Ben Chapman: Unique Ideas That Aren't Mine

Results from the 2016 Election As a habitant of central Illinois, I’ve heard all the complaints. Republicans are sick of Chicago painting the state blue year after year, and Democrats bemoan the Electoral College’s propensity for choosing Republican presidents, despite the popular vote’s dissent. Nobody is happy. While mutual frustration is often a sign of a fair compromise, this is an exception. Our current Electoral College, where 48 of 50 states use a “winner-take-all” system for awarding electoral votes, is not a compromise: It’s an affliction. When an Illinois Republican casts a vote for President, they do so only symbolically. They know the chance their vote will make a difference in how Illinois awards its votes is figmental. For this reason, many people in consistently red or blue states simply don’t vote. I can’t fault them. Why should they? America is using an electoral system that discourages voting. Is there anything more oxymoronic? Or, for that matter,

The Sound of Democracy in America It wasn’t always a whisper. It was once a roar. A battle cry. A gavel rap. It was the sound of a busy harbor, a musket firing, of political scholars bickering. We heard it. We heard it before we were Americans - while we were still called pilgrims, colonists, heathens, and refugees. The whisper wasn’t a promise, it wasn’t even a hope. It was a calling. A calling sent not kings or aristocrats, but to the everyman. Everyone heard it, but most ignored it. They pushed it out of their minds. It was scary. It took work. It wasn’t a sure thing. Yet the whisper continued. “If you build it, they will come.” And so those who had nothing to lose - who were so periled that courage was their only option - built it. They crossed an ocean. An ocean deemed crossable only a century and a half earlier. And they suffered. Most of them died from the cold and disease, but their desire for self-governance and freedom persevered. Then colonizers came an

Okay, and some book and movie quotes Table of Contents What is going on? An introduction to what is going on. duh. Why Democrats lose. The very abridged version. Single issue voters and abortion. Also see: People who won’t shut up about that one thing. Ar Democrats retreating? Yes. Definitely yes they are. But it’s maaaaaybe a good thing. Better a pro-life Democrat than a pro-life Republican. Lol DAE h8 Republicans? What the heck is going on? “I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'