I should begin by saying that I will offer only my honest opinion as a conservative. I am not a scholar and come here with no more bonafides than you.
You say:
So you are saying that, though they believe in different ideals or strive to achieve different goals, they ended up the same way?
I would understand it, that what he is saying is that though they had different names and mouthed slogans differently, they will really all the same sort of schemes. Centralized Power. The destruction of custom, convention and continuity. The elimination of the Trancendant, standards, western religious tradition in general and all things to which a citizen might appeal to his fellows for justice outside the system. An organized war on Private Property in general.
Once begun, under any name, with any slogans or under any banner of value, the Rationalist Totalitarian ends with the same result. It worked that way in the French Revolution, the Soviet Terror, the fall of Socialist Democracy schemes in Europe, the Maoistic megolith...all the same: Death and poverty compared to what would have been possible.
Furthermore, could those same factors influence us with our version of democracy, or any form of government?
Looking at history of the last two hundred years and you will find that the Rationalist Totalitarian schemes are often billed as "Democratic", and so these missteps can occur to any state.
Remember, Democratic (in politics) is largely an adjective, rather than a noun. It descibes a process, not a detailed system. We have known since the mess of Athens in the Peloponnesian War that Democracies, as Direct Demcracies, are unfeasible and disasterous forms of government, that is why the founders of our nation never use the term to describe our nation, or use it in the Constitution. They wanted no such silly thing.
We are a Representative Republic which is something completely different. Our Representatives are meant to be deliberative in the sense that Burke uses in the Speech to the Electors of Bristol, they are not delegates of our daily whim, ready to turn on a nightly plebiscite. They go and "represent."
I am inclined to believe that it is the human element, human nature, that has the greatest potential to be so destructive to any organization of man.
Here is where I have hope for your future as a political thinker. Think about it for a moment, doesn't this comment boil down to the imperfectability of man--original sin? It does and that imperfectability is one of the core elements of conservatism. Hayek explains this foregoing collection of issues very well in the Fourth Chapter of The Constitution of Liberty quoted in part here.
You continue:
Here's my concern about our situation: We are fighting each other. Not just among Reps but among Americans; Rep, Dem and all. We don't seem to view ourselves as a union but as adversaries. And that is really scary. Why is that? Why is everybody mad?
Americans have always been passionite about politics and their way of life. We were colonists who threw off a distant king and parliment that we respected in general terms and hated in specific actions. We fought one of the bloodiest civil wars that took place in the modern era. Sure some of my friends that happen to be leftists are my adversaries in political action and representation-- our world views are diametrically opposed. For a fine explanation of this, and why, see Thomas Sowell's book, A Conflict of Visions. There has always been a middle third of this nation that didn't care where the issues were, until they jumped up and began to feel the heat from the stove they were sitting upon. You allude to being in that third, but the battle for Liberty has been ever underway in this nation.
Then you really do convince me that you are uninformed about political systems and history with:
The fact remains that Bush did not win a majority of the vote. ...And yet he is in office. That, to me, indicates that our system is flawed.
Actually, to me it indicates that the system, the Constitution, worked exactly as planned by our Founders. Read the Federalist Papers, they explain what sort of nation we were given and why.
The colonists were suited to, and used to, "participatory" government and a "representational" one at that. Selections of representatives and office holders were made by broadly democratic electoral methods but for the division of power the methods and terms were different for every office and body. This was done on purpose to avoid the concentrations of power that kills liberty.
Majorities as gods are rather unsatisfatory. Tyranny is the same whether wielded by one man or carried forward by 51% of 435 functionaries.
Remember what we learned in school in the '60s: In 'Twnetieth century democracies in the first half of the twentieth century the one with the most statistically accurate representaion as established by the voters selections was in the Weimar Republic and they elected Adolph Hitler, Chancelor.
We can certainly agree that one man cannot rule a country alone. The president surrounds himself with many of the brightest people (not necessarily in the country, but in his party at least.) Perhaps we need a way to map election result to cabinet positions or better yet have a committee rule, representative of the actual vote numbers. Of course this wouldn't work in the real world. (right?) I am sure the thought is coming to mind right now, "partisan squabbling would increase more than exponentially!" Indeed that is likely; the human factor again.
Presidents aren't there to "rule" but merely to function as the Chief Magistrate of Executive Power--to enforce the laws as written by others. Our lawmakers are hamstrung becuase we are letting bully pulpit Presidents pretend to be in control, when they aren't, and letting Judges make laws rather then adjudicate them. TR (a Republican) was as much a creator of this tripe as Woodrow Wilson was and it has been a blind public that believes it and a criminal media that caters to the farce.
From the founding of the nation to 1900, George Will has tablulated that the nation's Presidents gave 264 "political' speeches during that entire era. After TR and Wilson, the tide turned and I bet Clinton gave that many himself, alone, and just in his first term.
I don't know where you were raised or when but what your are really describing here is europe's parlimentary type systems and not even the best of them.
, I guess I should come to a point: that no matter who wins any election, our point of view has to change, we need to stop fighting each other, and work on peaceful change
Why have "change" at all? Why not just use the constitution we have? We need to keep "fighting" if "peaceful" is surrender to popular culture as defined by leftist educators and media hacks that wish for the Rationalist Totalitarian ends that they have tried to foist upon us for the last 250 years.
This is what lets me lovingly tell my leftist friends that they need to quit changing the heritage of our nation or the discord and reflexive actions will just get worse. They need to forget their dreams of creating a heaven on earth, a utopia, and await God's grace, freely given.
*********
In closing, the way this site works is you comment on news articles, and if you wish to make a particular point or discuss a particular trend or issue, you post an article about it and comment to indicate your take on the issue or to make your question.
Although you will see some of them, Poster written articles (or Vanities as they are called) are to be used only rarely and are subject to lots of critcism and even deletion. You, and even more so I, have gone "off thread" or "off topic", but since it was about the Flu and Hillary, I don't thing that it will be the last reference to either.