Does America Need a Third Political Party?

[Rithrandil]

I like this debate because it makes us really question some of the Founder's rationale.

I mean, the government was set up so it WOULDN'T work. It works well in crisis - even if you disagree with things like the PATRIOT act, our bureaucracy and branches move with remarkable speed and efficiency when the shit hits the fan.

...it's just very hard to get anything worthwhile done when there's not a threat of ULTIMATE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION looming over us like the sword of Damocles.

 

[magerette]

Hey, maybe that's why a Revolution would be just the thing, ya think? We all need to go out and buy some stock in pitchfork and torch manufacturers.

Unfortunately, I've seen the kind of people who want a revolution from the left, and they'd be stopping to smoke a joint and get a veggie-burger on the way to the March, while the people on the ultra right would have major problems instituting the Aryan Nation in a country where a growing minority population might have a few objections to Rule by the Whitest. What's left, miltary coup?

 

[Rithrandil]

Constitutional convention.

Problem is we could end up with a system far worse than we have now.

 

[Prime Junta]

I like this debate because it makes us really question some of the Founder's rationale.

I mean, the government was set up so it WOULDN'T work. It works well in crisis - even if you disagree with things like the PATRIOT act, our bureaucracy and branches move with remarkable speed and efficiency when the shit hits the fan.

…it's just very hard to get anything worthwhile done when there's not a threat of ULTIMATE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION looming over us like the sword of Damocles.

Good point, that.

Another point worth considering is that by now the USA is big enough that there just aren't that many things around that qualify for that position. What this means is that any government that wants to get anything done has to invent one, and then convince everybody that it's real. Sound familiar?

(Parliamentarism FTW. Except in a crisis.)

 

[Benedict]

Very interesting debate, and peek inside other countries' governments and how they work. Thanks to all for posting their insights. I can see that having various parties isn't an across the board solution necessarily, but it's very hard to visualize from here how a multiple party system wouldn't be an improvement over what we have now if only for one reason—the current stranglehold corporate lobbying and special interests have on both parties.

Thinking about it you'd get one other advantage - the politics of, to quote Obama, "if you lose, I win" only really work in a two party system. In a multi party system it'd probably be "you lose because I've flung shit at you, I lose because everyone can see I've flung shit at you and someone else wins because they're out of the cross fire and not behaving like an arsehole".

 

[dteowner]

Hey, maybe that's why a Revolution would be just the thing, ya think? We all need to go out and buy some stock in pitchfork and torch manufacturers.

Unfortunately, I've seen the kind of people who want a revolution from the left, and they'd be stopping to smoke a joint and get a veggie-burger on the way to the March, while the people on the ultra right would have major problems instituting the Aryan Nation in a country where a growing minority population might have a few objections to Rule by the Whitest. What's left, miltary coup?

Dammit, how many times do I have to say benevolent dictatorship?

Outside of that, we could go with Mad Max-esque armed anarchy with localized warlords, or perhaps corporate feudalism (kinda like the old company store / company town days), or perhaps we take the current trend to the extreme and become a Chinese province.

edit- oops! That last one was actually referring to the financial trend, rather than the political one. No need to revisit the whole socialism soup.

 

[Thrasher]

Yep, the US system was specifically setup to make change hard. i don't think adding more parties would make a difference. And 5 parties can be bought out just as easily as 2.

Not an easy problem to solve! Although I do think perhaps the parliamentary system while having fewer checks and balances is more agile.

 

[Rithrandil]

Good point, that.

Another point worth considering is that by now the USA is big enough that there just aren't that many things around that qualify for that position. What this means is that any government that wants to get anything done has to invent one, and then convince everybody that it's real. Sound familiar?

(Parliamentarism FTW. Except in a crisis.)

I think to realistically have more than 2 parties in the US you WOULD need a parliamentary system of some sort.

Problem is, again, we're led to a Constitutional Convention - something I am absolutely terrified of.

I basically think you would see the government of California become the model government of the entire country, and we'd all be screwed.

 

[KazikluBey]

There's only a very little of the democracy the founders envisioned left in the actual day to day workings of our government. I agree the Constitution is a great framework for an effective government 'by the people' but there's nothing that can't be subverted over time if you have enough power and influence.

Wasn't the point more to make it a government for the people, than by the people? Democracy (or, what we would now call direct-democracy) being a bit of a naughty word back in the 18th century (thanks in large part to Plato, I believe), and the founding fathers being more of the "res publica" strain, i.e. Roman-republic fans rather than ancient-Athens-democracy supporters.

Leading to things like the electorate system, as well as checks and balances to the offices the uneducated mob might vote someone malicious/incompetent into.

