Journal Bill Dog's Journal: I wish we had coalition governing here in the U.S. 14
Barb wrote in smitty's journal:
We have it [political polarization] up here [in Canada] too, but it tends to be more muted when we have minority governments, since then you need at least some votes from one of the opposing parties to pass legislation.
We're exceptionally dysfunctional in the U.S. because we have two major parties. It means each can take turns ignoring the will of people, as when one is booted out of power in one election, they'll just get it back next go-around when we punish the other party for screwing us over. They've got us convinced there's only two choices, and so our voting ends up assuring that.
And so there's no need for compromise, if you'll just be given power again the next cycle. I've long thought, for efficiency, and to do their jobs representing the people, why not take all the stuff that both sides agree on, stuff it in a bill and quickly pass it, and then wrangle over the contentious stuff after that. But I think both sides hold the agreeable stuff hostage to get more disagreeable stuff passed.
Or refuse to do a give-and-take on the disagreeable stuff, like this from 8.5 years ago. To better serve their respective constituencies, both parties could do an even swap and let the other side have 3 things to get 3 things for their voters. But neither party needs to worry about serving us well.
And there's no need for restraint, when you'll just be given power again the next cycle. Political litmus tests for judicial appointees, applying the fillibuster (meant for legislative bills) to judicial appointees, the "nuclear option" ("In 2005, Obama opposed [it, when Republicans had control of the Senate] before supporting it in 2013 [when Democrats had control]."), being against usage of a lot of executive orders when your side is not in power and then flipping when it is, declaring by fiat that Congress is in recess to make recess judicial appointments, refusing to pass a budget for 4 years, not allowing legislation to come to floor to be voted on (when there might be enough dissenters in one's own party to pass it), not allowing amendments from the minority party to legislation that is brought up for a vote, skirting debate by passing things via slipping them into funding bills.
The misuse of power keeps escalating giving the minority party at the time even less power. But if the minority party in the Senate is 46% of it like it is now, about half the country wants those values put forth, and not 90% or 100% of the values of the 54%. For example, there's absolutely no excuse for something as significant as Obamacare passing, when it got not a single vote by the minority party. Representation of the political diversity of the country is nowhere close to happening, in the U.S.
I wish we had more "sides" than just two. It's really bad for voters who are, for example, fiscally Conservative but socially Liberal. They don't get represented no matter what. We should have at least 4 major parties, one for each side of both axes. And then we should get 2 votes to cast, one for each axis. Then Congress should be made up of the winning proportions of each. Then we'd get things like 35 Senators who ran on socially Liberal positions, 30 who ran on fiscally Conservative positions, 20 who ran on fiscally Liberal positions, and 15 who ran on socially Conservative positions.
Then we might see things like those who think social issues are the most important be willing to compromise on fiscal things to let one side or the other win on fiscal issues, in exchange for compromise on social issues by those who don't consider those to be of upmost importance. Where it's not a simple "us versus them", because it's more complicated than that. Where it's about constantly building temporary coalitions between strange bedfellows, and expecting to give something up to get something. And then if for example the fiscally Liberal party just refused to work with the other three, the voters could punish just that one party and not expect the remainder to go hog wild in abuses, because there'd still be divisions left to keep them somewhat in check.
With only two parties, it's too easy to get people thinking in black-and-white terms about things, as if there are only two sides to every issue, the right one and the wrong one. It dumbs us down. With only two parties, it's too easy to make it not about the issues, but about the parties; people think "I'll never vote for a Republican" instead of "I'll never vote for anyone who differs from me on my top 3 issues of x, y, and z". Maybe I'm for gun rights but some people in both parties uphold that. Maybe I'm for private ownership of certain guns but not others. Only two major parties means we tend to only get to choose from extremes. More major parties would better reflect and remind us that there are nuances, and that there's a lot more to things than to just remember that Republicans are racist and to vote Democrat if you're brown.
There are more than two parties (Score:1)
To ignore them is your loss. And you are dumbing yourself down. And you're full of crap when you say that people who know the oneness of the republicans/democrats opt to 'drop out'. They vote for somebody else. You should too, if you expect to be taken seriously. But I'll tell you this, it doesn't matter how many people are on the ballot when they all represent the money that buys your vote. Term limits and multi parties are not helping Mexico and Europe. No, the problem is you dummies naively reelecting th
Yeah, but (Score:1)
We're exceptionally dysfunctional in the U.S. because we have two major parties. It means each can take turns ignoring the will of people, as when one is booted out of power in one election, they'll just get it back next go-around when we punish the other party for screwing us over. They've got us convinced there's only two choices, and so our voting ends up assuring that.
To an extent (and we can argue how substantial) we have one Administrative State, with biennial show-elections.
That is, we have so much inertia within Progressivism, it sort of doesn't matter what names you put on your doorplate.
I think the issue is deep than the realization that they "all represent the money that buys your vote". Money and power substantially, but do not entirely, overlap. ObamaCare is an ugly baby of an example: massive loot thrown at a problem has not overcome the power of res
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Bleh, Yet another failure to address the root, the 'ether' you live in. You simply dwell on and endlessly repeat the superficial aspects, being all partisan and stuff, mimicking the TeeVee. And you are now doing like him. You take tiny pieces of what was said many years ago (a lot of it by me which was surprising as hell) to mix in with your regular biases. The elections are real. The problem is the voters' failure to use them in a rational fashion. Everything you stated so far only shows your fear of the c
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For a trivial refutation of your position, consider a situation with a currency crash. Do you think power was non-existent in Weimar Germany?
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You're assuming I think money=wealth. Money is just a measuring stick, another is the amount of natural resource you can hold claim to. And I don't know who benefited from the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic. Obviously it was somebody of great wealth/power, maybe the same people that gave you your Federal Reserve and 'Great Depression', World War 2, the Middle East thing...
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You're assuming I think money=wealth.
OK, I think we're in sufficiently violent agreement.
Proportional representation could help. (Score:2)
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Gonna vote Harper out next time?
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I might be nuts, but I'm not crazy :-) Nothing personal, I'm sure that in person he's probably a nice guy and all, but there are just too many questions, and his stance on muzzling our scientists and pushing for continuing to produce some of the dirtiest oil on the planet from the tar sands just doesn't cut it with me.
The NDP is also out because I don't trust Mulcair. He's said before that he wants Quebecers to be recognized as a "people", which I find to be pandering to the ethnocentric nonsense that sepa
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Well, good, there's lots of options. The real trick is to get voters to look away from the big money for a change. The whole system follows their lead. This is just as true in the US. There are many unexplored alternatives. Fear and greed keep people in line.
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That's normal. A 'conservative' is nothing but a 'liberal' with money. We have lots of big mouth politicians like Sanders and Warren who can be that way while they have no influence. The most blatant was Kucinich, loud as hell he was for a while, but when he appeared to have a small amount of influence over the vote on the national health insurance bill, Obama took him for a ride on Air Force One and gave him The Speech. When he landed, the mealymouthed rat said he is going to vote for it because he "didn't
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The 2-party system encourages the current situation. Unfortunately, until there is an issue that people feel strongly enough that there has to be an alternative, it's going to stay that way.
We really need a truth in politics law, the same as we have for advertising. Violate your promises to the voters, anyone can take you to court and force you to resign.
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We really need a truth in politics law...
None of that will ever make a difference. To paraphrase a famous man, *Facts truly are useless things*. You simply have to appeal to primal desires and irrational fear, and lie like hell. It works for 'both' sides. The crowd has yet to become human. The call of the wild beckons.