The Two-Party System

ehh , it shows complete differences in the 2 parties but you can be an independent if you want.
im personally a democrat. my dad is the only democrat in his family and no im not a democrat because he is. i did my own research on politics

 

oh yes definitely. its all the same.

---------- Post added 18th Jan 2013 at 07:20 PM ----------

but i truly do feel as if the republicans have tried to ignore the gun law proposals , i haven't heard much from the republican about their stance on the

 

The two party system is garbage. They manage to take intensely complex issues like the nation's economy, abortion, gun control, etc. and expect to sell a whole line of opinions in a candidate as a package deal. It's disgusting and nothing but destructive, really. It insults our intelligence by simplifying everything down to "We're right and they're a bunch of willful morons who want to destroy the country."

Not only that, but I'm sure the media loves it. News outlets are able to frame it as an "ultimate showdown" every time some political argument is happening, hoping people will watch just for the dramatic contest. We're supposed to watch news to develop our opinions, not to hear how one side "blasts" the other, or how the senate is "sparring" over some issue. With candidates able to vote how they really feel and not just to line up with their party so they can get nominated, we'd have a much more enlightened country.

Sort of a disorganized rant here, but with each major party election we are closer to a governmental collapse. If nobody guessed, independent moderate here who is mostly socially liberal with a smattering of conservative views elsewhere.

 

abortion to me shouldn't me a moral issue , it should be on how a woman has the right to her own body.

we ignored gun control laws until 18 children got killed. our society is sad. we ignored something until children get killed? this should have been dealt with before but of course the RNA wants to protect the right to bear arms.

the 2 party system is bad but i think its good because of the differences it has and people can freely chose where they stand and who they stand with. we want someone who represents us and no matter what party it is ....they are never right in either case.

 

the problem isnt the two party system itself; it is that the parties are too beholden to outside interest.

you have the republican party which is practically up the ass of the gun manafacturing lobby, the chinese manafacturing complex(which is nothing more than an extension of the chinese goverment), and the fundementalist evangelical 'anti-jesus' christians.

then you have the democratic party, which is beholden to enviormentalist (sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes, it is taken to far. How can I say that? enviormentalist held the state of oregon hostage for years over a fake species of Owl called the 'spotted owl', which is not a species at all, but a hybrid between two distinct owl species that creates sterile offspring; the enviormentalist went insane because they were dieing out, having no means of reproduction, and tried to get them declared endangered), and anti-military groups.

because such groups are powerful, politicians are more likely to listen to them. groups like the NRA even openly threaten republicans with the end of their political careers if they dare vote to renact the already declared constitutional bans on military grade weapons and military magazines. it scares them into voting against morality and the well being on the country just so a bunch of people can fornicate on the barrell of an assualt rifle.

 

uh, what other things this country's government has been ignoring until it's so bad? IDK, man. poverty? prisoners abuse (or slaving them for corporations?)? education? other things?

also, every time 2 parties come up, I always want to see how this compares to other countries. For some reason, a lot of textbooks which I have read, or at least at the beginning of school, always always try to defend two-party systems for some reason.. Like oh geez.

 

its true though. nobody seriously talked about gun control until the sandy hook thing happened. dont deny it

 

James Madison was spot on when he wrote Federalist Number 10. Damn factions!

 

At the risk of turning this into a political debate rather than just one about the system: I agree with you on abortion, but any realistic measure of gun control will not help much while crapping on our last line of defense against the government's power, which is more dangerous still than crazed killers. But more importantly, the media frames it as one side versus another, which whips the viewers into a frenzied loyalty, even if their party of choice (either really) doesn't deserve unquestioning support.

