Ocelot, I think the only facts that I mentioned in my post can be found in the US Constitution text itself.. Article I, mostly. (mentioning direct election of the house of representatives, and (before it was amended) the appointment of senators by the respective house representatives. Article 2 outlines the election of the president and vice president, and the judiciary is mentioned somewhere in there (That's one of the lesser-mentioned parts of the constitution) about appointments and so on to the Supreme Court.

The Federalist AND Anti-Federalist papers can help you imagine the mindset and "meaning" of the constitution as well.

As for the "warfare will always exist" counter argument, I can only say, and don't take this as condescension, to read a few history books :)

It seems to me that in the last 100 years, and likely in the last 200+ years, probably 80-90% of the warfare that has existed has been caused/fought by governments. It might be easy to blame humanity or social problems on historys wars, but again the battles were largely facilitated by governments.. and that was really all I asserted.

Kkthx. Even though you pwned my argument, you are one smart bastard. :|

well you can find this bit in any government book but i'll tell those that don't know. president's are not chosen by the majority of people, they are chosen by electors, these electors are real people whose numbers per state are based on the population of that state. most of you know that, however these electors do not HAVE to vote the way the majority of the state votes. they can vote for whichever president they choose, but they typically always choose what the majority has voted for or they could have problems of people complaining and such. This fact completely destroys the reason why the presidential election of bush vs gore had so many problems. because it didn't matter who had the majority of votes, it only mattered who the electors chose. however pointing back to the "electors... vote the way the majority of the state votes" they waited until the votes were finally tallied before counting the electors. it is because of the electors choice of waiting that the vote took so long.

what does all this mean? it means that the masses only have an illusion of voting for president, in reality their vote doesn't really matter if the electors voted against what the majority voted for. the founders set it up this way because they new ordinary people were stupid and not capable of being intelligent enough to make a good vote.

individuals have no power, you'd be lucky to even get a 1 on 1 conversation with someone in office. if you tried to talk to the president you'd probably get shot walking up to him. politicians don't care about people, they care about power and money.

"Those in power strive only for more power" heard that qoute before, not sure who said it.

Ugh, How could I have forgotten the electoral college. :(

Absolutely true. And further lending to the illusion that Americans have any say in the federal government.

Speaking of electoral votes vs. popular votes, I found this interesting:

2000 election:
50,456,002 GWB 33%
50,999,897 Gore 32%
51,000,000 ABSTAIN 33%
---------------
156,000,000 100%

2004 election:
62,041,268 Bush 35%
59,028,054 Kerry 34%
52,000,000 ABSTAIN 30%
--------------
175,000,000 100%

When you consider that, it somewhat changes the idea of the "majority" or the notion of a given president having any kind of "mandate" to dictate to over 100,000,000 people who disagree with him.

I've only been old enough to vote in the last two presidential elections and in the future, I'll be seriously considering just abstaining .. or hopefully voting for "none of the above" (by default) in the unlikely event that congress/states set that up.

Wow..i think i hate politics now. .-. so crooked. -pfft.-

ok i am athiest, but i bitch about nothing, the only thing i bitched about was one time a religious group was singing hymns and reading scripture at my school, but thats not even legal so i had bitching rights lol. for example, if i dont want to say "one nation under god" i simply just stand and not put my hand over my heart, i dont bitcht yet i still stand up to show respect for my country, but dont mistake respect for my country, with PRIDE for my country, they lost that in me years ago.........but you do have a point, oh and also, i just believe that religion is for the weak, ok not neccesarilly weak but for the people who need something to help them along in life, and dont get me wrong i think thats great, i just simply dont need or want something like a "god" to believe in. not a big del really, its all a matter of mental stamina along with lifestyle and redemption is what i think.

were not saying that all of yall keep bitching about thing that go on about politics but must of the people that bitch about it is athiest