do you feel somewhat cheated as a voter?

[DrivenMind]

This is fucking hilarious. Here we are bitching and fight, and all along the one candidate we agree on is the one who's not on the ticket. Dr. Ron Paul. How fucking hysterical is it, that over all this bickering and "debating" we've been doing we all feel cheated. I think this is the first time in my life I've ever seen so many people disillusioned. Why don't we meet in the middle and just all vote independent. It seems like everyone is voting for either McCain or Obama, just because they want to keep the other guy out, and that's really quite ridiculous if you think about it. Maybe that's the point, maybe that's how the keep one party or the other in power... by turning the entire race into this mythical duality, like some bad game of halo where people can pick whoever color soldier they want, but they all have some sort of vendetta against the red team or the blue team, so they join the rival team of the one they hold the biggest grudge against instead actually picking what they want.

The point of the two party system is to keep the system in place. And before you start bitching at me for "talking crazy" let me elaborate. All of this Republicans vs. Democrats nonsense is the way it is, to keep up the illusion that we really "elect" who's in power, and that the people in power aren't actually just put there by someone else. When was the last time someone other than a Republican or a Democrat won the white house? When was the last you seriously even thought they had a chance? The point of the electoral process was never supposed to be picking the lesser of two evils, yet some how some way that's what this race is. We have a young inexperienced, highly educated, black man vs. an experienced, undereducated, white veteran. The crowd each candidate is meant to appeal to is obvious. But the people who get to decide what's talked about in the debates are from two camps. Republican, and Democrat. But we have more than two parties here in the states.

I've had this unnerving feeling the whole time I've been watching following, that it all seems to well rehearsed. I said in another thread that I felt these two candidates are two sides of the same coin. It's like they're exactly the same, but meant to appear as though they're soo radically different when they really aren't. If the national debt keeps rising, and all we can do is talk about lowering taxes how do we ever expect to pay that debt off? I really do believe we are building an empire of sorts, but the only people who really know are the ones pulling the strings, but we have to make it look like democracy is still how this country works, so much so that we have to sell our own people on the idea, so the rest of the world will buy it.

I swear you guys need to go watch Zeitgeist: Addendum. Not that it's the end all be all, or the only source of information out there, but it does a damned good job of explaining how the social structure, and political ideologies we have created are becoming more and more outdated, and more and more corrupt.

"And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want "

[BanginJimmy]

It seems like everyone is voting for either McCain or Obama, just because they want to keep the other guy out, and that's really quite ridiculous if you think about it.

This is the entire problem with the American political system. Since going negative and digging up dirt became the name of the game in American politics, the only people who would want to be president are the ones who only seek personal power and gain. No one in Washington cares in the least about the voters unless they are activly involved in a campaign to retain their seat of power. No one with real honor would ever put themselves, their family, or their friends through the mudslinging of a political compaign.