The Childishness of a Two Party System
Sometimes I think about what the distant future will be like and I picture a teenager taking 9th grade history asking his teacher the following question about this time in our history.
Teen- "So let me get this straight the U.S. used to have a system with two major parties that disagreed with each other to the point where they couldn't move forward on anything because the whole point was to disagree and block the other party from doing anything positive?"
Teacher: "Yes that is basically what they did back then"
Teen "Well pardon my language but that is fucking retarded"
Teacher: "Yes that is completely fucking retarded and we can say those words here in the future because we are not influenced by religions anymore and we can speak to each other like adults and swear if the conversation warrants it, and in this case 'Fucking Retarded' sums up the two-party political system correctly"
Yes I know I'm a dreamer to think that not only will we get rid of this dumb system but that a teacher and a student would be able to converse like that but this is my imagination so it happened.
Right now to win a major political election you either need to be a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent that is either an Independent that votes mostly Democrat or mostly Republican and it is very hard to get elected if you are an Independent.
The fictional conversation above points out the obvious problems with this system but I would like to go a little more in depth. First off how antiquated of a thinker do you have to be to believe that the correct way to run a political system is to join a group that tells you a uniform set of positions on major topics, and your job is to disagree with the other group that believes the opposite but if you can possibly get more people to win elections in your party you can get your ideas passed until the next party takes over and repeals most of what you put in and the cycle repeats itself.
This two party system leads to corporate funding of ideas and legislation, and makes corruption a part of the game. If you label yourself you are stuck with that and your ideas have to reflect that even if it doesn't better the country. As an elected official you should be held to a hire intellectual standard as well as being a seemingly more reasonable person than the average dumbass. This system makes it possible for almost any dummy who has money to run for office and get elected. Just follow the party line and no matter how intellectually bankrupt you are you can make decisions that will effect the masses.
Another issue with the two party competition system is that the built in "I have to go against the other party" thought process makes everything a fucking stalemate. Even basic ideas can't move forward because some old prick disagrees with another old prick on another issue and even though this basic issue is good for the country this asshole is going to vote against it because he can't let the other guy get something passed. It is just plain schoolyard childish and this is how are government works.
I could write another five pages on why this system is terrible but who reads that much in a non sports blog? So I will get to what I believe is the only equitable solution to this problem.
First get rid of political parties all together. Candidates should have to run on what they believe in and what they would vote for and not vote for. This means no pandering to a base of dummies who will lazily vote for you because you have an uppercase (R) or (D) next to your name. You run based on what you believe in. If you get elected and someone calls you out on your beliefs and points you out as being wrong, if you feel that there is reasonable evidence to change your mind, you can always do so. If people don't like how much you change your mind or how little you change your mind they don't have to vote for you in the next election.
This way people will for the most part know who they are voting for. You could look at the candidates and go through them like a checklist: Abortion-Yes or No, Immigration/Illegal Immigration-Your thoughts, Foreign Policy? What's your ideas on this? etc. and if you go through the people who are running and you find someone who agrees with most or all of your ideas you vote for them.
One argument I've heard against this idea is that there would be to many candidates but not if you put tight restrictions on who can run.This would be no different than now, just a little clearer and without the main exclusion that people face right now which is money.
So here are some basic restrictions I could see being implemented: Age restrictions: No one younger than 21 and no one older than 55 because if you are younger than 25 you shouldn't have that big of a responsibility yet and if you are older than 55 you are out of your prime and your ideas are old and out of date as well.
You must have at least a bachelors degree or better from a real college. In this same vein you would need to have an I.Q. higher than a certain number. I'm not sure what that number should be but smarter people than I could figure that out.
No felons, no non-u.s citizens, and you should be able to fluently speak at least two other languages other than English. I think these stipulations would cut down on to many people running at once. To further this you could even break down the election process into an almost playoff like format where the whole pool of candidates is widdled down to a certain number before the main election. I think a good number would be four candidates. That way there is a good variety for people to look at but not enough where you have someone winning that doesn't have at least more than a quarter of the countries support.
My final thought on this is that you would have to get rid of the equally dumb electoral college and go back to the popular vote deciding who wins. That is the only fair way to do it. Just because your state is bigger doesn't mean your vote counts more, that is not democratic.
The other issue in this is the money system but that is a topic for another blog I will write soon.
