Democrat vs. Republican

[crashtech]

It's too bad that even with most people wanting to be independent now, we still have to choose between Wingus or Dingus. How do we escape this duality that we are forced into? This country has other parties but everyone is afraid to "waste" their vote on them.

Yeah, I can no longer vote for either or the two choices. I am ready to withdraw my consent to be governed by the current arrangement, when and if another one becomes viable.

My wish would be for a Libertarian style party but less extreme. Most people at this point are too helpless and dependent to live like real libertarians.

 

[feralkid]

Does not include me, but thanks for playing. I do want the fraud of the Kenyan exposed, however.

Sorry.

"Still a crazy Birther after all these years" is not an option on this poll.

 

[fskimospy]

It's too bad that even with most people wanting to be independent now, we still have to choose between Wingus or Dingus. How do we escape this duality that we are forced into? This country has other parties but everyone is afraid to "waste" their vote on them.

Again, science shows most people don't actually want to be independent. They have the same voting preferences as before, they just describe themselves differently.

Any electoral system where 50.1% of the vote means 100% of the representation will always lead towards two parties. It's the only logical outcome.

 

[Attic]

It's difficult for folks to challenge their assumptions with the 2 party system, but it's critically important IMO for everyone to do that. Both sides are wrong on important things, correct on different important things, and and wrong on a variety of things unique to each party. IME families get kids entrenched in ideas until roughly age 20-forever (depends on the individual). In divorced households I've noticed the kids take on party affiliation of the parent they predominantly care for.


The 2 parties are similar in dangerous ways, Wall Street's corrosive/corrupting influence on both parties creates the dangerous similarities between them as it affects most decent hard working individuals/families. The clever theft of the rewards of production by Wall Street results in financial inequality which quickly runs to overall inequality of opportunities and justice results of how our system operates. I think it's self evident that both parties are beholden to Wall Street (Warren appears to challenge this).

Opportunity also comes from equality, and equality comes from the truth. Inequality festers where BS thrives. Both parties can be aptly described as acting within clear confines of engaging in an age of deception to control perceptions and retain power/control.

Our country is currently incredibly unequal. Liberalism has not solved this, stubborn conservative foolish ideas haven't been the only source of that inequality.

 

[Jaskalas]

This country has other parties but everyone is afraid to "waste" their vote on them.

Proudly wasted my vote in two Presidential elections and counting.

Expecting 2016 to be any different? Nope!

 

[Franz316]

Again, science shows most people don't actually want to be independent. They have the same voting preferences as before, they just describe themselves differently.

Any electoral system where 50.1% of the vote means 100% of the representation will always lead towards two parties. It's the only logical outcome.

I agree that it is a logical outcome, and it sucks. The two party system means we are screwed for a multitude of reasons for years to come.

 

[TreVader]

I rather like our two party system. A quick look at the Knesset or British Parliament will show you that when you give small minorities control over their own factions of government, you will end up with extremists in the highest rungs of government.

I shudder to think of what Netanyahu would be capable of were he in control of the US.

 

[Moonbeam]

Humanity is asleep, unaware of what it feels, a gigantic unconscious machine. Impose on that machine the option to choose between A and B, it will choose on basis of feelings it has no idea that it feels. And so it will go until the stink of its choices make it feel something different. Thus we go from A to B and B to A endlessly. There are those who dream that if they could introduce C into the choice, the world would be saved, but C is always some combination of portions of A and B and never a real third way.

Conscious is the resolution of opposites in a higher level of understanding, a real third way, open to no party but only to the individual. It is based on an understanding of self, the knowledge of what you actually feel. To achieve it one must take what in mythology is described as the hero's journey though hell. Politics is one of the ways we avoid knowing what we feel.

 

[Smoblikat]

Political parties are a good way to divide the people of the country, but if I had to pick one, I would be libertarian. My mother is a social democrat and a fiscal conservative, my step father is both socially and fiscally liberal.

 

[Atreus21]

How many of you belong to one side or the other due to your family lineage? It seems like most things, it's due to your upbringing or social experiences.

My parents are conservative and so am I, and so are 3 of my 4 siblings.

I can chalk up my most impassioned issue, abortion, to my dad running an adoption agency in the 80s and 90s.

I never did like the instinctive desire to rebel against one's parents' ideology, as if rebellion is good for its own sake.

 

[werepossum]

Republican household...
I'm Libertarian.

Your poll is insufficient.

This. My folks were conservative Democrats (this is the South; there were virtually no white Republicans until Reagan) and are now even more conservative Republicans. I was initially a liberal Democrat; now I am a libertarian who is a registered Republican but typically votes Libertarian in the Presidential race unless my guy wins in the primary or I really, really don't like the Democrat Presidential candidate.

Simple poll is too simple.