> On May 7, 1:06 pm, Chen europe.com> wrote:
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>> On May 7, 5:06 am, "ltl...@hotmail.com" hotmail.com> wrote:

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>>> In his NYTimes column article with the title of "Who Will Tell the
>>> People?", Thomas Friedman explained the decline of American power,

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>>> "[we are] not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three
>>> decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard,
>>> study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to
>>> subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no
>>> money down and no payments for two years.”"

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>>> The following also caught my attention.

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>>> "Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is
>>> “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand
>>> Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough
>>> enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who
>>> is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of
>>> the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House
>>> bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American
>>> people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room."

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>>> The above says a lot on what's wrong with American democracy. In the
>>> current two party set up, political leaders often respond to the
>>> opposite party rather than to the needs and wants of the poeple. In
>>> this case, Friedman found Clinton's claim that she was toughening up
>>> Barack Obama against future Republican attacks bogus. Simply put, such
>>> nonsense changes the responsibility of the U.S. presidency from
>>> responding to the people to responding to the opposition.

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>> When politicle is strong, it will become dictator of totalitarian
>> ruler. When multi-parties are strong, they will become multiple
>> dictors of totalitarian rulers at the same time. To remove one
>> dictator is hard. To remove multiple dictors will be harder.- Hide quoted text -

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> One assumption of underlying any multiparty system is the popolace are
> somewhat united. With this assumption, a multiparty syatem will not
> lead to mulitple centers of power. However, this assumption does not
> hold, at least not in today's America. Hence, a two party system will
> create two independent centers of power each with its own  group of
> constituents. This situation makes partisan politics inevitable.

> The result is polarization until one side is, more or less, totally discredited.