The two parties dilemma; Strange?

Not sure if this is a serious question...

I always wondered why is it that in most countries there are usually more than 2-4 political parties.(Canada and Britian for ex.)

While the United States has only two.
Do you not find that strange?

When did we get a second party?

While there are "Officially" three main parties. The "Democrats", "Republican", and "Libertarian". I disagree that the Democrat and Republican parties are really all that different which really becomes apparent when you look into the parties.

*Note: This is looking past the rhetoric and listing the behaviors of the members of congress.

-Both are bought and paid for by corporations or special interests groups.

-Both believe that the government should be involved in social engineering at some level.

-Both promote expansion of government for subsidies and or regulation.

-Both parties have introduced legislation that have curved the civil rights of the American people.

-Both promote policies of military intervention. Either for "Democracy" or for "Humanitarianism"

-Both parties promote accumulation of power in the executive branch.

-Both parties promote policies of wealth redistribution. Democrats take from those who don't vote for them and give it to those who do. Republicans take money from those who don't vote for them and give it to those who do.

-Both parties oppose the removal of the income tax or the implementation of an alternative like a flat tax or a consumption tax.

The list goes on. The only party that has any significant difference from the Democrats and Republicans are the Libertarians.

-Libertarians are non-interventionists and oppose all foreign wars.

-Libertarians believe that the government intervention in the forms of welfare and "social engineering" are harmful to a free society.

-Libertarians wish to repeal the income tax and abolish the internal revenue service.

-Libertarians oppose government subsidies and regulations.

-Libertarians oppose social engineering from the government.

So in reality we have the Democratic-Republican party and the Libertarian party.

Left wing, right Wing - same bird.

Interesting.

Not to mention, that the majority of the candidates come from the ranks of the Skull and Bones society, regardless of their party affiliations.

You've got the parties wrong. It's not "Republican" ad "Democrat" It's "Conservative" and "Liberal".

I'm socially liberal, and fiscally conservative. However I'm also not, in any way, a libertarian. And if any libertarian says that a 'true' liberal is a libertarian, they're an idiot.

And from a Europeans perspective the Democrats, the Republican and also the Libertarians seems crap. I always assumed it looked liked it does for two reasons. 1: the Democrats and Republicans has been around for a long time and who you vote to is passed down in most families. 2: The more money you spend the more votes you gets since the average person is retarded and doesn't really know what he's voting on and it's obviously expensive to get votes in a big country, hence it's hard for newcomers unless they are filthy rich.

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Republican & Democrat.

Conservative & Liberal are degrees on the political scale. The modern definition for "liberal" is more accurately replaced with the term "progressive" since liberalism a.k.a "classic liberalism" is the foundation for libertarianism.

You can be a "liberal/progressive" republican a.k.a NeoConservative. Neoconservative was created by former liberals who opposed Lyndon Johnson. You can also be a "conservative" Democrat A.k.A Blue Dog. Blue Dogs are generally economically and socially conservative Democrats.



I highly doubt you are fiscally conservative. You don't strike me as the type who advocates for reduced government spending and free trade. I will agree that you're no Libertarian but, you could fall into one of the libertarian philosophies like libertarian Marxism a.k.a left-libertarianism.

Here's a bigger question: Why are international media talking about the US elections? And skipping any discussion about Ron Paul? (Seriously. What the fuck do they see in Romney? He's best friends with John McCain - the dude enforcing NDAA!)

He talks about nothing in his speeches besides how he wants to get rid of illegal aliens, and "beat president Obama". Do his voters seriously not believe in any cause besides those?

And they're the only thing that matters. I find the entire notion of someone calling themselves a "Republican" or a "Democrat" to be insane. Nobody, when they really reflect on their position, is solely democratic or republican or anything. So, I don't care if people call the parties 'democrat' or 'republican' because the fact of the matter is that the TRUE positions are 'conservative' or 'liberal'. I neither call myself libertarian, republican, or democrat, and I think anyone who really is honest with themselves would do the same. There is no such thing as a perfect political ideology that ought to be completely and utterly agreed with, so identifying as one party or another is, in my honest opinion, retarded, and irrelevant. I don't think there are a lot of people who vote via, "Is he a democrat? Then I vote for him." Or "Is he a republican? Then I vote for him." And the people who DO say that are idiots.