 

[magerette]

I'm far far from an expert on the authors of the documents in question, but I think you have both things going on: 'for' and 'by'.

My limited grasp of the situation suggests they did want 'the people' to govern themselves through election rather than be governed by an imposed foreign aristocracy, but their idea of 'people' and a classless society was indeed probably a lot different from our contemporary one; they intended a federalist union of states with a not necessarily hugely strong central government ,and all run by men(literally) of talent, ambition and property, rather than by an elite class entitled by birth and/or wealth.

I agree they probably had no intention of allowing governance by an uneducated herd (or a huge corporate oligarchy)—that's just the way it's worked out.

Rithrandil would probably be the one to shed more light on this, but had to throw in my $.02.

 

[Zaleukos]

EDIT: I think a lot of people overlook that the main benefit of democracy isnt that we necessarily get the best or even good leadership, but that we have mechanisms to boot leaders in an orderly and bloodless manner. Couple that with the other features of modern democracy, namely a broad franchise at least theoretically allows more people to voice their dissent, and checks and balances that should keep leaders from going over board. This all stems from a fairly pessimistic view of power and what it does to the people weilding it. I am sure Rith can point to some enlightment philosopher who put it better

Mags: I'd still say that the founding fathers' main concern was avoiding concentration of power and domination of one region or branch of government. This was both a matter of principle (power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely) and pragmatism (in order to get the south on board it was necessary to give the north less power than it's population and wealth would have warranted).

That is why you have a senate (to amplify the strength of small states), independent branches of government, and a relatively weak federal power structure.

So I agree with the statement that the system is set up to make it hard to govern, rather than with the futile vision to ensure good government it has the more modest aim to restrict the ability of bad government to do damage

(Parliamentarism FTW. Except in a crisis.)

I think that emergency routines are separate from, and to some extent independent of, the system used for everyday affairs.

Looking at historical precedent I doubt you can see much difference between parliamentary and presidential systems in crisis response. I can point to a lot of instances where parliamentary countries have responded to crisis by forming broad national coalition governments, or at least put partisanship aside for the duration of the crisis. UK during the world wars, Finland and Sweden during WW2, Sweden during the 90s financial/banking crisis (which hit our country WORSE than the current crisis and had some similarities to the US situation of today, but we put together a bipartisan package and a new framework for the public finances that still stand) all managed fine. During the cold war we had formalised plans for another WW2 style national coalition government in the event of war, and I am sure that would have worked well. Of course there are plenty of examples of where crisis has resulted in bickering and deadlock as well, but you can find that in presidential systems as well.

At any rate it is very important to have a high bar for any state of emergency/crisis powers, since it does have a huge potential for abuse. Countless tinpot dictators in Africa have banned all parties because "partisan bickering" is a problem in the current state of crisis (that tends to last for the dictator's entire lifetime). Latin American military coups follow the same logic, as did Franco, Napoleon, and Caesar…

Yep, the US system was specifically setup to make change hard. i don't think adding more parties would make a difference. And 5 parties can be bought out just as easily as 2.

I partially agree. Any system where it is easy to vote in someone yet not bought (3rd party votes in FPP systems tend to equal blank votes) will tend towards multiple parties.

That said I think unsound lobbyism and outright corruption is tackled best with other tools, mainly increased transparency (where you guys are relatively strong) and active and credible media (where you have issues, both in the quality of the media and in the population's tendency to discount anything that can be seen as viewed through the other party's goggles).

 

[txa1265]

I think that a strengthened Libertarian party and strengthened Green or whatever far left party would be a good thing. It looked for a bit like the Libertarians were going to gain traction on a small scale back in 2000 but the need to consolidate to do 'anything but more Clintonites' caused them to get brow-beaten into submission ... the typical 'you're either for us or against us' fear-mongering ...

 

[KazikluBey]

EDIT: I think a lot of people overlook that the main benefit of democracy isnt that we necessarily get the best or even good leadership, but that we have mechanisms to boot leaders in an orderly and bloodless manner. Couple that with the other features of modern democracy, namely a broad franchise at least theoretically allows more people to voice their dissent, and checks and balances that should keep leaders from going over board. This all stems from a fairly pessimistic view of power and what it does to the people weilding it. I am sure Rith can point to some enlightment philosopher who put it better

He's a renaissance political thinker, but Machiavelli actually holds just that view as laid out in his Discourses on Titus Livy. Early liberal enlightenment peeps (Locke, at least) pictured the (ideal) state as a neutral guarantor for personal liberty whereas Machiavelli pictured the (republican) state as being ruled by an elite with different interests from the people as a whole. The people therefore had to be politically active to guard their liberty from the elite. Both later and earlier thinkers have often considered dissent a weakness, but to Machiavelli it was actually a necessity if you wished to preserve a good, strong state based on liberty, exemplifying with the clashes between rulers and the ruled in the Roman republic and pointing to the good results the clashes had, such as the institution of the people's tribunes.

