What political party do you subscribe to?

[Yonmanc]

Vote BNP for a whiter Britain!!!

[Retlaw83]

Good thing the population of a tiny island wouldn't become inbred after a few generations if there were no immigrants.

[Blargh]

More inbred. Inbreder ?

[Retlaw83]

Inbredest.

[Manoil]

:chavs:

[Kashluk]

Three (or more) party systems are absolute clusterfucks. I'll stick with what we've got.

I dare to say different. I'd say two party systems are over-simplified, opinion centralizing and issue ignoring popularity contests.

[Cimmerian Nights]

Not to mention polarizing and partisan.

[Yonmanc]

Cool pic I stumbled on.

[Kashluk]

Good thing the population of a tiny island wouldn't become inbred after a few generations if there were no immigrants.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-immigration myself. But 'the population of a tiny island' can be a bit misleading since there are like, what, 60 million UK residents? That's enough population for a century if not more of 'inbreeding' without consequences.

[Retlaw83]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-immigration myself. But 'the population of a tiny island' can be a bit misleading since there are like, what, 60 million UK residents? That's enough population for a century if not more of 'inbreeding' without consequences.

Good thing people haven't been living in the British Isles for thousands of years, then.

[Kashluk]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-immigration myself. But 'the population of a tiny island' can be a bit misleading since there are like, what, 60 million UK residents? That's enough population for a century if not more of 'inbreeding' without consequences.

Good thing people haven't been living in the British Isles for thousands of years, then.

... and they haven't banned immigration in the past either. Your point being?

[Tofu Man]

I dare to say different. I'd say two party systems are over-simplified, opinion centralizing and issue ignoring popularity contests.

Well I was about to kinda disagree with you there, on the basis that in most of Yurop's countries only 2 parties ever win any national elections and more importantly rack up 75-90% of the house, with the honorable exception of the UK, it turns out I'd underestimated you nordic's love for multipartizanship.

While what I said is by and large true for southern, it's by and large untrue for northern Europe, and comparing the current state of said countries it's pretty clear that what Denny calls a clusterfuck apparently "works". Though the mind boggles as to how.

[SenisterDenister]

On an unrelated note I gotta say I'm impressed with how close you got to my real name. Its Dennie. Family spelling, after my great(three or four times I think) Grandfather that fought in the Civil War.

I think with two party systems, the largest ones either end up changing with the times or fall to the wayside, like many of the past parties in the USA's history. Third parties tend to do a well enough job indicating to the large ones where the population is going, which is why most third parties ideas end up getting absorbed into one of the big two, like with the progressive movements and third parties being sucked up by the Democrats after it was clear the Republicans weren't going to be liberal any more at the turn of the 20th century.

[fallout ranger]

The two parties aren't different. They have the same goals in mind, just different ways of approaching them. Let's see either the democrats or republicans let the patriot act expire, or cut down the size of federal government...not gunna happen.

[Manoil]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-immigration myself. But 'the population of a tiny island' can be a bit misleading since there are like, what, 60 million UK residents? That's enough population for a century if not more of 'inbreeding' without consequences.

Good thing people haven't been living in the British Isles for thousands of years, then.

... and they haven't banned immigration in the past either. Your point being?

Think he was making a joke. Not certain, of course, but that's what it seemed like

____________________________________________________________

Taking into consideration all this talk about the two party system, I would agree that having only two dominant parties tends to leave a great deal of the population misrepresented. Especially when it comes to the frequent wedge issues, which leave people arguing over nonsensical bullshit to extremes uncalled for.

And while it wasn't asked for, I'd produce my opinion that while everyone loves to hate on government, I prefer to have a powerful one (that remains at the mercy of the democratic system). National government is a unifying force for military, infrastructure, and public services that can benefit the given country in multiple ways. It's also better to utilize than corporate entities or "responsible individuals" (not that I don't doubt peoples' abilities but rather their ability to remain consistent in their dedication to them), because the focus [in most cases] is efficiency and quality of the job, not the end profit.

A job done wrong means angry constituents, who can campaign and force the empowered out of office-- the same scenario, in a business setting, can only be remedied by filing complaints or lawsuits, both of which aren't easy or of guaranteed effectiveness. In a "minimalist government" scenario [(American) pro-libertarian scenario], where citizens are doing the individual jobs and demanding payment, there really isn't much remedy at all, save for maybe a boycott of the service.

If I'm missing something, please interject and make the point clear; it's better to have all the chips on the table and need to rethink my position than have only some of them and think I'm without mistake.

