patrick.net

Then Candidates would have Corporate sponsorship.
And McDonald's would let you know all the time.

"The following government was brought to you by..."

McDonald's "I'm loving it!"
and Geico "Just 15 minutes in the voting booth, could save you a ton on health insurance!"

>> What would happen if there were no political parties?

The result is known as "the Soviet Union" and "Nazi Germany".

The question you should be asking is: What happens when the election system favors the formation of ONLY TWO parties. The answer is "the USA".

The problem is that we have ONLY TWO parties. Two parties and single-winner districts are incredibly easy to corrupt by the wealthy, and the result is oligarchy.

komputudo, allow me to clarify.

First, note that the aforementioned concept of single winner districts is something that applies to the elections for congress, not typically for president.

Second, when it comes to the election for President, we ALREADY have a system where the president is elected amongst many candidates by approximately popular vote. Some individual states have a winner-takes-all system for the electoral college, and YES, we should go to direct popular vote for president, to ensure that the popular vote always wins. But that is NOT the main problem of the US election systems.

The more serious problem is how congressional representatives (lawmakers) are elected, where almost all states use a districted system where only one person can win per district. This inevitably whittles the competition down to two parties (or two candidates if no parties), becase any smaller party (candidate) will always lose. And once that happens (already happened 100+ years ago in the US), it is very easy to corrupt the system with money, because each potential candidate has to kowtow to whoever may donate money to their campaign or else is bound to lose.

Now back to the presidential election: It is also a winner takes all election. If there are three candidates A,B,C that get 33%,33%,34% of the votes then C wins. This means that often A and B are better off collaborating to beat C, so again we get in effect a 2-candiate system.

To take one more step back: The US has multiple election systems.

There is one set of election systems for electing congress. They vary to some degree from state to state, but most states have a winner-takes-all single-winner districted system that inevitably leads to the 2-party system that we have.

Then there is the election system for electing presidents. This system also has some state-by-state variation, with some states having a winner-takes-all for their electoral college representatives, while most have some sort of proportional representation.

Whenever I bring up the term "elections systems", almost everyone I know immediately starts thinking "oh yeah, that electoral college thing". But that is only a very small part of the overall problem. The real problem is the single-winner districts and the ensuing 2-party system.

A democracy is only as good as its election system. Crappy election systems yield crappy democracies.

The United States has a highly flawed democracy.

Many countries have much more well-functioning election systems and democracies than the US. But these countries are not superpowers, so they do not get noticed.

And the powers that be are NOT interested in improving US democracy.

komputodo says

What would happen if there were no political parties?

The solution is to get rid of the humans in Washington and automate their jobs. If we can automate thousands of other jobs, we can automate government. I'll take open source software over corrupt humans any day.

I don't know Scrum masters are some of the biggest Nazis out there.

What would happen if there were no political parties?

The Captain would have no one to hate and would be forced to face his anger issues. Angry Florida Republican would follow suit and liberal therapists all over Florida would reap huge financial rewards.

They would buy huge houses in gated communities, then begin hating those neighbors whose lawns weren't as manicured as theirs. They would hire day laborers or illegals to mow said lawns and do other housework, and then get together to form groups to deny those laborers the same privileges as they have.

They would form the wealthy liberal therapist party, which would spread across the country. The next president would be a wealthy liberal therapist...

chaos. pure chaos.

Your opening sentences contradict each other.

elliemae says

What would happen if there were no political parties?

The Captain would have no one to hate and would be forced to face his anger issues. Angry Florida Republican would follow suit and liberal therapists all over Florida would reap huge financial rewards.

komputodo says

Angry Florida citizens would follow suit and therapists all over Florida would reap huge financial rewards.

The therapists would hold a great disdain for those lesser people who serve them and there would be born a political party to serve the interests of those therapists.

And there would again be political parties. As well as hot-tub parties.

The first therapist that tried to work me over, would end up being the New Neocon, with his own 24 hour talk show bitching about people who think they know everybody else, and what is best.

Political parties will always spontaneously arise, since representative governments work by taking votes, and on various issues, you will have some like minded people voting similarly. Out of convenience, they'll create a party.

Look at how things work in Europe - anyone can make a party, and so, there are a lot more than two, and governments tend to be coalitions of various parties that can get along politically.

