In a message dated 11/22/00 11:23:17 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> In all other connections, the US is considered one entity.  We don't
>  have separate air forces by state to keep other 'rogue ' states
>  in line for instance.

   This is of course, nonsense, William.  As you can see from the current
events in Florida alone, voting procedures are set at the discretion of
Florida's legislature, not the federal government (or as you referred to it,
"US as one entity").

    And indeed, a valid case can be made that each state has the right to
call upon its militia in the event of a threat to its legitimate sovereignty.

>  Every where in the world the person with most votes wins.

     In a US presidential election the winning candidate must win the popular
vote in a given state in order to have the electoral votes of that state
awarded to him/her.  This means a heavily populated state or group of states
cannot totally overwhelm the more sparsely populated states, states which
more often than not have a very different culture and a very different
economic structure.

>  Indeed before this election everyone agreed that the electoral system
>  was an anachronism.

    Nonsense.  For the most part only those who wish to disenfranchise the
citizens in the more sparsely populated states consider the electoral college
to be an "anachronism".  Indeed, it is because they view the demographics of
the more heavily populated states as being more in sync with their politics
and more likely to put them into positions of power that they view the
electoral college as a road block to their dictatorial desires.  That is why
the electoral college functions as a check and a balance against those who
would seek to rule as a sovereign.

>  It was in fact set in place to guarantee that
>  democracy didn't get out of hand.

     See above for its purpose and add to it the fact that we are a republic,
not a democracy.  We are supposed to follow the "rule of law", not the "rule
of the mob", and we are supposed to do this through the exercise of
representative democracy constrained within the framework of a constitutional
republic.  The ideal does not always survive the reality, but sloppy and
sluggish that it is, we, as individual citizens, cannot afford to lose the
only buffer, thin that it may be, against the assumption of total power by
those who crave such a prize.

>  But with modern bribery the
>  rich see that it isn't needed.

   Lost me on this one.
Yours,
Issodhos