We here in the good ol' U. S. of A. enjoy the fruits of the two party system. Or do we?
Gore and Bush have finally agreed on a debate format as set forth by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. Note that word: bipartisan. Most people take that word to mean that the entire spectrum of political thought is being represented, because hey, we have a two party system of government, don't we?
Well, my grade school teachers notwithstanding, I beg to differ. There is no place in the Constitution that says anything about the two party system. The major parties try to depict any other party (and there are many) as full of oddballs, nutcases, Nazis, or worse. It is worth noting, however, that neither of the major parties existed when the Founding Fathers penned the Constitution. They were once minor parties themselves.
The bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates have excluded "fringe" parties like the Green Party and the Reform Party from the debates on the grounds that they did not garner a 15% share in public opinion polls. Well, what else could one expect from a bipartisan commission? They want a two way debate!
I would much rather watch a debate as organized by a nonpartisan commission. Sure, it might get a little crazy - look at what happened at the Reform party convention this year. And who could forget the vice-presidential debates when Perot was running for president? Now that's entertainment! And really, that's all it is - entertainment. Your vote is generally utterly valueless, courtesy of the Electoral College and the basically undifferentiated major party candidates.
It wouldn't be right to just rant about a problem without proposing a fix. I'd like to see government by proxy. It would work like this: Every citizen above the age of 12 would get the right to exactly one vote. Each citizen could then use that right, or assign it to another person (a proxy), who could do the same. At any point, a citizen could revoke his proxy's voting right. This would eliminate fixed political parties entirely. You could assign your vote to a person who felt the same way as you do on certain issues, and then revoke it and assign it to another person for other issues. The vast majority of people wouldn't change their proxies often, but they would be free to do so at any time.
And that's my two cents for today.
You can respond to my ranting here.
Veni, vidi, ranti - I came, I saw, I ranted.