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On October 17 2013 07:02 Too_MuchZerg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2013 04:15 Asymmetric wrote:On October 17 2013 04:05 Roe wrote: Would this kind of thing have happened if there were a third party in power? Say Democrats, Republicans, Libertarian/Tea Party were the parties. It's actually usually harder to gain the support to pass legislation in multi-party parliaments. Especially if that third party is libertarian, the only federal budget they would agree to is a lack of one. Its not really. Finland has six party government ruling at the moment (vs two opposition parties) aka six-pack. There were some isues what each party gets and don't get when coalition talks started but everything has been running well. Still only 118 MPs (of 200 total) forms majority. At least every legislation work will be checked by 6 parties before being passed on.
yeah, thats a fact, multi-party has no harm whatsoever
its just a **** excuse of big parties afraid to lose their power
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On October 17 2013 07:08 sharkie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2013 07:02 Too_MuchZerg wrote:On October 17 2013 04:15 Asymmetric wrote:On October 17 2013 04:05 Roe wrote: Would this kind of thing have happened if there were a third party in power? Say Democrats, Republicans, Libertarian/Tea Party were the parties. It's actually usually harder to gain the support to pass legislation in multi-party parliaments. Especially if that third party is libertarian, the only federal budget they would agree to is a lack of one. Its not really. Finland has six party government ruling at the moment (vs two opposition parties) aka six-pack. There were some isues what each party gets and don't get when coalition talks started but everything has been running well. Still only 118 MPs (of 200 total) forms majority. At least every legislation work will be checked by 6 parties before being passed on. yeah, thats a fact, multi-party has no harm whatsoeverits just a **** excuse of big parties afraid to lose their power
haha it's funny that you as an Austrian is saying that...
It's of course not perfect but compared to what is going on in the US it is superior for sure.
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On October 17 2013 07:08 sharkie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2013 07:02 Too_MuchZerg wrote:On October 17 2013 04:15 Asymmetric wrote:On October 17 2013 04:05 Roe wrote: Would this kind of thing have happened if there were a third party in power? Say Democrats, Republicans, Libertarian/Tea Party were the parties. It's actually usually harder to gain the support to pass legislation in multi-party parliaments. Especially if that third party is libertarian, the only federal budget they would agree to is a lack of one. Its not really. Finland has six party government ruling at the moment (vs two opposition parties) aka six-pack. There were some isues what each party gets and don't get when coalition talks started but everything has been running well. Still only 118 MPs (of 200 total) forms majority. At least every legislation work will be checked by 6 parties before being passed on. yeah, thats a fact, multi-party has no harm whatsoever its just a **** excuse of big parties afraid to lose their power Its more about the excuse of minority voteing blocks afraid to lose their power by voteing for people they know don't have a chance to win with the way that power is divided by representative elections. with the all or nothing system people have to be strategic in how they vote instead of tactically voteing.
If we had a proportional system it'll be different but we can't have election reform in america without weakening how much power minority blocks (not racial but ideological minority blocks) have on their respective majorites.
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On October 17 2013 07:11 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2013 07:08 sharkie wrote:On October 17 2013 07:02 Too_MuchZerg wrote:On October 17 2013 04:15 Asymmetric wrote:On October 17 2013 04:05 Roe wrote: Would this kind of thing have happened if there were a third party in power? Say Democrats, Republicans, Libertarian/Tea Party were the parties. It's actually usually harder to gain the support to pass legislation in multi-party parliaments. Especially if that third party is libertarian, the only federal budget they would agree to is a lack of one. Its not really. Finland has six party government ruling at the moment (vs two opposition parties) aka six-pack. There were some isues what each party gets and don't get when coalition talks started but everything has been running well. Still only 118 MPs (of 200 total) forms majority. At least every legislation work will be checked by 6 parties before being passed on. yeah, thats a fact, multi-party has no harm whatsoeverits just a **** excuse of big parties afraid to lose their power haha it's funny that you as an Austrian is saying that... It's of course not perfect but compared to what is going on in the US it is superior for sure.
The only core problem with the US system at the moment is that its gerrymandered to point where it pushes people to the extremes. Its not that 3 parties are needed its merely that districts must be drawn not by the politicians who will be drawing them to there own benefit but by neutral arbiters and with that you would get a congress we deserve.
