Oh, there may be a few good people in office from both parties, but not many. Those who are will never get anywhere unless they are extremely loyal to their party.......and that is the problem. It seems neither party agrees on anything, its all about winning. I'm sick of it. Wish a good 3rd party could come to the forefront, gather support and shake up Repubs, Demos and America!!!![]
Politicians will always be politicians.... Parties could be non-existant, and we'd still have the same opinion of politicians. At least with parties, you know a politicians general platform, and you can hold them accountable to it. If there were hundreds of non-affiliated politicians out there, it would be excedingly difficult to keep track of who stands for what.
As far as a good third party goes, it would be good for a couple election cycles, then it would become established, and resort to partizanship like the other two. Then you'd have three groups to complain about instead of two.
As in all things in life regarding human nature, there is always some good in sucessful social endeavors.
A lot of good happens every day in government by members of both parties, it is just accepted as doing business and goes unnoticed. We read and heard about the bad things, the things that sell the news. Who perpetuates that more so the the politicians? The media.
They can make something or somebody the issue, the news, the center of your focus. Look how they report all the horrors of war but do not bring forth the good being accomplish. We then blame the politicians.
Yes there are the name callers and mud rakers and corrupt people but if you had to name them, make a list they would not be the majority, thank God.
Our system and parties are not perfect but they are working and are to my limited knowledge the most effective in a free society on earth. I don't want to tear it down and will help to improve it by working toward that goal by my choice and as a free man.
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Now you have to picture a combination of PeeWEE Herman and Wally Cox but with less muscle tone, trying to be intimidating None of this is funny! Message edited by Cougar Mag -- 1/7/2005 1:16:42 AM >/b]
Cougar what would be far more powerful then a third party would be the option of voting for "None of the above". This would wake both parties up to the fact that neither of them are giving the voting public the type of candidate they want. It would stop a mediocre jerk who was running against an idiot from thinking or saying that "My election was a mandate from the people!", not when the winner got 20%, the loser got 10%, and "None of the above" got 70% of the vote.
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The Tazman aka Martin Price
Proud father of a Devil Dog
We are stuck with the two party system. When you think about alternatives, they all seem to fall apart. Introduce an independent, and this usually condemns one presidential candidate or another to lose (witness Ross Perot damaging GHW Bush in 1992 and Ralph Nader damaging Al Gore in 2000). A strong third party would probably have the same effect as an independent in presidential elections. Turning to think about representatives, third party candidates can get elected, but their influence is usually limited to very specific isolted issues. For example, I believe the libertarians got some people elected and managed to provide for private ownership and purchase of gold (private ownership of gold, at least in some form, was formerly illegal, as I understand it -- I have been wrong before in my life and perhaps my memory fails me here). But I don't see a third party achieving a major policy initiative which isn't bought into by one of the other two parties.
On the other hand, our government tends to move along guided by our constitution. Despite lots of agitation and media manipulation, we still own guns because the consitution protects this. While there are some miscarriages of justice, our legal system tends to provide a mechanism for righting wrongs and protecting the weak from the attacks of the powerful, including the government. In particular cases I can be proven wrong, but in the general case I think I am right. Over time government leans in one direction and then leans back another direction. Right now I would say we are half way between a very liberal system of government with lots of money being redistributed to the disadvantaged and a very laissez-faire system of government were people are largely on their own and businesses are largely unregulated. We are largely safe and secure in our lives, though the recent emergence of terrorism in our own land is a serious new threat which we have not yet learned to cope with. Unfortunately, most things in human affairs are learned through experiencing many failures first. Think about the construction of homes. There is reason for most of the features of home construction. Transplant a builder from Illinois to Texas and have him build a home, probably the home won't be correct for the peculiarities of our environment -- termites, heaving gumbo clay soils, periodic heavy rains -- and similarly a Texas builder transplanted to Illinois is probably going to build a home not right for Illinois -- perhaps a roof not suited to snow, melt, refreezing of melted snow to form ice dams on the roof, etc. The techniques are learned because of prior failures. So, with terrorism, we'll probably have to make a lot of mistakes before we learn how to handle this new threat correctly.
On CNN today, they are reporting that ONLY ONE elected member of congress is questioning the automatic pay increase for both the house and senate. ONLY ONE.[:@]
We are in a war, we are massing a deficit, and only one man stands against getting a pay raise! On this issue alone, we aught to through the whole damned bunch out!
The career politician makes his living on the backs of the workingman!
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There's no such thing as truth, only perception
Cougar what would be far more powerful then a third party would be the option of voting for "None of the above". This would wake both parties up to the fact that neither of them are giving the voting public the type of candidate they want. It would stop a mediocre jerk who was running against an idiot from thinking or saying that "My election was a mandate from the people!", not when the winner got 20%, the loser got 10%, and "None of the above" got 70% of the vote.
Wow !
I said the same thing months ago and everybody called me an irresponsible loony .
I always knew that they like you better Taz , but really ...
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Kevin Haendiges
NAHC Life Member
NRA Member
Wildlife Forever Member
GOA Member
Buckmasters Member
http://hunting-indiana.com
I'm not trying to incite violence, but in reality a popular revolution will do more to reform bureaucracy than third parties ever will. If you feel that something is inherently flawed, the answer is not to join ranks with it, but to destroy it altogether.
I'm a Libertarian, and although I believe very strongly in most of the party's principles, I realize that it isn't ever going to catch on unless we do away with one or both of the two major parties. The only way that'll happen is through armed insurrection.
I have no use for either party.
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