 

still i mean what are we suppose to do about gun control? ignore like we always have until the next set of children get killed....i don't think so and it pisses me off how everyone now is like "oh lets do something about gun" or "dont take my guns away" , oh shut the fuck up give me a break. its the same with the 2 party system

one side says "don't take my guns away"
the other says "lets do something about gun control"

both are stupid because that one side ....is being completely self centered and only caring about how they have the right to have guns , what about other people ...there saftey is still at risk if you let them keep the guns.....that should be limited , why do we need semi automatic weapons or automatic weapons? i think people should only be allowed to have rifles and handguns with a complete background check

another thing. we need more funding into mental hospitals.

the other side is being completely ignorant because all the sudden they want to do something about it when it took children....innocent children to get killed for you to actually come out and say that....that's sad

 

uh... going to gun controls so soon? lol.

on the mental hospitals thing.... i am sure democrats or republican or even most people have the stigma that if you need to go to a hospital, let alone mental one, you have issues or something

 

uh yeah i am because you want more crazy ass people out there , commiting more shootings? i don't think so.

a mental hospital....we need more funding in mental hospitals. its not fair with people with mental illness's to be on the street loose with no medical treatment or special therapy.

not everyone is going to be healthy and stable.

 

Two party systems don't always lead to such bad governments though.

The United Kingdom has two reasonable parties in the Conservative Party and Labour and they (for the most part) actually have policy dicussions and real debates on the issues. The same is true in Australia although we are starting to head down the road of The United States (which disgusts me).

I am more in favour of the political systems present in systems in place in Belguim, New Zealand and France. All these systems are different to each other but they seem to lend themselves more to voting for who you truly want.

For example, In the US I would vote for The Democrats because I view them as the lesser of two evils rather than voting for a party that I truly believe in The Socialist Party whereas in France, I would vote for Left Front and vote for The Socialists in the second round if the Left Front candidate didn't make it.

 

You raise an interesting point. It has sort of turned into a "for" and "against" dichotomy. I don't think I'm a part of that either, because while I'm hardcore for gun rights, I see the need to keep people from killing dozens of others on a daily basis. The problems are many though, headed by "criminals find a way around the laws" (Mexico has gun control and the gangs are badass) and "the right shall not be infringed". I do think lawful ownership and concealed carry go a long way towards public safety, though. Source: Gun Ownership Mandatory In Kennesaw, Georgia --- Crime Rate Plummets

So that is a good example of a polarized issue which really has the ideal solution somewhere in the middle.

 

but still dont you think they need background checks to? and what about putting a little more money into mental health facilities? people who are unstable need seem some treatment and might have to be put into a mental hospitals. ex) schizophrenics
(this varies because not all schizophrenics need to be in a mental health facility)

 

I'm pretty much convinced that the United States is simply too large for any form other than an authoritarian one will be effective at governing over 310,000,000 people. Think about it: the only nations that are more populous are China, a country that had to limit human reproduction to keep its people fed, and India, which is...well...India. So yes, I pretty much detest the two party system here, but changing to anything else would be incredibly cumbersome and require convincing tens of millions of people to vote for a third party. That might eventually happen, but we're stuck with Democrats vs. Republicans for the foreseeable future. The best hope for changing it is voting Libertarian since it has the most momentum of any third party. Even if you don't agree with all their stances, party alignments change so much that it couldn't hurt to get a third party into the ring.

 

but some people are so outdated that they think having a government like china is like supporting socialism, which they view as bad. (or rather, going against democracy is bad)
*facepalm*

 

I have always felt like America is in fact not a democracy at all. Now bear with me here. Russia is essentially still a single-party state, because while other parties exist, the current party United Russia prohibits any other party from advertising or campaigning, and thus United Russia retains power and always holds the majority of seats. It's a sham democracy.

America is a sham democracy too, but it is trickier. Rather preventing other parties from gaining power and support by outlawing campaigning entirely, the American system creates two opposing parties which seem to hate each other, and the people are told they have democracy because they get a choice. But if we look on further past the surface, we see that the behavior and overall political philosophy of BOTH parties remains almost exactly the same - the two parties only disagree on contentious, stupid obvious issues like abortion and whether or not being gay is acceptable.

So all the people in America are fooled into thinking they have a say in their government, when the difference of governing styles between the only two parties that ever get in power are minute at best. Sure, Romney is worse than Obama, but only slightly so.