On Aug 18, 11:53*pm, "
wrote:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2011 23:17:52 -0400, aemeijers wrote:
On 8/18/2011 7:16 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:30:47 -0400, *wrote:

On 8/18/2011 6:49 AM, HeyBub wrote:
wrote:

BTW, I don't have any use for either of the current duopoly of
political parties- they are both fulla ****. *IMHO, we need to ban
political parties from Congress, and just elect people, and pass out
the committees and power positions (in theory, at least) to the
person, not the party. Of course, that would require the voters and
the politicians to think, rather than just parrot slogans, so it
will never happen.

Absolutely wrong.

Agreed. Political parties simplify the political process. As G. Northcott
Parkinson observed: "When a member of your party finishes speaking, you need
only shout 'Hear! Hear!' When the opposition speaks, you cry 'Shame! Shame!'
What could be easier?"

But with the duopoly in power, no new ideas ever get brought into play,
and they make damn sure nobody with any other ideas ever gets a seat at
the table. Sorry, 'The Party' (or Parties) should not be in charge,
PEOPLE should.

So you'd ban people of a like mind from working together? *Parties *ARE*
people.

The people currently in charge clearly are not up to the task. The decay
curve is getting steep. What is your idea to help?

Then vote for someone else!good grief

(Sorry for the direct reply- still fighting with, and losing to, Tbird)

Didn't get it.

And when all the ballot offers up, in most cases, are Tweedledum and
Tweedledee, because the system makes it near-impossible for anyone else
to get on the ballot?

Then get involved!

Parties haven't been 'people' for many decades. They are 'the system'.

Nonsense. *Parties are no more than a conglomeration of people. * * *- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I have to agree with aemeijers on this one. The two parties are
indeed systems. The way candidates are elected for the most
part is to come up through the party system. That means serving
time in one party or the other, usually starting out at some
local office level. And that's where they learn to play the
usual games, exchange favors for votes, get funding
from various sources who they then become committed to
and going along with the party bosses. If they don't play
the game, they don't get beyond being a local township
committeeman.

The Tea Party candidates recently elected were somewhat
of a departure from that with most of them having little or
no prior experience and perhaps it's a trend that will
continue. But it remains to be seen if they will even stay
in office. If polls are correct, they seem
to have lost a lot of support when they recently did exactly
what people elected them to do. At the same time, they
clearly ****ed off the party leadership, which could have
serious consequences in terms of their getting support
for re-election from their own party machine.

There are a few other exceptions, those being people
with enough personal wealth to finance a campaign
for high office themselves. But they are few and far
between and the results not impressive.