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What is your favorite 3rd party?

Which 3rd party comes closest to your own beliefs?

  • the constitution party

    Votes: 5 26.3%
  • the libertarian party

    Votes: 10 52.6%
  • the green party

    Votes: 4 21.1%

  • Total voters
    19
I voted libertarian.

the green party is too socialist, and the constitution party is too christian.
 
I voted for the libertarian party as well. I do think they are overly idealistic on some issues though.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I voted for the libertarian party as well. I do think they are overly idealistic on some issues though.

their idealism is what I respect most about libertarians. libertarians are very principled.

I agree with a lot of their principles, but not enough to actually call myself a libertarian.
 
I would probably support SocialistAction, I agree with almost all of their views, except their pro-Castro, I am not as pro-Castro(though not as much anti- as most people).

Though out of the parties you listed it would be the Green party.
 
I voted Constitutional, because that is the basis and foundation of our democracy. I believe we need to stick to that as our founding fathers would want us to.
 
alphieb said:
I voted Constitutional, because that is the basis and foundation of our democracy. I believe we need to stick to that as our founding fathers would want us to.

A few questions. Why does it matter what our "founding Fathers" would want? How do you you its what our "Founding Fathers" ould want(since this party wasn't necessarily in existence then)?

The Constitutional party sounded a bit theocratic to me.
 
I am already a member of the Constitution Party, and the Federalist Party so I guess I can be considered a Confederalist. I am also the fifth grandson of President Rutherford B. Hayes who was a Republican. :mrgreen:
 
Comrade Brian said:
A few questions. Why does it matter what our "founding Fathers" would want? How do you you its what our "Founding Fathers" ould want(since this party wasn't necessarily in existence then)?

The Constitutional party sounded a bit theocratic to me.

Why would our founding fathers not want that when they created it? This party was not in existence then, because THEY didn't develop it and they did not develop it for a reason, hence that is not what they wanted. That is very self explanatory. That constitution and the bill of rights has maintained our freedoms and values for years.
 
I voted Green, but I like a lot of Libertarian ideas too and I love Penn Jillette!
He's my favorite aetheist.

a lot of Greens vote Dem when it matters, and Green to prove a point.
 
I vote libertarian. As long as it's moderate libertarian. None of that anarchy crap.
 
The Libertarian Party is the closest of those three to my views, but some of them are batshit insane. They're more concerned with ideological purity than with actually advancing their causes.
 
It disgusts me even to think about it, but with the options given, I would have to choose the Green Party. I would start trying to form a fourth party in short order.

The Constitution Party would probably attempt to outlaw me, and my objections to the Libertarians are well-noted.
 
Kelzie said:
I vote libertarian. As long as it's moderate libertarian. None of that anarchy crap.

have you ever actually heard a group of libertarians debate Libertarianism vs libertarianism? :rofl
 
I Live in Ohio, a state with much political focus as of late.
Obviously, the concept of wasting your vote on third parties has been
a hot topic. It is my belief that the only wasted vote is a vote for someone that you don't believe in. Faced with the possibility of president Kerry, I still could not pull the lever for GWB. I again voted libertarian.

I find my views to lie somewhere between the Libertarians and the Constitutionalists. Both support abolishment of what I feel to be the three largests threats to our future existence, our private central bank, the Federal Reserve and the practice of fractional reserve banking, personal income taxes and the dependency they produce, and debt spending by the federal governmnet, among others.
 
taxedout said:
I Live in Ohio, a state with much political focus as of late.
Obviously, the concept of wasting your vote on third parties has been
a hot topic. It is my belief that the only wasted vote is a vote for someone that you don't believe in. Faced with the possibility of president Kerry, I still could not pull the lever for GWB. I again voted libertarian.

I never really understood the whole "wasting your vote" argument. its not like any individual voting for bush or kerry is going to change the outcome of the election either.
 
star2589 said:
I never really understood the whole "wasting your vote" argument. its not like any individual voting for bush or kerry is going to change the outcome of the election either.


This is a constructed argument, devised by the two major parties, as a part of a power consolidating process.

I'm am always baffled by the fact that we have a country full of self described, enlightened individuals, who are unable to demonstrate their individuality at the ballot box. Fear is such a wonderful weapon.
 
taxedout said:
This is a constructed argument, devised by the two major parties, as a part of a power consolidating process.

I'm am always baffled by the fact that we have a country full of self described, enlightened individuals, who are unable to demonstrate their individuality at the ballot box. Fear is such a wonderful weapon.

not just that, Im baffled by the fact that we have a country full of self described, enlightened individuals, who actually believe their vote makes a significant statistical difference.
 
taxedout said:
This is a constructed argument, devised by the two major parties, as a part of a power consolidating process.

I'm am always baffled by the fact that we have a country full of self described, enlightened individuals, who are unable to demonstrate their individuality at the ballot box. Fear is such a wonderful weapon.

