Does the two party political system work?

[Ayumi Hamasaki]

I don't think it does. The United States is like a giant hot potato tossed between Democrats and Republicans. And before you say "Well, there's the tea party movement" it's really just a group of Republicans that have very few, if any, differences in belief.

Meanwhile, while the parties are busy playing pin the tail on whose fault it is, the entire country is falling apart as unemployment raises. It was so bad that apparently they decided to count Temporary census jobs as actual jobs. And they do nothing.

The health care bill suffered from this system as well. In the end, it all comes seems to come down to vote for this law or this person because you're of that party, not because of what they stand for or what they believe.

What do you think of the two party system, or even the party system in general.

 

[Rydia]

The current two party system I do not think is working. It's just a bunch of fighting and one side trying to get more votes than the other. I also think that most politicians are saying what everyone wants to hear to get elected. It's stupid that congress can set their own pay and miss as many senate/house meetings as they want.

In high school we learned the reason for the two party system. The biggest reason for only two parties is that one candidate can get the majority vote. Basicaly the winning candidate gets more than 50% of the vote. If there were say 3 candidates, then the winner would get about a little more than 1/3 of the vote where as 2/3 of the votes would have voted for someone else. Whether this is a good reason or not is up to you I suppose.

 

[Valvalis]

I think the party system in general is a bad idea, though I do understand the practical appeal of trying to lump beliefs together into a few different groups for the ease of passing laws and whatnot. The problem I have with it is, I guarantee there are a large number of Republicans who have a few Democratic beliefs and vice versa, or beliefs that don't fall within the realms of either party, since there are SO many different issues involved in the maintenance of a country, kingdom, what have you. The best and most to-the-point way to govern a country, if we were to scrap the entire system and start fresh, would be to have a way for every single citizen to vote on every single issue that comes to the table, rather than us having to rely on a handful of corrupt old men and women representatives with completely different lifestyles and interests than a lot of the other people in this country whom they supposedly "represent". The fact is, there's no way that you can throw children, teens, young adults, middle-agers, baby boomers, senior citizens, homeless people, poor people, middle class, upper class, healthy people, sick people, religious people, non-religious people, environmentalists, non-environmentalists, capitalists, communists, everyone with beliefs in between the two, hetero people, gay/lesbian people, abortionists, anti-abortionists, drug users, non-drug users, rural, urban, suburban, artists, computer techies, teachers, business owners, customer service workers, factory workers, farm workers, blue-collar, white-collar, greedy people, selfless people, paranoid people, relaxed people...well, you get the picture. There's no way you can possibly divide millions of people into two distinct parties and have everyone be satisfied. It's just not possible. So to hang on to a two-party system for this long without attempting to change anything, having the full knowledge that the needs of many different groups of people in this country are not being met, is outright irresponsible of the people in charge of it. I know some people might argue that it's become so complicated now that there's no longer any way to change it; however, if regular human beings were able to design and implement this system, there's no reason why they can't design and implement a new system that would be vastly more democratic than the current one

A great local example I have that just happened...where I live, there used to be speed limits of 45mph on several of the roads around town, and a few that were 35. Now, because 4 people (out of 100,000 in my town) on the city council voted to standardize the speed limits all to 40mph, all 100,000 of us now have to drive 40, and inconvenience ourselves by having to leave earlier to get to work to allow time to not be late. (Keep in mind also that some of these are one-lane roads where you're unable to pass people who choose to go even slower than this >_>) FFS, the mayor didn't even want this to happen, he was the one person on the council who voted against it, but unfortunately he was thwarted by 4 other people. Anyway, not only is it wrong that 4 people should be able to influence the lives of 100,000 so heavily, but if you look at the articles published on the ruling, you can tell that the people in favor of it were full of B.S. to start with: one of them said "it's for safety reasons," and yet they're RAISING some of the speed limits Another said, "If lowering the speed limit by 5 mph saves even one life, it will be worth it." Are you kidding? 5 mph would make that much of a difference in an accident? Maybe the difference between something like 5 and 10mph, but not 40 and 45 O_O Besides, it's not high speed limits that causes accidents anyway, it's incompetent drivers who aren't paying attention. If you go 100 mph and no one cuts out in front of you, you're not going to get into an accident. If you're going 40 and some idiot pulls out of a sidestreet without looking, then you're going to t-bone that shit. It's as simple as that. So yeah, leaving our decisions in the hands of a small group of people? Sounds great

Anyway, my point is that there's no possible way to represent everyone's needs with a two-party system, and at this point it's outdated rubbish. True democracy means everyone is involved, not just a small handful of rich old people

 

[ANGRYWOLF]

I would like to see other parties..however I am afraid other parties would just dilute the vote.We saw that with Ralph Nader in Florida..if he hadn't been on the ballot Gore would have won Florida and beaten Bush.

shrugs...

Or another party would just be a shill..like the tea party is for the repubs.In fact the repubs started the Tea party....

So I don't know...
I kinda have a fatalistic view of things anyway.. a "we are doomed" view..the US will collapse like other great powers of the past..Rome , Greece, Persia, Spain, Babylonia, etc etc etc..and the political parties will have hand in it.

Being a dem I believe the repubs will be largely responsible for it but that's just my view.

shrugs...

Nothing last forever..why should the USA be any different ?

 

[Sir Kenneth]

The current two party system I do not think is working. It's just a bunch of fighting and one side trying to get more votes than the other. I also think that most politicians are saying what everyone wants to hear to get elected. It's stupid that congress can set their own pay and miss as many senate/house meetings as they want.

