02-10-2012, 01:50 AM
(02-09-2012, 03:53 PM)Bolty Wrote: As with all presidential elections, the end result is decided by the small 1-4% of independent voters who will swing one way or the other based on particular issues. This is the sort of thing you get with 2-party systems - everything gets diluted down to the 50% level.
I believe "2-party system" may be a bit misleading. I'm sure we have covered the different voting systems at some point here, so I won't go too far into it. The way we vote is the system. Two parties are the result of the way our voting system works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_syst...er_methods
Imagine for a minute there were 10 different parties that could easily exist in the U.S. This is possible because U.S. Americans are very diverse in their political thought. What would happen if there were 9 groups representing 89% of the people and the parties were very similar aside from one or two minor things, and an 11% portion of the U.S. believed in something radically different, voting for the 10th group? With our voting system it is possible for that radical political group to win an election. Their views are actually the minority, but they are the majority in this hypothetical election.
That is why the parties have to get people to align with them on 1 issue and make people believe that this 1 issue is the most important thing in the world, and they can fix it. For the Republicans they have the evangelical Christians who of course take religious issues very seriously(abortion, gay marriage, etc). The Democrat Party garners the core vote of the racial minorities by feeding them, sheltering them, and raising their babies(via welfare). If another party pops up, they are referred to as un-electable or not representative of the majority. Yet these parties affect the elections massively sometimes. If Ron Paul ran an independent he would ensure Obama's re-election. Even if the majority prefers a Republican or a Ron Paul, their votes get split and Obama will win. How is this a good idea? It's not. The ranked voting system is my favorite. In a ranked system you could give 1, 2, or 3 points to the last standing candidates, and whomever gets the most points wins. It's kinda like voting in rounds where the person who accumulates the least amount of points is dropped and you vote again.
I fear that U.S. politics will never reflect what the average true majority wants, nor will it be able to protect freedom from oligarchy, military-industrial complex, and all the other bad things that come about from a limited vote choice. Actually the Military-industrial complex is a direct result of the states slowly losing powers through the years...save that for next time.
I hope there is some good info here. Oh yeah, Liberty and Freedom---> Ron Paul 2012 y'all!