BF2S Forums Two party system/parties in general

The first thing in my head was Federalist Paper #10, but that supports your argument instead of opposing it.  In opposition, you could suggest that alternatives are no better.  A one-party system is often referred to as a dictatorship and having three or more parties tends to make it difficult to reach 270 electoral votes (assuming this paper is based on the American two-party system).

Two party system assures that petty bullshit is minimized due to lack of targets.

When there is only one other party to target there is only so much mud to dig up and time that can be spent attacking the other party before you become a broken record. Especially in a society like ours where gossip and vicious personal attacks are gobbled up by the public, reducing the crap that makes people pay attention to irrelevant issues instead of the real issues can help lead to better informed voters.

RAIMIUS wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

With the two party system it is assured that the best of the pool of candidates is elected in the populace's opinion.

I'm going to disagree there.  Just look at the voter turnout in recent elections.  Congress has (or recently had) a single digit approval rating!  The current race is also a good example of how candidates can rise to the top but not necessarily be the best.  McCain had to give the VP slot to Palin to satisfy his own base!  Quite a few are notionally republican/conservative but don't like McCain.  Voters are said to vote against someone almost as often as for a candidate, so they can elect the "lesser of two evils." 
Is our current system really that great at nominating the best candidates?  I don't think it is.

Don't confuse what I write with what I think.

He is throwing out possible ideas in response to my prompt, rather than stating an assertion to be truth.

Voting for a party, and then letting the party select its executive line-up after the election would go a long way toward fixing our system.  You vote the platform/party/ideology you like, then let them figure it out.  If a party member bucks his platform, he's booted or switches to a different party without any muss and fuss.  Unfortunately, as was discovered very soon after the Revolutionary War, we Americans still like our "elected kings".

Anything more than 2 big parties = Alliance parliaments etc.. you know, where groups of parties form alliances in the houses to get things done. This is good and bad. It means that the 2 biggest parties that are leaders of the alliances don't have that much power, but it also means that the governments aren't as stable.

Imo, the reason the U.S has only 2 main parties. Is because, for the most of it, it's only ever needed to main parties. The populace are pretty homogenous throughout the states and it's only political views that diffrentiate between them around the country. So that's why you end up having one Left and one Right party as the main dominating parties. Same goes for the UK and loads of other countries that are like that.

Hell, actually, I'm wrong about the UK. Whilst Labour/Conservatives are the main parties. It's only because England dominates the UK and Labour/Con dominate England. When you look at the votes for the last election. You can see that countries like Scotland vote for their own Scottish parties, and so do Wales and N.Ireland don't even have a single constituency that votes for Labour/Conservatives. So yeah, even the UK, once you break it down, votes along Ethnic/Language groups.

But when you get to countries like, say....India. Every state/area of the country is pretty much a different language/ethnic group. The country is like the European Union, except it's (more) unified. Each state could be their own country because it's all divided upon ethnic groups/languages. So yeah, with that, you get more or less everyone voting for their respective parties and that's why a place like that has _over 9000_ political parties and they have to form massive alliances in the houses and shit. Makes you realise that if you want to unify people togethor, do it under a democracy and it will work, do it under a dictatorship (USSR, Yugoslavia) and it'll all eventually break down and the country will fragment like Surgeons's porn-only hard drive.

And, my point is. That the US has 2 parties, because it doesn't really have those divisions.

I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying, some people hate the fact that the USA has only 2 main parties. I'm just trying to say, it's like that, because of the country/demographics itself.

We have two parties dominating because politicians like power.  They consolidate as much power as they can, but there are still fundamental differences in some people's views.

Personally, I would like to see a 3-5 party situation, as I do not feel either party really represents my views.

True.

As I said, "two parties dominating."

two-party systems might be faster in their decision making process, but they are lacking a proportionate representation of the demos, because the majority rules without the minority. multiparty systems might take a little bit longer, but their decisions are more representative for the people.

maybe you should read lijpharts "patterns of democracy" for a deeper look into this.


_> http://wikisum.com/w/Lijphart:_Patterns … Advantages

Last edited by [pt] KEIOS (2008-10-15 09:25:38)

Gee, I thought there was - one party; the corporate party that goes by two names. And, then the outsiders that basically have little or no real influence.

topal63 wrote:

Gee, I thought there was - one party; the corporate party that goes by two names. And, then the outsiders that basically have little or no real influence.

Yep.  It doesn't matter how many different names there are if there is only one puppetmaster.  Pay no attention to 'the man' behind the curtain.