Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:03:32 +0100

The political system needs to be fixed to have a fair playing field for alternative ideas of alternative parties. Right now we have two-wings of the American Business party. The single most important reform that would make alternative political philosophies and policies have a better chance is the adoption of a federal law requiring all federal elections to be conducted using Instant Runoff Voting. Then people who wanted to vote for alternative parties would not necessarily be wasting their first choice vote if they voted for a major party as their second or third choice vote.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:25:31 +0100

The third party in America: Socially liberal and financially conservative. Get the Democrats out of our wallets. Get the Republicans out of our bedroom. OR stand to lose all your money and rights.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:15:05 +0100

Unless America changes its voting system, the introduction of a third party is only likely to intrench power in the hands of a minority.

How does this work? While the candidate with the most votes wins, three cornered contests, will almost alway throw up a winner without an absolute majority.

The solution for this would be the adoption of a preferencial system, where voters nominate a second or even third preference. In the event that no candidate secures and outright majority, the preferences allocated to the third and forth candidates are allocated to candidate one and two to establish a majority.

This system works well in Australia. Minor parties, such as The Green Party, Democrates or Family First don't get candidates elected to the House of Representatives, but the major parties are often dependent on their preferences and will skew their policies to attract them.

In this situation a third party might not get a seat at the table, but they will get to influence what is decided at the table.

In such a contest, it is not hard to imagine a situation where dependence on Ralph Nader's preferences might influence the policies of Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama toward a more social responsible line, and away from their rather unhealthy passive support of the interests of their corporate sponsors.

In this situation, the significance of a third party is not the power it would wield in its own right, but the influence it would have on the behaviour and policies of the two existing major parties.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:26:00 +0100

There is a youtube debate and guess who is not invited....
Ron Paul you know, another guy telling the truth. This is worthy of RICO fraud by the media it is fraudulent conveyance and actionable deception! Stay true to you Dennis! Your a good man.

http://www.youtube.com/youchoose

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:29:58 +0100

Ya! Tell the truth!!! Refreshing! THE TRUTH!!!!

You get a 'get out of hell' free card!

I like you and Ron Paul.

Constitution, truth, honesty....

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:25:05 +0100

Right on, Kucinich!

The question, of course, is how do we get away from the two party system? It's one thing to tell the electorate "Hey! Take third party candidates seriously! Vote for them!" That hasn't worked. What WOULD work would be if we changed the structure of funding for elections, and if debates between people other than Democrats and Republicans were nationally televised. Changing the system to a true democracy is gonna take real election reform that makes it so that ideas, not funds, are the biggest factor in electibility; and it's gonna take a responsible media that shows not just one side, not two sides, but many, many sides of EVERY issue of PRACTICAL importance to the American people. That's what we, as citizens, should be campaigning for.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:11:59 +0100

I feel that we really only have one party now, dressed up in different clothes on social issues, but in the end, all driven to pander to corporate America.

I would like to see ALL people who want to run for office, regardless of party affiliation, have equal and open access to state their platforms. As it stands now, the money begets the money.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:20:25 +0100

Just commenting to agree with captphatsidy and rgdudley about instant-runoff voting.

Until you have a preferential voting system, you cannot vote for a third party candidate; you must take into consideration other peoples votes, or risk wasting yours.

Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, and other politicians with strongly divergent positions (e.g. Pat Buchanan and The Chicken Man) should support instant-runoff elections. And so should anyone who feels unrepresented in the debates up on the stages and in the media.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:18:26 +0100

If you have more than two parties like we do in Canada than you can have minority governments. Than meas that there could have been a party with 34% of the vote than two other parties with 33% each. That means that 66% of the country didn't want that party.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:29:45 +0100

I call it the wealth party

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:06:21 +0100

The two parties aren't enough. But even if the Democrats ran to the left and the Republicans ran to the right ideologically and ditches the corporate control, we would still have majors problems. Many of these issues have become ideological failures not so much structural failures.

Look at Kucinich. He wants to give black people reparations for slavery, which ended over one hundred years before I was born. Look at affirmative action in general and who benefits and who loses. Look at abortion which Dennis knows is wrong, esp. after the fetus is viable and could just be taken out of the womb and live. But the Democrats insist on being pro-third trimester abortions.

I'm on the far left too on most issues. But trade is a difficult issue and we have to consider the foreign poor. Abortion of viable fetuses is just wrong. And continuing to live in the past with reparations is just absurd and wrong and frankly racist. Those issues prevent me from voting for him.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:46:01 +0100

Both parties are led by similar people differing quite weakly on small nuances of so-called "beliefs." These parties are gravitating toward the moderateness and the moderate voter for fear of alienating a group of Americans, when they need to realize that having the gravitas to be more independent minded would at least lend them the respect (if not the votes) of a majority of citizens.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:50:32 +0100

Can anyone tell me which Democrat co-authored the Patriot Act? I would be very interested to know.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:55:09 +0100

The two party system forces the public to simplify their viewpoints and narrow themselves into one or the other. I believe parties force candidates and members into certain beliefs and are too constraining in general.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:27:15 +0100

Both parties do their best to stay exactly where they are; and until we have run-off voting at the local level (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting) to break down a two party system, we will never get close to breaking anything down at a national level. But even then, Democrats and Republicans are especially effective of suppressing run-off voting initiatives off of local ballots.

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:27:02 +0100

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:12:54 +0100

What we call the two party system is really two amalgamations of state parties. Does the Republican party in Alabama have more in common with the Democratic party in Arkansas or the Republican party in Massachusetts?

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:27:47 +0100

I have proposed a 3 President system in my first "Big Idea"; feedback about my idea are welcome!

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:29:03 +0100

The political marketplace of ideas is a free one. The candidates offer policies in return for public support. The parties reacted to a moderation of the electorate by moderating their own platforms. One could argue that two parties are actually too many parties! Abolishing the party system would allow candidates to offer a broader range of policies that might not necessarily be the "party line."

Comment on: Re: Are two parties enough?

Bigthink — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:17:28 +0100

The two party system severely limits options and creates polarization where little existed. A better option is to allow selection of first second and third choices. Such a system has been investigated, will allow the emergence of more parties, but still avoids the "no one got more than 50%" problem. This will allow better representation which can also avoid splitting votes for similar philosophies. - Richard