[joe_the_user]

The old expression "we have the worst system in the world, except for all the others" .. comes to mind

That's what (I think) Winston Churchill said about democracy (might be true there). But here, I think you can just say "we have the worst system". Period. The US has a variety of sectors (public works, health care, etc) which aren't just bad but fated to get worse and worse through both through the particular way US ruling interests deal with each other. Each solution introduces more pork interests since each solution follows the haphazard paradigm.

For example; I think Yimby ("yes in my back yard") proposals have aimed to facilitate development in at transit hubs, a worthy seeming cause. But since there's no California state transit plan, this approach has to define "transit hub" haphazardly - "there's currently a bus stop there". This allows those aiming to sink a development to do so by removing the bus stop. Or oppositely, allows someone to facilitate a development by adding an otherwise unneeded bus stop. I'm not sure if this approach was implemented but just proposal illustrates the inherent problem of trying to solve transfic/housing/development problems by tossing random legislation at them.

[handrous]

> That's what (I think) Winston Churchill said about democracy (might be true there).

As E.M. Forster put it (from memory, so I'm sure less well-worded than the original):

"So, two cheers for democracy—there's no occasion for three, two is quite enough."

> But here, I think you can just "we have the worst system". Period.

Yeah, our system's about as bad as it could possibly be and have held together this long, true. And our country's too disunited to ever fix that without breaking apart to do it.

[jes]

> And our country's too disunited to ever fix that without breaking apart to do it.

A tribe that lacks a serious external threat often goes to war with itself.