Why I dislike the bipartisan system

[Smoblikat]

To start this off I want to let everyone know that I am a registered republican I think its important that people know where my bias' (if any) are coming from.

That being said,
The bipartisan system doesnt work much like an argument between mortal enemies doesnt work. Lets say there are two people that absolutley hate e/o yet are forced to be civil. If they get into an argument it will go nowhere fast, one side is right in their mind and the other is painfully stupid and wrong, noone will be able to convince the other the opposite. Thats why we need an unbiased third party with no "dog in the race", the media. The medias' job is to report the facts so that Jane Doe and Steve Brown can get the information they need to make informed decisions about who they like best. Thats not the case today, almost all the news broadcasters on air right now are overwhelmingly liberal, and thats a fact, the only one who is republican is fox (or faux, you decide) news and they tend to make that blatantly obvious. Its not their fault though, if everyone else looks like a donkey, it would be exceedingly simple to pick out the one elephant standing in the room. The fact that we only have two national parties means that its easier for news agencies to choose a bias to either side, naturally most chose democrat since government handouts appeal to people, therefore the people that make the government look good look good themselves. Its not just teh bipartison system that I dislike, if it were up to me I would chose to have no parties at all, all parties do is enable lazy uninformed voters to quickly and efficiently make stupid choices. A perfect example is Mr. Romney, hes a republican, yet he is really what I would consider to be a RINO, or a republican in name only. Hes a moderate AT BEST, if he could chose a stance and stick to it for more than one speech that would be abundantly clear. So, to the uninformed and lazy voter, if they consider themself a republican (if they even know what the differences are) they would vote for romney, thinking hes a republican too. If we didnt have parties it would force people to either:
A. Make informed decisions without party bias about what the candidates truly believe in by making them have to go out of their way to research. Everyone should do this anyway, this isnt who will be running the drive through at McDy's, this is the president of the USA.
B. Continue to make uninformed decisions about candidates based on what they hear from other people/media or the physical appearance of the hopefuls themselves. Much like the minority vote for obama, I have no proof, but im willing to bet a huge percentage of minorities vote for obama because hes (half) black and gives them free stuff.

As you can see, all getting rid of parties would do is help those who want to make informed and unbiased choices, yet not hinder those who already make decisions based on emotion and not the character of the candidate. If we had at least three parties it would be much better than it is now, now you can run an entire campaign on hoping shit will get better and making your opponent look bad (obama) and it actually works. if there were three or more parties, you would have to make a campaign about what you offer that the others dont, if you tried to run a negative campaign you would either make one party look really bad, and make the other look much better, hurting you, or spend double the money (at least) to make both parties look bad.

A three party system isnt ideal either, because as we saw with this election, the two big parties worked together to make sure a real American (ron paul) didnt get into office. They both made great efforts to make Dr. Paul look like the village idiot and it worked, so there is always the chance that something like this will happen even if all three parties are national parties. Thats why I believe that parties should be done away with altogether to make everything completely open and stop the superpacs and huge donations to the parties that unbalance the scales with much more ads and campaign signs and the such. If we had public airwaves with time slots dedicated for campaign ads or somthing like that it would force an even playing field and make it so that even the little guy had a shot at winning.

Also, the electoral college sucks too

If you read the whole thing thanks, please let me know your thoughts and why you do or dont like the two party system. Also, if you have any ideas to make it better or any points that are in favor of it post em. I think this should be a real discussion, so lets keep emotion and bias out of this as much as possible.

 

[CrackRabbit]

Where to start...
The root of the problem isn't entirely the two party system, (don't get me wrong there are plenty of problems with it) but the fact that the two parties have become almost like sports teams with legions of fans (voters).
Sports team politics can never fix the problems with the nation because the teams aren't interested in solving problems together they simply want to score points over each other as the fans cheer them on.
The media simply acts as cheerleaders, but like cheerleaders they are simply giving people what they want to see and hear.

I also find it funny that you claim to want people to be informed, yet make platitudes as to why people would vote for one candidate over another.