I know I could add more to this but this is already long-windded enough. Let me know what you think and I'll let you know what I think about your ideas.
Teen- "So let me get this straight the U.S. used to have a system with two major parties that disagreed with each other to the point where they couldn't move forward on anything because the whole point was to disagree and block the other party from doing anything positive?"
Teacher: "Yes that is basically what they did back then"
Teen "Well pardon my language but that is fucking retarded"
Teacher: "Yes that is completely fucking retarded and we can say those words here in the future because we are not influenced by religions anymore and we can speak to each other like adults and swear if the conversation warrants it, and in this case 'Fucking Retarded' sums up the two-party political system correctly"
Yes I know I'm a dreamer to think that not only will we get rid of this dumb system but that a teacher and a student would be able to converse like that but this is my imagination so it happened.
Right now to win a major political election you either need to be a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent that is either an Independent that votes mostly Democrat or mostly Republican and it is very hard to get elected if you are an Independent.
The fictional conversation above points out the obvious problems with this system but I would like to go a little more in depth. First off how antiquated of a thinker do you have to be to believe that the correct way to run a political system is to join a group that tells you a uniform set of positions on major topics, and your job is to disagree with the other group that believes the opposite but if you can possibly get more people to win elections in your party you can get your ideas passed until the next party takes over and repeals most of what you put in and the cycle repeats itself.
This two party system leads to corporate funding of ideas and legislation, and makes corruption a part of the game. If you label yourself you are stuck with that and your ideas have to reflect that even if it doesn't better the country. As an elected official you should be held to a hire intellectual standard as well as being a seemingly more reasonable person than the average dumbass. This system makes it possible for almost any dummy who has money to run for office and get elected. Just follow the party line and no matter how intellectually bankrupt you are you can make decisions that will effect the masses.
Another issue with the two party competition system is that the built in "I have to go against the other party" thought process makes everything a fucking stalemate. Even basic ideas can't move forward because some old prick disagrees with another old prick on another issue and even though this basic issue is good for the country this asshole is going to vote against it because he can't let the other guy get something passed. It is just plain schoolyard childish and this is how are government works.
I could write another five pages on why this system is terrible but who reads that much in a non sports blog? So I will get to what I believe is the only equitable solution to this problem.
First get rid of political parties all together. Candidates should have to run on what they believe in and what they would vote for and not vote for. This means no pandering to a base of dummies who will lazily vote for you because you have an uppercase (R) or (D) next to your name. You run based on what you believe in. If you get elected and someone calls you out on your beliefs and points you out as being wrong, if you feel that there is reasonable evidence to change your mind, you can always do so. If people don't like how much you change your mind or how little you change your mind they don't have to vote for you in the next election.
This way people will for the most part know who they are voting for. You could look at the candidates and go through them like a checklist: Abortion-Yes or No, Immigration/Illegal Immigration-Your thoughts, Foreign Policy? What's your ideas on this? etc. and if you go through the people who are running and you find someone who agrees with most or all of your ideas you vote for them.
One argument I've heard against this idea is that there would be to many candidates but not if you put tight restrictions on who can run.This would be no different than now, just a little clearer and without the main exclusion that people face right now which is money.
So here are some basic restrictions I could see being implemented: Age restrictions: No one younger than 21 and no one older than 55 because if you are younger than 25 you shouldn't have that big of a responsibility yet and if you are older than 55 you are out of your prime and your ideas are old and out of date as well.
You must have at least a bachelors degree or better from a real college. In this same vein you would need to have an I.Q. higher than a certain number. I'm not sure what that number should be but smarter people than I could figure that out.
No felons, no non-u.s citizens, and you should be able to fluently speak at least two other languages other than English. I think these stipulations would cut down on to many people running at once. To further this you could even break down the election process into an almost playoff like format where the whole pool of candidates is widdled down to a certain number before the main election. I think a good number would be four candidates. That way there is a good variety for people to look at but not enough where you have someone winning that doesn't have at least more than a quarter of the countries support.
My final thought on this is that you would have to get rid of the equally dumb electoral college and go back to the popular vote deciding who wins. That is the only fair way to do it. Just because your state is bigger doesn't mean your vote counts more, that is not democratic.
The other issue in this is the money system but that is a topic for another blog I will write soon.
I know I could add more to this but this is already long-windded enough. Let me know what you think and I'll let you know what I think about your ideas.
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