Pursuant to the post at RobertaX
over by here
I’m going to discuss something that bugs the shit out of me, and always has.
Third party candidates.
At local levels, sometimes they do well, and some of them actually do some good.
At the national level, not so much. And that is the sharp end of that stick.
There isn’t a chance in hell that a third party candidate will ever get elected in these united states, anytime soon. And there are a lot of reasons for that, both political and economical.
So here is the bottomline, folks. You have a choice between A or B. You can proselytize that C, D, or E would do a better job, and the fact is, you are probably right. hell, I could carve a man from a bananna, to quote Mr Vonnegut, that would do a better job of running this country, than McCain or Obama. I am pretty painfully aware of this, I watch this shit pretty closely. But no matter how much I would like some actual change, I have what I got. A, or B.
Roberta points to her unwillingness to vote A, or B, and I completely understand. More so, I imagine, in ways I prefer not to discuss here. But it’s what we got.
Change needed? Sure. Gonna change anything in a general election? Nope.
The founding fathers gave us this little republic. It’s a ford, or maybe a Chevy. Every so often, we need to replace the alternator. We can get the OEM one, or we can get the Duralast one from Autozone, but the alternative is not walking, it’s the death of the republic. if you want to change direction, do the best job you can of keeping the car running, and then steer.
Well, even at a local level, the so-called “3rd parties” are often just an amalgamation of A and B (as is the case in the town next door to you), so really, it’s not some HUGE choice.
But yeah, you’re right.
I think you’ve summed up your notions very well, Og. And yeah, we’re just going to have to disagree here.
Even if they can’t win, candidates from outside the two parties make a difference (not just H. Ross Perot, but Teddy Roosevelt in his “Bull Moose” run and the noticable percentage Communist and Socialist candidates were getting in the early 20th Cent. just before the Dems lurched to the left with FDR).
There is nothing in the founding documents about political parties — not two or three of them or even one. The Federal government has functioned with different parties, will ill-defined parties, with one party and with no parties per se at all. The “era of good feeling,” to name an early example. The two parties we have today are relative newcomers; the Dems claim Jefferson but I doubt he’d claim them.
If the Democrats and Republicans can’t come up with people I can vote for, can’t even find men who aren’t opposed to the Bill of Rights, then they will not get my vote. That’s the only one I control and they can’t have it.
Death of the Republic? If you ask me, it’s dead, Og, been ailing since 1861 at the latest. 1913 was when it became terminal, when the Feds got into micromanaging your life and kept on going.
We have plenty of government left if the Republic goes belly-up; we live in one of 50 little republics, commonwealths or, in one case, a plantation. Yes, it wouldn’t be nearly as impressive. I’m okay with that.
I cannot disagree with your conclusions, but your methods. I wasn’t trying to say the Fathers left us the two party system, only the system itself, and the methods to improve it. And they charged us with improving it from within, and not trying to destroy it.
“Yes, it wouldn’t be nearly as impressive. I’m okay with that.”
yes, and you were OK with being killed rather than torture someone to save you. You don’t understand that those decisions are not yours to make. The rest of us NEED the republic to remain whole. You cannot imagine nor do you want to, what the US would be like if balkanized. Witness the breakup of Yugoslavia.
I understand what it’s like to dislike something so intensely you want something else desperately. I may be able to tell you more about this someday in person, I will not discuss my personal life here. However: “anything is better than this” is the Mother of all Big Lies.
It’s not “anything is better than this.” There’s plenty worse, as the Late Unpleasentness (1861 – 65) vividly demonstrated. My objection is to excessively strong federalism, which was not the declared intent of the framers — or most of them, anyway. Withal, the Federalists left us with a system that has a built-in bias towards centralization of political power, steamrollering the differences between the States making up the Federal union. Mass media has accelerated this trend.
The U.S., not having the ancent and bloody feuds (mostly based on religion) that plague the Balkans, would “balkanize” into something at least as mutally amicable as present-day Europe or early 19th Cent. U.S.A. I’m sure there would be points of friction — car searches at the IN-IL border, CA’s “Agricultural Inspection” stations becoming full-fledged Customs checkpoints for the full panapoly of CA contraband, etc. but in the long view, these are piffling inconveniences; IL CA, NY and other such meddlesome nanny states are best avoided by free men and women.
It is true that such a colletion of little nation-states in some weak alliance would have to achive foreign policy goals by stealth and persuasion rather than force, assassination instead of invasion. Call me a hippie for it but I would not mind that.
All I can say, is I hope to god I never live to see it. The disaster would be epic.
Imagine all the burocratic bullshit we go through on a day-to-day basis, times fifty. And add in violent skirmishes.
I love America, and Americans. The republic we have has proven that it can stand the test of time, and so far it’s doing well, despite a few morons. Those morons will always be there, no matter how it works. I’ll take a proven, functional (if flawed) system, where I can work from within to make changes, to flipping the whole thing on it’s head in favor of a system whcih has proven, repeatedly, not to work.
There’s always an alternative, in politics or alternators.
For example, in alternators, I had to replace both alternators in my boat. They were marine versions of a GM OEM 55-amp alternator.
OK, choice of a marine rebuilt, or a marine OEM.
No, there was a THIRD choice. I found a starter and alternator rebuilder who MADE me two new ones from scratch, using only refurbished OEM shells. The new alternators have internal electronics, not external, are “one-wire” instead of 5-wire, and put out 75 amps instead of 55.
What’s this about only two choices?
You only had two choices, Dog. You arrived at a third choice by brute force and extraordinary expense. An option we don’t have in politics, at the moment.
The RNC is financed how? and how much? the DNC? The Libertarian party? Nuff said. When the Liberetarian party (or ANY other party) has twice the funds and backing of both the big two, then we can talk. Until then, we have two choices.
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