Reply With QuoteYou can't have limitless freedoms and rights.Originally Posted by Malcolm22
Some ideas about government
Liberals want a strong government and Conservatives want a limited government...We should have both.
You'd think having 2 political parties would balance that out...unfortunately incorrect.
They are too concerned about having more support that the other that they forget; they serve the people.
With continuous shifting from the "right" to "left" and vise-versa, there seems to be no balance, and thus how can anything get done?
another thing to discuss: regulations- remember that it all depends on what, where, and how they are implemented.
Regulations serve as taking safety first in a work place environment and can be used in other places too.
Just as long as the government never "regulates" freedom and citizen's rights we should be fine.
You can't have limitless freedoms and rights.
Get more parties in your mix, why settle with only two.
even in legal /business negotiations, each side presents their points on paper, and negotiate until they meet somewhere in the middle
they can't do this w/ first round overall picks, but can't do it on govt issues
fail
A third party, mainly a populist party would be benificial to the gov't at this moment and would make the political system work alot better. The tea party could also be considered, but thats if they expand their main political stances to more then the economy, the national debt and gov't spending.
A populist party is a great idea, just look how amazing life is in latin america.
A third party would do no good. There is no neutral moderate option and they always lean a little bit more one way than the other. That means that come election time the major party that that is least like the third party will sweep into power.
We saw this a lot with the Dixiecrats post-WW2 and who could forget Ross Perot's influence in '92.
The only way it could work would be to get a fourth party in there too at the same time to bleed votes off the other major party. Say, Constitution and Greens picking off the hard right and left respectively. But that might cause some problems in presidential elections where if the majority of electoral votes is not met it's decided by congress. So where would the extra parties caucus? With the nearest mainstream parties, right? Probably. So it effectively solves nothing.
It's complicated and frankly will never happen. Best we can hope for is that they occasionally rattle the cage of the big two enough to keep 'em honest.
The Lib Dems in the UK have been the third party for a while. Their political stance hasn't changed massively, they've always centre left, yet we've had alternating Conservative and Labour governments for decades.
And Germany had even more parties.
It has its benefits and downsides.
Usually if a small party is gaining influence the big parties incorporate their major issues that get them votes into their own program.
This currently is the case with the Pirate party and their data privacy and copyright issues program.
Then of course there are coalition.. something nearly unavoidable with more than 2-3 parties.
and sometimes the results of a coalition might not be too great.. but they are also not too drastic if both have to compromise.. depending on the issue and your point of view this might be good or bad
You think getting anything done is tough now. I can't imagine trying to get six or seven parties to agree on anything. Even just a third party IMO would increase the gridlock. (Not that I'm a big fan of a 2-party system either. I don't have an answer. Something has to change though and that'll never happen if we don't try something. )
Our political systems are structured differently. Here the voting is winner-take-all in every district, not proportional, and once elected they gotta pick which side of the aisle to be on or they are irrelevant.
A Lib Dem party in the US would mean solid control of the government by the Republicans as they would gain a lot of seats in districts where the vote was a two or three-way split. See, the Lib Dems wouldn't be winning seats with the votes. They would just be bleeding votes from the Democrats who could have won.
All for what? For the Lib Dem candidates who do manage, somehow, to get elected to caucus with the Democrats and vote near exactly along their lines. Yeah, no thanks.
But the US really doesn't swing left or right on a regular basis; it tends to (popular vote) the president by 5-10 % points. The reality is the public votes to the middle, but the elected have moved to the fringes of what they think are their mandates. Unfortunately more and more of the electorate are now matching that, so the system, which is predicated on compromise is now dysfunctional. I think it would be easier to change house/senate rules than to attain functioning 3rd and/or 4th parties.
Our system isn't proportional. It's winner takes all in each constituency.
The Lib Dems have been fairly "irrelevant" for decades, this is the first time they've had a sniff of power. However they do take votes from both of the major parties, often on key issues that the electorate feels important, which in turn forces the other two parties to react.
Never regulating freedom? As in, the government cannot tell me I don't have the right to do this-and-that? Or it cannot jail me if/when I do it?
Society is based on regulating freedom. Even a basic "Thou shalt not kill" already infringes upon your natural "right" to go and kill your neighbor who, as we all know, really, really, really asked for it.
I am somewhat of a libertarian. Big government (at all levels) seems incapable of timely problem solving, and it's concept of long range planning is based on the next election cycle.
Government at all levels seems unable to respond to the needs of the PEOPLE (not the PAC's etc that provide campaign funds) The PEOPLE provide the votes and really thats who counts.
Laws in abundance are encated, but few if any address the needs of the people.
Posting Permissions
