A Simple Question
Hello. My name' s not really Napoleon Park. That's actually my porn star name based on the formula "your first pets name plus the street you lived on as a child."
I'm not that politically astute either. In fact my main function at the Yahoo! group I co-moderate is to discourage people from talking about p*l*t*cs.
Funny that I'd be a moderator, since politically I guess I am a moderate. Yeah, I'm an aging hippy and tend to swing Dem. I stand in the middle but tend to lean to the left.
I know there are people with extremely strong political convictions and it seems the further out on either wing they get, the stronger their convictions.
Let's suppose, hypothetically, that this made sense. Let's say that of the two major parties (blue/red), or the two main extremes of thought (left/right) that one was always correct and the other was always wrong. That one was basically good and the other evil.
Since power tends to fluctuate from one side of the spectrum to the other depending on the whims of the voters and the charisma of the candidates or the nature of the issues, what does that say about the American public that half the time they're willing to elect the 'bad' candidate? If p*l*t*cs came own to simple extremes, black/white, good/evil, right/wrong, wouldn't that make a mockery of the two party system? If, you know, one party is always wrong. And if half the voters choose to elect wrongness, evil, selfishness and the path to destruction, what does that say about democracy?
Of course if the center position is always correct, that makes extremist on both wings and members of both big parties wrong a lot of the time. That may be even worse.
I'm thinking it may be much more complex than simply "Party A if you're rich, party B isf you're oppressed" I don't think one party can claim religion or patriotism for itself and vilify the other side as traitorous heathens. I think we may need to examine our candidates on a position by position and issue by issue basis, and try to have an open mind while we do it.
Hey, that's it for my first blog post ever. I'm hoping some folks a little more knowledgable and opinionated show up. This is really not my area of expertise, hence the naive observation.
The simple question isn;t "In a two party system, how can one side always be wrong"? The question is, "How can anyone seriously believe that"?
[So what do I do, sign my name or does it do that automatically. I told you, I never did this before. Anyway, I'm Napoleon Park and that's what I have to say.]
I'm not that politically astute either. In fact my main function at the Yahoo! group I co-moderate is to discourage people from talking about p*l*t*cs.
Funny that I'd be a moderator, since politically I guess I am a moderate. Yeah, I'm an aging hippy and tend to swing Dem. I stand in the middle but tend to lean to the left.
I know there are people with extremely strong political convictions and it seems the further out on either wing they get, the stronger their convictions.
Let's suppose, hypothetically, that this made sense. Let's say that of the two major parties (blue/red), or the two main extremes of thought (left/right) that one was always correct and the other was always wrong. That one was basically good and the other evil.
Since power tends to fluctuate from one side of the spectrum to the other depending on the whims of the voters and the charisma of the candidates or the nature of the issues, what does that say about the American public that half the time they're willing to elect the 'bad' candidate? If p*l*t*cs came own to simple extremes, black/white, good/evil, right/wrong, wouldn't that make a mockery of the two party system? If, you know, one party is always wrong. And if half the voters choose to elect wrongness, evil, selfishness and the path to destruction, what does that say about democracy?
Of course if the center position is always correct, that makes extremist on both wings and members of both big parties wrong a lot of the time. That may be even worse.
I'm thinking it may be much more complex than simply "Party A if you're rich, party B isf you're oppressed" I don't think one party can claim religion or patriotism for itself and vilify the other side as traitorous heathens. I think we may need to examine our candidates on a position by position and issue by issue basis, and try to have an open mind while we do it.
Hey, that's it for my first blog post ever. I'm hoping some folks a little more knowledgable and opinionated show up. This is really not my area of expertise, hence the naive observation.
The simple question isn;t "In a two party system, how can one side always be wrong"? The question is, "How can anyone seriously believe that"?
[So what do I do, sign my name or does it do that automatically. I told you, I never did this before. Anyway, I'm Napoleon Park and that's what I have to say.]
posted by Napoleon Park at 3:00 AM
1 Comments:
Well done, Nappy, and as you point out, the two party system is a joke. Our third party candidates are throwaway votes for the most part, and no third party has emerged to exert any power on any government level. Some countries have dozens and no one really knows whom they are voting for either, but because they just don't know them, not because they are simply hiding behind a single buzzworthy issue or two. The members of each party vote a party line or the (seemingly) most similar candidate if one of their party isn't represented. Which is better?
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