[Vision2020] polarizing and the two-party system

[Jerry Weitz]

Paul, I readily concur with your view.  I know that I cross vote the party 
lines often.  I bet there is a ground swell of others that agree with your 
observations and feel left out.  Do you think the climate of the two-party 
concept has a chance of changing?  Jerry

At 10:09 PM 10/13/06, Paul Rumelhart wrote:
>Republicans vs Democrats, conservatives vs liberals, is it really that
>cut and dried?  Is the country really that simplistically divided?  I
>have an idea of what a stereotypical Republican thinks, and what a
>stereotypical Democrat thinks.  I wonder how close it is to the truth.
>If you took a group of average Americans, for example, and gave them a
>list of anonymous position statements on a whole range of subjects by
>our congressmen without any other info could they classify each position
>statement as belonging to a Republican or a Democrat with a high degree
>of accuracy?  Also, what percentage of voters vote strictly according to
>which party they have thrown their hats in with?  What would it be like
>if there were no such simple and safe option?
>
>I have long thought that the two-party system is ruining our country.
>Every issue has to be framed with respect to it's Rep/Dem voting ratio.
>Issues that are complex or multi-faceted have to be dumbed down to fit
>the system.  Isn't it possible that people can be conservative on social
>issues but liberal on financial ones, for example?  Or vice-versa?
>Imagine if there were, say, five major parties more or less equally
>represented and a dozen or so minor ones in our government.   No one
>party could control the House or the Senate.  Consensus would be a game
>of determining which parties would be willing to lean your way and which
>pieces of what you want you'd have to give up to court the outliers.
>
>Voters would have to reflect upon how they lean on a number of issues.
>Would they rather have a Green candidate in office representing them or
>a Libertarian?  Candidates could actually be members of more than one
>party.  The country would still probably divide more or less into
>colored regions on the map, but it wouldn't be so divisive.
>Corporations would have to buy politicians from a number of parties to
>get  their legislation passed.  Finally, people could talk about issues
>as if they had more than one dimension.
>
>Anyway, just some meandering thoughts on a Friday night.  Any comments?
>
>Paul
>
>=======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>=======================================================