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| Thread: 3rd party vote |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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mvassilev
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posted October 31, 2012 11:36 PM |
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Voting for the lesser of the two evils doesn't make sense. You're still helping evil win. If you elect Romney and he enacts policies you don't like (for example, extends Obamacare), will you pat yourself on the back and say, "Hey, I helped prevent Obama's reelection! Go me!"
Also, Obama and Romney are at least 90% identical, and are the same on almost every issue of substance: foreign policy, health care, etc. So even if you buy the "lesser of two evils" argument, it doesn't apply here because there isn't a greater or lesser evil - just two men representing the same evil.
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Doomforge
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posted November 01, 2012 12:07 AM |
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Also, Obama and Romney are at least 90% identical
Seems like this problem haunts most of countries that have two major parties. It's scary how alike they usually are.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted November 01, 2012 12:11 AM |
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Also, Obama and Romney are at least 90% identical, and are the same on almost every issue of substance: foreign policy, health care, etc. So even if you buy the "lesser of two evils" argument, it doesn't apply here because there isn't a greater or lesser evil - just two men representing the same evil.
I agree. For grins only, I remember watching Gingrich and Clinton going toe to toe on TV in a "heated confrontation". It was early in CNN's move to the pan-to-mulitple-reporters-bit. But behind one reporter was a big ballroom and both of them were drinking and having a big laugh together, the reporter was moved before the next swing to his next coverage and the new view was quite sterile. <imo> It's two parties having one big party and has been for a long time.
@Elodin
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How much do you propose to give each of them to spend on the elections? How do you propose to pay for it?
The people would vote and decide the whole shibang. i.e. Off the top of my head:
1. How many candidates
2. The needed info @ platform-internet-sites and TV & radio spots etc.
3. Complete voting records, candidate-information etc.
4. Amount of debates and the criteria for those debates.
5. The mandatory-penalties for crimes against the voters.
Also, they would elect their own oversight committee including real inforcement that would protect the people's elected voting process.
A personal gripe of mine is there would be no writing of books while in office. Bottom line for me is they were elected to do a job and not to gather material for their private profit.
Pretty dreamy I know but something needs to be done. Right now, in essence, we elect a CEO of a corporation (King and royal family if you prefer)(to the office and there are a lot of backs that will get scratched. Lots of debts to repay.
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted November 01, 2012 04:18 AM |
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That idea is one I have toyed with in the past, but it creates more problems and infringes on personal liberties.
Here is how you do it:
-Can not purchase adds in any form
-Republicans and Democrats gets dismantled as parties, and the candidates are not allowed to run in the 2 next elections
-Allow 2 months of campaign, and 1 month for the actual election
-No debate panel is allowed to excluse any parties
This would fix the initial problems, but only the initial problems. There is still problems, such as it does not make sure the system keeps being unrigged, it also does nothing to stop established smaller parties, unrigging the media. And lets be honest here: This would turn into a complete and utter mess, but only for the first election. After the first election, the really small parties usally automatically die because they are too small.
Chaos mode: No election polls.
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xerox
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posted November 03, 2012 07:35 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 19:36, 03 Nov 2012.
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In the US, you seem to vote more for the opinions of an individual candidate rather than the collective opinion of a single party. While the electoral system disgusts me, I do like how US politics are based more on individuality rather than collective thinking. I would prefer such a system in my country where our liberal party aren't particulary liberal at all. I'd rather have had some good, truly liberal candidates than the big collective of pseudoliberals we have now.
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blizzardboy
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Nerf Herder
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posted November 03, 2012 09:14 PM |
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While individual-based voting sounds great in principle, it's vulnerable to compromise because of pressures within the party to vote a certain way on a particular bill. Having a two-party dominated system means that you'll find greater diversity within each particular party, yet at the end of the day, large groups of them can be prone to vote a certain way as a collective mob in order to outdo the other side, ultimately resulting in a rather impure brand of democracy. I think a president is less vulnerable to that than a congressmen or senator though.
Zero Parties > Multi-party > Two Party > One Party
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xerox
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posted November 03, 2012 09:29 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 21:31, 03 Nov 2012.
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The political pressure is a huge problem in the multi-party system we have now. I'll give you a concrete example from my own town. So the 2010 elections were over and none of the traditional coalitions could secure a majority. Nobody wanted to rule in minority because they were afraid of the social conservative Sweden Democrats getting influence that way. What happened was that an unholy alliance between the Social Democrats, the Christian Democrats (CD) and the Centre Party (CP) was made. The latter two usually strongly oppose the Social Democrats. Not only were the smaller CD and CP forced to forsake much of their own policies and ideology, but an interesting case of political pressure occured on my very own school.
