"This sounds like a bad idea. Competition should generally be allowed unless harm can be shown."
I agree. Only when the public feels free to participate do we have a vibrant democracy. Only when they feel that lots of ideas are heard and considered (not just stale old ones) will they support the system.
"Our political system is very different than most others in the world."
Yep. It is.
"We have a two party system that works."
Two points:
1) I'm not conceding that it 'works' all that well anymore --- too many huge problems going unaddressed for far too long, too much passivity and lack of interest in voting and government by the public. Most other countries have a multi party system. When the parliament elects the PM from their own ranks, it promotes a multi party system. Alliances can be fluid. Our scheduled direct elections of both legislators and the executive head limit the opportunity for an effective multi party system.
2) The so-called 'Party system' was NOT designed into our nation by the founders --- it just sort of happened along the way. Nothing about it in our Constitution, ir AIN'T OFFICIAL. Furthermore: it's gotten a Hell of a lot more RIGID and less inclusive of new ideas in the second halh of the 20th. century and into the 21st... Not at all like it USED to operate in the first half of the 20th. century, or throughout the 19th. century. Parties USED to rise and fall, change their names and political stripes, adopt different or new ideas from third and fourth Parties, merge and divide, etc. The WHOLE PROCESS was a LOT more fluid and organic then it's become in our lifetimes.
Now... it's Chip and Dale... Flip and Flop... two sides of the same hackneyed and crusty coin. It's become stultified and unproductive. We haven't even been able to balance the books for nye on a half century now... yet each side of the Republi-crats continues to grease it's supporters. But the common good, where is that?
"The fiddling with election laws probably reinforce this more than enforce a two party system."
It's the two Parties who did the 'fiddling', writing laws in the States that did away with political rights Americans have had since the founding days... and an equally corrupted by politics Supreme Court upheld the Parties' machinations in one of it's *worst* rulings ever.
"So in the analogy you used, I must assume you refer to Senate Democrats as the foxes guarding the hen house. <g>"
It works either way... but I'd say that allowing the Party oligopoly to write the rules concerning *who* is allowed on the ballot, and *how much* it will cost to get on the ballot, and saying that Party Z can't endorse Party B or A's candidate in the general election (& still keep a line on the ballot in the *next* election) is EXACTLY putting the fox in charge of the hen house. |