A "first past the post system" breeds two-party systems. It's the only way it can be done. If the person who gets the most votes wins and only that person wins, they have a lot to gain by appealing to the most people possible. So they become as moderate as possible, hoping to attract the most voters. In this system, if you have four candidate, A, B, C, D who are ranked in order from liberal to conservative and who command 5, 35, 37, and 23 percent of the votes respectively and you vote for candidate A, what happens? They lose, your next best choice B loses and C wins. Now if all the people who voted for A shift their vote, they can at least be sure that C doesn't win. And that's what happens when the person with the highest votes wins everything.

Now if we had a proportional representation system, it would be to your benfit to vote for the party that best represents you, because that way they would have the most power in the government. However, without a revolution, I don't see that ever coming to America.
 
Oh Kelzie, you and your crazy hippy woman fantasies of "True Democracy" and "revolution" and "equality" and "understandable politics".

Anyway, I would have to say the Green party, only because it is the most closely related party to my beliefs. And while I detest the two party system, allow to play Devils Advocate.

A 3rd party is created because a certain sect of America is unhappy with the two major, corrupt, horrible, vile...........:mrgreen: ..Two partys that are available to them. So this 3rd party might get attention. And what happens when the two greedy partisian biased parties see this? They eat the 3rd parties ideas and poo out a nice ball of "shut up the middle class" reformism that doesn't really reflect what the 3rd party set out to do, but it's as close as they'll ever come so the party dies.

Personally, I wish we had the Populists or Progressives back. But oh well...only when all of America is white, male, Christan, rich, and college educated will our electoral system represent the people.
 
Kelzie said:
A "first past the post system" breeds two-party systems. It's the only way it can be done. If the person who gets the most votes wins and only that person wins, they have a lot to gain by appealing to the most people possible. So they become as moderate as possible, hoping to attract the most voters. In this system, if you have four candidate, A, B, C, D who are ranked in order from liberal to conservative and who command 5, 35, 37, and 23 percent of the votes respectively and you vote for candidate A, what happens? They lose, your next best choice B loses and C wins. Now if all the people who voted for A shift their vote, they can at least be sure that C doesn't win. And that's what happens when the person with the highest votes wins everything.

Now if we had a proportional representation system, it would be to your benfit to vote for the party that best represents you, because that way they would have the most power in the government. However, without a revolution, I don't see that ever coming to America.


You have some good points but I believe they only hold to a certain extent.
For one, they hold up well if the next election were the last election, but there will be many more. As seemingly divided as our country is politically, the actions of the politicians are much more closely aligned. They appeal to different segments of society for votes, this is true, but their actions seem to be the same old status quo. They cling to failing beaurocracies and resist any meaningful change for fear of the next election cycle and for fear of losing their cash cows. Therefore, even if "your guy" lost the next election, not much would change from a policy standpoint. There really is not that much to lose if the other guy wins. There is however, much to lose if the two party system becomes so thoroughly entrenched that it cannot be broken.

Now if a few election cycles, where people voted for who represented them best were to take place, the percentage of support for the third party guy would begin to approach that of the Big Two. Now comes the big platform strategy question. Do you continue to strive for the middle or do you make a break in order to distinguish yourself ? Given the fact that the third party is likely further from the center than the other two, I would bet you would see some political distinctions begin to blossom.

You are right, this country is not likely to see proportional representation.
Also in a proportional system, wouldn't there need to be some weighted basis for decision making, with the guy with the most support holding the most authority ? In practicality, would this be much different than a system where the legislative, executive and judicial branches were composed of folks with multiple party/philosophical associations ?

Just wondering ? I feel this is a very important issue if there is to be a future for this country. One thing for sure, if we if we continually fail to risk
letting the "other guy" win, we will all lose. Something has to change.
We as a people need to find the starting spot, and quickly.
 
Kelzie said:
I vote libertarian. As long as it's moderate libertarian. None of that anarchy crap.

Anarchy is anarchy, it ain't libertarianism.

Libertarians recognize that freedoms cannot exist without a government able to prevent the exploitation of one individual by another. People claiming to be libertarians and promoting anarchy are confused on one issue or the other, or even both.
 
Elections...they're pretty much over rated anyway, aren't they? In theory everyone is supposed to study the issues, study the candidates, and cast their ballot for the candidate who actually represents their concerns the best.

In reality, people are not only too lazy to study the issues, they're way to ignorant to even attempt it. The candidates have made an art of appearing to be what they aren't and of painting their opponents in rainbow hues to turn off the maximum number of voters. So people don't know where their interests lie, and they don't know who would serve those interests best anyway, so they vote for the crook who promises them the most goodies paid for by their neighbors and fellow citizens.

So what's the freakin' point in getting mobs of people out to cast meaningless ballots on a cold fall day?
 
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