That reminds me......

1) how do you plan to conquer us when WE'VE got the guns?

2) I'd be glad to be part of the UK again just to have those wonderful gun laws you guys have.

 

Mexicans are nice folks...they like tequila, cerveza, bright colors, dancing. I think we should invade THEM and make Mexico into the next 20 states.

 

I have said before, we don't need to invade if the $ falls much further we can buy it for a few quid.

 

Would you really want to live in the same country as George W? (i know i cant wait until hes gone and we replace him with another screw up(someone give him a blow job so we can impeach him please!!!!!!)

 

Don't count on it. We've only got a little bit more time with Bush (THANK FUCKING GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!) and after he's gone HOPEFULLY we'll get a democrat in office so our economy can have a CHANCE at repairing itself.

I still don't know how we wound up with 8 years of Bush. It's a tragedy of the highest callibur.

 

If we invaded the US and made it part of the Empire they'd only beat us at cricket (eventually). On balance I'm fast going off this idea!

 

I do, I saw it on the news, apparently he won one of those election things.

 

Only just! Wasn't it close? Lawsuits or something? Couldn't he afford to buy a landslide?

 

Well, there's the problem. He didn't actually WIN the first time. The news just reported he had and by the time they realized they were wrong Gore just gave it to him.

What the fuck was wrong with the american public who RE-elected him........I'll never know!

 

Is it my imagination, or does just about every American claim to have NOT voted Bush. SOMEBODY must've voted for him!

 

2004 was the first election that I registered to vote in JUST so I could vote AGAINST Bush. There are PLENTY of Bush supporters over here. "W" bumperstickers run rampant.

I voted Kerry as did everyone I associate with. And Bush didn't win the first election. There's still a big debate as to what REALLY happened but basically Fox News reported him as having won and the other stations jumped on the band wagon (in an attempt to report the news quickly instead of checking the facts and being accurate). Next thing you know it's all over the place that Bush has won even though the votes haven't all been counted.

By the time anyone realized what happened Gore could have called for a recount but he just said "fuck it".

Add to that that there are a LOT of people who are lying about who they voted for...and the Electoral College is a load of horse shit (we should TOTALLY have a means for one man-one vote by now). And the addition of Electronic Voting Machines (that for some reason-which the government has yet to give a suitable answer for-cannot produce receipts so you have proof that you DID vote and WHO you voted for).

Basically we have the illusion of a government "of the people, for the people, by the people". But the smoke is fading and the mirrors are all cracked.

 

It sounds like a complicated system. And I thought things were strange in the UK.

We had a weird result to a General Election in the early nineties. Everybody was so sure that Labour would win; the Daily Mirror actually ran a headline something like "If the Tories win today, would the last person to leave Britain please turn off the lights!". Needless to say the Tories won, and I think it was by the biggest winning margin in history! (My memory on this is a little hazy though - I was still at school)

 

It's not THAT complicated...or at least it doesn't have to be.

The Electoral College was instituted during a time when people (who were lucky) would have to travel days even weeks by horse to get to the nearest voting station. So they came up with the electoral college. Each state gets a certain number of "votes" which are cast by "representatives". The problem is 1) it's unnecessary as polling stations are much closer together, greater in quantity, and easier to get to. 2) there's no actual accountability to the electoral voters to actually reflect the votes of their state.

3) it's a simple question of math. If a small state like Rhode Island gets 2 votes (in the electoral college) lets say 50,000 people and a state like California gets 10 votes for 90,000 people (I'm just using easy numbers).... If EVERYONE in RI votes for Canidate A (50,000 votes) RI goes to canidate A (earning him 2 electoral college votes). But if 45,001 people in CA vote for Canidate B, Canidate B gets ALL 10 votes for California even though Canidate A actually has more votes 50,000 + 44,999 vs. 45,001. It just makes no sense. All you have to do is win the majority (even by one vote) to get the votes from the WHOLE STATE.

Not that I'm giving people who voted Bush an excuse...... But until we have an ACCOUNTABLE one man-one vote system, Americans can't really be held accountable for who's chosen as their prez.

They call the actual number of votes (estimated) the "popular vote" and there have been MANY cases of someone winning the popular vote and losing the election. It's retarded.

I could be slightly wrong on some of this. But this is how it's been explained to me.

 

WOW! Not that complicated then!!

So once you've cast your vote your local Electoral College decision stands. Then what? You all watch TV and wait for CNN or Fox to decide the winner?

 

Well, I cast my vote (and in the new election, hope to god the electronic machine hasn't been rigged/hacked/etc) then hope my fellow statesmen agree with me. THEN I hope the electoral college stays true to our votes. THEN I watch CNN and FOX and hope they haven't been paid off to report bullshit results.

Like I said. No one can really be held accountable until the system can be held accountable. This is why so many americans don't bother voting.

 

The ones who did are not inclined to broadcast the fact these days.

 

A fair point. I suppose deep down we want whoever we vote for to be different to the other guys, and when they turn out to be worse it can be embarrasing so low profiles get kept! It's a shame really but all politicians are after two things - POWER and MONEY.

 

Right again on all counts Snoochies:rose::rose:

 

No you guys, he US should annex England, Scotland and Ireland and make each county a new state. Then annex Mexico. Then we could have about 150 stars in the flag, and the Brits could teach us how to speak properly, and the Mexicans could teach us how to speak Spanish.

 

It's a nice idea on a lot of levels, but America would gain independance one way or another - probably elect a governer, who would use his clout of having a bigger country, more economic potential, etc, to do what the hell he liked.

Plus, like someone said, they'd beat at us Cricket. Which would suck. We already have ex-empire countries doing that - India!

I think we should actually rip Sweden and Norway from their positions and tie them to Britain. Just cos they've got a music scene to rival nowhere in the entire fuckin' world. I'm sure T_S will agree to that! Yeah, and fuckin' Finland too.