In high school we learned the reason for the two party system. The biggest reason for only two parties is that one candidate can get the majority vote. Basicaly the winning candidate gets more than 50% of the vote. If there were say 3 candidates, then the winner would get about a little more than 1/3 of the vote where as 2/3 of the votes would have voted for someone else. Whether this is a good reason or not is up to you I suppose.

Not a good reason at all if you ask me. Denmark has a system that supports multiple parties (currently 8 parties in parliament) and you still need a majority of seats in the parliament in order to form government. This means that the bigger parties (Labour and the Liberals) have to form alliances with the smaller parties like the Conservatives or the Socialist Party if they want to form government. Sometimes they get seats in the cabinet for this and sometimes not, but most parties will pick a priministerial candidate from either of the 2 big parties before the election, so even though the priminister's own party only gets 25% of the votes, he will still need the support of more than 50% of the voters if he wants to form government.

Personally I think that a multiple party system is the only way to go. I refuse to believe that the political landscape of the US is so black and white that you can just lump everyone into either the Republican or the Democratic camp.

 

[bearsfwd]

I don't think it does. The United States is like a giant hot potato tossed between Democrats and Republicans. And before you say "Well, there's the tea party movement" it's really just a group of Republicans that have very few, if any, differences in belief.

Meanwhile, while the parties are busy playing pin the tail on whose fault it is, the entire country is falling apart as unemployment raises. It was so bad that apparently they decided to count Temporary census jobs as actual jobs. And they do nothing.

The health care bill suffered from this system as well. In the end, it all comes seems to come down to vote for this law or this person because you're of that party, not because of what they stand for or what they believe.

The current two party system I do not think is working. It's just a bunch of fighting and one side trying to get more votes than the other. I also think that most politicians are saying what everyone wants to hear to get elected. It's stupid that congress can set their own pay and miss as many senate/house meetings as they want.

Both of these. Seriously, it doesn't work. I have extended family that will trash anything a democrat has to say simply because a democrat said it. I think for anything good to finally happen here in the US, we either need the Republicans and Democrats to freaking get along and work together for once, or we need some guy from an independent party to win the presidency. I don't base my opinions upon a particular party. I base my opinions upon what I believe is right and wrong.

Enough with the pissing matches, just do your jobs as government leaders and fix the problems in this country. I don't care how many mistresses politician X has, or that politician Y is having an affair with another man without his wife knowing. Seriously, it doesn't matter. Sure, problems we have today can probably be traced back to something a particular party did, but in the end, it's the entire government's fault for not fixing it before it got to this point.

But, whatever, things won't change. It will always be Republicans vs. Democrats. All I know is, something isn't working. And this isn't something that duct tape or WD-40 can fix.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

Ahh the flavor of thought

This nation will not recover unless it has a near-death experience and is miraculously reborn. Like a renaissance, I guess, but the way it is now, Democrats and Republicans will forever step on each others toes. Unfortunately, the country has more than likely dug itself in too deep. '

With that at hand, let me tell this little slice of knowledge:
Republicans want to cut out the middle-class, (which are you and me). That means, you are either rich or extremely poor.
They will escape from the hole America dug for itself, leaving you and me in the gutter.
At least Democrats are not trying to take all the gold and leave you and me hanging.
Because trust me, all that shit about 'oh I worked hard to be rich', well the companies that pay them are, in vast majority, owned by conservatives. Democrats have always been treated as if they are much less than a conservative. You don't see Democrats doing that with Republicans. All they say is that they are ass-wipes.
AND THEY ARE!!!!

 

[Rydrum2112]

Yes it does in one way- its very stable.

But it fails miserably at actually representing people's views, how many people fully support all of the dem's points or all of the rep;s?

 

[GBJoker]

I think the party system in general is a bad idea, though I do understand the practical appeal of trying to lump beliefs together into a few different groups for the ease of passing laws and whatnot. The problem I have with it is, I guarantee there are a large number of Republicans who have a few Democratic beliefs and vice versa, or beliefs that don't fall within the realms of either party,

Apparently, I'm an extreme conservative with extreme liberal views on some aspects of life. In other words, I'm just one more statistic that proves your point.

Anyways... I just listen to Washington... George Washington.

"Beware of two party systems."

He believed very strongly it would split the colonies in half, and diminish the power of the confederacy. I suppose... Maybe... He was some what... Accurate in that belief. Possibly.

Rydia: That's not why we developed a two party system. We got it because as early as 1779, a group of people started getting together called "Nationalists" or "Federalists." They wanted government to have more power (Specifically, congress), whereas those not of the party wanted to keep limits on the government (Especially congress).

Sir Kenneth: Actually, the current USA system allows virtually unlimited parties. Of the ones I can name off the top my head: Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, etc. The thing is, Republican and Democrat just happen to be the most popular, so more people donate money to those two, which allows for greater advertising... Which allows for more popularity. Ad infinitum.

ANGRYWOLF: Actually, that's not why Gore lost florida, but that's another thread for another day.

 

[blakstang98]

Well, I don't get involved with all the ins and outs of politics, so I'll post my thoughts on it.

The 2 parties (Democratic and Republican) act as a counterbalance, which is where America's checks and balances system comes into play. Theoretically, this means that the only bills that will ever come of, will be ones that both sides agree to. This is to protect us from the royal shaft of 1 party shoving bills down our throats that we don't necessarily want (aka what's going on now). I think that our biggest problem now is the fact that each side is becoming more extreme with their view/believe to overcompensate for the other, so there are many extreme's coming into play.

But to look at it in the big picture, America is one of the most stable (if not THE most stable) running country on the planet. So even if there are a few flaws with our system, which is natural, it's still running well in comparison to other countries. So it might not be working well overall, but it's working better than the others. If we can clean up some of the extreme behavior, then things will be going very smooth.