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On October 17 2013 09:20 Adreme wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2013 07:11 Doublemint wrote:On October 17 2013 07:08 sharkie wrote:On October 17 2013 07:02 Too_MuchZerg wrote:On October 17 2013 04:15 Asymmetric wrote:On October 17 2013 04:05 Roe wrote: Would this kind of thing have happened if there were a third party in power? Say Democrats, Republicans, Libertarian/Tea Party were the parties. It's actually usually harder to gain the support to pass legislation in multi-party parliaments. Especially if that third party is libertarian, the only federal budget they would agree to is a lack of one. Its not really. Finland has six party government ruling at the moment (vs two opposition parties) aka six-pack. There were some isues what each party gets and don't get when coalition talks started but everything has been running well. Still only 118 MPs (of 200 total) forms majority. At least every legislation work will be checked by 6 parties before being passed on. yeah, thats a fact, multi-party has no harm whatsoeverits just a **** excuse of big parties afraid to lose their power haha it's funny that you as an Austrian is saying that... It's of course not perfect but compared to what is going on in the US it is superior for sure. The only core problem with the US system at the moment is that its gerrymandered to point where it pushes people to the extremes. Its not that 3 parties are needed its merely that districts must be drawn not by the politicians who will be drawing them to there own benefit but by neutral arbiters and with that you would get a congress we deserve. Extremes are caused by the 2 party system, not by gerrymandering. If only 2 parties matter they will always become opposites and push each other further away from the center.
Gerrymandering just keeps politicians in power against popular opinion.
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On October 17 2013 09:38 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2013 09:20 Adreme wrote:On October 17 2013 07:11 Doublemint wrote:On October 17 2013 07:08 sharkie wrote:On October 17 2013 07:02 Too_MuchZerg wrote:On October 17 2013 04:15 Asymmetric wrote:On October 17 2013 04:05 Roe wrote: Would this kind of thing have happened if there were a third party in power? Say Democrats, Republicans, Libertarian/Tea Party were the parties. It's actually usually harder to gain the support to pass legislation in multi-party parliaments. Especially if that third party is libertarian, the only federal budget they would agree to is a lack of one. Its not really. Finland has six party government ruling at the moment (vs two opposition parties) aka six-pack. There were some isues what each party gets and don't get when coalition talks started but everything has been running well. Still only 118 MPs (of 200 total) forms majority. At least every legislation work will be checked by 6 parties before being passed on. yeah, thats a fact, multi-party has no harm whatsoeverits just a **** excuse of big parties afraid to lose their power haha it's funny that you as an Austrian is saying that... It's of course not perfect but compared to what is going on in the US it is superior for sure. The only core problem with the US system at the moment is that its gerrymandered to point where it pushes people to the extremes. Its not that 3 parties are needed its merely that districts must be drawn not by the politicians who will be drawing them to there own benefit but by neutral arbiters and with that you would get a congress we deserve. Extremes are caused by the 2 party system, not by gerrymandering. If only 2 parties matter they will always become opposites and push each other further away from the center. Gerrymandering just keeps politicians in power against popular opinion.
History suggests you are wrong though. The representative people elect is usually tied to the type of district it is, a far right district elects a far right republican and vice-versa. The problem is you now have a bunch of far right and far left districts and only 22 competitive districts out of 435. Those 22 are the only ones where you are likely to get a more middle of the road candidate because that's all that can win an election. The reason you don't often get a 3rd party candidate is that all they usually do is split the conservative or liberal vote and allow the republican or democrat to win a race they would not have won before.
Edit: The gerrymandering keeps them popular in there own districts despite being vastly unpopular in the nation as a whole and that's the big problem.
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The effect of gerrymandering is overstated in the first place. Optimal gerrymandering creates districts with a +5 or something PVI in favor of the party doing the gerrymandering, not a +30 distict. +30 districts are useless when you're gerrymandering, and those districts are where the tea party holds their base. America has become more polarized along certain lines over the last few years, and the tea party districts are just where the crazy is the strongest.
It's essentially a protest party like the BNP in england and the freedom party in the netherlands: uneducated, largely 'white', feeling threatened by immigrants and other signs of 'losing their identity'. Those ideas fit into other belief systems and take root more strongly in certain areas, like it does here also.
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Perhaps the problem is less gerrymandering per se, and more electing people who are incompetent to govern or run anything. Quite frankly, it feels like the system is setup to choose people who are good at talking, not good at governing. This means it's a system setup to choose conmen. I'd like to fully overhaul the whole system; we've learned so much we could easily make a better system right now. Some stupid republican rep on cnn is now saying he's voting no on keeping the government open, because it doesn't address long term budget issues enough. As if tanking the world economy will help with that; if they want to deal with long term issues, they should actually do so, instead of talking about it and doing irrelevant nonsense. It's really sad how trivially easy it would be to a better job of legislating than is currently being done. We would probably do better just by selecting people from the voting rolls at random to be in congress; which is really terrible, a process that selects one people out of a half million to represent, should do a better job than the average person on the street.
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The bill passed, business as usual tomorrow - and this wasn't completely planned out right?

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Govt reopened. debt ceiling extended. Everyone get back in the US Megapolitics thread.
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United States24682 Posts
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