The electoral college is a very undemocratic idea...outrageously so, in fact. It should be abolished.

And Rob-o...you said: "that stale old foolish assumption life's better somewhere else. Hey, the international door's open, sport."

Yeah. The door's open all right, but it is NO foolish assumption to think that life may be better somewhere else. Life IS better in a number of ways in a number of other places! I know, I've been there. There is less crime in a lot of other countries, less poverty in more than a few, less violence by both private individuals and government authorities, more medical protection for all citizens, and so on, and so on. Inner cities in the USA are a social catastrophe, an urban nightmare, compared to Canada, for example. This does not mean that if I was an American (I'm not, I'm Canadian), I would therefore be obliged to move out of the USA to one of those other places, for heaven's sake! It means rather that I would be obliged to stay and try to improve things in the country of my birth, recognizing that there are some things of value beyond its borders that are worth learning from!!!

Just because there are also hideous dictatorships out there that are much worse than the USA does not mean that you can just rest on your laurels and imagine that you are living in the "greatest country on earth". You are not, not by a long shot. You've just got more money and more firepower than anyone else on Earth at this point, and that's nothing to be so proud of, frankly. It is precisely what has led you astray.

- LH