However we DO say, "How liberal is he on this issue?" or "How conservative is he on this issue?" Because those are the relevant positions, hence, I call them the true parties.



/care



I highly doubt you are fiscally conservative. You don't strike me as the type who advocates for reduced government spending and free trade. I will agree that you're no Libertarian but, you could fall into one of the libertarian philosophies like libertarian Marxism a.k.a left-libertarianism.


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Nope, not a libertarian Marxist either.

You can attempt to nail down where I stand if you want, but the fact is the second you try and ascribe a particular political philosophy to me, I can almost guarantee you I will find something in that philosophy I am staunchly opposed to, or find ridiculous, or stupid.

Also, I like how you say you doubt I'm fiscally conservative, and then say I don't seem like the kind of person that would be pro-free trade. If that's what it means to be fiscally conservative? Getting rid of all regulations and letting all the markets just do whatever they want whenever they want? Then no, I'm not fiscaly conservative, though I don't buy that that's what fiscally conservative means. No, I'm not pro free-trade, as I think it's been tried before, and there are reasons laws had to be put in place to stop pure laissez-faire from occurring. It was attempted, it failed, and it failed not because the system is flawed, but because people aren't predictable, or logical and many people suck. This is why most political philosophies don't work. It's why communism won't work, and it's why libertarianism won't work. They rely on some sort of purely logical construct of people wanting to be efficient or willing to make compromises to be secure.

I once had a libertarian tell me that he felt monopolies COULDN'T happen under a libertarian free market system, because even if some store were to get to the point where they could undercut all other local stores unfairly, people would still remain loyal to local stores, and would be willing to pay extra just to support friends.

That's absolute bullshit. People are greedy and are willing to do anything to save a penny, including spending hours cutting coupons from newspapers and going to a superstore over a mom and pop shop run by friends.

And that's just one, of a GREAT DEAL of problems I have with libertarianism in general.

I'm not a republican, I'm not a democrat, I'm not a Marxist, I'm not a libertarian, I'm an independent moderate partisan that weighs every issue on a case by case basis.

There are a lot of political parties, its just that the two oldest parties absorb the ideas of other political parties, effectively making them drop out of the race.

This is grossly false and misleading, when's the last time a political party has pandered to the citizens of this great nation? Presidents Bush(in 2000) and Obama(in his 08 campaign) pandered to limited government, corruption and a vow to constitutionality, if only to break those promises immediately upon stepping into office.

The real reason you don't see a third party step up to the plate is due to American Political Apathy. You see, all campaigns require money to run. Sad, but that's the way this self-serving contest works. The government sponsors the contest, forces the citizens to devote time, effort and money into it and ultimately neither of the two candidates are the ones you wanted! In fact, maybe 30% of America is satisfied with the general election.

And the losers? It was NEVER their money to begin with, they don't face outstanding debts despite the reports. They can just go back to congress/senate, boost their resumes and try again. Thanks for helping us advance our careers, you get absolutely nothing.

More to the point, is the contests rules. Ever since Ross Perot nearly broke through the system in 1996, the Democratic and Republican political establishments didn't want an independent political power to ever rise again. You see, you have to establish your relevancy, get enough of a percentage vote before even attending ONE debate! And after the debates, you still have to maintain a percentage vote.

Yes, we live in the so-called democracy where you supposedly have free speech. Here's the thing that your teachers never taught you, the little "secret" which isn't really a secret, but an observation you can make:

Yes, you have "free speech" but if we can make it so that no one listens to you, who cares? This is the exact strategy they are attempting to use to deflate the Ron Paul campaign.

