Collector Zone

Posted by: 2000 rushing yards Feb 8 2007, 10:08 PM

I had to write an essay about our governemnt structure. I pointed out that the 2 party system doesn't work in everyone's favor .They monopolize the goverment. ALthoguh there are 3rd parties. They never win any votes and are seen as just parties that take away votes fro mthe big two. If we had a three party system, maybe the libertian party. More people could make a vote knowing that they have some chance of their canadate winning. If the UK, Brazil and the phillipines ca ndo it why can't we. The early days of americna goverment didn't like parties but now we're stuck with them. If we have to be stuck with them we should atleast have a few more options .A proble mpeopel could point out is that this causes more confusion but in reailty, better comeption causes better candiates. What are your thoughts?

Posted by: Sheesh Feb 9 2007, 01:08 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_system

Note that our Representative Democracy is an oddball in the democratic world, as most countries on the planet have parliamentary democracies.

Posted by: veritas Feb 9 2007, 08:19 AM

for those of us to the left of center, its been pretty obvious for awhile that the two party system doesn't really work here in the US. The 2000 election showed that a third party candidate can really mess things up.

In 2000, you had Ralph Nader pretty much screw up the election for the Democrats. He had his right to run (free country), but by his running the people that would have voted for Gore over Bush, chose him instead. I think he only won like 1 or 2% of the popular vote, but that was enough to push the favor in Bush's direction.

Now this isn't really the fault of our party system; it's really a flaw in our electoral system.

Instead of using PR (proportional representation) like most of the other democracies of the world, we instead chose to use a form of FPP (first past the post) and the electoral college (bleh Florida, bleh Ohio and their shady Diebold touch screen voting systems that can be hacked).

In FPP, a third party becomes a waste of time. You will never ever get close enough to a majority of people for it to matter.

If we used PR, then the percentage of the vote you received would be the % of seats you hold in Congress. Depending on how you play it, then the leader majority party/coalition (if you don't reach a 50% majority you have to form a coalition gov) becomes the head of state.

So if we had PR in 2000, nader's green party and gore's democratic party would have joined together, formed a coalition government and we wouldn't have any of the questions that sprung up after the 2000 election.

Now, PR doesn't always work. Sometimes people can't see eye to eye (even when they sit on the same side of the political spectrum) and they can't form a coalition gov. One good example of how PR doesn't want to work always is Italy. Anyone that follows world politics, knows that Italy has had problems w/ corruption and just passing normal laws and alot of it has been blamed on their electoral system.

If you want to read more about proportional representation or FPP check out these wiki pages to start you off:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_past_the_post

and then there are a number of good books on the subject.

Posted by: ffman Feb 9 2007, 08:56 AM

The thing I disagree with on our two-party system is the extreme partisanship. Democrats and Republicans have a horrible time trying to work together (half the time, they don't even TRY to work together), and it looks like a good deal of our voting public will only vote for a candidate based on party, no matter what.

Posted by: skatalite Feb 9 2007, 09:03 AM

If only my http://www.lp.org/...

Posted by: Tromni Feb 9 2007, 09:27 AM

Well the reason for the partisan bickering is not that we have two parties, but that we have two opinions that refuse to be compromised on. Obviously there can be no compromise on an issue like homosexual marriage where one side judges it moral and the other immoral. A half-immoral solution would please no one.

Government in general is dangerous. Nothing is safe while the Congress is in session. If, since the inception of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1897, you'd invested $1 only on days when Congress was in session, you'd have $2 today. If you'd invested only on days when Congress was out of session, you'd have $216 today.

That's why a 2 party system is brilliant. Very little gets accomplished in most cases. The American people have long shown a preference for divided government precisely because no laws are usually better than lots of laws. The travesty of Reconstruction occurred when the Republicans had a veto-proof majority in both house of Congress.

As for a parliamentary system being better, I would prefer a do-nothing Congress to a Congress that contains representatives from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_nothing_party

Posted by: Sheesh Feb 9 2007, 10:43 AM

Veritas has got it right: Proportional representation w/ a parliamentary system is much more democratic and representative.

The U.S. "winner take all" system is one of the most undemocratic things in our political system. There is no reason why 50.1% of the electorate should control 100% of the government. Just look at how the last Republcian controlled congress ran roughshod over 49.9% of the rest of the country with NO COMPROMISE OR DISSENTING VIEW EVEN ALLOWED TO BE DEBATED IN EITHER CONGRESSIONAL CHAMBER , not to mention will be known as the best example of a "do nothing" congress.

A proportional representative type of system will force the major parties to compromise with smaller parties to gain enough votes to elect a prime minister (instead of the outdated notion of a directly elected president). NOTHING in our current winner take all system makes any party compromise.

Posted by: hernant15 Feb 9 2007, 11:17 AM

I just don't understand you voting system. All that about electoral districts and that, if one country has a little more than half the votes, they control the whole State.
Sorry for comparing always to Argentina, but it's what my experience let's me know. Here we have a 1 party system almost (the Justicialist Party), which comes from Peron's times. The country was one before Peron and another after him. People got used to getting all they needed to leave from the State, and now some of them just don't want to work anymore.
So they use the State to get everything, and that's where political clientelism appears. People vote for one candidate or another just because they give them a pair of shoes after voting, or maybe they give them food. This is becoming usual here in Argentina, and won't stop until the majority of our people escape from poverty and misery.

Posted by: stlbaseball15 Mar 14 2007, 05:34 PM

the two part system isn't forced. every person i've ever met says that theyre afraid voting for a third party would be throwing away their vote, so they just vote the lesser of two evils. if enough people woke up and voted for who they truely believed in, we wouldn't have this problem. the blame for our polarizing two party system lies with the voters.

Posted by: Sheesh Mar 15 2007, 03:58 PM

Although it does rest with voters, the rules of the game are decidedly stacked against any minor/third party.

Posted by: nolan34ryan Oct 27 2012, 05:47 PM

QUOTE(2000 rushing yards @ Feb 8 2007, 10:08 PM)

I had to write an essay about our governemnt structure. I pointed out that the 2 party system doesn't work in everyone's favor .They monopolize the goverment. ALthoguh there are 3rd parties. They never win any votes and are seen as just parties that take away votes fro mthe big two. If we had a three party system, maybe the libertian party. More people could make a vote knowing that they have some chance of their canadate winning. If the UK, Brazil and the phillipines ca ndo it why can't we. The early days of americna goverment didn't like parties but now we're stuck with them. If we have to be stuck with them we should atleast have a few more options .A proble mpeopel could point out is that this causes more confusion but in reailty, better comeption causes better candiates. What are your thoughts?

What about the 4 folks that debated at the third party debate? That is 6 parties running for the whitehouse?

Posted by: 2000 rushing yards Jan 17 2013, 11:49 AM

QUOTE(nolan34ryan @ Oct 27 2012, 05:47 PM)