Once people lose faith in the voting system, our country is lost...

[kentuck]

And perhaps we are closer than we think? There is no precinct in America where the votes cannot be counted by hand with three witnesses to verify the results. But, for some reason, some people somewhere wish to have these votes counted by touchscreen computers and hard-drives hidden away in some basement somewhere. Most folks know that computers are easily manipulated. They want a paper trail of the votes that are cast. When the people lose faith in the voting system, all is lost.

[nashville_brook]

1. "we" lost interest in it many years ago

what happened in 2000 could not have occured in a populace who gave a shit. but don't get me wrong. the apathy didn't start in 2000. from my experience as a student activist in the 80s i can say without a doubt that *college-educated* people didn't have the knowledge or interest to care one way or the other. the most frequent mantra: it doesn't matter either way.

and then... along came Nader to nail the lid down on that coffin.
and then... along came Hillary Clinton to CONFIRM the Nader-voter's worst fear and most salient point.

[zalinda]

4. Okay, I get the Nader reference

but, Hillary Clinton? She is a Senator in New York state, she works for New York and the vast majority of New Yorkers think she is doing a fine job. She has very high poll ratings. If you don't like her, fine........but she hasn't done ANYTHING comparable to Nader. Nader voters were dupes, and if they still believe in him, they must be just plain dumb.

If a Senator has high polls in their state, they are doing what THEIR voters want them to do. When or if Hillary Clinton runs for President, that's when you would have a say in how she preforms her job.

zalinda

[nashville_brook]

5. she's quickly becoming the face of the DINOs -- sorry if that hurts

[zalinda]

7. Doesn't hurt........

I can take or leave Clinton. But, she is doing her job, in HER state, that's what is important. What you may call a DINO, her constituents call her THEIR Senator. New York is really quite a purple state, NYC only swings it to blue. Would you rather that a dem NOT be elected? Someone said she had an 80% approval rating in New York..........duh, I think that means she is doing what she was elected to do.

zalinda

[noneofmybusiness]

2. The problem is that they DO have faith in the system

Blind faith.

[bullimiami]

3. by that criteria we are already done for.

look at mexico as an example though. decades and decades of corrupt elections and one party rule and they are still fighting.

[PurityOfEssence]

6. Yep. We'll become a nation of selfish scofflaws.

When people don't feel they have a chance to influence the system, they feel no remorse at cheating, see no point to pitching in and just go off on an egocentric bender.

1980 brought the dark side of the American character front-and-center and glorified ugly human failings as admirable. As we spiral down toward totalitarianism, many more people will cross the line to conservatism: by seeing no chance of communal decency, they will think only of themselves and have no compunction to obey any law.

Sometimes it's hard to love one's fellow man.

Then again, there's a hidden outrage out there that may actually wrest control of our society from the greedheads. Unfortunately, that generally necessitates an economic disaster. We shall see. November's election is a truly critical crossroads of history.