I ran across this article, and I thought it was pretty interesting. Based on what I see on this board alone, it seems like a lot of the things it says are true. To me, people are a lot less willing to listen to others' opinions today, and there is a huge "with us or against us" mentality. I'd be interested to hear opinions on what you guys think about this.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2140483&page=1

The problem is the two-party system. It does not work in the best interests of the people, and creates alot of flustration and animosity. It's more a circus than an engine of public service.

George Washington warned us to avoid the two party system in his final speech. A crying shame nobody listened to him.

georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:The problem is the two-party system. It does not work in the best interests of the people, and creates alot of flustration and animosity. It's more a circus than an engine of public service.

George Washington warned us to avoid the two party system in his final speech. A crying shame nobody listened to him.

i agree. of course there are other parties, but they have next to zero influence. i believe this would be a much healthier country if there were around 4-5 parties on equal footing in terms of financial support. of course, its not in either of the two dominant parties interests to see that happen.

Here is what I already posted about this story on another board...

We live in the information age. Now more then ever in history we
have all the information we can stomach at our fingertips. The
volume of information also allows us to merely seek out information
that reaffirms our own political beliefs as there are thousands of
media outlets and blogs that will feed us what we want to read,see
or hear.
What I find disingenious is the main stream media and their
reporters who clearly have political leanings and agendas to match
try and pass themselves off as objective. Anyone with any type of
political I.Q. knows that is a joke. Whether the network has
leanings to left or right it is blatantly obvious which it is and
also obvious that they are manipulating news to either influence
their audiences or increase viewership with a paticular political
leaning.
It is much harder to find an objective media outlet then it is to
find a partisan one. So as this story pointed out we have people
just become more concrete in their views and it has evolved into an
us against them. I dont quite understand at what point in politics
it became an affront to someone to simply disagree with them but
many see it as a personal insult if you do not agree with them.

I would blame somewhat the evolution of the political party machines
and the advent of focus groups. These guys on both sides have
talking points on their desk first thing every morning and filter
everything right down to the very words, to have the greatest
impact. It would be shocking to hear a politician or a reporter for
that matter simply talk and not spin.
The bottom line is the reason that both sides fight like it is life
or death is for the aquisition and maintaning of power. With our
Governemnt controlling nearly $3trillion in spending every year it
is the most high stakes poker game in the world. Therefore those who
want to acheive power and stay in power are willing to use any means
necessary, hence the screaming and partisanship.

With newspapers, magazines, bloggers, internet, talk radio and
hundreds of cable channels to choose from you also have the media
types screaming for attention and viewership. When we had three
channels we got less information but it was nearly as combative as
it is today. Why do you think all the media outlets go with
sensational story's especially tradegy's over good news story's???
The reason is it gets viewers or it sells.

So I find it quite humorous that a news media outlet like ABC, who
came up with one of the original partisan hack shows 20/20 is now
lamenting the current status of the media.

I saw the telecast about the polarization. One thing I found interesting was the relationship between political views and church attendence. In Montclair, the liberal community in the telecast, only about 30% of the population attended church, while in the conservative community (a town in Kentucky, don't remember the name), about 60% of the town goes to church at least once a week.

Why is there this antipathy between liberalism and religion? It may be a chicken/egg sort of thing, but do liberal views tend to reduce churchgoing or does a lack of religion in one's life foster liberal views.

Don't try the old "they're trying to run our lives" lament - that is what both sides are doing, so it is not the root of the problem. Or is it even a problem? Even if we have divided ourselves into a religious party and a nonreligious party, is that a bad thing? Parties are supposed to collections of like-minded individuals.

Before you sharpen your wits and attack me, know that I am a mostly conservative, usually Republican, occasionally churchgoing person. Please don't try to label me individually. Stick to the big groups. And yes, i know there are some liberal Christians and some conservative atheists, but while I have heard of the Religious Right many times I have yet to hear even once the phrase Religious Left. Why this divide?

it is an honest question, and I hope to get honest opinions, from both left and right. Thank you in advance for your responses.

I'm not a church going person by any means, but I am socially liberal (pro-gay rights, pro choice, etc.) and financially conservative. I hate to see the government tell anybody how to run their life (abortion, marriage, etc.), and I also hate to see the government spend money like it is going out of style.... I'm not sure you can classify me as liberal or conservative due to my beliefs. I'd imagine that there is a large portion of the so-called "liberal" party that are like me, which makes this whole liberal or conservative thing stupid in my honest opinion.

