Wow, you've really made that tricky to follow and quote, but let's see how it goes here.
I agree that it is tricky. I don't know of any other way to include the new quotes -- which are replies to the prior quotes -- to maintain continuity. LOL
I fully realise Johnson is a third party candidate trailing the other two. What's less clear is whether third party candidates remain third party because of a system that attempts to force people into voting for one of the two major parties, or because there genuinely isn't enough interest in a third party. Maybe this is the election cycle that enough people will decide they are sick of the two main parties and their shenanigans and look to see if one of the third parties could become a viable force.
Won't happen this election cycle because we can already see very low polling numbers for both of the 3rd party candidates. Johnson is around 8% and the other is around 4%.
As for doing and saying silly things, I'm not really talking about one very specific silly thing. Whether it's Hillary pretending her health was just peachy before admitting she had been diagnosed with pneumonia or Donald apparently mocking a disabled reporter for no readily apparent reason, if you're just looking for something a candidate has done that's inappropriate you typically don't have to look very far.
That Hillary commercial showing Donald supposedly mocking a disabled reporter by bouncing his arms around was completely false. The video clip of Trump doing this was when he was mimicking some of the other politicians who go into a panic about not knowing how to handle serious situations. Hillary's people simply took that video clip and added their own voiceover to suggest that he was making fun of the reporter's physical ailment -- which was totally untrue. I believe he did have some tough things to say about this leftist reporter, but did not refer to his physical problems.
It's hard to know how many votes third party candidates might take from the major parties. It's easy to see how a Green Party would split the Democrat vote but harder to see how a libertarian would split the mainstream vote. Offering a choice that's essentially fiscally conservative and socially liberal could easily draw votes away from both major candidates - both people who lean Republican because they want a fiscally conservative government but don't want the government intruding into peoples' bedrooms and people who lean Democrat because they are more in favor of equal rights but don't want relentless taxation to fund pork barrel projects. As things stand it does appear that Johnson is appealing to many people who might otherwise vote Democrat, but it's often hard to say.
The reason Johnson is splitting the Dem vote is because of his love for pot -- which is a frequent characteristic of Democrats. The polls show that both the L party and the G party have been taking votes from Hillary, although it looks like Johnson might now be taking equal support from both Hillary and Trump right now.
Having three or more mainstream parties doesn't turn elections into a fiasco at all. In the UK we have the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, along with a few smaller parties (UKIP, Green, Respect, SNP, Plaid Cymru etc) and a few nonsense parties (the Monster Raving Loony Party etc). Many of the smaller parties are currently little more than protest votes in many ways but the SNP has recently been doing very well in Scotland and UKIP has been gaining ground across the UK. At the 2010 General Election no party had an overall majority which resulted in a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, effectively forcing a degree of give and take between the two (as it turned out the Liberal Democrats pretty much sold their souls for a chance at power and were severely punished for it at the 2015 election, but that's more down to their inexperience than much else)
As you can see, the "New World" has a completely different election system -- and it has worked well for over 230 years. You mentioned that many of the smaller parties are noting more than protest votes -- which pretty much describes the 3rd parties in the USA. So, in that way, it is similar.
As to whether Trump is a man of courage and action, I guess we may find out come January. While I agree that the country needs a change from the status quo, kicking the applecart doesn't always result in a positive outcome. The UK's recent vote for the so-called Brexit is something that may turn out to be a very good thing (as the Governor of the Bank of England recently accepted) but in the meantime sterling has dropped from $1.50 immediately before the vote to $1.30 now.
Trump isn't kicking the applecart. He is turning it upside down -- something that needs to be done. LOL
There are all sorts of good reasons why pot should be legal. I personally have little skin in that particular game, I don't smoke it now and wouldn't smoke it if it were legal. I still see why the government should be allowed to tell me that a naturally growing plant is banned. If it wasn't already clear I believe in government getting out of the way, and making pot illegal seems like little more than the government getting in the way for no good reason. In that regard it's much like many other stances I take where governments are concerned - the fact I have no particular desire to do something doesn't mean I don't believe that it should be banned.
I don't think the spirit of the law has anything against the actual plant. It is what people do with that plant that is illegal. The stats are very clear that most heavy drug users started out using pot and ultimately needed more powerful drugs to satisfy them -- which leads to the use of heavy drugs and the loss of many lives. Thus, there are NO good reasons why pot should be legal.
'm sure the polls are biased, I guess it's all a part of dumbing down the population. If you present a loaded question and people answer it without seeing the bias in it you can get the answers you want, and if people see the bias and call you out on it then you can reject them as a data point because they didn't answer the question.
The problem is that there are MANY very dumb people in America -- people who follow their party like mind numbed robots. I'm talking about Democrats in particular. They are emotionally incapable of recognizing bias because it's like failing to notice the individual trees while in the middle of a forest.
But hey, thanks for presenting your own words as "new enlightenment". Nothing like a bit of bias inherent in the presentation, right
Maybe I should just refer to it as simple "enlightenment." LOL
