http://youtube.com/watch?v=RA6PObBwbBc (starts at 6:40)
I submitted this question to Bill Maher's Overdrive and he asked it:
Do you think we live in a totalitarian democracy considering most people agree with Ron Paul's views but no major candidate shares them?
In response, PJ said I must be a Communist who smokes pot and reads Herbert Marcuse. I've never read Marcuse and I think my ideas are exactly opposite of Communism.
It also caused Bill to correct Ben Afflect about the fact that Ron Paul doesn't want to completely limit the federal government just return it to its original purpose.
I believe the U.S. is a totalitarian democracy. Our representatives are not representing our views when all the candidates are nearly the same. I also think that democracy can lead to socialism and/or fascism (e.g. corporatism) which is why the U.S. is a Republic of sovereign individuals instead of beholden to a collectivist form of government.
Great
quote on totalitarian democracy:
[ QUOTE ]
The population believes that the enemy of the moment has always been the enemy. For Orwell, this historical amnesia is a defining trait of totalitarianism...In a totalitarian democracy, 200,000 New Yorkers can march against war without making a political impact because U.S. networks will not report the event; while the past is obliterated, the present is brutally censored.
[/ QUOTE ]