Does America Need a Third Political Party?

Does America Need a Third Political Party?

  • Yes, and it should represent the libertarian right

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Yes, but it should represent the far left

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • America needs more than one additional party

    Votes: 18 75.0%
  • No, two parties are enough

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • None of the above

    Votes: 2 8.3%

  • Total voters
    24
A bit LTTP, but since this has drifted into campaign finance... we have a major ongoing scandal about that. I think I've even mentioned it here a few times. The more they dig, the more shit comes to the surface; yesterday there was a headline that one of our permanent politicians, a many-times-over Cabinet Minister called Ilkka Kanerva (until now best known for sexting blonde bimbos) is under investigation by the police for corruption.

Our system is incredibly opaque. There is a law that requires politicians to disclose where they get their campaign funding, but there aren't any penalties for noncompliance. Surprise surprise, it's been largely ignored.

A big part of the story is that because we're a small country, "everybody knows everybody." That is, the politicians, journalists, and pillars of the industry were all chummy with each other, which made back-cabinet deals very easy. This scandal only broke because there were some young journos fresh out of school who weren't familiar with the "custom of the land," as they call it, and started digging into stuff that "everybody" knew about but nobody mentioned.

Fortunately, one effect of this mess has been that the laws have been reformed; now the law has some teeth. Public scrutiny is also much more intense all of a sudden. Also, there *do* appear to be a few politicians who have only been marginally involved in this, and want things to change. IOW, I have hopes that our system will come out of this better than it went in, even if our illusion of being one of the lowest-corruption countries in the world has been shattered.

The basis of the new legislation is that pretty much everything above some trivial amount has to be disclosed, or there will be consequences.
 
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