I've come to realize that they both suck. Republicans and Democrats both. Neither really cares about the people, they care about their paychecks, and fighting the other party in their partisian politics, and courting the big donations from corporations and the wealthy.

Republicans want to force their morals on everyone, give tax cuts for anyone wealthy enough to donate it back to them, and reduce the government where it's convienent to them.

Democrats just keep increasing the government and trying to regulate everything, even (and often especially) what doesn't need it.

I guess the problem is all the good little sheep who believe voting for a third party is throwing your vote away, or that either party cares what the people think.

In a Democracy, people get the government they deserve.

As far as the upcoming election goes, sure, Gore sucks. But Bush sucks worse. And Pat Buchanan toes the line between sucks and suicidal.

Maybe if we kicked them both out, we'd no longer have party X gaining the majority, and shoving their own legislation through while blocking everything that party Y proposes, then switching off later on to do it just the other way. Maybe they'd actually pay attention to the proposal, not the proposer.

We don't because the electoral system is set up to perpetuate a 2-party system.

Let me explain:
When voting for senators and representatives, we use plurality voting. This means that the candidate with the most votes is elected, and people can only vote for one candidate. A vote for one candidate is identical to voting against the others. So people vote against what they fear, rather than for what they want.

According to Kenneth J. Arrow, there is no truly fair system of voting (the Impossibility Theorem). The most fair system currently known is called "Approval Voting". It's just like plurality voting, except that everyone may vote for as many candidates as s/he likes. One person may only vote for any given candidate once (or not at all). This has an advantage over plurality voting in that it is no longer necessary to vote only for the lesser evil; you can vote for Al Gore and Ralph Nader, if you are willling to have either of them as president, but not George W. Bush or Pat Buchannan.

The day this is implemented in the US is the day pigs grow wings and start flying out of my ass.

It isn't the question of why, but how. Of course, that would be the ideal solution now wouldn't it? A slight problem. As novalis puts it so eloquently, the US electoral system is designed to be a two party system. In addition, there just may be no grass roots political organizations any more. Not in the national stage or at the state level anyways. If you want to win, you go with the established political organizations.

Let's expand a bit, into the rest of the world. In Israel, parliament is designed to have multiple parties, not the two party system. But in order to get any legislation passed, there must be a majority right? So one party must lead a coalition of many parties to do anything. I don't keep up with Israeli politics but the last party to hold majority was Mifleget Ha-avodah, the labor party. I could be absolutely wrong, again, I don't place high priority on Israeli politics. Other examples of this type of political organization can be seen in India. This makes it even more difficult than the US to do anything (and you think Congress was slow). Two party systems (e.g. England with a sometimes three party system, Australia, USA) are probably a lot better than what other democratic countries have.

Example 2: Australia. When the Greenies or the Gun Party wins is the day Melbourne becomes a better city than Sydney, Tasmania sink into the ocean, and New Zealand beats us in cricket. It just isn't going to happen. Two party system = Third party never ever ever ever win. Ever.

It sounds like a nice and easy solution, to kick the parties out, be it 2, 10, or 500 parties representing. But it isn't possible. First of all, because the large political organizations known as parties will always exist, due to the size of the whole system. And since the American system is designed for two parties, there will be two major parties to choose from. Idealism is dead in large scale politics anyways. Just go for practicality. It kind of sucks to go with the system, but hey, bar thermonuclear war, intervention of God, or some massive military coup, it isn't going to change, no matter how you try to fight it.

And besides, I was a wee lad of 12 years in Sydney Australia when I realized that both the Labor and Liberal parties are both full of shit. Paul Keating was semi-decent but did absolutely crap, and John Howard was and is still a lot worse. You're right, this parallels to the US system, both parties suck. But your solution of kicking both parties out is both way too idealist as well as impossible. Life is unfair. If you can't beat them, join them.

In an ideal world, I would be either in front of my computer, at the beach, playing paintball, and having sex, all the while doing copious amounts of soma and not give a care about anything. Screw politics. But idealism is dead. Sucks doesn't it?

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