If we are ever going to move away from a two party system.

Like I said, I think all Clinton supporters should register as independents after the last primary, or if she drops out, that very day.

That might scare the DNC.

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

” … we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender …”- Winston Churchill

Considering Donna Brazile’s stunningly stupid and clueless statement, perhaps it is time to build a new party. Maybe it’s time we had a REAL Labor Party, rather than working class voters forever trying to figure out which party will do them the least damage. If the CW prevails, this will be another one of those years, and I would bet McCain gets the better of those votes. I would expect him to make a lot of hay out of Donna’s stupidity.

I think it was just business.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

That would be short for “Bitter Bible-Thumping, Gun-Toting Old Bigots” Party

—————————————————————————-
” … we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender …”- Winston Churchill

The Democrats are like the Liberals, who I despise (hey, you live with Gordon Campbell and tell me how you feel), the Republicans are like the Conservatives. I, and I think a lot of people in this country are waking up to this idea as well this election, am more aligned with the NDP, or New Democratic Party. (And though most people think of separatism when they think of the Bloc Québécois, they are, in fact, very progressive and I have a secret love affair with them, as do most my friends in BC who lament the fact that they cannot vote for them since they are a Québéc only party.)

I’m a fan of the Single Transferable vote system myself.

happily immune to all religious indoctrination

I figure that’s for rapid evacuation if the Quebekkers take over.

Canadians are lovely people, with a beautiful country, but without open borders and the strength of the US economy they would be very poor and huddling in the cold. We need to look to our own solutions.

they just want to be their own country. And their political system is so much better then ours.

happily immune to all religious indoctrination

do not have god-presidents. There’s a reason why both countries tolerate multiple regional parties, and that’s because there’s no single irreplaceable office to take. The Prime Minister sits in Parliament and his executive actions are functions of Parliament.

We have a hideous little troglodyte sitting in 24 Sussex right now whose main goal is to consolidate US executive style power in the PMs office and to gut armslength Parliamentary regulatory agencies, so Canada may end up more like the US eventually that way. To be fair, previous PMs have tried to do so with varying success.

I might have to seek refuge there after November.

———————————————————————
” … we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender …”- Winston Churchill

Canada would not be poor and huddling in the cold. Without the USA, we’d have lots of oil to burn, as well, as ample firewood.

By they I assume you mean Canada. It has given them a neocon government just as vicious and rapacious as BushCo, so so much for “better”.

I like Canadians, very much, and have many Canadian friends, but their solutions are not our solutions and their approach has not preserved them from government supported torture and environmental destruction. We’ll have to sort it out for ourselves instead of modelling after others.

(I know what the Bloc Québécois advocate, I was making a joke. You may not have noticed, but the popularity of the Québécois in Québéc has all but evaporated - for good reason. Foolishness, all of it.)

Simmer down.

I chafe at the idea that Canada, or the UK, have some moral superiority to the US. Different, not “better” across the board. And without the close economic ties to the much larger and much stronger US economy, Canada would be lagging far behind where you are now. About the time the US was delinking our currency from the gold standard, Canada was delinking their currency from fur pelts.

I’m pleased you all are so prosperous, and Canadians have many fime qualities and traits; that said, so do we. Defending that proposition is not to bash Canada.

do it. He could try, but I doubt he’ll succeed.

happily immune to all religious indoctrination

I love Canada too, and it’s a triumph of the human spirit — not to mention bags of cash from Chretien — that a nationalist regime did not triumph in Quebec.

Of course, we will have to invade them for their water and oil one day, but that’s a thread for another day.

In the meantime, the only reason I mentioned Canada was to refute the idea that a first past the post system inevitably led to two parties.

Oh, and I’m guessing that much of the Canadian right wing infrastructure is an invasive plant imported from the great Republic to the south. Or do you guys have your own vicious winger billionaires?

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

about moral superiority. I think that a parliamentary system is better then the 2 party behemoth we’re stuck with. But then again, the two parties in the states are too similar and way too cozy with big business for me. I prefer variety, and with a 2 party system, that’s not what we have.

happily immune to all religious indoctrination

We had Conrad Black.

However, FPTP does lead to two parties if the FPTP is over one single all-powerful office was my point. Also, FPTP in Canada creates a situation in which only two parties are at risk of forming a government.

Have parliamentary systems allowing coalition governments. The US, a winner-take-all system, does not.

How this plays out in practice is that minor parties can participate in a ruling coalition and build incrementally. A vote for a “3rd party” isn’t wasted in the same way as it is in the US.

