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[Invert]

Communists haven't taken over the US. We don't have government healthcare, we still have capitalism, we still have money created by a private company, we don't have anything even close to marxism in any of our government's practiced laws and regulations.

All that will follow; they are in the process of "taking over" the United States of Mexico.  Para inglés, apriete uno por favor.

Nah, you're 100 years behind the takeover event.  When fusion as a voting tool was made illegal nationwide, it installed the two-party system as the only viable choice for all Americans.  After that it was then quite simple to bribe politicians in both parties simultaneously to have laws passed protecting anything and everything.  Then pass laws giving the right to print money to private entities, formerly the consistutional responsibility of our federal government, and all the power shifts to those who print it.  Since you cannot get representation from a third party to get seats in Congress, and since the two parties tightly control who runs on their tickets, you're left as voters with choosing between two nonrepresentative evils.  In that they don't represent you, in so far as it conflicts with the interests of the private banks, aka Federal Reserve System.

Very recently, as negligence would have it, fusion laws fell off the books in Minnesota.  It had been so long that the two-party system had to even think about it that they failed to see the opening for a third party to run and win.  Cognitive dissonance.  Jesse Ventura, a highly unlikely candidate, won, and the republicans and democrats were fumed, and have since passed laws outlawing fusion once more.  It won't happen again, probably in our lifetimes.  But one needs to realize our two-party system is protected not because it is good, not because it represents citizens, but because it protects power by those who wield it.

We are and have been screwed for a long time now. 
Why do I need someone representing me anyway? I think I can represent myself. How great would it be if we got rid of the House or Representatives and allowed the individual to represent himself or herself?

[Barabajagal]

You might as well suggest removing the electoral college, which everyone knows is pointless. People are far too lazy and obedient to the consumer system (see Christmas shopping for a perfect example) that nothing in government is going to change as long as those in power don't do anything drastically un-liked by the masses.

[MyndFyre]

Nah, you're 100 years behind the takeover event.  When fusion as a voting tool was made illegal nationwide, it installed the two-party system as the only viable choice for all Americans. 

The two-party system became the only viable choice for Americans when the founders wrote into the constution that 50% + 1 of the electoral college was needed.  It wouldn't matter if the electoral college was removed - if 50% + 1 of the popular vote was needed we'd have the same issue.  The only effective way to get 50% + 1 of any vote is to minimize the choices.

You might as well suggest removing the electoral college, which everyone knows is pointless.

I don't know that it's pointless.  It's made major impacts (even recently) - Clinton used it to his advantage in the '92 election and Bush 2.0 used it in the 2000 election.  (Clinton won a plurality in '92, but did not have 50% of the popular vote).  The electoral college represents both the will of the population and the rights of states: states vote as a unit, and the weight of a state's vote is dependent on its population.  I personally think that it's a preferable system to strictly popular voting.  But that's me.

[Barabajagal]

Except that it's not part of our constitution... minor detail.

[MyndFyre]

Except that it's not part of our constitution... minor detail.

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

...The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed;

So amendment XII was ratified in 1804.  You're apparently 203 years behind the times?  (The first and third paragraphs there are from the original).

Paragraph one establishes that each state determines how to appoint Electors, and that each state gets the total number of Electors equal to the number of Representatives and Senators from that state.

Paragraph two establishes that an absolute majority of Electors (50% + 1) is needed.  (Note that this text was in the original Constitution too).

Just wanted to clarify that - oh yeah - it is part of our constitution.  Just a minor detail.

[Barabajagal]

Amendments aren't the constitution... they're amendments. They can be added and removed, and aren't part of the stable central document, as seen with the alcohol prohibition.

As for the date, how many people who were at the Philadelphia Convention were still alive in 1804?

[Banana fanna fo fanna]

Amendments aren't the constitution... they're amendments.

rong

[brew]

Amendments aren't the constitution... they're amendments.

rong

They are part of the constitution. The constitution was "[a]mended" with the amendments. When you get cut, and your skin heals (or mended), is the new skin not part of your body? The amendments are just patches for the constitution that made it better, for the most part.
Bah... bad example. But you get the idea.

[Hostile]

Meh, The Electoral College system was definitly the way to go back in the day. It was a more accurate way to keep track of votes and manage the voting system, it just so happens that alternatives would be easily feasible now and our government which is typically slower as the decision is more important. But yes, why change a system that put the people of influence in the position to change anything to begin with. Its not that they don't want to, its that they too are controlled by a system.

As for people representing themselves; That scares me more then anything. Hey the people representing us might have an evil plan but atleast they have a plan. People are stupid, just thinking about some of the stupid people I know who seem to make sense yet lose all conception of a larger picture.

As for removing fusion in the voting system or being fucked for centuries... well people still live as happy of a life as they chose to. Thing tend to work themselves out and behind all the mess that is the government, there is a sense of rhyme and reason to the way it all balances out. Theres always going to be choice and consequence, even if you shift the focus of the battle were fighting.

I personally really don't want to see hilary clinton as a president, that would just fuck our entire country up. Not because her policy is bad but because she will just spend her entire presidency changing the current way of doing things, wether the current way is good or bad it almost doesn't matter. If she does happen to get elected, i don't think i'd flip out too bad. But then arises the question of having a bush, clinton, bush, cliton in office. Yeah if I ever see that idiot Jeb Bush put into office I'd probably start a revolt.

[MyndFyre]

Amendments aren't the constitution... they're amendments.

You apparently missed when I said:

(Note that this text was in the original Constitution too).