Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Jacko
Hmmm..I don't think anyone said anything about waiting for 3rd party recognition while ignoring other wise actions that would improve our election process...
|
Well the discussion was about how
perhaps it would happen during our lifetime, or that the next generation would manage it, so that's waiting right there. People are talking about how they don't care if it is throwing their vote away -- that arguably constitutes waiting when contrasted with putting your vote behind a candidate you think might win and change something. And inasmuch as the independent/3rd party sentiment takes any political energy at all, it reduces the energy spent on the system now, so again, I think that's waiting. My argument is precisely that the whole movement is pretty much
de facto waiting and ignoring wiser choices that could improve our democracy now. (Sorry!
)
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Jacko
I get your point and understand the pull between the audacity of hope and practical realism  ...but...would you say the same things about the Electoral College I wonder? I mean do you think that it also is perhaps so "well established and reinforced in the structure of our system" that it is not likely to change...? And yet you still work toward that change? |
Well respectfully I don't think you did get my point, then.
That very aspect I do see as potentially changeable, if more people are informed on it and more people get involved. However I don't think you're going to otherwise reduce or eliminate much of all the parts of our system that establish and reinforce the 2-party system we have today without basically rewriting the Constitution to create a parliamentary system, and that's not realistic. I believe you are misinterpreting my hope of eliminating the Electoral College in the same way sctx has, conflating it with a wholesale replacement of the current system as laid out in the Constitution. Again the latter is unrealistic, the former is, I think.
Steve