RL, must step away for a moment, but do tell; I’ll be back. This claim of Canadian exceptionalism is always fascinating.

said it perfectly.

happily immune to all religious indoctrination

Of course we have coalition government in the US, it is just of a different form. Both R & D are coalition parties, no different than what happens under parliamentary politics. Our centerist (right-leaning) block moves back and forth between the two major parties, but politically it functions as an allied party rather than a subsidiary of some larger entity. What were once Southern Democrats became Nixon/Reagan Republicans; now they are becoming Blue Dog Democrats.

Back in :30

Yes there are political factions within the 2 parties, but these are not the same as actual parties that actual voters cast actual ballots for. It is impossible, for instance, to tell the DNC that your vote is for the Democratic wing of the Democratic party, and if they abandon that wing, you don’t have to play.

serious federal parliamentary influence in the last 50 years.

There are the big three, Q’s a flash in the pan annoyance, and that’s it.

And yes, Harper is just as bad as Bush; all he lacks is a big military with nuclear weapons. If he had them he’d cause just as much trouble.

3 is not 2.

Quo Erat Demonstrandum.

and yes steven harper is the devil

happily immune to all religious indoctrination

And I’m as bad as the rest, babbling about Canada.

Why would that be?

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Let’s pick a color, and then a theme! And where will we go for lunch?

well, that’s only because *i* wasn’t here. :) i just now fired up the blogging computer for the evening.

actually, i was carrying on about the equal rights party [elsewhere] just recently.

smashing corporate personhood, along with smashing the patriarchy, is one of my most cherished dreams.

Good movie about Alice Paul and the NWP. The title refers to the nickname they were given when they were force-fed in prison after staging a hunger strike. (They were imprisoned because they wanted the vote and President Wilson wanted them to shut-up and tend the hearth, they wouldn’t, so they were thrown in prison.)

Where the shifting voting blocks hide out and what names they hide under has no functional meaning. The third major party in the US has shifted back and forth between alliances with D and R as fluidly as would happen in any pariamentary system, except when they stepped out in the sunshine for George Wallace. Call them the Fraidycat-Bigot Party if it makes you feel better, they are just as real an entity as if they actually had a name.

2/3 + 2/3 + 2/3 = 2, in 3 parts.

Ta to auto isa kai allelois estin isa.

Not even the Great Leap Forward could do that, so you wonder what it would take.

So I don’t accept that formulation, Hipparchia. But I would like to know how you relate corporate personhood to patriarchy.

And what interests me about the NWP is that they achieved great things!

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

But I think that the more diversified the amount of parties a system has then the more likely the party’s will not be mirror images of the other. Which is what I’ve been getting from the democrats for far too long. hence talking about the 3. I was doing a comparison. I feel that up there my position is still represented since I feel that the Libs/dems and repubs/cons are so similar. *That’s* why I brought it up.

I firmly believe that when you have 3, 4 (there are 4 parties in Canada), or more parties I feel you are more likely to have an accurate view of the people. Yeah, maybe there are a handful of dems that I am strongly for, but that doesn’t excuse the many that I dislike or downright loathe.

Guess that’s why I’m not a hold my nose voter. I vote for people who represent me. I’d like it if they would get elected sometime (and a few did last BC election).

happily immune to all religious indoctrination

3rd and more parties doesn’t help at all.

And while people always try to build up a 3rd party or alternatives to the 2, the risk of loss to the GOP gets to be too great and we go backwards too fast. We get hurt even trying.

If 3rd parties could be assured of seats in Congress if they get enough votes, forcing the others to build coalitions to gain control, then it would work. We could have tons of parties and true “unity”.

to patriarchy.”

gah. a homework assignment. i would never ever do that to any of my readers.

ok, but a coupla quick questions:
-can i save drafts of blog posts here to work on intermittently, or do i have to save the drafts somewhere else and just post the finished version?
-do you have a limit on the number of embedded videos/images?
-do you have an faq for questions like this? i looked, but didn’t find anything. then again, i didn’t spend much time searching for one.

in the Canadian Parliament (+ 1 Independent, but really who’s counting?)

I stand corrected, had completely forgotten about the NDP, and here they made a big comeback all the way from near-invisible to just-irrelevant. What did the Bloc get from associating with the Tories? Minister of Signage or something? Not much of a policy voice, so far as I can tell, just some patronage and some cash, their heritage for a mess of potage.

And still, in actual furtherance of my original position that there is little real difference between the systems in terms of outcome, I point to Stephen Harper. This is what I can expect from an oh so superior political system? Thanks, but I already have one of those.

So having a more liberal voice then the dems in office would be a bad thing? Yeah, you’re right, that would suck.

happily immune to all religious indoctrination