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GrayTiger wrote:“The next time they give you all that civic b******t about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election”
-- George Carlin

One minor correction:

Originally, Adolf Hitler was not elected Chancellor of Germany. He was elected Vice-Chancellor.

Next, he had his friends in the German Workers Party stage an attack on the Reichstag so that the Chancellor would flee the country, leaving him in charge.

Then, before the next election, he filled the Reichstag with his people and passed the Ballot Simplification Act, thanks to which the ballot read (allowing for English):

Do you wish to vote for Adolf Hitler? [ ]

Or not? [ ]

By the time the election was over, he had the Chancellorship and a handy enemies list...

Yours wolfishly,

The part-German,

Wanderer

maxgoof wrote:While additional political parties is not necessarily a bad idea, be careful about having too many. Italy has over 12, and they can never seem to get anything done as a result.

Ah, very true. There needs to be a balance.

Up here in Canada, we have 3 centralist parties who are so identical that a good portion of the members of each party have spent time representing a different party. I reject them all as greedy pork-barrelers with their only interest being furtherance of big business and in particular, those of their friends. Politics should be a volunteer position or at least have the salery based on the average wage of the people in their juristiction (essentially volunteer for anybody who is rich). More power (and money) should go to local government which is run by people who know what the local people want and need. Every effort should be made to make the various programs and services provided by the government to be self-funded. Lots of programs can be replaced by manditory insurance policies and many others funded by service fees or speciallized taxes. "General funds" should be eliminated in Government.... every account and every tax input should have a specific purpose and can only be used for that purpose.

In general, if the things people are relying on the government to provide are all done automatically and are self-funded, then the government no longer needs general taxes and can also be reduced in size and scope to a bunch of decision makers. Less government is better.

Hmm, the thing to remember is there is this structural difference in American elections vs. most other democratic countries. In most countries representatives are elected, then meet in back rooms to form some kind of government out of temporary coalitions of the elected repersentatives.

In the States we form potential governments BEFORE the elections, and then the people pick between them. So the Democrats and Republicans are not parties in the sense most democratic nations use the term, they are permanent coalitions.

The upside to the US system is that it presents a potential government upfront to the voters, rather than seeing what the elected can negotiate after the vote . Also some of the more extreme ends of each side is moderated by the party to appeal to a broader base. (though the Dems seem to be loosing control of their far left faction since 2000, or that same far left has been in a hostile takeover/purge of the party of 'disloyal' elements since then, and in either case suffering at the polls for it) The down side is that an American style party needs a larger critical mass of supporters to relastically compete, in practice it means a two party system, where viable third (or fourth in at least one case) parties arrise only when one party or the other is dying, perhaps over an issue that is important to their supporters, but ignored by the politicians of the party. The new party rises on the corpse of the old, maybe stealing members for marginalized groups inside the still surviving old party. See the fall of the Whigs and the rise of the Republicans for such an example.

Nikas_Zekeval wrote:..., where viable third (or fourth in at least one case) parties arrise only when one party or the other is dying, perhaps over an issue that is important to their supporters, but ignored by the politicians of the party. The new party rises on the corpse of the old, maybe stealing members for marginalized groups inside the still surviving old party. See the fall of the Whigs and the rise of the Republicans for such an example.

I think we might be seeing something similar soon enough with the Democrats.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Nikas_Zekeval wrote:The upside to the US system is that it presents a potential government upfront to the voters, rather than seeing what the elected can negotiate after the vote . Also some of the more extreme ends of each side is moderated by the party to appeal to a broader base. (though the Dems seem to be loosing control of their far left faction since 2000, or that same far left has been in a hostile takeover/purge of the party of 'disloyal' elements since then, and in either case suffering at the polls for it) The down side is that an American style party needs a larger critical mass of supporters to relastically compete, in practice it means a two party system, where viable third (or fourth in at least one case) parties arrise only when one party or the other is dying, perhaps over an issue that is important to their supporters, but ignored by the politicians of the party. The new party rises on the corpse of the old, maybe stealing members for marginalized groups inside the still surviving old party. See the fall of the Whigs and the rise of the Republicans for such an example.

I suspect the recent stridency in the far left is directly related to the collapse of communism and the creeping realization that it only works when humans are perfect. Part - tho not all! - of the reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union had to do with the fact that too many people in the Soviet Union were NOT willing to work just for the love of their fellow man. The cynical attitude of "If they pretend to pay me, I'll pretend to work" was almost omnipresent.

In short, the "I'm in it for the profit" motive seems encoded in our very genes, and the people who've devoted their entire adult lives towards proving that isn't true have found they've bet wrong. And they'd rather die and take everyone along for the ride than admit their error.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of unselfish people out there. But the "bean curve" statistics apply. The vast majority of the human race are mildly selfish, and happy to be so. That's why communist/socialist lifestyles work well in a tribal situation - a person can ask themselves "What's in this for me?", and see how they profit merely by looking around themselves at how the rest of the tribe keeps them alive as they keep the tribe alive.

I suppose what I'm saying is that, at least with the far left, it's difficult at best, and impossible at worst, to "keep score". In a small tribe, it's easy to "keep score" of how your unselfish communal efforts return to benefit you directly. In anything much larger, it's impossible. Whereas money is an EASY way to "keep score". It's nicely tangible.

Perhaps that's what it comes down to... people have an easier time dealing with the tangible.

But I ramble.

nick012000 wrote:

Nikas_Zekeval wrote:..., where viable third (or fourth in at least one case) parties arrise only when one party or the other is dying, perhaps over an issue that is important to their supporters, but ignored by the politicians of the party. The new party rises on the corpse of the old, maybe stealing members for marginalized groups inside the still surviving old party. See the fall of the Whigs and the rise of the Republicans for such an example.

I think we might be seeing something similar soon enough with the Democrats.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I'll vote good for now. The city Machines are tied to the old Democratic party, and the fight over who gets to take them over when the Dems implode ought to allow a lot of cleaning up. There will be a new party soon enough; the Whigs died and the Republicans arose within just a few years.

Best case, the non-loony Dems will team with the libertarian-minded Republicans to form a new party (or take over the Libertarian Party and de-loonify it) and the loony lefties will be left with the remains.