I think it would be wonderful to break the Republicans' and Democrat's stranglehold on politics, so that the the libertarians, greens, commies, anarchists, and whoever else, can be elected if their voters so desire. More variety in politics is good, and what I especially love about coalition governments is that the coalitions always collapse, leading to inaction. Since everything government does is evil, inaction is a wonderful thing :)

myob says

I think it would be wonderful to break the Republicans' and Democrat's stranglehold on politics, so that the the libertarians, greens, commies, anarchists, and whoever else, can be elected if their voters so desire.

Not only that, but we would get much more serious alternatives than some of the ones you listed. And some of the existing parties would have to show their true nature, because there would be alternatives to them.

myob says

More variety in politics is good, and what I especially love about coalition governments is that the coalitions always collapse, leading to inaction. Since everything government does is evil, inaction is a wonderful thing :)

Inaction is not a good thing. Action that is supported by a clear majority, on a case-by-case basis, is a generally a good thing. That is what democracy is supposed to do: To enact the will of the people as much as possible.

Maybe the sheeple would think for themselves?

elliemae says

The Captain would have no one to hate and would be forced to face his anger issues.

No, I think he'd find groups to hate: blacks, gays, intellectuals, liberals, people who can read or tie their shoes...

Call it Crazy says

Not a chance.. Hell will freeze over first!!

I guess it goes to the human condition, and how far it has to go

komputodo says

Then Candidates would have Corporate sponsorship.

Oh you mean like that's not happening already? The entire US political system was already pretty much already owned by corporations and outside money. After 2010 and citizen's united it became even more so.

As far as having no political parties, well that would pretty much mean either one of several scenarios. It would mean either a monarchy of sorts or some other one-rule situation or there would be total chaos. All throughout human civilization there has been the need for governance and without that you get chaos.

Put it in another way asking people what it would be like without political parties would be like suggesting Lions shouldn't have prides.

edvard2 says

Then Candidates would have Corporate sponsorship.

Oh you mean like that's not happening already? The entire US political system was already pretty much already owned by corporations and outside money. After 2010 and citizen's united it became even more so.

Ummm..sorry..cap'n shuddup said that, not me. I was already well aware of that.

yeah, I have the capn' on ignore. I copied from your post so I guess that's why it said it was from you. So my bad.

Silicon Valley congressional race: Honda (D) (labor money) versus Khanna (D) (business/new entrepreneur money). Welcome to the single party state.

BTW, this is edvard2's district. Have you decided who you're voting for?

Not my district actually, I don't live in the valley, just work there.

@edvard2, The candidate forum was at Fremont city hall, so I assumed that is your district. I guess the 17th District splits Fremont (and you're north of it?)

Dan8267 says

No, I think he'd find groups to hate: blacks, gays, intellectuals, liberals, people who can read or tie their shoes...

Today's Democratic party, if you add labor. "People who can read or tie their shoes" are those academics the right always complains about-- the ones poisoning our youth with ideas about the world being round, and Columbus' penchant for rape and murder. Is nothing sacred??? :)

CL says

Dan8267 says

No, I think he'd find groups to hate: blacks, gays, intellectuals, liberals, people who can read or tie their shoes...

Today's Democratic party, if you add labor. "People who can read or tie their shoes" are those academics the right always complains about-- the ones poisoning our youth with ideas about the world being round, and Columbus' penchant for rape and murder. Is nothing sacred??? :)

I must have been a republican until I was about 28 when then I turned democrat..It was at that age when I realized all those years I'd been tying my laces with a granny knot.

EBGuy says

@edvard2, The candidate forum was at Fremont city hall, so I assumed that is your district. I guess the 17th District splits Fremont (and you're north of it?)

Is it still called Fremont or little Kabul?

komputodo says

I must have been a republican until I was about 28 when then I turned democrat..It was at that age when I realized all those years I'd been tying my laces with a granny knot.

Identifying yourself with a political party is a fools errand. The only thing that matters are the issues.

indigenous says

Identifying yourself with a political party is a fools errand. The only thing that matters are the issues.

Yes, that was the point of this thread!

EBGuy says

@edvard2, The candidate forum was at Fremont city hall, so I assumed that is your district. I guess the 17th District splits Fremont (and you're north of it?)

