Idea for the two-party haters and third party voters

[PrinceofWands]

I've often said that the constitution is a living document.

Agree fully.

The time for placing individual rights and liberties as paramount in our society has passed.

Disagree so strongly that I'll go rogue or to war to prevent it ever happening around me.

Obviously our democracy is broken beyond repair and we're in need of something better.

Agree in part. Our 'Democratic Republic' is broken beyond repair. We've never been a Democracy.

 

[Craig234]

not sure if I understand you correctly but comparing conventions to parties is like comparing ping-pong balls and blue balls.

I'm comparing the third party convention this thread is about to the Republican convention.

You're hysterically yelling 'what if they nominate 2? 3? That's not what conventions do.

I'm not saying every third party would agree to this. I'm saying it would give those who choose to do so that option.

 

[Craig234]

To clarify this would be a short-term or one-time deal, intended only to try to 'break up' the dominance a bit. These third parties do have quite conflicting agendas.

An essential difference though is that pretty much all of the third parties are about some ideology and/or issues and represent their members; money is concentrated on the two.

 

[MotF Bane]

That doesn't solve anything. The far left crazy fringe wants a more left wing candidate. The far right fringe wants a far left candidate. How could you possibly lump those two together, see who comes out on top and think have real third party candidate? That candidate would clearly only get votes from one side of the spectrum.

Dumb idea is dumb.

This.

 

[bfdd]

the thing is, i would rather not be part of a group, but come together and just share thoughts as myself. i do not wish to be represented by a group or represent a group. so creating a "third party" isn't the answer, imo.

 

[BoberFett]

You're wrong in one regard. It doesn't form PERMANENT dualism, it forms ISSUE dualism based on underlying ideological principles. The alliances only exist for each individual issue, which is how it's supposed to be.

It allows parties to be true to their philosophy rather than forced into permanent coalition against the will of the people.

:thumbsup:

 

[Anarchist420]

The Republican Party is just going to kill itself anyway. Harry Browne wrote about the problems third parties face many years ago, but I don't remember exactly what he wrote. He said it had something to do with ballot access. Anyway, decentralization is key and the Constitution just doesn't allow for that.

 

[spittledip]

I don't think this is such a bad idea. At least it is a start.

 

[glenn1]

Have a third party convention. Of all the candidates not running one of of the two main party tickets, have one convention to select one ticket.

Greens, Libertarians, those Anarcho-conservatives who want to get rid of all police, all of them vote for one "third party ticket".

Which might get a grand total of 10% of the vote. As others have pointed out, even in multi-party government systems either the center-right or center-left party almost always winds up forming the government, sometimes with coalition partners. This is so much the general rule that when the duopoly is threatened it normally makes news; see the near panic over the rise of Heinz-Christian Strache and Jörg Haidar in Austria.

Besides, the present time isn't exactly prime for left-wing parties in any event, note the widespread decline of the left in Europe lately:

http://www.economist.com/node/21518773

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,629142,00.html

 

[PrinceofWands]

Which might get a grand total of 10% of the vote. As others have pointed out, even in multi-party government systems either the center-right or center-left party almost always winds up forming the government, sometimes with coalition partners. This is so much the general rule that when the duopoly is threatened it normally makes news; see the near panic over the rise of Heinz-Christian Strache and Jörg Haidar in Austria.

Besides, the present time isn't exactly prime for left-wing parties in any event, note the widespread decline of the left in Europe lately:

http://www.economist.com/node/21518773

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,629142,00.html

You're overlooking the fact that one of the biggest reasons people don't currently vote is that they have no party representing them. They might only take 10% of existing D/R voters, but there's 60% of the population just waiting to be represented so they can have a voice in government. Even if only a small percentage of the unaligned started voting it could be a major shift politically.