Let's just say it: Political Parties are the Problem

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

Do popular elections demand political parties?

No

I am glad to be in agreement with your OP, political parties are a problem in this country. Instead of electing a person on the merits of their platform and other tangible qualities, we elect people based on party politics.

It's inherently divisive, and lends itself more easily to lobby bribes. Imagine how much better this country would run if political parties did not exist and bills were voted on based on representatives voting the will of their constituents instead of along party lines backed by lobby and special interest bribes.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


After reading this thread it is encouraging to see that there are people across the pond who see things the same as a few of us here in the UK.

Party politics is outdated, dogmatic and unrepresentative and restricts elected officials from acting upon personal conviction and prevents them from putting the cares and concerns of their constituents ahead of party line.

As a result we have seen the emergence and dominance of career politicians whose sole interests are one's of personal advancement and gain and the demise of politicians of conviction and 'people's politicians'.
This has also driven the convergence of policies etc with very little difference between the major party's here in the UK.

Personally I'd like to see radical reform of the electoral and parliamentary processes with politicians standing on their own personal manifesto's etc and the abolition of the party system which is contrary to the original ethos and intent of Parliament.
I would like to see increased devolution to the UK regions with regional assemblies empowered to legislate on local issues.
This would be within a federal framework with a central Parliament for issues relating to The Union etc.
An integral part of the reform would be frequent referendum on both local and national issues, as would the power of recall - both would give the electorate a far bigger say in the running of their country.

Direct Democracy UK is

A grass roots campaign to change our political system to one that has the interests of the people of the UK at heart. There is a fundamental need for wholesale reform in the UK policial establishment and we seek to build a groundswell to bring it around

Mod Note - link removed at members request

People of various political persuassions are involved in this campaign - it is about freeing us of the restrictions that party politics puts on society and handing a level of control and input to the people.

en.wikipedia.org...
www.historylearningsite.co.uk...

The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination. - Voltare

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux
"I'm not partisan, I'm always right.

The ones that disagree with me are partisan."

-Now everyone say that. Ta-daa! You now have American politics.

While I do agree that the Political Party Duo is a problem, i beleive that an even bigger problem may be the corporate money in politics. All lobying should be outlawed and any company or group caught trying to influence politics should be fined HEAVILY and any politician caught accepting those funds should be immediately run out of office and maybe even jailed. That would get rid of the majority of the corruption in our system. Then and only then could common sense be resurrected, today it is so rare it should be clasified as a superpower!

Eventually people will always end up splitting off into groups and then see a break down between any common ground forming because they develop a football fan like mentality of supporting their team not matter what.

We will see cycles where this is diminished and our best bet is to extend that period for as long as possible.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


This is a fine post with a great summary of the history underlining party polarization!

I actually just finished up a political science course that talks about this very topic. My professor, a strong democrat and pretty well known political scientist himself, believes that parties act as a cognitive shortcut; basically saying that if Americans don't have parties they will become too lazy to do any research and only vote for the most familiar household names or the candidate that their parents and friends will vote for.

My response to that is, isn't that already happening? Political parties in this country are like religion. You are generally born into it, it defines you socially, and if you stray away from what your parents identify as, it's like abandoning a faith. There was even a book published recently about how people are moving to areas populated by fellow Democrats or Republicans to avoid competition in the voting booths when electing local government.

Other countries with multi-party democracies don't seem to have these same ties to the labels of their candidates because they're constantly shifting. And don't get me started on the institutional obstructions in place to keep minor parties out of the picture! Trust me, this polarization business is no accident. It's a great advantage for those who want NO real change.

There are individuals who are creative and take steps to make things happen in all aspects of life, then there are followers who want or need to be told what to do. There are a lot more of the later unfortunately. And to top it off, there are a lot more dishonest individuals then there are honest ones which make for a pretty bad brew.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


I could'nt agree more and the little bit of history you added to your post was right on. It's just to bad i don't see a way to change, the system has been rigged for two parties for a long time now. Without a major political sea change a third party just does'nt look to be in the making anytime soon.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
If political parties are the problem, what then is the answer? Some would argue that political parties are a logical response to popular elections. A necessary tool of democracy. Of course, the purists will argue that we do not have a democracy. Do popular elections demand political parties?

