OT 2 party political system

[teal]

The two party system is enshrined in American politics because there is no other possible mathematical outcome given the voting system. For an eyeglossing acount of this see "An Economic Theory of Democracy" by Anthony Downs. Downs makes one big assumption however, that is that political issue space is only two dimensional (i.e. left vs right). As many of you are aware of the political compass website you can see that political issue space has perhaps more dimensions than just two (left and right on the horizontal, libertarian and authoritarian on the vertical). I say perhaps because even on that website people tend to be distributed along a diagonal line from the lower left corner to the upper right (with a few honorable and notable exceptions). So as long as most people roughly fall along this diagonal line, then we will have a two party system. The time is ripe for a shakeup in the system when most people fall off the existant line into the other dimension.

For example: traditionally the left (Democrats) are seen as fiscally liberal and socially liberal while the right is fiscally conservative and socially conservative (sadly given recent Republican behavior I can no longer say the right is fiscally conservative with a straight face. I have taken to calling them the "slash and spend" Republicans to go along nicely with the stupid "tax and spend" Democrats. But at least the Democrats understand that you have to raise income to raise spending.) Anyhow, a case can be made that most Americans are fiscally conservative but socially liberal (i.e. they would prefer for the government to spend responsibly and not tax very much but they would also prefer for the government to stay the hell out of their bedrooms and for it not to tell them what to do with their bodies). Thus the time may be right for a break in the two party system. The Democrats have tried to adopt to this social left fiscal right with the Democratic Leadership council and the so called New Democrats who are really quite fiscally conservative (for Democrats) while still retaining their social liberalness. I don't really see any such equivalent group on the Republican side. The moderate wing of that party as represented by John McCain and Jim Jeffords and Olympia Snow is pretty much dead in the water with very little power at all (Jeffords had to bolt the party). I would love to be contradicted on this point though. I would respect the Republicans a lot more if I saw any sort of moderate influence in their caucas at all instead of everywhere you look seeing narrow special interests being represented. (this Last point of course shows my personal bias...

I was going somewhere with all this long winded sillyness. Oh yeah. Before we go rushing off to fix the two party system by making it more representative, we have to ask the question is that actually a good idea? There are important protections for minority peoples and parties in the current system. I am afraid that one unavoidable side effect of making the system more representative is that we take a step closer to the "tyranny of the majority". Which the founding fathers were also very much afraid of and to my mind for very good reason. Pure Democracy has some pretty big problems.

Anybody who's still reading... Cheers!

Teal

[narf poit chez BOOM]

cheers. browsing webcomics, looking here on the side.

[Suicide Junkie]

I think you guys got PvK all wrong:

Here's how I think what he said is supposed to work:
1) When you vote, you can choose as many of the candidates as you like. Zero and All are both acceptable votes.
2) Any candidates with less than 50% (or number of your choice) of the votes are eliminated from any future calculations.
3) If one or more candidates remain after step 2, the one with the most votes wins.

So, For example:
4 candidates: Zack, Yolonda, Xavier, and Wanda.
8 voters: Alice, Bob, Cindy, David, Elaine, Fred, Gerald, and Helen.

Alice votes for Zack.
Bob votes for Zack and Xavier
C votes for Y,X,W
D votes for X,W
E votes for Z,Y,W
F votes for Z
G votes for Z,W
H votes for Z,W

Totals:
Zack - 6/8 = 75% approval
Yolonda - 2/8 = 25%
Xavier - 3/8 = 37.5%
Wanda - 5/8 = 62.5%

Thus, Yolonda and Xavier are kicked out of politics, and Zack gets the job.

[Erax]

Having two-round elections takes care of the 'candidates A, B and C' situation. In the first round, everyone votes for the candidate they like best. The two most-voted candidates go on to the second round, then everyone votes again. Unless someone changed their mind between rounds, A gets all the votes he had before, plus some of C's votes. Same for B. Those who voted for C in the first round didn't throw away their votes, they are still getting to decide who gets elected. Candidate C's situation is not too bad either, as he can gain political capital by supporting A or B or neither in the second round.

[Narrew]

One thing that bothers me is the career politician. I had always felt that serving the public should be a sacrifice not a full time job. At one time I thought term limits would be great, but I know there are good politicians on both sides of the isle, that they want to work for the public, but I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I admit I am biased and when I hear politicians like Daschel and Kennedy spew excrement, I tend to waffle on the term limit idea.

I do think that we need to repeal their perks when they leave office (yearly wage and medical) make them live off of Social Security and Medicare, if they did that, then perhaps politicians on both sides of isle will decide to do the right thing. If it is good enough for me then it should be good enough for them.

Since we don't have term limits we have to hope the voting public will change their view on career Politicians.

[Loser]

The problem with cutting the pay of a politician is that s/he is still a politician. These are powerful people. If they are not secure, financially and in their future, they may use their power for the benefit of specific Groups who will then give them that security.

Of course, it's also possible that they are doing that already....

Wha'ch gonna do?

[Narrew]

Thats true Loser, but if they knew they were not going to get a free ride after being elected, perhaps they will do their thing then get back to the private sector *shrug*