Jim asked me:
> Okay, I do understand that the Electoral College has its >roots deep in
the Republic tradition as the Framers intended >but, as I remember my
Philosophy of American Political >Thought class, we are also informed by the
Democratic
> tradition which values the 'one vote' viewpoint.
What I always understood from what I was taught in school growing up here is
that we are a hybrid. They definitely wanted the people to be free to live
their lives as they wished ("the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness) but they didn't want the country to be a pure democracy because,
in their view, total democracies usually end up in chaos or mob rule. They
also did not want a strong central government, where power could be abused
like in some of the repressive systems they lived in before coming to
America, so they made the country a republic of semi-independent states.
It's all a balancing act so that no one entity holds all the power.
I agree with their wisdom completely and think that our current system,
while it may be imperfect, is still the best
one to ensure those rights. It maybe could stand some tweaking here and
there but basically we should mess with it too much, or be very careful if
we do.
Kakki
