Stating the Obvious

In the course of three weeks I have completely lost interest in the election. I think it's because I'm not a republican or a democrat. The candidates are out at the extremes and they're trying to court me(the undecided voter). That means they have to lie to appeal and it's not pretty. I have the feeling that nobody really knows what's best for the country. It's a crapshoot. The guys that write articles in Foreign Affairs don't make absolute claims and they have PhDs in International Relations.

There are just too many variables to make a rational informed decision about who would make a better president. I think watching the debates with the people who are or could be the leaders of the free world constantly and knowingly using misleading statistics, effectively, made me a little depressed. There must be some reason for democracy given its massive flaws. The fact that it's better than any other system doesn't explain it. I think it promotes stability because it leaves the population with the impression that it has power.

Unregulated capitalism would lead to disaster because shareholders are concerned about their short term interests. Considering corporate status was considered a gift until fairly recently until corporate lawers hijacked the 14th amendment, it seems reasonable that certain rules could be setup to prevent the short sighted destruction of anything that prevents short term profit potential. Of course that'll never happen in a democracy. Seniors are voting for healthcare instead of education funding so I think it's fair to say that the assumption that democracy is sufficient to regulate capitalism is just that, an assumption.