[Retlaw83]

... and they haven't banned immigration in the past either. Your point being?

My point being I enjoy making fun of pasty white British people.

[Kashluk]

I try to elaborate what I meant with 'over-simplifying'. The problem worsens the less parties (or practical party options) you have:

--------- PARTY A --- PARTY B --- PARTY C

ISSUE1 ---- Y ------------ N ------------ N
ISSUE2 ---- Y ------------ N ------------ Y
ISSUE3 ---- Y ------------ N ------------ N

--------- VOTER X --- VOTER Y --- VOTER Z

ISSUE1 ---- N ----------- Y ------------ Y
ISSUE2 ---- N ----------- N ------------ Y
ISSUE3 ---- Y ----------- N ------------ Y

Each voter individually wants to find the party that fits him/her best. Voter X finds the party B to suit him, Y likes B best and Z prefers A. Thus B wins the election. But when it comes to specific issues, party B follows a pattern which most of the voters wouldn't agree with for 2/3 of the time - actually the pattern fits party A much better. If it were a direct democracy the people would've voted differently than the policies that party B is going for. And thus, the less party options there are, the less we have 'the will of the people' (demos, kratos).

--------- PARTY B -------- VOTERS PREFER

ISSUE1 ---- N ---------------- Y
ISSUE2 ---- N ---------------- N
ISSUE3 ---- N ---------------- Y

Now, in a multi-party system there is always room for new groups to take their place in the sun since coalitions and co-operation are more the norm than the exception. With two-party system it'd probably be a fight between A (democrats) and B (republicans), with some third party trying to gather the scraps but to no avail, since the one who gets the majority gets to rule alone without consensus. In a multi-party system a party like D (with issues Y,N,Y) could come along, not win the election, but enforce issues behind which the majority of the actual people are as part of the coalition government. No such option exists in a system which promotes the idea of 'the winner takes it all and leaves no room for deliberation'.

[SenisterDenister]

Actually with the system in place the minority party seems to be all but voiceless. The majority party will always have its hands full dealing with the minority, its not a "I have the most members that makes me in charge" like in England, no, not at all.

[fallout ranger]

I prefer to have a powerful one

Say like the soviets? Or britain? It's not about having big or small government, it's about the middle ground, where the federal government doesn't overstep it's boundaries at every chance, but still has enough clout to enforce things on a NATIONAL level. Does anyone remember the civil war? Tenth amendment.

It's also better to utilize than corporate entities or "responsible individuals...
efficiency and quality of the job, not the end profit.

Capitalism? If people want what you have and it's at a fair price people line up for it. That's just so evil, those poor people with free will and money in their pocket being swindled by TEH BIG BUSINESS. If profit's aren't made, something changes.

I think what you speak of is called command economy. Meanwhile the U.S. federal gov. is bleeding money everywhere, that's our money going in the gutter. I'm not saying schools and the post office aren't good, they are, but let's not fool ourselves into believing government is the only and best answer.

Do you really think we could make cars as good as toyota honda, ford (not chrysler, yuck) or GM at anywhere near a competitive price? Well we would, and lose 10k per unit on vanilla sportsutilityvehiclewagons limited to 75mph.


Other than that...

National government is a unifying force for military, infrastructure, and public services that can benefit the given country in multiple ways....A job done wrong means angry constituents, who can campaign and force the empowered out of office

Agreed, and rightly so.

[Tofu Man]

Actually with the system in place the minority party seems to be all but voiceless. The majority party will always have its hands full dealing with the minority, its not a "I have the most members that makes me in charge" like in England, no, not at all.

Dennie, what you say (and what I thought) makes perfect sense in the US or in Spain (notice how 2 parties account for 84% of total votes), but ultimately you gotta take Kash's example and consider how it works in a true balanced multipartizan environment, for instance the Netherlands.

Now notice how 4 major parties only account for 80% of the votes and especially how the biggest of these doesn't get over 27% and the smallest doesn't get under 14%. My question now would be how the hell did they avoid the bipartizan trap?

On an unrelated note I gotta say I'm impressed with how close you got to my real name. Its Dennie. Family spelling, after my great(three or four times I think) Grandfather that fought in the Civil War.

Well with the prefix DEN(ister), good chance it'd be either Dennis or Denny. Seeing as Denny could be considered a diminutive of sorts I thought i'd go with that. Ironic that Dennis would've actually been a closer guess.