My feeling is that political parties cause politicians to be loyal to their party and not to "We the People". They only say that they want to support what the people want in order to get elected. The truth is all they really want is to feed at the trough of the lobbyist gravy train. And then to tout whatever the party line is to keep their masters happy reguardless of what the people need, just not at election time, when they say whatever they can to get elected.

Party politics has only divided the political process into partisan bickering which benifits no one. They can't support the people when they spend all their time supporting the party.

The largest part of the problem is that the parties are all about power and money. They need to make sure that their party has the power to pass legislation that can garner more money from the lobbies so they can get rich. The parties promote the buying of votes by gaining majorities and getting the members of said party to vote the "party line". That only benefits the party and the politicians desire to get wealthy. From this viewpoint "We the People" can go rub rocksalt. The people no longer control the political process. The parties do, clearly this is of no benefit to the people.

Back a while ago I did a thread on whether we need parties or not. I got some interesting answers. link

It seems pretty self-serving to blame all our political problems on parties in the same breath taking about We the People. We the people contribute money, vote them in, and argue nonstop about dem, rep. I'd say We the People are to blame not the parties. If this is to change we need to turn off the Kardashians and actually pay attention.

So don't blame politicians. Blame your brother, your neighbor, your teacher. There the ones giving these clowns power and money. Jefferson said best defense against tyranny is an educated public (or something like that).

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
If political parties are the problem, what then is the answer? Some would argue that political parties are a logical response to popular elections. A necessary tool of democracy. Of course, the purists will argue that we do not have a democracy. Do popular elections demand political parties?

surley not right? i mean everyone is entitled to their own opinion but it doesn't mean they have to belong to a club or something. it just seems that the party system has grown into a machine to big for anyone to control. it's almost past the point of no return. the hatred and seperation it has caused in this country is tremendous. in a way it's actually incredible how something so silly as two political parties seems to have the country gridlocked.

Originally posted by KnawLick
It seems pretty self-serving to blame all our political problems on parties in the same breath taking about We the People. We the people contribute money, vote them in, and argue nonstop about dem, rep. I'd say We the People are to blame not the parties. If this is to change we need to turn off the Kardashians and actually pay attention.

So don't blame politicians. Blame your brother, your neighbor, your teacher. There the ones giving these clowns power and money. Jefferson said best defense against tyranny is an educated public (or something like that).

i would have to agree. it seems to be a vicious cycle of "us" vs "them" in our own country! pretty crazy if you ask me.

reply to post by KnawLick


Clearly you don't understand how the party system operates. The parties offer a candidate to represent the people. Usually the candidate represents the party line, which may or may not represent what the people actually want. More often than not the candidate is more interested in the money he can get by selling the vote he holds for the people for the money he can get from the lobbys.Then he votes for the agenda the lobbiest wants.

Explain to me how this system , which is the present party system, represents We the people?

If the candidates are representatives of the people then how can they justify selling their votes to the highest bidder?Their agenda is to make money not to represent the people. Just take a look at all the legislation passed in the last 10 years stripping us of our rights. Does this demonstrate the representation of what the people want?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


The fact that this thread is only two pages long, while all the "Let's bash the Left/Let's bash the Right' threads are umpteen pages long, speaks volumes.

It seems ATS is far from immune.

Yes, I agree with you.
And I have to agree with Public Enemy on this one:
"Neither party is mine, not the jackass or the elephant."

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


But if political divide is erased, what will we have that gives us a sense of unique (yet grouped) entitlement?

What will we have to fight for and get involved/interested in if we have no enemy within the Country?

If there are no parties to entitle us then we would just be all the same. Who wants to be just like everyone else?

Why would we waste effort focusing on possible foreign enemies when we could just fight amongst ourselves?

