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Originally posted by: ricarleite
By reading these posts, I STRONGLY belive the election system in america needs to change as soon as possible, and that other parties besides the republican and democrat should get more attention and support. The situation in america is leading to fascism and to civil war.

The problem with other parties, is that they are too far from the mainstream to appeal to enough people to make a difference.
Example: Ralph Nader is running, again, under the Green Party flag. The Green Party?? I care about the environment, but the Green Party is insane.

As for the voting system...I recall reading what you said about how it works in Brazil. How its mandatory, and if you don't vote you need some kind of special permission or you lose the right to vote for X years in the future.
The problem with that is its not freedom. In US, people have the freedom to not vote if they wish.
(And if you're a Democrat, you usually get the right to vote a couple times, even after you're dead)

Edit: The real problem is that too many people choose not to vote. I remember, it was probably 2 years ago, they did some checking into Hollywood big-wigs that had been speaking out against the government. What was found was that most of them hadn't even voted in the 2000 election.
(They really don't have any reason to gripe...they didn't take advantage of their chance to speak with their vote.)