Nope. I live pretty far away from SV and its environs. All I will say is that I have one hell of a commute.

komputodo says

I must have been a republican until I was about 28 when then I turned democrat..It was at that age when I realized all those years I'd been tying my laces with a granny knot.

I wasn't really political until I got out of college. It didn't matter to me much because my family was split 50/50 in regards to Republicans and Democrats: so the topic of politics was a taboo subject not to be discussed.

What's interesting is that the more I learned about the world and relocated to a few major cities with many other people from elsewhere that I turned more towards the Democratic party.

That said I increasingly feel that both parties are poisoned by outside money and being used as puppets. But I feel that the GOP's choice of tactics, which is to remain static in a changing world, is foolhardy and not beneficial. I don't see that party changing anytime soon.

But I digress: So long as the system is controlled by money and less by the voters then the longer it will be that nothing will really get done.

indigenous says

Identifying yourself with a political party is a fools errand. The only thing that matters are the issues.

Well, no. People will associate for a variety of reasons: some are tactical and some are birds of a feather. Union members might not be feminists, and ethnic minorities might dislike each other, but they have a home in the Democratic party. They do NOT have a home in the GOP.

We know that out of expedience (and other factors) a party will shift or rapidly change. The GOP would like to shift to being welcoming to non-whites, but runs the risk of alienating the racist wing of the party. When either:
*It becomes more advantageous to drop the racists and pick up minorities;
*or the minorities stop recoiling and become open to voting GOP
you will see the party shift constituencies.

In America, if you intend to effect change, you can almost certainly only do so through the 2-party apparatus. As pointless as that sounds, you can do it by pushing rightward or leftward in the primaries. You can vote for a 3rd party, if only to punish your ideological peers for not being as "pure" as you are. You can support the candidate in your party that most closely resembles your beliefs. The real winner in the primaries will absorb your candidate's position to steal his/her votes. Or they won't. Odds are if they don't, you and your friends are about the only people who believe what you believe anyway, or else that electoral gold would have been mined.

So, I say, identify with a party, but be on the lookout for the shifts. To know if you care about the shifts, you have to know what it is you believe in the first place.

And THAT is the point of the thread. Voters don't know what they believe until someone tells them what to think. Preferably, a teevee man. Or a whole team of men in blond wigs. I'm looking at you, Fox!

justme says

Inaction is not a good thing. Action that is supported by a clear majority, on a case-by-case basis, is a generally a good thing. That is what democracy is supposed to do: To enact the will of the people as much as possible.

I do not believe that majority rule is a good thing, since majorities take it upon themselves to rule far too many things.

If the 51% disapprove of inter-racial marriage, is it right to forbid it for the 49% who do?
if 49% want peace, but 51% want war, is war desirable?

I could come up with lots of silly hypotheticals where the majority shouldn't necessarily decide the outcome.

What I would love to know is how to convince the majority to fuck off, and let people live their lives as they see fit for themselves.

myob says

What I would love to know is how to convince the majority to fuck off, and let people live their lives as they see fit for themselves.

That is called anarchy: Every individual deciding for themselves what is legal and what is not.

Once you saw the result of that, somehow I think you would change your mind. Or start rationalizing why other people should do as you wish, while you yourself should be under no obligation to do what other people wish. That system turns into a might-is-right society, a sort of feudalism. Be careful what your theoretical ideals might turn into.

One more time....

sbh says

aaannnddd CUT!

Will I have to pay you a royalty for using that?

justme says

That is called anarchy: Every individual deciding for themselves what is legal and what is not.

I wasn't objecting to abandoning order, I just think democracy is an awful way to do it.

I don't want the will of the majority planning my water service, or trash service, or police service, since those decisions inevitably happen through proxies (representatives) who are easily corruptible, and who are paid to legislate, so once they tackle big things like murder, they move onto what color should be allowed for your house, or how many pets you can have, trivial shit. If these things were controlled by direct vote, it would be even worse.

What I want to see is a strict, constitutional form of government, which outlaws things like murder, and defines things like contract law, so that these things aren't up for dispute, but leaves is very simple, then allow people to define their own governments locally. If they want to try socialism, let them. If they want to try pure capitalism, let them. Basically, delegate as much governance as possible as close to its victims as possible.

I don't want some stooge in Washington DC deciding how I build my house in CA, for example.