He also liked the thinking behind checks and balances, again exemplifying with the Roman republic: Its consulship (executive branch), the senate (legislative assembly), the people's tribunes having a veto to protect the interests of the people, and the right to bring matters such as abuse of power, libel and such to public justice.

 

[Zaleukos]

Given that Machiavelli was politically active in Italian city-state republics that were very conscious of these issues I think that makes a lot of sense.

I've only read the Prince, and while interesting it felt fairly useless when it came to practical policy. He mixes some insights with a sycophantic plea to take a stand against Ferdinand of Aragon (I got the feeling the whole point of the book is to rally the Italian nobility against this great bully)

Maybe I should look into his other work...

 

[KazikluBey]

The Discourses were much more enlightening as to his actual political views, some even go so far as to call The Prince a satire (Rousseau for example, according to Wikipedia). Machiavelli was, as you say, an Italian nationalist, but his main target of criticism for having prevented an Italian unification is the, in his opinion, utterly corrupt Catholic church. The church often allied itself with outside powers such as France (and Spain, IIRC) to achieve its "temporal" goals against local possible Italian unifiers. Cesare Borgia who is used as an example of an excellent prince is not only a rather unlikable character, but also the bastard child of a Pope.

Incidentally, Machiavelli's Discourses were translated to Swedish for the first time late in 2008 under the title "Republiken - Diskurser över de tio första böckerna av Titus Livius" (it also contains contemporary Francesco Giucciardini's commentary to the work) which received a glowing review in my morning newspaper, which is how I came to read it. All in all a rather enlightening view of the political thinking of the renaissance. Previously I thought the concept of checks-and-balances and such was pretty much an enlightenment concept, but the main strains of what the enlightenment brought seems to have been the social contract-thinking and a comparatively "extreme" individualism. And I forgot the third item of my list, but I'm sure I'd be simplifying the influence of the enlightenment even with it, so no matter.

 

[Rithrandil]

Kaziklu hit the nail on the head. I don't really have anything more to add - other than perhaps mentioning Montesquieu's tripartite system? He's also read Discourses, which I have unfortunately not been able to get around to between college and grad school and being broke.

As for the Prince, I'd say it is useful if you apply it properly. Many people walk away from it thinking the lesson is "be evil", whereas the lesson, more properly, is that politics/international relations/whatever is -at best - amoral. You're going to have to do some pretty nasty things to maintain power and survive, and if you're not willing to do that, you're not going to last.

I'd consider that a very valuable, important, and true lesson.

 

[dteowner]

I thought the traditional complaint on Il Principe was that it tended to be a little circular—the successful ruler does whatever makes him successful. While you're precisely correct about the actual lesson (IMO, of course), I kinda like the "be evil" oversimplification. Warms the shrivelled rotten prune that is my heart, it does.

 

[KazikluBey]

There's certainly an element of circularity to The Prince, but he also weighs various courses of actions for a number situations to provide some "hard" advice for a (would-be) renaissance prince. However, since many of the situations covered won't generally be applicable for an up-and-coming power monger in modern, Western society the lesson has to be boiled down to somewhat self-obvious statements if you wish to apply the principles to e.g. how to raise in contemporary corporatism.

Kaziklu hit the nail on the head. I don't really have anything more to add - other than perhaps mentioning Montesquieu's tripartite system?

I haven't read Montesquieu yet, so I can't really provide anything particularly specific, beyond the obvious: He clearly formulated the idea of checks-and-balances through division of power in government, the powers being the: executive, legislative and judicial, each being kept in check by the others. Even if the basic ideas weren't new, he had a decidedly large influence on later attempts at shaping constitutions, such as the American one which is, if I understand it correctly, almost a "schoolbook example" of an implementation of Montesquieu's ideas.

 

[mudsling3]

Debra Medina for TX governor

A real cup of tea party spirit unlike soda pop Palin full of CO - carbon moronized

Here is an interview done by Houston PBS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msSRcZb5tMQ

Keep an eye on her, for she will go the distance.

 

[SirJames]

If you look at the corporations who fund these presidential campaigns you'll notice that not only are these corps more economically powerful than most other countries, (eg. walmart is more powerful than Greece), but its largely the same corporations that fund BOTH campaigns. In the end theres no point adding a 3rd to the mix because it would cost too much for these corps to fund theirs too and make no real difference to anyone. There might as well just be one party, but that would break the illusion that you actually have a say in it.