The US economy has (even more so than in the rest of the Western world) almost virtually merged with big business and is transferring tons of tax dollars to them and their board of directors who - unsurprisingly - tend to have strong political connections in Washington. Almost the entire Iraq war was outsourced to non-government companies on humungous contracts with no determined fees, many of them companies that featured prominent architects/proponents of the war like Rumsfeld and Cheney in their board of directors up until they took up a government position. In fact, Rumsfeld refused to relinquish part of his assets in one of the major contracted corporations during the war and for that reason was not allowed, as Secretary of Defense (!!), to allow many strategic meetings. The Bush government heavily dismantled the state structures and outsourced the state's work (disaster aid, relief work, security) in gigantic contracts to companies for money that ended up in their pockets again. It's a disgrace really.

(and while I imagine some people may agree with dismantling of the state depending on your ideologic position, but clearly it isn't justified not when it's done for the enrichment of the happy few with tax dollars)

That's nationalism for ya.

On the subject of politics, the UK is voting on Thursday. If there's one thing I have more jade for than games, it's politics.

I'm going to vote disruptively. For my own political ideology, a change of government, especially to the 3rd party, would be a good thing. I'm just not happy with the system. I want more control over government.

Are you gonna vote LibDem or were you just thinking aloud?

If I were British I'd vote LibDem because a) they've got a leftist attitude that I can subscribe too but more importantly b), they went proportional respresentation. The current first-past-the-post system of the UK doesn't make sense anymore. Nor does the House of Lords. They're relics and should be replaced ASAP (the latter in particular - heriditary peers, wtf).

I hate the government because it's stocked to the hilt with corrupt bastards. Government for the corporations, by the corporations. Makes me sick.

Probably Lib Dems is the best tactical decision although that doesn't mean I find them ideologically satisfying. Last time I checked, they were a center party. Labour centre left, Cons centre right.

You know in theory all it takes for a partly direct democratic government is:
- A party
- A movement
- Votes
- Maybe some kevlar vests

You maye disagree, but I feel like Labour hasn't been left (or centre left) for years. Somewhere during the Blair years they went off-track.

Well, they most probably are less centre left since Blair, but I think with regards to the other two parties, they're still the centre left option. Mainly down to their Welfare State policies. But honestly, I dont think the 3 parties are that different from eachother. Just slightly different flavours of the same thing. None of them come close to what I really need from a constitutional point of view.

How do you feel about proportional representation and the house of lords (and specifically hereditary peers)?

In the US's basically 2 party system, the 2 parties are damned near identical. Sounds like the UK may be in a similar boat. The differences are tiny, but aggressively 'marketed' to the populace to encourage feverish devotion to one or the other so as to suppress the ascension of a new party.

I'd like to see the pirate party come to the US, preferably with the same success it's had in some European countries.

Hehe, probably hopeless though. When was the last time a non-republican or democrat candidate actually won an election for a somewhat important position in the US? Jesse Ventura?

For me personally, PR or the current voting system is inconsequential. Sure PR makes more sense but at the end of the day we're stuck with the same parties.

Again i'm not entirely bothered about the Lords and HP's in light of politics as a whole but it would make perfect sense to dissolve them.

While going to proportional representation itself won't give you a lot of new parties, at least it will make room for them. Right now a party can get 20% of votes but zero seats. With PR, you'll have three big parties instead of two, which in itself is already a win.

Yeah, I agree with Arathorn. It does make a big difference. Right now you've got all kinds of abberations like:

- Labour held 55% of all seats in parliament, but only won 35% of the total votes
- In the last elections, 1 out of 3 Brits voted for another party than Labour or the Tories, but 6 out of 7 MP's in parliament are a member of these parties.
- LibDem got 22% of the total votes last year, but only won 9% of the seats in parliament

Not to mention that because of the counties each voting seperately, marginally strong but very localized regional political movements (Northern Irish parties, Welsh, Scottish movements) get seats while smaller parties that are less bound to a region but rather to an ideology (and thus have a wider spread of votes and less chance of winning a county) like the greens can't even make it into parliament.

Also, think of the amount of votes who go "well I COULD vote party X, but as they have no chance of beating labour or the conservatives in our county I probably shouldn't bother". That's a strong factor too.

No, I think the political landscape may be very different with proportional representation. That is not to say that it doesn't have it's fucked aspects too, but given the level of jadedness with Labour and the conservatives in the UK it may be time to actually give another party a decent shot.

I agree, it should be based on percentages, not districts. The US is based on districting as well... basically an area votes and gets either a Democrat or Republican. It's quite common for district lines to be creatively redrawn so that a party will gain the seat for that district...ie, a voting district may encompass the ghetto, but strangely loops out into a rich which suburb so the *insertParty* gets the seat, since poor black people barely vote anyway.