Liberals and progressives should be inherently skeptical of anyone who puts forward European governance as a positive model for America.
There is almost no conception within European society of meaningful liberty as it is broadly understood in America, and that's a damn shame. Maybe one day they'll wise up.
But in the meantime, progressives need to be constantly reminded just how good we have things in comparison with the rest of the world. We're not number one by every metric, but when it comes to individual liberty we're pretty damn close.
Me and JR were talking about how for all their complaints about the state of our nation, we're still going through the same infantile primary process we always have, whereby Iowa and New Hampshire exercise a huge influence on the process for no really good reason.
That got me thinking - the problem isn't the system so much as the people who maintain and vote in it. The problem, in part, is prosperity; when people are prosperous, for the most part they really don't give a shit what their elected representatives are up to.
No matter what they say, Democrats really don't consider these presidential elections all that important. If they did, we wouldn't still be holding our first primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire. When people get fat and happy enough, they really don't care about who runs the country beyond a 'Red Sox v. Yankees' infantile sort of yay-for-my-team mentality.
Hypothetical question: What if we tried something other than democracy, so long as we stay prosperous?
Let's say we wrote a certain level of Median Per Capita Income into the constitution, adjusted annually for inflation. We'll call this the "Things Are Going To Hell Level".
When median income dips below the Things Are Going To Hell Level (Alternate title: the Things Are Going To Detroit Level), we have presidential elections every four years. When median income is above this level, the Supreme Court picks every four years. The only requirement for their selection is that it must be 8-1 or unanimous.
Oh, and if voter turnout is below 70% during a presidential election, the Supreme Court picks next time no matter what.
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