We have hundreds of parties.
We have have had at most two viable parties nationally, and in each state—though not always the same two—since the founding (with brief moments of only 1 nationally, and a lot more of only one in particular states) because of our FPTP election system for Congress and most state executive and legislative offices, and our even-more-hostile-to-minor-parties Presidential election system.
1. US domestic surveillance is different than China’s because Americans can change things by electing different politicians.
2. Americans cannot actually in practice change things by electing different politicians.
3. If you don’t like it, you can leave.
This is a very poor argument.
i also remember how this made the pundits on the Left very upset and reconfirmed in their minds that Bush and the Neocons who hijacked America were open Tyrants who eventually embrace stripping American dissidents of their citizenship and deporting them.
so when you say we are free to leave, it reminds me of that.
why should i leave the place where i was born and abandon my people after i conclude "there is no political solution"? that is PRECISELY the moment to stand and FIGHT. it's what George Washington and Jefferson and Madison and Franklin etc would do if they were us today.
i dont want to roll the life dice and pick another lesser country to escape to. what do we do when there is no political solution because the entire edifice of govt from Federal down to local is rotten and hopelessly unfixable?
we seize territory from that tyrannical govt and create a new country with a new govt, that's what we do.
that's also what the people in China ought to be doing too.
No STV for congress/senate
No AV for president
Imagine you could rank you votes
1) Cruz
2) Bush (J)
3) McCain
4) Johnson
5) Sanders
6) Trump
7) Clinton (H)
Can we? I don't see anyone on either side [0] of the isle doing much of anything about this.
> But more importantly, I won't be spirited away to a black site by speaking ill about the president.
No, but you can be if you're in Portland any time soon.
[0] Why TF are we stuck with TWO?