Walter ("He’s So Smart") Williams takes on the question of why America is so divided at the moment. His answer may surprise you.
FASCINATING STUFF.
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
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Yes, but I wonder whether there’s ever been a successful movement to reduce the size of government without revolution, secession, or conquest.
I thought Cardinal George Pell gave some good explanations in his newspaper column, comparing the election system to Australia’s: “The electoral system in the U.S.A. pushes the parties apart, whereas our system pushes them towards the middle.
“Voting there is not compulsory, and there is no preferential voting. Therefore huge efforts are made by the parties to get their followers to vote for victory by whichever candidate is first past the post. The more deeply people feel, the more likely they are to vote! So the rhetoric is high and often extreme and the public rallies are often huge. The expense is enormous, but big numbers participate.”
The whole article is at http://www.sydney.catholic.org.au/Archbishop/STC/2004/2004117_1919.shtml