Why would we come together and devote one powerful force of united effort to fixing the problems within our country and then the rest of the world when we could simply enjoy the monotonous arguing and name-calling of our fellow countrymen that gives us such an excellent sense of purpose and excitement?

Why would we love someone who has the wrong belief?

Why would we admit we are wrong when we know we are right? Hey, even if we aren't right, why would we admit it? They are still wrong.

Why would we swallow our pride and say "You know what.. I'm no better than you, and you are no better than me. We are equally as great." when we have so much depending on it? I mean.. without our egotistical pride.. who are we? All the same? No, sir. I am great and important and significant. I would dare not let my beliefs dissolve before my mind because then I would be nobody. I would have no sense of entitlement. I would have no unique group to belong to. I would have nothing to be passionate about (well, nothing negative anyways, I suppose I could always be passionate about positive things). I would have no friends to gang-up with against someone who doesn't agree with us. If I don't belong to a group... I may be the one who gets ganged-up against.

No, sir. We need this split party system. We need to bicker and disagree. We need to hate each other. We need to be individuals and not a collective whole.

Our egos depend on it.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
If political parties are the problem, what then is the answer? Some would argue that political parties are a logical response to popular elections. A necessary tool of democracy. Of course, the purists will argue that we do not have a democracy. Do popular elections demand political parties?

I wouldn't say political parties are the problem as more so is that we need more diversity when chosing a canidate and what i mean by that is we need more legit parties then just a collusion of two, if we had say four or five legit parties instead of the two we have there would be far less corruption in my opinion.

There is no "for sure" fix to our system but i have ideas.

-Set a maximum limit on how much can be spent on a Campaign. Regardless of where the money comes from, once the limit is reached thats it. No more. No Super Pacs, no personal money, nothing. Remove the ability for the Rich and the ones with rich friends from buying their way into office (Romney, Obama, W Bush ect)

-Remove the ability for Congress to aprove their own raises. Have it be a bill that is sent to the President. Then if they sign it during an economic downturn, they get the bad rap. Obviously congress will approve their raise every single time. They're greedy. Take that away from them.

-Force all primaries/caucuses to be open primaries/caucuses. We should be allowed to choose our President and that should include choosing every candidate regardless of party. The Party leaders don't want to lose influence to the members of the other party who might vote for their weakest candidates, to throw the vote. But if its allowed for both sides it would go a little way in deconstructing the massive influence of the Party Leaders and the parties themselves. Besides, if a person is running for an office that oversees the WHOLE country then everyone should have a say if they can run or not. The only advantage to closed primaries is to maintain the two party system.

-Supreme Court Justices should run for their office just like Presidents and Congressmen. Since the only one who can veto Congress is the Pres and the only ones who can rule a law as unconstitutional is the Supreme Court and the Justices are chosen by the President, it creates an imbalance of power between the branches. If we want the PEOPLE to have the real power, put the choice in the peoples hands.

-If a major news outlet covers a specific candidate, then they should be forced to cover the other candidates with the exact same amount of air time. The end goal would hopefully be that they would be discouraged from talking to or covering any of them specifically since they would have to track down every other candidate and cover them as well.

-Voter Fraud should be considered Treason, and the punishments should be very severe. Things like handing out fake slates at a GOP should be considered voter fraud.

-If there is a screwed up ballot and suspicion of voter fraud (I'm looking at your Florida 2000) then there should be a revote, not a recount. If the turnout is less, so be it. Those who care enough to go and vote should have their voices heard. Supreme Court should never get involved in the process EVER!!!!!!!! If there is a legitimate tie, i would call for a revote as well over a recount or allowed congress to cast the tie breaker. Politicians should NEVER EVER have any control over who gets in, even if its rare.

-We should base winners on the popular vote and remove the electoral college.

-When politicians are impeached they should actually be removed from office.

These are just some, i could go on and on and on with ways we can make our system better or more balanced.

As a descendant of Thomas Jefferson, I'd like to make a statement on his behalf:

"I told you so."