Amos, I often harken back to the student council elections we had in my high school in upstate New York. They were a rather silly affair...though not completely without merit...but I think their primary purpose (although it may not have been a conscious purpose in the eyes of the school administration)...at any rate, I think their primary purpose was to indoctrinate students in the habits of conforming to a 2 party system.

There were 2 slates of candidates nominated and chosen to run in each student council election.

2 candidates for each of the following positions:

President
Vice President
Secretary
Treasurer

Okay....but why 2 sets? Why not have 3 or 4 or even 6 people run for any given position if they wanted to? Why not? Well, because the unstated agenda (or assumption) built into the whole exercise was this: "When you grow up and become worker bee adults in our great democracy, you are going to be voting for one of two alternatives, the Democrats or the Republicans. You are going to participate in a 2 party system, because that's the ONLY real way to have a democracy (ha! ha!).

It was indoctrination in a pre-destined system, Amos...the same as our factory schools are indoctrination for going out to your 9-5 job five days a week and being a good little worker bee who gets up when he's supposed to, does what the boss tells him, works during the prescribed hours (mostly spent in a room somewhere), and conforms to the requirements of the system.

That cartoon you posted the link to is itself naive, because it fails to recognize that student council elections in the USA are themselves rehearsals for preparing young minds to accept a 2 party system and take it for granted. It is utterly naive in ignoring the essential problem with the Democrats and Republicans which is that they represent the same entrenched interests and do not represent the public interest at all.

I don't take the 2 party system in the USA for granted, I think it's an aberration.

As for the money thing (grin)....I'll get to that in awhile. Too busy now. But remember this: if you cannot redeem your money at the bank for something of real value, then it's not real money. It's just a promise, and it's a promise from people who routinely break their promises.

All I was suggesting is that we return to the Silver Certificate. The Silver Certificate was a normal American dollar bill when I was a kid. You could take it to the bank, and get a silver dollar in exchange. See what those silver dollars are worth now, and you will know exactly what has happened to American money in the interim.