"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Adirondack Almanack blog ran a nice essay arguing in favor of true multiparty democracy in the US.
The essay's author is a University of Hawaii student from Washington County, NY. She spent the early part of her life in the Canadian capital.
What's interesting is that most of the people I know who support multiparty democracy are people who've spent at least a little time living in other countries.
I don't think that's a coincidence. The United States is the only democracy in the world with only two parties represented in its national legislature. Not only do nascent Slovakia, Benin and Senegal have more than two parties seated in their national legislatures, but so to de facto dictatorships like Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.
So if pretty much every other democracy in the world from the oldest (Britain) to the youngest (East Timor, Kosovo) can have multiparty politics without the sky falling, why can't the self-proclaimed 'leader of the free world'?
Maybe in this case, we should be following the rest of the free world.
Note: the essay can be found here.
2 comments:
While thoroughly insulting Europe on her recent trip to Brussels, Hillary Clinton made the remarkable statement that, "I have never understood multiparty democracy." She probably doesn't understand "democracy" period, or the idea that the Presidency isn't an inherited post reserved for powerful elites. With leaders like these, no wonder the rest of the country is so befuddled by the idea of voting for a 3rd party.
Let's not confuse honest confusion with the willful variety. It's very much in the interest of establishment Democrats and Republicans to not "understand" multiparty democracy.
Hillary's a very smart and well-educated woman. I'm sure her lack of "understanding" is no accident.
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