Yep that refrain isn’t going away any time soon, because in a winner-take-all system a third party can only have the effect of weakening the party they are like, and strengthening the party they oppose. That’s not doctrine, it’s game theory and it’s provable. If you want Greens and Libertarians, move to a country with a parliamentary system, which is most of them.
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Ah, democracy at work…
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone opine that, left, right, or center.
A better strategy is to vote in the primary elections, and to vote for better third parties when that will not help the worse main party win.
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Not just vote in primaries but push the issues and candidates during the nomination process. It’s a lot of work for the no time off shrinking wage American worker and voter.
Americans also hosed themselves by going to popular election of senators. Before that it was the state legislature who chose senators and a state representative or legislature is much easier to sway.
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It would work in our system if we could afford to lose a few elections to the opposition. That would be enough time to either establish a serious challenger party or force the Democrats to come back to liberal principles. Unfortunately with the current state of the Republicans that’s just not something we have the time for.
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Well, of course it’s not effective it I’m the only one doing it. That was my point, really.
If you mean that voters for third party candidates caused George W. Bush to win the election in 2000, you’re wrong. The facts do not support this argument. If you mean that voters for third party candidates cost George H.W. Bush the 1992 election, you’re also wrong. The facts do not support this argument.
So… what do you mean, exactly?
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Okay, you’ve linked a Wikipedia article that offers some arguments in favor and against the idea that Nader was responsible for George W. Bush winning the 2000 election. I’m guessing you find the arguments in favor more compelling than those against? You don’t think the fact that 13% of all registered Democrats in the state of Florida voting for George W. Bush is a more compelling reason?
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I don’t see how that’s relevant in the least to the question of whether Nader acted as a spoiler. He very clearly siphoned off votes that would have given Gore Florida, and the White House. The only debate I see is whether he did it intentionally - and his intensive campaigning in battleground states speaks louder than words.
You can argue that other factors were also important, and I’ll agree. But there is no doubt at all that if Nader hadn’t run, Gore would have been President - with all that that implies.
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I’d argue that neither side of the debate is relevant.
@kimmo @davidasposted @Mindysan33
If we’re ever considering not including a good candidate over two bad ones because they might ‘siphon away’ votes’ we’ve already lost.
If all a candidate really has to worry about is beating one person every 4 to 6 years and they have to spend most of that time earning money and most of the ideas they hear come from trained lobbyists motivated to get politicians to do specific things than we’ve already lost.
Besides that, we lost at some fundamental level beneath, haven’t we? Because this whole thing just isn’t how humans work.
So let’s set a default that’s practical, but also is a world we can actually live with that all these new babies actually deserve, right?
Each one of us is basically part of the same sort of randomized pool as a baby…it doesn’t matter what country we really came from or what color our skin is or who our mom is.
Sure, some of us like to learn differently. Some of us are more interested in jumping spiders or cellular slime molds or machinima or spreading peace or inventing or healing or whatever else…but we really should get to start making those decisions as we’re growing right?
You know, like a character builder for a game, but you actually live the thing instead of play it (or possibly both?) You could go a long way with this general design for a starting point, right?
The same goes for governments and economic systems and such. We should all get to have a default standard of living (yes, I know, many countries already provide this)…and then we should get to choose every quarter or year to try a whole new life.
Because people aren’t supposed to get TRAPPED.
And lots of times we change as we age, right? Ten years ago me isn’t the same as me. And old me reserves the right to be a little curmudgeonly!
Anyway, I know nothing important comes easy, but can we at least all agree that’s where we should start?
Because there are ways that could…with a few people helping and a bit of love…get us there, and quickly. Sure, no one solution works for everyone, but there’s a general framework that most of us would agree on that would result in most of us getting a lot more done and not having to worry about ruining anybody else’s day.
I’m not saying I’ve got all the right ideas, but I’m confident that a few of us have talked about one that deserves to get to fully compete on it’s merits…and I bet it’s not the only one.
I bet I’m not the only one that feels a little nauseous when people are spending millions of dollars on one political candidate or another, one cause or another, or whatever…when there are solutions that could do so much more with a tiny bit of those resources and they get zero.
I bet they all involve basically the same thing….not forcing us to live by the rules of whatever nation we were born in by birth nation and letting us choose between a thousand shampoos and calling that freedom.
Freedom is choosing between a thousand LIVES.
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Uh, there most certainly is. But we’re not going to see eye-to-eye here, so I won’t pursue further.
