I mildly disapprove of throwing gasoline on a fire in order to put it out.

Then too, I mildly disapprove of an electoral system based on innuendo and character assassination.

Here's how it works:

1. You arbitrarily invent 2 (and only 2) bureaucratic entities called "political parties", and you set them up in permanent opposition to one another. (Why anyone would do something so divisive is hard to figure, unless they were looking to...hmmm...divide and conquer, maybe?)

2. You periodically offer people the unsavory opportunity to choose between these two artificially contrived alternatives. (Ha! Ha!)

3. As time goes by, the people get used to doing it. They begin to think it's normal, intelligent, and useful to do it. They call it "democracy".

4. The competitive nature of this contrived system is such that...

4.a) The 2 parties develop a hatred and contempt for one another that is soon passed on to the general population, generation after generation. This results in a schizoprhenic society filled with hatred.
4.b) Every effort is made to make the other party look like a bunch of crooks and scoundrels (which they probably are...but so is your party).
4.c) Even if the other party gets something right, you still attack them for it anyway.
4.d) The 2 parties need massive funding at a level which can only be secured from large corporations and very rich people...therefore they make sure to do things which only benefit large corporations and very rich people...despite this, it is the votes of many ordinary people which must be gotten to rubberstamp the bastards into power!
4.e)The 2 parties each pick a figurehead to run for "Presidink". He's mainly a marketable face. They each attempt to convince the public that their Presindinkal candidate is a great guy, but the other Presidinkal candidate is a wimp, a jerk, a liar, a fraud, and every other bad thing imaginable!!!
4.f) The personal attacks on the 2 Presidinkal "faces" are so unremitting that they have both had their credibility (such as it was) utterly destroyed by the time voting day comes...except in the eyes of their most purblind followers, who would vote for THEIR party even if it ran a skunk for Presidink.

And now...the funniest part of all!

5. The day after the great vote (assuming the result is clear) EVERYONE is encouraged to UNITE...da! da! dum!...BIND UP THE WOUNDS (self-inflicted)...and STAND BEHIND THE NEW PRESIDINK!!!

LOL! Theatre of the absurd. Believe me, this is the sort of cultural phenomenon that a future civilization looks at in its history books and laughs about.

Only people born into such a system could ever take it seriously. And then, hopefully, only when they were rather young and naive.

- LH