so any explanation from you on how the country is not a Democracy will be hilariously wrong anyway.
So, you've just decided that it doesn't matter whether I'm right or wrong, you're just going to ignore me anyway.
So why the **** did you reply in the first place? To show your petulant childishness?
Regardless I'm sure your explanation of why the US is not a democracy would include the Constitutionally established Electoral College and why Hillary Clinton should be our President.
Well, the electoral college reduces democracy.
I'm not a Hillary fan, sorry to disappoint you. The system I'd have would have given people a REAL CHOICE at the last election.
Let me explain. I got a copy of the China Daily, English language newspaper in the China. So full of shit you'd have problems not laughing when reading it.
There was an article about Hong Kong and democracy. Basically the guy wrote that Hong Kong had democracy. They were given the choice of three people, all of the picked by Beijing, to run Hong Kong.
My thought was, that's not democracy, you can choose between a Xi guy, a Xi guy and a Xi guy. It's like choosing who murders you. It's not a real choice.
Then I looked at the US, well you have two "choices", neither of them an actual choice, just merely another way of choosing the person who murders you.
In Germany, for example (It's the most convenient example) you have PR. This means you get to ACTUALLY choose who represents you.
They also have FPTP, you get to vote twice on the same day. It's great for seeing the difference between FPTP and PR. And the difference is MASSIVE.
Let's take a look. The CDU/CSU gained 37.2% of the vote. But they gained 77% of the seats.
Is that fair? The will of the people is not being met at all.
The FDP gained 7% of the vote and got zero seats. So 7% of the people get no representation whatsoever. Is that democracy? No. It's a system deciding that you don't matter.
Let's put it this way.
The alliance/the greens gained 8% of the vote and 1 seat out of 299 seats. That's 0.3% of the seats.
So 7.7% of the people who voted for them aren't being represented.
Die Linke gained 8.6% of the vote and 5 seats which is about 1.6% of the seats. That means 7% of the people aren't being represented.
The FDP gained 7% of the vote and no seats.
There you have 21.7% of the people voting without representation.
Add the 2.9% of people who voted for a party that didn't get a seat at all. That's 24.6% of the vote.
The AfD gained 11.5% of the vote and 3 seats or 1% of the vote, so that's 10.5% who don't get represented. That's 35.1% of votes that aren't worth anything.
I'd say having 35% of the people with no voice for their vote is appalling.
Or we could look at it another way.
These parties gained 9 seats out of 299 seats, or about 3% of the seats. With PR they gained 41.4% of the votes. And they gained 3% of the seats.
Democracy? No, that's not democracy.
In reality the difference is that with FPTP the CDU/CSU gained 37.2% of the vote, with PR they gained 33% of the vote. 4.2% of the people decided to vote CDU/CSU in FPTP and not them with PR.
The SPD gained 24.6% of the vote with FPTP and 20.5% with PR. That's 4.1% of the people.
That's 8.3% of the people who decided to change their vote. Why?
Because FPTP is negative voting. People will end up choosing to vote for a larger party because they don't want the other large party to get into power. This time it was 8%, in 2013 it was 10%.
PR is positive voting. The people know their vote COUNTS when they vote. If they are the only person to vote in their region, it doesn't matter, their vote doesn't get lost because no one around they didn't want that party. If enough people voted everywhere you, your vote COUNTS. That's democracy.
Being afraid to vote for who you want to represent you is not democracy.
In the US all third parties are stifled with negative voting. People only see two choices. You either vote for this dickhead in red or that dickhead in blue. Nothing else matters, it's a wasted vote.
Wyoming gets the power of THREE VOTES for the electoral college, and yet it doesn't matter, no one gives a **** about Wyoming. California gets 1/3rd the power, and it doesn't matter either. Republicans vote in California waste their time bothering to vote at all. How many people don't vote because they know it's a waste of time?
There are states that do matter. In the 2016 presidential election, had a very small number of people in three states changed their minds, then there'd be a different president.
Democracy? Democracy when Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin get to decide for the rest of the US who the president is. What? So, **** the rest of the country.
So that's 10 million people, 12.8 million people and 5.7 million people deciding the president of 330 million people.
Forgive me for thinking that's not democracy. Because it isn't.
Same in the House. A little fairer but with gerrymandering going on more than sex in these places, it's hard to see how any of this is actually fair.
Look at this district. Are you kidding me? North Carolina that one.
Maryland.
Democracy is not when the system, or the politicians, or the rich people get to decide who is in power. Democracy is when THE PEOPLE decide. And the people have never decided this in the US.
