Time for Article Five, Convention of States?

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I've heard that our winner take all system is why we have a two party system. Each is striving to get one vote over half and so that tends to divide the country into halves.

Perhaps awarding ECV by Congressional District, like ME and NE do, would help? It's also darn hard to get on some state ballots as a presidential candidate.

If the Libertarians had fielded decent candidates last election, I think they could have had an unusually strong showing. They are on the ballots of most, if not all, 50 states.

 

Most do, usually, yeah.

Easy, simple game theory. As the election draws nearer polls will start to indicate which group of candidates is garnering the greatest chance of winning. People supporting some of the candidates will be horrified at the person in the lead, and will start to pool their votes behind their second favorite candidate. Then, if that candidate takes the lead, other people might get horrified and pool behind the candidate now in second.

Major third party growth in the US has always lead to the same result: One party dominating everything as the other two split the more related vote.

Okay, we agree there. So there should be MORE than 3 parties that people vote for primarily.

That's largely the result of our electoral system. That's what we're discussing.

I'm not sure how much we actually disagree about. My only point is that there are changes we could make to our electoral system to solve a lot of these problems. There's nothing wrong with parties as such, people often have similar ideas and want to have their voice heard in unison.

 

No I figure you couldn't get 38 states to ratify the current constitution let alone ratify a new one.

 

Maybe the answer is having runoff elections and several parties that must form coalitions? I know that other countries aren't hamstrung by a two party system the way we are.

 

Yup, you and I are of one mind. I'd make the runoff simultaneous, give people two or three preferential votes. I'd make other electoral reforms, too. For example, I'd kill the idea of regional representation in the House. A conservative in California basically has no vote in our current system.

 

What the hell for?

So the US was founded by two people. Who knew?

 

It wasn't intended to allow traitors and radicals to live here and vote, either. Jefferson wanted those types deported, 'born here' or not.

 

You asked for evidence that original intent was to not have parties. The lack of any mention of parties is evidence. The words of Washington and Adams are also evidence.

Oh yeah, it's only the first two American presidents. What do they know? And yes, those two people DID found the US, even if they weren't the only ones.

 

LOL. No thanks. You would be better off hiding your real intent longer than post # 3.

 

Well, the important point is that the two people who did design the Constitution explicitly made it clear that the design was intended to work without political parties.

I think it was a mistake, but they did say that.

 

Who the hell do you think you're kidding?

Exactly.

Doesn't matter in this case, because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the Founders. You're welcome.

Now's your chance to walk that one back.

Actually you shouldn't walk, you should run like the wind.

 

Not going to. It's true that there were more people involved in ironing out the details, but the basic electoral structure was written with a single vision of how the system was meant to operate, and that vision is all over the Federalist Papers.

 

Uh, they were Founders. If the Founders can't speak on behalf of the Founders, then who can? Let me guess: you, right?

 

Right now is NOT the time to have a Constitutional Convention.

It IS the time to start enforcing federal laws, impeaching rouge judges, and prosecuting federal crimes.

 

Then you're sanguine about posting risible nonsense. Congratulations, I guess.

Similarly, as an American, I can speak on behalf of all other Americans. Got that about right, haven't I?

No, the Founders themselves, obviously. They did so once if you count only the DoI, or thrice if you count the AoC and the Constitution; and of course not one of those documents contains any provision that casts any doubt on the legitimacy of political parties.

Happily, that's not what this thread is about.

And we can't do all that while we're holding an A5 Convention because...?

 

I already explained my position, and you're failing to have anything useful to say on the topic. If you're here to have discussions, let's have one.

Political scientists have long recognized that the American system is poorly designed to deal with political parties, due to it's first-past-the-post geographically divided electoral system. The concept of the electoral college in particular is completely destroyed by the existence of two dominant political parties.

There's a simple reason for this. While designing the electoral system the Founders did not envision the political system giving rise to two dominant political parties.

None of this is controversial, much less "risible."

But I eagerly await your objections.

 

French President met with Russian Prez. Vladamir Putin today. There must be French and Russia collusion that helped Frances new Prez to get elected. Lol..lol..

 

Certainly it's not hard to feature the adduction of pertinent facts as a useless exercise to...shall we say, those of a certain mindset.

As someone who cares whether his position is consistent with known facts, I can only have discussions with like-minded people; and pilgrim, that sure as Hell ain't you.

Maybe it is, and maybe it ain't; but what I called risible, is risible. Even you must have an inkling of that by now, which is presumably why you're changing the subject.

 

I'm glad to see that you're so high-minded as to decide, before trying to persuade me, that I am completely immune to persuasion.

And I sure as hell never changed the subject. I claimed that our electoral system was designed around a certain vision of how things should work, predominately by two minds, Madison and Hamilton. I claimed that this vision did not account for the existence of political parties. One only needs to read the Federalist papers to see that this is the case.

You literally haven't made a single substantive point. You've simply implied that I was wrong, and then called me either stupid or pigheaded in the most verbose way you could think of.

 

Actually I'd say your immunity lies at a more fundamental level.

Of course you did. The subject of the conversation into which you saw fit to interject yourself was an unfounded claim about the intent of the Founders, which you evidently thought to buttress with a glaring falsehood; and, given the space to retract said falsehood, you went full retard by refusing to do so.

Considering the source, this doesn't have anything like the sting that was presumably intended.

"Implied" my ass, I said it outright, and quite properly so.

 

If you want to argue that the Federalist Papers cannot be taken as some form of authority on the design philosophy of the Constitution, that's fine, that's an arguable point. I think that this attitude makes intent impossible to establish, but whatever, that's your deal.

What matters to me is that whatever the intent, whatever the design philosophy, our electoral system works poorly when dominated by two political parties.

 

1-term limits for senate, congress and a 20-year supreme court term
2-revision of the 14th amendment to clarify that only those born to US citizens can be citizens, and end the anchor baby nonsense

Those two would be a nice start.

 

Sounds great, as soon as you are willing to mass deport the 40MM illegals, and make it retroactive to 1950.

You can either have a welfare state with closed borders, or open borders and no welfare - but not both. Which do you want?

 

I'd go the other way, and remove the obstacles to forming more parties that the dems and repubs have colluded and put in place. With more parties, the mass public would be better represented than the extreme 5% on the far left and right, which is what is driving the policies.