Two Party System

Thanks to Fred for the inspiration.

I've joined the ranks of those who say that third party votes are a waste. I've been registered Green, Peace and Freedom, and decline to state. I'm now a registered Democrat and unlikely to change. Ours is a two party system.

The only way to have political power is as a member of one of the two parties. Rather than form a seperate party, like-minded individuals should form factions within one of the parties. At election time, the party candidates will court the vote of third party members. In the state legislatures and the congress, third parties are powerless.

I can see no advantage to a third party that can't be accomplished as a faction within one of the two parties. To fight to have your issue part of the party statement and lose has more influence than having your issue be part of a platform that is guaranteed to lose.

If a third party were to receive enough votes to qualify for the public campaign subsidies, I suppose that would be of some benefit. The money would allow a third party to get their issues heard. But they still aren't going to win enough seats to have any real power.

Third party activity gives the activist a sense of accomplishment without having to do the real work of politics: compomise. It's a "don't blame me" approach. Well you won't get credit either.

I'm not decided on whether we'd be better off without a two party system. This website is an interesting read.

bias, huh?

David, whose wit and style I respect, paid respects to the currently late Peter Jennings. But we are on different political planets. Not being one to watch any television news except for C-Span, and occasionally the local news, I can't say I know much about Mr. Jennings. I followed the link to bias that David posted, and I just don't get it. The titles they give to the quotes require a lot of reading between the lines to see the bias. Here's one example:

Only naive racists support welfare reform: “The welfare debate has been getting more intense, ever since President Reagan regularly vilified what he referred to as the ‘welfare queens.’ Attitudes about people on welfare are sometimes based more on myth than reality. Most welfare mothers have only one or two children. Most welfare mothers had their first child when they were adults, not teenagers. Most people on welfare are not black.”— World News
Tonight, January 12, 1995.

I sure don't see his comments as calling anyone a "naive racist." Seems to me somebody's being overly sensitive. Maybe I don't understand what connotation of bias is being used. I can't say that Peter Jennings didn't have a liberal bias. I can say that Media Research Center didn't make the case. I think you'd have to approach it already believing that Mr. Jennings had a liberal bias to see it in the quotes they used.

So I guess what I'm saying is that they had to bias their bias report to make it say what they wanted it to say.

will nature trump all?

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8796487/ is it an anomoly or a sign of things to come?

The story of Easter Island, will it become the story of planet Earth?

It's difficult for me to feel any sense of hope.