At 12:31 17-12-00 -0500, John Giorgis wrote:
>Jeroen wrote:
> >I suppose this has something to do with your antiquated
> >system of electoral colleges,
>
>Oh really? How modern of you.
>
>Of course, I have in my hands right now the latest issue of "The
>Economist." It seems that the Europeans have just had a major sumit
>where they agreed on the new makeup of th EU's Council of Ministers. Here
>are some of the ministerial allocations:
<snip>
You're comparing two entirely different things here. First, all US states
are part of *one* country, while the member states of the EU are all
sovereign nations. Second, EU decisions are not based on elections
throughout the EU, but on voting in the European Parliament. The US let
their entire population vote for a president, but since the EU doesn't have
a president, elections like your presidential election don't happen here.
A better comparison would be between the US and its states on one hand, and
a EU-country and its provinces/regions/kantons/<whatever> on the other hand.
You see, in the US you can vote for candidate X, but if candidate Y gets
more votes in your district, Y gets everything while a vote for candidate X
will effectively be lost. However, when I vote for X here, my vote *will*
count and will not be lost because Y just happened to get more votes in my
district. This has two major advantages: the outcome of the election will
reflect the will of the people, and we avoid the time and money-consuming
procedure of having two elections.
>So yes, Jeroen, America *may* have antiquated system. But at least it is
>the antiquated system that the rest of the world is copying for their own
>experiments in federalism.
First, the EU is not "the rest of the world". Second, your current system
was introduced long ago by the British -- and even they have by now
abandonded that system because it was outdated and undemocratic.
Jeroen
_________________________________________________________________________
Wonderful World of Brin-L Website: http://go.to/brin-l
Brin-L Party Page: http://www.geocities.com/jeroenvb.geo/party.html
***** VOTE AL GORE IN 2004 ******
