Letter addressed to an entity unlikely to respond

[amurderofcows]

Dear Switzerland,

It's been quite some time since my last visit, but I enjoyed myself in your country. What's not to love about beautiful mountains, freakishly reliable trains, and a wide variety of chocolate? But I regret to inform you that, well, you officially fail as a country.

In a 57%-43% vote, your people amended your constitution to ban

Comments

[mizzoumark]

Whenever anyone waxes poetic about how awesome Europe is compared to the US, this should be rebuttal #1.

[amurderofcows]

This and French policies about, like, everything.

[tko_ak]

Don't forget the UK!

[amurderofcows]

It seems to me that UK policies, while not being much to my liking, are an order of magnitude less crazy than French policies. I think the stamp Thatcher left on the political culture helps a lot.

Although I'll give the French that they aren't a monarchy. British monarchs don't do any specific harm, but the idea of hereditary rule just rubs me the wrong way. At least John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Harrison, and George W. Bush had to get elected.

[tko_ak]

George W. Bush had to get elected.

In 2004, anyway.

Kidding...

I don't mind UK foreign policy so much as their domestic policy. The Big Brother aspects are worrisome.

[henkkuli]

Count me among those that has questions about the electoral legitimacy of Pres. Bush's first term, but chose to stop caring about it after Al Gore conceded.

I went to Britain in 2007 for a week, and it did strike me as creepy that there was a camera every two feet.

[tko_ak]

I don't think Bush really lost Florida in 2000. That said, it was unethical for the State of Florida's chief elections officer (Katharine Harris) to be George W. Bush's Florida campaign chairman. It was a conflict of interest at best. And of course, there was an improper purge of largely black ex-cons from the voter rolls (although if those sorts of folks would actually vote remains to be seen...doesn't absolve the illegality of it, however).

I haven't been to the UK yet, but yes, their obsession with cameras is a bit much.

[henkkuli]

The Katharine Harris thing drove me nuts, and I think that conflict of interest was unconscionable of the Bush Campaign. And if the margin was only some 500 votes, any purge of voters raises real concerns of legitimacy in addition to being a totally bogus and unconstitutional denial of the most fundamentally American right. I'm less sympathetic to the "hanging chad" and butterfly ballot arguments; if many millions of people could manage to interpret the ballot and clearly indicate their preference of candidate based on that, then the outstanding xyz don't have a leg to stand on.

Of course, electronic voting has changed that. In Georgia, there's no paper trail; that's really worrisome to me.

[tko_ak]

I think my precinct has one or two electronic voting machines but mostly old fashioned booths with those contraptions. But as a result of being away at school during elections, I've only ever voted in person once in my life, an that was in August of 2006, so maybe that's changed.

I understand the desire to have a receipt, but I don't know how much good that would do to solve a glitch that could throw an election. I guess it could print out a ballot that you could check was accurate before submitting it, but that seems to defeat much of the purpose of electronic voting.

What I think would be splendid is to vote online. But then you have the risk of hacking, viruses, and of course votes being tied to IP addresses.

[henkkuli]

Each time I've voted I've voted in person; my first election was the 2004 Presidential Election. My precinct went over-fucking-whelmingly for Bush, despite Fulton County going solidly for Kerry, thanks to Atlanta. My CD keeps electing that toolbag Tom Price to the House, so no surprises with that result...

I think we should do what Oregon does; everybody votes by mail. Of course Dan would have something to say about that, being opposed to the idea of the Postal Service in the first place. Maybe we could all FedEx our votes, or have the state contract with FedEx, postage-paid, to conduct a mail election.

[tko_ak]

You know what irritates me (other than the state or city selling my absentee address so politicians can hock their crap at me)? Alaska doesn't provide postage for absentee ballot return envelopes. It seems like a poll tax to me.

Perhaps it irritated me more than it should, since postage went up several times while I was at school and I never knew if my stamp situation was sufficient.