The system is flawed in so many ways, but nothing is perfect. You just have to live with it and pick a side

Pyrizzo Wrote:The system is flawed in so many ways, but nothing is perfect. You just have to live with it and pick a side

I just wish people would choose the best politician instead of picking a party. Personally I don't claim to be a member of any party (although I probably fall more on the libertarian side) due to the fact that I like to vote for the person who I think will do the best job. If that person is Democrat, Republican, or a 3rd party it doesn't matter to me as long as they get the job done.

Quote:Why is there this antipathy between liberalism and religion? It may be a chicken/egg sort of thing, but do liberal views tend to reduce churchgoing or does a lack of religion in one's life foster liberal views.

YES!

The problem as I see it is that more and more republicans aren't really church based or maybe I should say Christian-based. At lot of Republicans are Christian in name only--including our current president.

But I think that liberals are into socialism and do-good-ism to make themselves feel good and try to clear their conscience. The problem with that of course if that human efforts apart from God's counsel or blessing turn out less than stellar results. The Christian group takes morality from a Bible based or Christ-centered position, but the liberals take their moral code from a humanist or mind-centered position. I think that is basically the difference in the 2 parties--and no wonder they are diametrically oppossed. If you take Christianity out of the conservative party, IMHO there will be little difference in the 2 parties, and that seems to be more the case.

Endzone2 Wrote:The problem as I see it is that more and more republicans aren't really church based or maybe I should say Christian-based. At lot of Republicans are Christian in name only--including our current president.

Does anybody else see the irony in a TCU fan of all things criticizing someone for this?

OwlJacket Wrote:

Endzone2 Wrote:The problem as I see it is that more and more republicans aren't really church based or maybe I should say Christian-based. At lot of Republicans are Christian in name only--including our current president.

Does anybody else see the irony in a TCU fan of all things criticizing someone for this?

TCU has pretty much taken the C out of the T and the U. Well TCU hasn't completely lost it. Heck sometimes during the prayer before a football game they even ask "in Jesus name" and refer to the Lord as "our heavenly Father" so that's not too bad. I'd love to hear what the prayer is like at an Ohio State game--if they even have one at all.

Ohio State prayer - "Jesus, please bring us another win, and please let Michigan's plane be struck with lightning and crash in a horrible ball of flames!"

mlb Wrote:Ohio State prayer - "Jesus, please bring us another win, and please let Michigan's plane be struck with lightning and crash in a horrible ball of flames!"

lmfao lmfao lmfao

Although I've previously been ridiculed on this board for being a political science major...I did learn this. Single member district systems (what we use in the U.S.) basically force a 2 party system because of the winner-take-all format. Only big-tent style parties can win in this system. The only way a smaller party could win seats in the legislature would be if its members all got together and moved to one area and formed a voting bloc.

In a system of proportional representation, seats in the legislature are awarded based on percentage of the popular vote. Thus a party that only receives a small portion of the vote is still given a voice in the government. This style eliminates alot of the problems associated with single member district systems (ex. gerrymandering) but can also create its own problems (ex. fringe groups like Nazis, Communists, etc. can win seats), and individual legislators aren't as accountable b/c their votes come from across the nation.

dwr0109 Wrote:Although I've previously been ridiculed on this board for being a political science major...I did learn this. Single member district systems (what we use in the U.S.) basically force a 2 party system because of the winner-take-all format. Only big-tent style parties can win in this system. The only way a smaller party could win seats in the legislature would be if its members all got together and moved to one area and formed a voting bloc.

In a system of proportional representation, seats in the legislature are awarded based on percentage of the popular vote. Thus a party that only receives a small portion of the vote is still given a voice in the government. This style eliminates alot of the problems associated with single member district systems (ex. gerrymandering) but can also create its own problems (ex. fringe groups like Nazis, Communists, etc. can win seats), and individual legislators aren't as accountable b/c their votes come from across the nation.

Interesting, and it seems logical. Does anyone know what system the English use? I think they have single party districts but also seem to have minority party representation in parliament.

There is no question that we are far more polarized as a society at large then ever before. Nothing has changed at the top ? there was usually been bitter divisiveness between the 2 major parties. But in this information age, when we are all much more informed about what is going on, the angry partisanship has infected more and more Americans.

One thing that has helped spread the anger and hate: the right-wing radio wingnuts who spout off about ?liberals? and how they ?hate America? and that everything they do is basically evil. I listened to Mark Levine a while back proclaim that liberals were an enemy of the people. Rush Limbaugh was the first radio talk show host to go off in this vein, and the political climate has disintegrated since he became popular in my opinion. The left is equally vitriolic in response to the barbs coming from the right.

I don?t know what the solution is, especially when we have an administration who seems blithely uncaring about what at least 50% of the population think. He is beholden to a minority ? the religious conservatives ? and is pretty open about that.

I feel that we are AS polarized as we ever were since the 1994 election. It was about 50/50 then and it's about 50/50 now.