America's new religions.

[eldritch48]

Against my better judgement, due to boredom at work, I started browsing through some internet forums over the last couple of weeks, and I've come to the conclusion that Left or Right, liberal or conservative, Americans are more religious than ever...they just have a new belief structure

Comments

[otakubilly]

Amen...

[eldritch48]

We need a multi-party system. Americans somehow have to get away from their current obsession with black and white easy situations and solutions. There are more than two ways to skin any cat.

[otakubilly]

Heh... not to continue the religion analegy, but you're preaching to the choir on that one. Thing is, we're not really IN a truely in-the-rules two-party system. The system can handle more than just 2 parties, but since the 2 parties that are currently in power have convinced the people that this is how it has to be and have set things up to reinforce this view, most people don't seriously consider third parties when it comes time to vote, since it's so much easier to just vote for an elephant or donkey. I know many, many people who say they would vote for X party, but that you're just wasting your vote unless you vote for one of the big two, so people just keep voting that way, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we could get people to actually vote for who they REALLY think SHOULD win, not just choose between two bad choices, we might actually start to see a few changes and some new parties will start to gain power. After all, even if a party doesn't win, if they get a certain percentage of the votes, they actually start

[eldritch48]

Well, I'd agree with you except for the office of president...which, due to the electoral college, pretty much at this point self regulates into two parties. A percentage doesn't matter unless you win.

I want a parliment.

I briefly toyed with the idea of starting a political lobby/entity after the elections last year, but came to the conclusion that it would be an excellent way for me to lose friends ;)

I don't think we're going to get a significant change until we have to cope with a disaster that our current system can't manage...and I'm a little afraid of what that will be, because eventually, it *will* happen.

[otakubilly]

Actually, I was referring to the presidential election as far as the percentages. Aside from the electoral colleges, there's a rule somewhere that states that if a party gets a certain percentage (don't know the exact numbers) of the popular votes, they automaticly get put on the ballots next time around and get part of the electoral funds.

As for the electoral colleges... I don't really see how it self-regulates into two parties... true, they have to have a majority of the colleges to win, but any number of parties can get the colleges' votes. If I remember correctly, if there's no majority, the two front runners have a run-off vote.

But yeah, it's most likely going to take something pretty major happening to get any major changes to happen, and that event, whatever it is, will not be pleasant for anyone living in the country (or maybe the world) at that time. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that it'll probably be within my lifetime.

[goawayplease]

I believe it's 5% to get funding.

There's no "run-off". A tie gets settled in Congress:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College

[goawayplease]

You know, I've been looking at the electoral college maps from nationalatlas.gov lately, and we've had viable third parties before, even with the electoral college... If you get a chance, take a look at the ones around 1912 with the progressive party. We've had third parties for a long time -- it's only recently that we stopped having them. The Republicans were a third party at one point...

On a side note, one really interesting one is in 1864, where Lincoln won during the Civil War with around half the vote, but almost all the states...

[otakubilly]

Ah, thank you... I'm always a little weak when it comes to finding the numbers and specific examples... I'll remember the general parts of something, but then forget where, exactly, I heard it in the first place...

[goawayplease]

Google + wikipedia are your friends...