I have more to say and will probably edit my post later, lunch time is over.

 

[Smoblikat]

Where to start...
The root of the problem isn't entirely the two party system, (don't get me wrong there are plenty of problems with it) but the fact that the two parties have become almost like sports teams with legions of fans (voters).
Sports team politics can never fix the problems with the nation because the teams aren't interested in solving problems together they simply want to score points over each other as the fans cheer them on.
The media simply acts as cheerleaders, but like cheerleaders they are simply giving people what they want to see and hear.

I also find it funny that you claim to want people to be informed, yet make platitudes as to why people would vote for one candidate over another.

I have more to say and will probably edit my post later, lunch time is over.

I said I was a republican, I struggle just like everyone else does. As long as you know that I might slip up and show my team colors every once and a while thats fine. its the people that claim to be neutral yet shove biased propaganda down the publics throats thats the problem. Ill try harder next time to keep it as neutral as possible.

 

[Bowfinger]

[ ... ]
The bipartisan system doesnt work ...

Absolutely agree. It is horribly broken, and serves only to provide an illusion of choice while ensuring that government truly serves those who benefit most from preserving the status quo.

Thats not the case today, almost all the news broadcasters on air right now are overwhelmingly liberal, and thats a fact ...

And that's where you lost me. No, it is not a fact. It is RNC dogma, part of the persecution myth it uses to keep the party faithful properly outraged and focused on highly partisan sources like Fox so they can hear the real "truth". Study after study has shown that the "overwhelmingly liberal" claim is not consistent with reality. The truth is the media are now overwhelmingly corporatist, driven by money (i.e., ratings) and a need to preserve the status quo (since they are owned by the status quo).

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Absolutely agree. It is horribly broken, and serves only to provide an illusion of choice while ensuring that government truly serves those who benefit most from preserving the status quo.



And that's where you lost me. No, it is not a fact. It is RNC dogma, part of the persecution myth it uses to keep the party faithful properly outraged and focused on highly partisan sources like Fox so they can hear the real "truth". Study after study has shown that the "overwhelmingly liberal" claim is not consistent with reality. The truth is the media are now overwhelmingly corporatist, driven by money (i.e., ratings) and a need to preserve the status quo (since they are owned by the status quo).

No, it's pretty evident. Tune into most "news" shows and you'll see the partisan hackery. I'm shocked that the media studies of the media would say they are "non bias". They were frothing at the mouth to praise Obama before he was even elected.

Most of the networks are obviously leaning one direction of another. You can tell when they hire soemone of the opposite lean to try and "balance" their lean, but that is done for no other reason than to throw the othersides point in for the hosts to yell at.

As far as the 2 party system, it sucks.
It force people to choose between social, economic, and moral choices, yet have to, in most cases, vote for someone that violates the voters beliefs in one of those areas.

You can't be a Gun toting, Pro-Abortion, God fearing, anti-welfare state person.
Or you can't be an anti-gun, anti-abortion, athiest that believes in welfare.
We need to abolish the party system and let candidates run on their own.
Having a "party" system only serves to divide the nation as a whole and it's getting worse every election cycle.

 

[Smoblikat]

I was really hoping that this would lead to a larger discussion. As you can tell with my OP, I completely agree with Jeff.

 

[werepossum]

No, it's pretty evident. Tune into most "news" shows and you'll see the partisan hackery. I'm shocked that the media studies of the media would say they are "non bias". They were frothing at the mouth to praise Obama before he was even elected.

Most of the networks are obviously leaning one direction of another. You can tell when they hire soemone of the opposite lean to try and "balance" their lean, but that is done for no other reason than to throw the othersides point in for the hosts to yell at.

As far as the 2 party system, it sucks.
It force people to choose between social, economic, and moral choices, yet have to, in most cases, vote for someone that violates the voters beliefs in one of those areas.

You can't be a Gun toting, Pro-Abortion, God fearing, anti-welfare state person.
Or you can't be an anti-gun, anti-abortion, athiest that believes in welfare.
We need to abolish the party system and let candidates run on their own.
Having a "party" system only serves to divide the nation as a whole and it's getting worse every election cycle.

