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A tweet from the George Takei Twitter account which states:
"A Democrat was in the White House when my family was sent to the internment camps in 1941. It was an egregious violation of our human and civil rights.
It would have been understandable if people like me said they’d never vote for a Democrat again, given what had been done to us.
But being a liberal, being a progressive, means being able to look past my own grievances and concerns and think of the greater good. It means working from within the Democratic party to make it better, even when it has betrayed its values.
I went on to campaign for Adlai Stevenson when I became an adult. I marched for civil rights and had the honor of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. I fought for redress for my community and have spent my life ensuring that America understood that we could not betray our Constitution in such a way ever again.
Bill Clinton broke my heart when he signed DOMA into law. It was a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community. And I knew that we still had much work to do. But I voted for him again in 1996 despite my misgivings, because the alternative was far worse. And my obligation as a citizen was to help choose the best leader for it, not to check out by not voting out of anger or protest.
There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too."
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The last paragraph I find particularly powerful and something more people really should take into account.
World's oldest current democracy. It also has all the oldest flaws. USA and UK are stuck with a system that will always end up with two parties filled with wildly different politicians. Biden and AOC are both democrats. Trump and Romney are both republicans. What does each party stand for? Who the fuck knows? Republicans haven't stood for anything for the last 10 years or so. Democrats have countered all that with "being normal and not rocking the boat". Democrats are acting like your mom after her boyfriend beat her. "We can work something out later when we've all calmed down".
What is really happening today is that the US has one party with politicians who actually do the job. The other party is an insane asylum where the craziest bitch gets the most attention. This means that every time one party has a popular vote the other party gets even more insane. And the first party, not wanting to alienate voters try meet half way. This is like your mom begging you to talk to your stepdad after he beat your sister. That's how America got so far into neoliberalism, fascism and one election away from dictatorship. Multi party system works because it forces compromise and even if the government changes it won't swing as hard as it did after Obama.
Oldest existing democracy, not the first one to ever exist. Here is an article that discusses the basis and legitimacy of this claim: https://www.valuewalk.com/top-10-countries-with-oldest-democracies/
I'm an American. It's definitely not something I was ever taught in school. I've only begun to hear it recently, in fact. I mean we learned about the Ancient Greeks when I was in school...
Also, I knew about Iceland a long time ago.
I have absolutely no idea. Whenever people say it's the oldest or the birth of democracy, I just chuckle and tell them to read a history book.
I mean aside from San Marino, what others are there that are older and still around?
That's a constitutional monarchy, not a democracy
Because depending on what exactly one means when they say it, it's arguably true that it is in fact the oldest extant liberal democracy, that's why. There are a lot of potential objections, many of which are perfectly valid, but I'm not here to defend the proposition, I am simply telling you why people say it.