On Democracy

Americans! Still coming to terms with rich white men in suits using cutting edge touch-screen technology to steal your election? Sick to death of the fact that there is no audit trail for many of the votes that got Chimpy back in the White House? Dismayed that the Nationalist Socialist White Peoples' Party managed to get more votes in some districts than there are registered voters?

Then perhaps you might like to learn how it's done properly, and you will be amazed to learn that you don't actually have to say which party you intend to vote for when you register . That's. Just. Stupid.

Funnily enough, registering to vote is more-or-less compulsory over here, as the electoral roll is used for other purposes other than voting. Tax-raising, for example, and we all know what you Americans think of actually having to pay to run your country. It must be a novel idea, actually encouraging people to register to vote, rather than thinking of news ways of disqualifying them.

You know, in the stone age United Kingdom, we still vote by turning up at some damp church hall and draw a cross on a piece of paper with a pencil. The pencil is tied to the voting booth with a piece of hairy string so you can't steal it, which is about as deep as voter fraud gets around here.

Then, when the polls close, people sit at a long line of tables and count the votes by hand in front of auditors.

Funnily enough, this primitive system seems to work.

We may have shonky teeth and sip tea, but we laugh at your voting machines.

And if this is the kind of person who gets to elect your president, we might as well just pack up and go home right now. He forgot to write "I am not mad" at the end.

My advice to you, if you really are guided by lights is this: let people shag around, enjoy the gayness and marry their dogs. If you were a real Christian instead of some sheep dragged along by a convincing facsimile, you'd keep your trap shut and forgive them.

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