• Is the two-party system the best to run American politics?
    48 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Glorbo;32685219] [b]TL;DW[/b] The two party system fails because it does not represent the majority of citizens; Most people vote for party A not necessarily because they agree with what party A is saying, but because they don't want party B to win and vice versa.[/QUOTE] Cute video, thanks!
informative and well done, but cute?
Party means nothing to the constituents, but the people running have to be strongly republican or democratic to even get a chance at being elected.
We need to disband the parties and go without them. Reason being the only way a candidate has any chance of winning the election is if they affiliate themselves with either the Democrats or the Republicans. The only way either of those parties will allow a candidate to affiliate with them is if said candidate starts spewing the same bullshit that candidates from their party have been spewing for a while now. So what happens is anyone who wants to actually do something good for this country doesn't get the chance to voice what they want to do.
The two-party system is killing our country slowly because then you get one side of the coin which believes in this, while you have another side of the coin that believes in that. You get fighting, debates, and shit never gets done. We need better government, or there will be no government in the years to come.
There are more than 2 parties, it's just that the Democrats and Republicans have all the publicity.
[QUOTE=zombini;32708307]There are more than 2 parties, it's just that the Democrats and Republicans have all the publicity.[/QUOTE] There are more than 2 parties, it's just that hardly ever does a 3rd party win a national election. There are currently only 2 Senators from outside either party, and they both had to run as independents just to have a chance. As for the House of Representatives, in the last 60 years there have been only 6 third party Representatives, and 1 of those became one of the current independent Senators, so that's really only 5 Representatives. Within the 60 years prior to that, there had been [B]90[/B] third-party Representatives, and 20 third-party Senators. The modern political system in the US allows for almost no diversity, and that's wrong.
I'm really a bit confused in a lot of this discussion as to what will be used to enforce certain idea. If a two party system needs to be abandoned, how is that done? It's really what I don't get a lot about these idea, many people will no a system of no parties, yet what do you do when parties pop up. Is it illegal to form political parties? Would it be illegal to label yourself if you were running for office? What violations of rights would come from your proposed suggestion?
I think the idea that 2 parties could possibly align with the ideals of millions of people is just asinine. Not to mention our government is trying to run itself on a constitution that the forefathers dictated was only a temporary fix. Yet somehow we've been using it for over 2 centuries. Why?
[QUOTE=nemmises5;32690907]what was that famous quote by Washington on political parties?[/QUOTE] Something like [Quote=George Washington]However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.[/quote] Read about it in US History the other day. It's funny, really, a lot of current issues would have not ever occurred if people just listened to what a lot of the founders said and took their advice. I'd wager that a single party where people vote on issues rather than a representative to vote for them may have been more successful. Then again, there's always the "Hey, you're X, we're also X, vote for Y because any X that doesn't vote for Y is a bad X!" [editline]9th October 2011[/editline] It's essentially all based on prejudice and segregation. Things like having parents be republican, being segregated as a republican and feeling morally obliged to vote republic merely because if you don't, you're no good to those that taught you.
[QUOTE=Galago;32676753]Question: Is the two-party system making the United States ungovernable? I'd argue that the two-party system is bad for American politics. It is incredibly polarizing and often results in deadlock. Instead of evaluating on an issue-by-issue basis, most Americans are drawn towards siding fiercely with the party they identify with, which is usually inherited from parents. I would argue that increasing the amount of viable political parties would encourage Americans to evaluate more closely the issues that each stand for and vote more intelligently. Our current 'third parties' only serve to draw away votes from the major two; they are not viable winners of elections. I think this needs to be remedied to allow for more choice in how the U.S. is governed.[/QUOTE] If you are talking about today's political system, we get the same policy from both parties. Both parties voted in the patriot act, both parties voted for the Iraq war, we got a shitty financial bill, we got a shitty health care bill, and all they do is fight about the socialist boogeyman while the real issue still isn't solved.
I'm amazed that a country as large as the US, in which politics play such an important (even dominant) role, never implemented some form of a parliamentary system. I doubt that the first-past-the-post/winner-takes-all system currently implemented will ever truly allow for a diverse government. A parliamentary system is much less restrictive in this respect and doesn't reduce the political arena to the sort of 'natural monopoly' (or rather 'duopoly') like the current state of affairs, where entry barriers for a third party are extremely high. In fact, I personally believe that switching to a parliamentary system would be so beneficial to US politics that it'd be worth the enormous investment and effort to do the switch. Not that any Rep/Dem officials would ever want their parties to lose power this way - so I'm not hopeful that such a switch is even plausible.
The 2 party system is failing us horribly, we're stuck with 2 parties who can't agree on anything. I'm not sure if it'd even be possible to fix it at this point however, as the entire executive branch seems to be based around having two parties and adding more would mean major overhauls in how things work. Plus the media only acknowledges the existence of the two, while most people don't seem to recognize that other options even exist. Another thing is if people vote for 2 different parties with similar issues while the opposing side vote all for one party, the opposing side could win even though they were the minority, and that's probably no good either. It's a shitty system that's failing us, but I don't see it being fixed anytime soon. I'm not even sure how they would fix it.
So long as one party is the Democrats and the other party is NOT the Republicunts, it'll work. Or, alternatively, we could always take a leaf out of Denny Seigel's book and have a President with a split personality, or even elect Legion as President.
No, we need more, E.X Australia.
No, because this causes people, even Congressmen/women, will not pick the choice they find to truly be the best, just because they are apart of an apposing political party. and what the point of purposely segregating ourselves when all we want is the same damn thing, progress and prosperity.
More parties leads to more shades. Making a new law can prove difficult when you have to satisfy the pther party as well - if there were more parties, you could just strike a deal with some other people with a different agenda. That way you get more shit done, and people's opinions are better represented as well.
I would say no to this idea. A two part system doesn't really encourage innovative politics, since regardless of what a part does they'll still inevitably get reelected leading to the progression bump you see in America today with two parties having similar ideals and not really progressing.
asking for a system that's the 'best' is a bit cliche, and unrealistically utopian. there is no 'best' system, we can just keep looking for flaws in the current one and fix them at their very source; that's the only way you can get rid of the problems we have today in the fastest possible manner.
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