Ignoring History

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 3:31 am

Well, I used to be fairly apolitical, believe it or not, but Bush Jr. proved to me that indeed one party is much worse than the other.

mxlm · Post by **mxlm** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 7:08 am

Stop bashing Bush, you meanie!

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:03 pm

Danubus wrote:Gimme a break. Anything you can ballyhoo about because you guys lost the election. You will find anything at fault for the fact more americans voted for Bush than Gore.

Gore got roughly half a million more votes overall than Bush did in 2000. Bush simply got more votes in the states that mattered than Gore. Only in America could the winner of a popular vote be declared the loser

Veilan · Post by **Veilan** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:17 pm

Swift wrote:Only in America could the winner of a popular vote be declared the loser

Actually, french elections have a similiar system in place; just not for the presidential vote afaik.

AlmightyTDawg · Post by **AlmightyTDawg** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:46 pm

Mulu wrote:Well, I used to be fairly apolitical, believe it or not, but Bush Jr. proved to me that indeed one party is much worse than the other.

I'd attribute it to just more than Bush Jr. but he's been the strongest correlation. I compared political compass scores of me circa 2000 and me today... whoa boy.

I still think of myself as largely apolitical - the Dems don't have their crap together, and the two-party system allows each to survive in their mediocrity over a false dichotomy.

But maybe the problem for me was that the aspects I identified with on the conservative side - low-spending, low-regulation economics and firm-yet-fair foreign policy, have perversely become weaknesses for this administration. Couple that to the corporate excesses (Enron, outsourcing, etc.) and the country's continuing "brain drain" and I just can't identify with the conservatives anymore.

The mass-media culture and its polarizing who-can-be-the-most-XTREME punditry also hasn't helped the conservatives. The voices that they are being identified with, however falsely, are increasingly stridently moralistic and anti-intellectual. No gay marriage, intelligent design, etc... they're appealing to a part of the U.S. that just ain't me.

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 7:25 pm

What caught my eye early on in the Bush Administration was what they said publicly was the polar opposite to what they were actually doing and the amount of cover ups to hide what they were doing makes me think of the Nixon years. I know some people think I'm anti-American or anti-Republican but to be clear, if Clinton had been acting like this (No, lilly dipping doesn't count) I'd be voicing the exact same opinions on the guy.

When it's all said and done, the Bush government will have been exposed to be the most corrupt administration since the 70s.

Kate

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:22 pm

I have to agree. I was tipped off to the Bush Administration on day one when Rove reported that the outgoing Clinton staff had trashed the Whitehouse. A GAO inspection to record the cost of the damage for repairs came up with zero, no damage. It was nothing more than a smear campaign, against an outgoing president from the party that lost, in other words it served no purpose other than to show that Bushies are petty liars. That impression has never changed.

Veilan · Post by **Veilan** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:49 pm

Mulu wrote:I have to agree. I was tipped off to the Bush Administration on day one when Rove reported that the outgoing Clinton staff had trashed the Whitehouse. A GAO inspection to record the cost of the damage for repairs came up with zero, no damage. It was nothing more than a smear campaign, against an outgoing president from the party that lost, in other words it served no purpose other than to show that Bushies are petty liars. That impression has never changed.

Are you sure?

Giving the astounding stupidity of the electorate and their disconnect from letting truth and facts have an influence in shaping their opinion (Iraq attacked the US on 9/11, Iraq had WMD), I'm pretty certain something of this stuck, too. Perhaps only reinforcing sentiments with those that already were firmly republican, but even then it served the purpose of tightening their coterie further and reducing the chances of defection.

The truth that in hindsight, he lied about something "trivial" is not near as outraging nor emotionally charged to most people as is imagining disgruntled Clintonites trashing a shrine of state respect and authority physically.

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 3:17 am

Conceded. I'm sure far more people heard the story about the trashing than heard it was made up in the first place.