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Yeah, but in reality, not everyone gets the same set of options or choices, for any number of reasons. I agree that we should all have a level playing field and set of options, but we’re not at that point. Getting there requires addressing what the problems we actually have are and working to solve those first, I’d argue. If the answer to that is “burn it all down, and start again”, that’s a different conversation we need to have from tweak things until we get them right.
while it’s a nice thing to say this, and I wish it were true, it really isn’t realistic to say this. Where we are born, the color of our skin, who our mother is, it does matter - not that it should, or always will, but that it actually does. All these things (and many others) shape all sorts of opportunities or lack thereof we have in life.
Frankly, I rarely do that. I’ve often voted for candidates that will “siphon” off votes from the democrats because fuck the democrats. They don’t deserve my, or anyone’s vote - they should earn that shit.
I’m all for talking through big ideas, but we have two options, and that is working within the system we have to change it to be more humane and equitable to all of earths inhabitants or we have to completely burn this shit down and start over. Don’t get me wrong, I think trying to come up with the alternative to the present situation is not only admirable, but necessary, even pie-in-the-skying it, and basically writing a utopian ideal that may never come to pass. But looking down and seeing what we’re dealing with matters too. We need both to move ahead to something better if you ask me.
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I’m not saying ‘burn it down and start again’
I’m saying a reasonable, fair goal starts with all people and lets them choose between more than one government rather than throwing them all in a pot and saying ‘Everybody…agree!’
while it’s a nice thing to say this, and I wish it were true, it really isn’t realistic to say this. Where we are born, the color of our skin, who our mother is, it does matter - not that it should, or always will, but that it actually does. All these things (and many others) shape all sorts of opportunities or lack thereof we have in life.
And I wouldn’t be saying anything if I didn’t have (and haven’t proposed enough parts of) an approach that satisfies all those concerns (and more) and works based upon how people make economic decisions and uses laws already in place.
I’m all for talking through big ideas, but we have two options, and that is working within the system we have to change it to be more humane and equitable to all of earths inhabitants or we have to completely burn this shit down and start over. Don’t get me wrong, I think trying to come up with the alternative to the present situation is not only admirable, but necessary, even pie-in-the-skying it, and basically writing a utopian ideal that may never come to pass. But looking down and seeing what we’re dealing with matters too. We need both to move ahead to something better if you ask me.
I’m trying to say that we don’t have two options because they never were separate things.
We could put everything into the co-opernation approach, give people all places to live and work and little mini-governments that work for them. We could do it right now. And people would actually have more collective influence without having to worry about a corrupt system thanks to Citizen’s United. Trickle-up power, basically.
This is all ground that was covered pretty early in the process because we stated from economic viability and stumbled into the rest. The pie in the sky stuff is only necessary so that you have something to design towards instead of creating something that only helps a few people.
Give me a chance to compete fairly based on the merits of an idea (hey, nothing else is working!). And if nothing can shoot a hole in the idea then you’ll agree that one tiny fraction of what goes into the system now…say a million a year…will give us more political output than everything else combined while actually doing good things right off the bat.
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I dunno. I can’t link it at present, but I’ve certainly read some capital-ess serious analysis, from some capital-ess serious people, who concluded otherwise. Not as many as support the conventional wisdom version, but some, and convincingly enough.
Gore’s performance in that race was totally lifeless and entitled; it’s remarkable that he even got close enough to contest anything. Reasonable people can disagree, I guess. That’s not really what I wanted to comment on, anyway.
What’s weird to me is the level of passion that people bring to reinforcing the status quo on this, even so many years later. People who – in most other regards – I would describe as optimistic, idealistic folks. (Not to cast aspersions on you, @Boundegar, of course.) I get that part of this stems from how awful the Bush 2.0 years were, and a feeling that they could have been prevented (I’d argue that the pendulum was gonna swing, regardless). But that’s what makes it doubly weird, to me; if the anger at Nader is related to thwarted idealism, why double down on killing idealism like, forever.
I’ve read enough theory to understand the mechanism by which an established two-party system just keeps reinforcing itself, driving the populace to ever-more-ruinous lesser-of “choices.” All the more reason to – at least cautiously – applaud those who struggle against the tide, rather than trying to pull them under, too. Right?
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After reading the article, I’m left wondering by what mechanism can a single senator block the passage of a bill. How is he delaying it?
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This makes me wonder if all those Illuminati conspiracy theories are going to get a reboot from this.
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