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Me: If most felt that way, they would be voting for people hostile to corporate lobbyists. The empirical evidence does not support your conclusion.
Let's have a poll here then for American citizens.
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We already do that. They are called elections. We'll have another "poll" in less than a year.
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We can either ask if they support lobbyists or if they feel the 2 main parties cater to corporate interests.
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We've
already asked them. Many times. They see these politicians cave in to lobbyists and yet they still elect them to office. That = consent. They have the power to stop them, but choose not to.
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How many times did people vote for the lesser evil in 2004 or simply did not want to waste their vote.
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So their vote is "wasted" so long as they don't vote with the majority...is that your position?
No one forces them to vote for the "lesser of two evils". They have the option to vote 3rd party if they want to. But its all their choice. If they CHOOSE to compromise by voting for someone they don't completely agree with (but who is more likely to win) that is their
choice.
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It is a catch-22 situation and it is perpetuated by the media and repeated by the majority.
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The majority know their options. They know they can vote 3rd party if they want to. Thats why this talk about a "2 party system" is so absurd...it's only a 2 party system because they
want it that way.
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Me: Actual elections supersede any commercial poll, because the sample size is so much larger in an election.
I'm not talking about a poll that asks who they are going to vote for but polls that show they are unhappy with the 2 major parties.
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If they were unhappy enough with them, they'd vote for someone else. We saw that with Perot, we see that with Ralph Nader every election.
The majority is ok with compromising. They don't have a problem with it. If they did, they'd vote for someone else.
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Now you are talking about a law! I never claimed anything about the legality of debates.
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You claimed the candidates were prevented from debating who they wanted to debate. Your link proves that is untrue...their own
parties can change the rules whenever they want.
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You state that no one is preventing anyone from joining in a debate so I will ask you, why wasn't Nader allowed in any of the debates?
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Because the major party candidates don't want to debate him. Thats why.
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You further reinforce my point with your quote "The only thing that prevents Republicans and Democrats from debating anyone is the Republicans and Democrats themselves" That shows they control the debates.
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No it doesn't...it shows that they only want to debate each other. They don't control any debates. What is to prevent CNN from hosting a debate between Nader and all the other candidates? Nothing. If the Republicrats wanted to join them, they could. No one is being "prevented" from debating anyone.
If Nader decided he didn't want to debate anyone, would you then say HE controlled the debates? Gimme a break.
The Republicrats don't control anything because they cant prevent other candidates from debating each other. All they control is their
OWN actions. Thats all your link showed.
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Me: You have not proven they are being controlled by anyone.
My god, look around you.
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Done that. Still dont think they are being controlled.
You reek of the typical liberal elitism that says if someone doesnt agree with you, they must be "controlled". Because it couldn't
possibly be that your position is simply wrong.
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The media mentions Reverend Wright and everyone talks about him. How many were talking about him before the media brought him up.
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They're talking about him because that is what people want to hear about.
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Any subject of political interest in controlled by the media.
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...and by proxy, their viewers. Who are voters.
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The majority of the people are not talking about atrocities caused by Nestle, GE or Bechtel because they are not in the news.
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And because they don't care. Thats why they are not news.
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Me: Who gets to decide which people have "independent thought"?
Who said anything about agreeing with me. If one shows that they have collected information outside of the mainstream media instead of parroting the pundits on CNN or FOX then it shows they can obtain some sort of independent thought.
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How can they show this? By agreeing with you?
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And while the media continues to ignore them they will never gain any insurmountable numbers.
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If they build up a large enough grass roots movement, the media will not be able to ignore them.
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Please tell me one thing from his platform that liberals don't agree with since Nader is considered a liberal.
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I have no idea, since I'm not a liberal. You'd have to ask them.
To me he looks the same as any other liberal. But they obviously make a distinction.
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Me: Not all views have equal merit. You are not entitled to force me to hear what you have to say. The same is true for 3rd parties.
Sounds like you want to control the information.
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Not allowing you to force me to hear what you have to say = I want to control all information? Huh?
Are you saying I don't have a
right not to have to listen to you?
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when should the views of a third party be heard? [...] You tell us when a voice other than the Republicans or Democrats should be heard?
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Whenever someone wants to listen to them.
I fully agree they should have free speech. Free speech doesn't mean you have the right to force me to hear what you have to say.
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When they receive a certain percentage of the vote, when the support the interests of corporations before the people?
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Perhaps the people believe that those corporate interests are parallel to their own. You don't get to make that decision for them either way.
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Perot did it with money. The media still largely ignored Ross Perot but Perot spent millions on advertising.
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Which would seem to run counter to your claim that money buys influence.