Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Troy Davis on February 27, 2011 at 6:54pm

Well, I agree.  The more cellular providers, the cheaper and better your product becomes.  Without competition we would never be where we are today.  It drives technology and just about everything relies on technology today in some way (even politics).  So, I apply the same logic... there will be a good balance if it weren't for main-stream media.  In my opinion, they are really the ones to blame.

 

And as I've been saying for years... I can bank online, why can't I freakin vote online?  This country (my home country) would be in a lot better shape if everyone could vote easily.

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Permalink Reply by Seth B Rollings on February 27, 2011 at 7:06pm

I think the third major party should be of secular and socialist ideals. Just sayin'

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Permalink Reply by Ryan E. Hoffman on February 27, 2011 at 8:57pm

Fascism there's only one choice. In our system, the best system, we have two choices. So, in the best possible system we have one more choice than fascism. - Colin Quinn

 

Q: do you think we need a 3rd party?

A: no, but I think we need a second one.

-Ralph Nader

 

The more choices the better.

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Permalink Reply by Lindsey on February 27, 2011 at 10:18pm

I think if we had a third party that actually stood a chance of being a threat to the the other two, it might create some incentive for the two current parties to focus more on what the people actually want.  Democrats and Republicans have become slack and they don't keep their election promises, because they know that voters are just going to vote for one party anyway without actually putting thought into it. That's how it is in my state. The republicans have been in the majority since WWII, and they just do whatever the fuck they want to because they know that no matter what, they will still get re-elected. And they do. They waste everyone's time passing 'message' bills that don't actually change or do anything, and they pass bills that they know are unconstitutional just to send a message to the federal government and then proceed to wast millions of dollars defending these unconstitutional bills in court, knowing that they are going to loose.  The people here do nothing but bitch about their shennanigans, but come election time they never fail to either vote straight republican or not vote at all.  I think the problem with politics today isn't so much the parties, but the people who vote for them.

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Permalink Reply by Morgan Matthew on February 27, 2011 at 11:44pm

This is a excellent response Lindsey!

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Permalink Reply by Joli on February 28, 2011 at 12:03am

I agree that this is a great response, but I do have to say that my grandmother had been a DEM for as long as I can remember and this past election she voted REP. She is 92 this year. So that goes to show that there are SOME who pay attention to what's going on. And it was not because the DEM choice was "black".

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Permalink Reply by Lindsey on February 28, 2011 at 5:26pm

Well, of course there are people who actually think things through before they vote. My point was that a depressingly large number of people will just vote for one party or another without putting any thought into who the candidates actually are. Do they really know anything about the names on the ballot, or do they just vote straight DEM/REP without even being able to name most of the people they just voted for? I did my best to look up all the candidates when I voted for the first time. It was hard, there were alot of them, so I understand that you can't know everything about everyone, but is it really so hard to do a quick google search so you know you're not voting for a complete moron? I also think candidates need to do a better job promoting themselves. A small website with information about your family life isn't actually very helpful. But again, most of them just assume that people's vote will be based on the little R or D next to their names, and not on the substance of what they say.

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Permalink Reply by Heiko Knipfelberg on February 28, 2011 at 8:25pm

I think you hit the nail on the head...."there are some who pay attention to what's going on." It's been my belief, for quite some time, that the majority of the electorate care more about things like American Idol than our own system of government. So...he who can put more money into getting his name out there is the one that will be voted on.

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Permalink Reply by Spencer on February 28, 2011 at 12:47am

I believe the parties are relatively corporate-run, with little heed to the common citizen. Voting means little to me, since it's rare that I'd like either candidate. On the other hand, about 90% of Republicans are young Earth creationists, so I might lean toward the Democrats, who are at least slightly lower in religious stupidity. A secular party would do nicely, if we had more than just the population of this site to vote for them =/

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Permalink Reply by Pope OoO (Out of Order) on February 28, 2011 at 1:12am

There already are several parties. I believe the Tea Party's largely responsible for the movement that caused large Democratic losses in 2010 elections. I hope that the Tea Party can sponsor a candidate for 2012 because it would split the conservative vote and make it easier for Obama to win.

Florida was the swing state that decided the entire, 2000 presidential election. If it weren't for Green Party votes in Florida, Gore would have been president instead of Bush (see wikipedia):

In the 2000 presidential election in Florida, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes. Nader received 97,421 votes, which led to claims that he was responsible for Gore's defeat. Nader, both in his book Crashing the Party and on his website, states: "In the year 2000, exit polls reported that 25% of my voters would have voted for Bush, 38% would have voted for Gore and the rest would not have voted at all." (which would net a 13%, 12,665 votes, advantage for Gore over Bush.)

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Permalink Reply by Atheist Exile on February 28, 2011 at 1:21am

Hi Gabriel,

The Republican party has gotten more and more extreme.  It's hard to find much to agree with there.  Beginning with Clinton the Democratic party has shifted somewhat to the right (center), which is something I've also done over the last decade or two.  The extremes of both the right (ultra-conservative) and left (ultra-liberal) turn me off.

There are many alternative parties to choose from but none of them have put together a platform that I can prefer over the Democrats.  If one came along . . . I'd surely give it a serious look.

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Permalink Reply by Eoganacht on February 28, 2011 at 2:48am

In New Zealand, I think anyone citizen can start their own party or run for MP. We have National (Commercial based), Labour (Social welfare), The Greens (enviromental), Maori (represents the Indigenous people), and various other parties that serve other needs. The two big ones are National and Labour and occupy different ends of the spectrum but general try to achive the same thing by different means. The system works well although we've almost had the complete collaspe of the Maori party due to the actions of an unsavoury member. Parties make alliances to make up for seats as generally the main parties do not get the required votes to stand on their own; generally there is more variety that the two party system in america does not allow.e

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