So what happened was that the Social democrats wanted to close a school because public schools were losing students. Before the elections, the CD and CP were part of the former ruling right-wing coalition that was completly against closing that particular school. Members of the CD, including my very own teacher who was a leading member on the local level, opposed closing that school too. But since they were now the puppets of the Social democrats, they suddenly started saying that they wanted to close down the school aswell. Now in the City Hall, about 15 politicans from the different parties were going to vote to close down the school or keep it. My teacher was one of those 15 politicans and he was strongly against closing it down. Of those 15 politicans, 7 members of the ruling coalition (social democrats, CP, CD) wanted to close the school down. 7 members of the opposition wanted to keep it. The 15th member was my teacher. He was part of the ruling coalition too, but as I mentioned, he was completly against closing down the school. If he voted with the opposition, a majority of 8 members against 7 would be for keeping the school. So what he did he do? He didn't attend the voting at all. Instead he sent his reserve to the voting session. The reserve, a Christian democrat, voted with his ruling coalition. Months later, the school was shut down when that could have been avoided if it had not been for political pressure, the "party whip".
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted November 04, 2012 02:07 PM |
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...So what he did he do? He didn't attend the voting at all. Instead he sent his reserve to the voting session.
This reads like a sort of protest. Did he give any explanation for this?
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xerox
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posted November 04, 2012 04:33 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 16:33, 04 Nov 2012.
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I never confronted him any further, he just told me that he sent his reserve to vote for him. I intepret that as a passive protest, yes.
It should be noted though that another politican from the ruling coalition DID publically protest.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted November 06, 2012 04:53 PM |
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@Elodin
Sorry for the delay but there are a lot of questions here and I am not prepared to run for office. 
I'll give my own answer but what would happen in my voters-utopia would be decided by the country...every step of the way. Every aspect of the amendment would be elected by the voters. So, one condition for myself is I would have to be OK with whatever was decided.
I don't see that as any big deal when my choice "today" is I can vote the 2 power-parties that I cannot stand or a 3rd party candidate that seems hand-crafted to be (for me folks)a Jekyll and Hyde choice.
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That idea is one I have toyed with in the past, but it creates more problems and infringes on personal liberties.
Like we've no problems now.<L>
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I suppose you'd fund them all equally out of the public coffers. The Communist Party, Republican Party, Democrat Party, White Supremacist Party, NAZI Party, ect, all get equally funded to spread their message.
The people would decide the ground-rules. Surely you could count on the vast majority of the people to not elevate hate-parties? If not, then none of my ramble matters anyway, for we would need to be governed like non-thinking consumers that are only interested in the next thrill-purchase.<L>
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How much do you propose to give each of them to spend on the elections? How do you propose to pay for it?
There would be an "elections tax" set by the voters. I believe once all of the hidden or foggy ways they actually pay for things now was revealed, then they would prefer to have it all visible and an elected amount to cover the entire process.
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Would you forbid Political Action Committees? Would you forbid spending by private citizens, corporations, and political parties on political advertisements?
Well, I no expert on this stuff but would not an elected board set to oversee the entire process be sufficient? And yes, I would ban all of that private spending, there is nothing private about it, why not remove the ability to legally manipulate the process? <imo> There would be no room for it in a system dictated, monitored and paid for by the citizens.
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Would you forbid editorials about politics? Editorials about politics are essentially free political advertisements.
NO, I am not about banning free-speech just the power of the almighty buck. If anyone wants to push a candidate, let them do it on their "own time and money" and not expect to profit in some fashion.
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How about endorsements by Hollywood celebrities/sports stars? Those are free political advertisements as well.
One again that's for the people to decide but as for me, I could care less what some king/queen of make-believe wants me to believe. Within my value system a person that can act or slam-dunk a basketball are not the sort of opinions I seek. But again, this system belongs to the people and it would be their call. Btw, I doubt I'm the only one that is sick of hearing from the "star of the burning building" that has become an expert on all matters nearly overnight.
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Would you require the news organizations (all of them) to give equal and unbiased coverage of all of the many political parties?
Right now, our U.S. news is "owned". If the folks created an information-sharing-campaign-entity, the current bias' would have an end...there would be no money in it, so I doubt it would be an attractive profession any longer.
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How about debates, how would that be handled? It is really hard to have any sort of presidential debate if there are going to be 50 candidates attending the debate. How would you decide which parties were entitled to be in the debates?
As I said all of this would be elected. The thing is, on a regular review, each year or every couple of years the voters would make what ever changes they found needed. Funds, # of allowed parties, # of needed debates, etc.
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Would private organizations be allowed to hold their own presidential debates, inviting only the candidates they wanted to invite?
Sure...on their own dollar. Again the folks would determine the reach etc. of such an event.
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Would candidates be allowed to spend their own money at all?
No. Unless they wanted to donate some of their wealth to the new American voting union .
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To speak about politics in other than officially sanctioned government political gatherings?
People would still talk about politics; what would change; is that they longer would be paid to do so or profit off others that do. Spin and ramble would no longer be a sweet living.
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How much spending would you allocate to create a new election bureaucracy (or expand an existing one)to oversee and enforce all of the new rules, and how would you pay for it?
Same old answer, all the details of the new system would be elected by documented U.S citizens within a structure that allowed for improvements.
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