This, and all this.

I think the two party system worked pretty well for most of our history. But now our government has grown so powerful and intrusive, and the two parties are so far apart, that even when they honestly try, compromise is hard. When the visions for the country are so far apart, it's difficult to find any middle ground except by doing nothing.

 

[CrackRabbit]

I said I was a republican, I struggle just like everyone else does. As long as you know that I might slip up and show my team colors every once and a while thats fine. its the people that claim to be neutral yet shove biased propaganda down the publics throats thats the problem. Ill try harder next time to keep it as neutral as possible.

That, my friend, is the problem. You've fallen into the trap of rooting for 'your side'.
When people do that it can cause them to discount the ideas that come from the 'other side' and be unreasonable when trying to express their own ideas and reasoning. I think the best examples of this are probably Spidey, PJABBER, Incorruptible, Techs and Phokus.
Even if I agree with them on something (and don't get me wrong I certainly have my own sets of biases and thoughts on issues) I'm much less likely to post in support them and if I disagree with them I'm probably just going to make fun of them.
If someone is willing to discuss things in a somewhat reasonable manner I'll be happy to talk back even if the end result is agreeing to disagree.
The dialogue, and a willingness to listen, is what is important.
That open dialogue, in my opinion, is part of why Reagan and Clinton did so well as presidents.

This, and all this.

I think the two party system worked pretty well for most of our history. But now our government has grown so powerful and intrusive, and the two parties are so far apart, that even when they honestly try, compromise is hard. When the visions for the country are so far apart, it's difficult to find any middle ground except by doing nothing.

I'm not sure that the parties are truly so far apart; while there certainly has been more shifting going on as of late but shifting of party lines on issues has been happening since the country was founded. What was radical, becomes more mainstream, becomes the norm, becomes forgotten that it was even radical at one time.

I think the big problem comes to the two things I pointed out, sports team politics and the lack of open dialogue. The former caused the latter to break, and I'm not sure that it can work again until the first is nearly eliminated.

 

[Smoblikat]

That, my friend, is the problem. You've fallen into the trap of rooting for 'your side'.
When people do that it can cause them to discount the ideas that come from the 'other side' and be unreasonable when trying to express their own ideas and reasoning. I think the best examples of this are probably Spidey, PJABBER, Incorruptible, Techs and Phokus.
Even if I agree with them on something (and don't get me wrong I certainly have my own sets of biases and thoughts on issues) I'm much less likely to post in support them and if I disagree with them I'm probably just going to make fun of them.
If someone is willing to discuss things in a somewhat reasonable manner I'll be happy to talk back even if the end result is agreeing to disagree.
The dialogue, and a willingness to listen, is what is important.
That open dialogue, in my opinion, is part of why Reagan and Clinton did so well as presidents.



I'm not sure that the parties are truly so far apart; while there certainly has been more shifting going on as of late but shifting of party lines on issues has been happening since the country was founded. What was radical, becomes more mainstream, becomes the norm, becomes forgotten that it was even radical at one time.

I think the big problem comes to the two things I pointed out, sports team politics and the lack of open dialogue. The former caused the latter to break, and I'm not sure that it can work again until the first is nearly eliminated.

I dont have a side, i was merely using your termonology to ensure we both understood what I meant. I am a registered republican, but that doesnt mean im on their side. Im only registered as one so I can vote for them in primaries, most of my ideas are similar to theirs so I generall vote republican, but if I had to classify myself it would be libertarian, again a republicanesque party. If I could vote in the primary as an independant I would.

 

[glenn1]

The parties aren't like sports teams because the Yankees don't promise financial incentives to their fan if they win, or whip up support by saying the Red Sox will cut off their welfare or social security checks if they win the World Series instead.

Having more parties would lead to the same results as in other countries, a government in all but rare cases that's a coalition government led by either a center-right or center-left party that's basically an analogue of our Democrats or Republicans.