SRL Archive - Discussions & Debates

We had an interesting debate in government today (US gov). We were trying to decide if the current 2 party system we have has failed us in the years. I heard many points, some I agree with, and some I do not. I wanted to collect some responses from people not as Liberal as my school/town, and hopefully some responses from other countries.

By this, I mean Republican vs Democrats in the US, where as Britain has (if I'm correct) multiple parties to choose from.

I understand the US also has other parties, but they are very small and considered a wasted vote.

Apparently one of the reasons Al Gore lost in the 2000 presidential elections was that many people voted for a third party who otherwise would have voted democrats.



As you heard many points, I think it would be good if you posted them and told us why you disagreed with some, because right now I don't really know where to start.

Still really only 2 main parties. All systems have their ups and downs - those with too diverse parties tend to mean there are no main parties leading to it being harder to get things done or parties who only represent a small proportion of the people being given too much power. Those with only one or two main parties and lots/no small parties can lead to an almost dictatorship-like environment. It then also depends on if the people involved in making decisions are representative of the population or depends on the winning parties - if it's representative and there's 2 main parties, then they would both have to get on board to get anything done, where as a non-representative one would give one more power perhaps even if it had overall less voters. Just ignore me though since I'm too lazy to go into further detail - wikipedia has in depth info on the various political systems.

In Canada we currently have three (four if you include the Bloc Québécois). In Canada we have a constitutional democracy. The three parties include the Conservatives, the Liberals and the New Democratic Party. Having multiple parties sounds great as a concept UNTIL you get a minority government. Then nothing gets done. And it becomes even worse when who votes for who becomes regional problem and not a national problem. A lot of central Canada is for the NDP while a lot of french Canadian would vote for the Bloc Québécois. So while in my area (Winnipeg, MB) we may have a NDP majority in the municipal system we still have the conservative party or the Liberal party usually controlling all the federal stuff.

Bloc Québécois is very much a party, thank you :P

The best I can see is France's. There are two rounds, in the first one there are multiple parties involved, but only those who gather at least 20% of votes get to the next one. It makes politicians able to see which way the wind blows before the real thing happens.

From: Cigue
Bloc Québécois is very much a party, thank you :P

[rant] They're a joke. It's pretty much having your wife nagging in your ear on every decision you try to make, bitching about getting a divorce and leaving you, when secretly you could care less and actually hope that she would pack up and move along. [/rant]

Pros:

-With multiple parties, decisions such as abortion, gay marriage, etc. can feature voter intensity, such as one party thinks it is completely wrong versus another that is for it in every way. This is opposed to the 2 party system because there's only a pro life/pro choice idea, and not much inbetween.

-More specific. The 2 party system generalizes many things in them, and you may agree with one issue that is featured in the republican party, but disagree with another.


Cons:

-Stuff never gets done. There is too much conflict over the issues that legislation would basically never be passed.

-America is stupid. The two party system simplifies politics for people. With multiple parties, people will have to read indepth on all parties, which I don't think americans would do, and voting rates would drop.

-As someone said, a minority government. 51/49 split for demo/repub at least agrees with half the population, which is a majority, but say, in a 5 party system, if it were to be a close election, say only 30% would be in control, making it a minority government.

-Changes to the political system that we currently have would be extreme. We are talking about changing Congress in many ways to feature all parties, the way legislation is passed, etc.


I hope I didn't contradict myself too much, but any anti-arguments to those, or more?

From: Ejjman1
-America is stupid. The two party system simplifies politics for people. With multiple parties, people will have to read indepth on all parties, which I don't think americans would do, and voting rates would drop.

Actually, two parties is still too confusing to a lot of the people at my school. I've met lots of people who wanted to vote (16-17 old so they can't yet [thankfully]) that didn't like Obama because he's Socialist and a terrorist. I've also met a lot of people who get offended when you say a single bad thing about Obama but they don't even know what he supports, or why they like him.

My main issue with American politics is that you have the conservative party (the Republicans) and the not-as-much-so-but-still-fairly-conservative party (the Democrats), and there aren't any third parties worth mentioning to fill the other half of the scale.




(Pirate Party ftw, etc)