The reasons the Paul campaign are taking off is as followed 1) The internet phenemon and 2)the Libertarian base he established in 2007 still grew strong.

The real reason corporations want a limit on the internet, is the discovery that just as it can be used for it's establishment candidates, so too can it be used by geniune Americans wanting real change.

Ultimately however, most Americans are still politically apathetic, and Ron Paul has never touched on this political apathy. Until he does, a return to the Constitutional Republic will be short lived. The people, content with their change man will be silent for a while before the collaspe begins again.

A Ron Paul election isn't a defeat for corporations as long as the people remain silent helpless political sheep. It's just a further delay in corporatism.

It's not grossly false and misleading. There is truth in that, even if its not the whole truth.

Doesn't matter how many parties there are, they all corrupt! Death at the hands of the rich is inevitable!

I'll take responsibility for that and I'll admit to political hyperbole to make my own case stronger. I apologize to you. It's true that political candidates have pandered to some third party positions in the past, but rather than that third party pointing out the fact that this position isn't a political position for them but rather a true party philosophy, the third party would rather surrender the fight. It's easier to walk away then try to climb mount everest.

Well, in Indonesia, there are around 3 major political party (from what I remember)

1. Demokrat
2. Golongan Karya
3. PDI Perjuangan

And there are around 20 minor political party, which I found quite a lot.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, haven't been to Indonesia for ages!

It's because in America (thanks to the electoral college) the Spoiler Effect is in full force:

People put an emphasis on parties that they really shouldn't. A party is a label. That's it. It doesn't tell you anything about what someone in the party actually is.

If someone tells you that candidate X is from the Democratic Party, then the only thing you know is that he's a Democrat. It doesn't tell you his views on immigration or how he would respond to a question on universal health care. If someone told you he was conservative when it came down to immigration and liberal in regards to health care, that at least paints a more accurate portrait.

Going back to the original question, why is it that most governments have only two to four parties, it's simple, really. The majority of the world's governments use the Plurality (more commonly referred to as First Past The Past) method as their preferred voting style for district seats.

The FPTP method is notorious because it heavily discourages the development of third parties (look up Duverger's law in poly-sci). Basically, because only one person can win, voters often tend to only vote for the candidates that look like they have the best chance of winning. Third parties then are left in the dust because they can't win a single seat, even if they make up a significant portion of the national vote. What we often times see then is members from these third parties merging with the larger parties in order to become, ya know, popular.

Kinda condensed, but there you have it. The wonders of plurality voting at their finest.

EDIT: Video above my post explains this so much better. AND IT HAS ANIMALSSSSS

In the western world the use Proportional Representation is much more common then FPTP though.

My bad, got those two flip-flopped.

PR itself, while allowing for more parties to join into the fray, isn't without its flaws. In a PR system, the larger number of actual parties in the legislature can often times lead to a highly inefficient system where nothing gets done because the diversity of opinion is so much that the parties themselves cannot come to a consensus. This is a positive, somewhat, because it encourages cooperation among the parties to build coalitions (and sometimes merge) in order to reach a majority in the government.

Coalition governments are highly effective; because they usually have a number of agreements and compromises between the parties involved, their ability to reach consensus and pass legislature is insane. The downside of coalitions is that they are incredibly unstable. They can fall apart easily, and this can lead to periods of stagnant political progress.

This is one of the main things a lot of political scientists point to when they try to defend the plurality voting method. A two-party system leads to more efficient governance because it ensures majority rule. Of course, this doesn't necessarily tip the balance in favor of the FPTP method. It just serves to illustrate the shortcomings of both voting systems.

I don't see how it's a good thing for the government to be "efficient" if being efficient means to go against the best interest of the people. If there's a diverse interest among the people, then there should be a diverse interest within the house of representatives. If you think the house of Representative should have similar ideas when the people do not, then the house of representatives does not accurately represent the people.

This is another reason why the federal government is too powerful; most issues are supposed be handled by the states. If the states handled most issues, then conservative states could have conservative legislation, and liberal states could have liberal legislation, etc