It's time to move away from the two party democratic system

In my humble opinion the current system only serves to divide our nation and I think it's time we made a change. Thoughts?

 

The current system is two party in name only. There is really no material difference in the parties because they are both owned lock stock and barrel by the same corporate interests. The differences they roll play for the benefit of the idiot masses are just part of a farce that keeps the people believing they still have some say in their own self rule.
Is it time for a change? Yes, but who is going to enact change? The idiot masses? I think not.

 

There are flaws with any system. The most obvious option is to switch to a parliamentary system but although that works in Europe, there are many reasons why it would not work in the US.

And our system is not as divided as you may think. In fact, there have been many times when our two parties were a lot further apart than they are today.

 

Your lack of faith in your fellow citizens is troubling. I will grant you that many people are blind to the way our current system is flawed but to generalize the entire country in this fashion I think is unreasonably pessimistic. You and I are both part of the masses after all are we not? I don't pretend to be the smartest cookie in the jar but I know I'm not stupid and neither are you.

 

It's not the system itself that I believe to be divided, on the contrary I think he system does function very well toward one goal. What that goal is I couldn't say for sure without more research but I don't think it is a goal set by the people for the people. The system divides the citizens of the country and prevents them from working together as well as they could. It distracts us with arguments over small things of little consequence in the daily lives of most citizens. Things such as gay marriage, the war on drugs, abortion, racism, and immigration. We squabble over these things so much we fail to recognize what's going on in the world at large, not entirely but enough. We don't see ourselves as part of a world community and that is something I would like changed. Our mindset is provincial and I wish it wasn't.

 

Some of the founding fathers didn't believe in political parties because they foresaw the polarization that would ensue.

We should abolish institutionalized political parties altogether, and each candidate can be a PP all unto them self. That party is born with them, and dies with them.

 

This is an interesting idea and warrants further discussion. How do you see this being put into effect, how politicians move forward with his/her career? Basically how do you see this panning out?

 

I think Obama was able to run as both a moderate and a far-leftist, which other candidates won't be able to do. Once he's gone we will be back to "both parties are the same."

 

The latter part of my statement basically describes how it would pan out. How to implement such a plan would be hard to configure not knowing how entrenched political parties are in our election process. As far as each politician, I imagine 'their' party would function similar to the dominate 2, but just on a smaller scale.

 

How exactly do you propose getting rid of political parties without violating the First Amendment?

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Multi-party proportional representation requiring 66% of the vote to be elected with multiple rounds and instant-runoff elections.

 

Did you just classify civil rights as being "of little consequence"?

 

The beauty of the system that has been created is that it has been modeled after the Roman system (bread & circuses) in which the rulers and the elite of Rome fully understood that they were free to exploit all the riches of Rome and to pursue wars of conquest regardless of the morality of such wars provided they provided certain comforts and distractions for the populace.

The average citizen today has no more say in the running of government on a Federal, State, or local level than his dog does. His government is packaged and sold to him like any other commodity. He has little or no interest in what is going on and is unwilling to divert any time from watching sports or reality TV to find out. The elite found out a long time ago that the masses are easily pacified and deceived so long as they are relatively comfortable.

 

But, but, but, wouldn't that make it a lot harder for the corporations to funnel their bribes.. I mean "contributions" to the political prostitutes.. I, I, I, mean candidates?

 

Tell me how it violates the 1st? Essentially every candidate is an independent, and doesn't have to toe the party line. If anything, it encourages free speech.

 

yes!

 

Freedom of assembly.

 

How would it prevent freedom of assembly?

 

It would prevent people from forming voluntary associations.

 

Taxcutter says:
For the umpteenth time:
A proportional representative system leads to the paralysis seen in Italy's comic-opera parliament, and thus is not even remotely acceptable.

 

No. I classified the arguments and massive media coverage that occur whenever two people of different races clash over pretty much anything. A white man shot a black kid last year and we still hear about it on the news. Is this productive? I feel like if anything it advances racism by exaggerating tensions between white and black people. That's what I mean when I say racism is trivial. I believe that if we let it racism will pretty much die with the baby boomers. We don't need to keep talking about it at the national level. I appreciate you offering me the chance to clarify. The civil rights movement was definitely of great consequence but I don't feel that racism has a serious effect on the lives of the majority of people I think more often we profile people based on their presumed economic standing. I'm just as afraid of a tatted up grill wearing baggy trousered white guy as I am a black guy fitting the same description because my mind has been trained to assume the man who dresses this way is a criminal but I never allow that initial judgement to be the way I measure any man woman or child. It would interest me to know where you find racism playing a major role in our society.

 

So why not point it out? Force people to see that they have no real power. I don't think all people are idiots. A majority would have to understand and be willing to act if there was a way to teach them how they are not the ones who control the government. At least not in the way they think.

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What's your alternative?

 

How do you enforce that? How do you ensure there are not political parties without banning them, which would violates freedoms of speech, association, expression, and redress of grievance?

 

You know, I would love to get away from this crap, but in all honesty, i don't think it would make any difference and there would be no change.

People are tribal animals and they tend to gather into tribes anyway, so it would still be the childish name calling and trashing and bashing.

 

I don't think this is true. It would prevent politicians from having ties to these associations which I think is important for someone to remain objective when making decisions that effect the entire country.

 

Yes we are tribal animals but if we started to view the entire nation as part of our tribe instead of just the ones who think like us then could we not learn to respect the opinions of others and value the knowledge we can gain by hearing them out? Maybe I'm naive and humanity is incapable of such acts but I like to think that it's possible.