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 4:01 am

Swift wrote:Gore got roughly half a million more votes overall than Bush did in 2000. Bush simply got more votes in the states that mattered than Gore. Only in America could the winner of a popular vote be declared the loser

Yeah, Alara is right. There are a lot of places where this could happen. I know it's occured many times in New Zealand - most recently been the '81 general elections, where National (Centre Right) remained in power despite getting 4,000 less votes than Labour (Centre Left). This was the second time in a row that it had happened. I would imagin it could happen in countries like England as well, and really any country where candidates are elected on a plurality majority, I believe is the word, instead of an absolute majority.

Jeppan · Post by **Jeppan** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 7:26 am

Perhaps to try out more than two parties? Then there will be more than two sides to each issue. Sometimes I wonder about the need for 7 or 8 parties that we have here but every now and then it become obvious that there are that many sides to many of the issues.

Long live democracy.

Zakharra · Post by **Zakharra** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 8:44 am

That cannot be manated. The parties that are there are what there is. currently there are no other parties that could concievably challenge either one.

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:42 am

That is correct, Zak, but it is also entirely the fault (or purpose) of the system you have in place there. You will be hard pressed to find a country which run with a majoritarian system, such as the US, where there isn't a two party system operating - one leads to the other, in most of the cases. There are of course some few exceptions, such as UK in the '83 and '87 elections, where a third party managed to hold some sway, but more often than not this is the case. I can't remember who, off the top of my head, but there has been some study done which has proven that the greater the proportionality a system has, the greater the number of parties present is.

Once again, I'll mention New Zealand, as it really is the perfect example of this. Pre-1996 we operated under a very majoritarian based system, where two parties completely dominated parliament. Occasionally there would be a third who would win a seat or two, but never played a major party in parliament (despite on one occasion winning over 20% of the votes, they still ended up with just 2 seats).

However, from 1996 onwards, we had a complete rework of the system, and now use the Mixed-Member Proportionate system, based off the German model, which calculates the end number of seats a party is given off the proportion of votes they recieve. Straight after this change, we saw a fair number of splinters from the two major parties, of which four of these splinter parties managed to win seats. This current term we have nine different parties in power, and I believe it is unique in been the only term since MMP was introduced that the two major parties, combined, have won over 75% of the votes.

So to repeat myself, yes, you are right that no other party could challenge either of the main ones, but that may not be due to a lack of popularity, but merely resulting from the electorate system in place.

[Edit - wow, that sounded long winded and boring and completely off topic...]

sgould72 · Post by **sgould72** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:46 pm

On the surface, I like the idea of multiple parties over merely 2. I wonder at the effectiveness though. I mean...very little can get done as it is with only 2 parties haggling with each other. With 5 or 6 it just seems like there would be a never ending stalemate with absolutely nothing being passed, ever. Granted, that may not be entirely a bad thing.

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 2:10 pm

sgould72 wrote:On the surface, I like the idea of multiple parties over merely 2. I wonder at the effectiveness though. I mean...very little can get done as it is with only 2 parties haggling with each other. With 5 or 6 it just seems like there would be a never ending stalemate with absolutely nothing being passed, ever. Granted, that may not be entirely a bad thing.

Australia has dozens. You can vote for the Nazi party if thats your thing, or, as the last South Australian state election showed, the "Save babe" party.

Actual parties in the parliament itself? Currently very few, in years past though it has been more. Currently it is:

Liberal party: 74 Seats
National party: 12 Seats (The Liberals and Nationals rule as a Coalition)
Australian Labor party: 60 Seats
Independants: 3 Seats.

The other main parties are: The Greens, The Democrats, One Nation, Family First (Christian backed party) and The Christian Democratic Party (a different Christian backed party).

While the rest of the parties currently hold no seats in the house of representatives, the senate is a slightly different story.

Coalition: 39
Labor: 35
Greens: 7
Family First: 1
Democrats: 2
One Nation: 1
Christian Democratic: 1

Thankfully the senate is more balanced, so the government has a harder time pushing bills through the senate as the minor parties will often join the opposition party to block or amend a bill before it can become law. Works pretty well.