Our staff writer Brett Stevens receives some amusing emails now and then. Brett's the kind of guy who doesn't mince his words. Below is a response he sent to a person who seems to have misunderstood why democracy may not be such a good idea.

howdy,

i would like to suggest to you a lesson in american democracy:

give the people pleasant illusions, not reality. they are voting for an
image, like a television program, not reality. in reality, your advisors
run the country and most of what goes on is beyond your control, thanks
the vaunted "checks and balances" of american politics. you must be a
salesperson and offer a lie.

obama does it. mccain does it. hell, no need to comment on the current
guy, or on clinton I, who quietly lied and cheated his way through life
and is now a multi-millionaire for it. this is democracy american style.
what separates it from other nations, what's uniquely "american" about
it? a few things:

1) we've done it longer, so it's had longer to decay
2) americans love TV
3) multiculture: there is no common culture, so our values are "whatever
you want them to be"
4) open capitalism: america is not balanced by european socialism, so it
is an open marketplace, so if a lie sells, LIE or die starving in the
ghetto
5) superpower politics: everything gets so dirty we prefer the lie

these factors all seem to be coming to ireland too, so i write you to
warn you off of a dangerous course of action: democracy is a lie.

http://www.corrupt.org/

cheers