Third Party Debates Moderated by Larry King: Discuss 221
Since the two big guys got their three debates covered, and the last third party debate kind of fizzled due to technical difficulties, we invite you to discuss the third party debate happening at 9 p.m. EDT tonight. Candidates from the Green, Libertarian, Constitution, and Justice parties will be debating in the same room with Larry King moderating. It would appear that C-SPAN is rebroadcasting it, so you catch it using rtmpdump if you happen to not use Flash. Since third party politicians are still politicians, remember to print out some Logical Fallacy Bingo. Topics for the debate include climate change, the drug war, and civil liberties.
Update: 10/24 02:32 GMT by U L : It turns out there will be a final third party debate next Tuesday on foreign policy between two of the candidates. To determine who will be in the debate Free and Equal is holding an IRV vote until 10:30 p.m. EDT October 24.
Why bother without IRV (Score:5, Interesting)
It is so incredibly sad that we don't have some type of IRV (Instant Runoff Voting). If we wanted real change, this is the only way to get it because it is the only way to have a real possibility of electing someone other than a Republicrat (or a Demolican).
Imagine a system where your vote actually counted, no matter who you vote for... I guess I can dream.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting [wikipedia.org]
http://www.fairvote.org/instant-runoff-voting [fairvote.org]
http://www.instantrunoff.com/ [instantrunoff.com]
Re:What a waste.. it's the political Special Olymp (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually if you are living with the bulk of the populations in a non-swing state. Voting 3rd party gives you more power. Yes your candidate will not win. But with more people voting third party, It gives that party more strength, as well their views gets more credit.
For example the Green Party often effect the polices of the Democrats, and the Libertarian party effects the republicans.
I live in NY for the president probability has Obama going to win. I personally don't like Romney either. So for me I can either choose from the lesser of two evils. Or look at the third parties, and vote of the guy like the most. I prefer the Modern Whig party myself.
So other then wasting my vote on a candidate who will win and only pays attention to my state for fundraising. I might as well vote third party to get my voice on the issue I find very important.
Ok if you live in a swing state Choosing Democrat or Republican has more power. However if you live in a solid state, don't wast your vote on a winner but use it on the issue you care about and get heard better.
Top Two System (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't realize there was a national move toward top two primaries [wa.gov], closing the election process even more... well, at least these four folks can agree to oppose that.
Also, they are behaving a lot better so far than Obama/Romney did. Maybe it's because of Zombie Larry King.
Re:third parties have no chance in the USA (Score:5, Interesting)
americans are not libertarians
Most Americans are not CEOs or wealthy investors; which party are we supposed to vote for? The problem with the Democrats and the Republicans is that both parties are basically fascist: the government is right, the policy are soldiers, and if you disagree you go to jail. Unless you run a big corporation; then you get to call the shots and command the fascist system.
When you have police officers with automatic weapons and grenades attacking civilian homes in your country, you know that the people in power probably do not represent you. When anti-aircraft missiles and considered to be part of providing Honduras with law enforcement assistance, you know that the minor differences between Democrats and Republicans are too small to really matter.
Who do you think is on the fringe -- the person who says, "Never mind the fact that the US has the largest prison population of any country, and never mind the fact that unarmed civilians are being attacked by paramilitary teams, you should be focused on whether or not the wealthy are taxed at 15% or 18%!!!!!" or the person who says, "Let's use tax money for constructive programs rather than destructive programs!!!" ?
Tea Party is libertarian, not far right (Score:3, Interesting)
The Tea Party wants exactly two things: Limited government, a lower federal spending.
A byproduct of both those things is that states can do what they want. Federal raids on marajana pharmacies? The Tea Party would be against that as wasteful federal spending, and not letting states decide what they want to do re: drugs.
Before you reduce support for the only group in America that is bringing Libertarian ideas to the public at large, re-think who it is that told you the Tea Party is far right... Yes they have far right members, but also many socially liberal members because the core goal overlaps with people of many different philosophical backgrounds.
I am a Tea Party supporter but in favor of all kinds of things the far right would dislike.
Re:Why bother without IRV (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with IRV is we elect too god-damned-many politicians to actually count all the IRV races we need to count.
Count the races you're supposed to vote on next time you vote. I guarantee you it will be in the dozens.
I would love it if it if somebody with power proposed that we go over to a less-American, more Westminster syetem that would allow luxuries like IRV/Concordet but nobody does. Nobody says "hey let's make all these Judges Gubenatorial appointees," or "It's fucking stupid that we let these guys run the library system, but we insist on referendums anytime they want to pay for a new library," or "Why the fuck do we have both a State Senate AND a State House?"
They just bitch that nobody pays attention to their vanity campaign for Governor.
Re:Top Two System (Score:2, Interesting)
I didn't realize there was a national move toward top two primaries [wa.gov], closing the election process even more... well, at least these four folks can agree to oppose that.
Also, they are behaving a lot better so far than Obama/Romney did. Maybe it's because of Zombie Larry King.
The 3rd party's opposition to top two primaries is actually a major reason I can't take them seriously.
With one very simple tweak this would be the best thing ever to happen to those parties. If there was only one guy from every party on the ballot then in most GOP Districts the Libertarians would come in second, which means that if there was an October Surprise for any Republican they actually win an election. Same with the Greens and the Dems. And every year somebody screws up.
But these chuckle-heads don't understand a politicians job is to find compromises. They think his job is to be totally righteous. Therefore instead of offering their support in exchange for the relatively minor concession of having every party caucus and nominate somebody prior to the first election, they go into full-opposition-to-the-death.
Re:Third-party topics for third-party candidates (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean I agree it's stupid, but it has zero effect on me or anyone I know.
That's what we call observation bias. If the people you know had gotten caught with drugs and jailed, then you probably wouldn't know them.
There's a lot of people, a significant percentage of the US, who get lost in the drug war. I gather it's something like 300-400k in jail [drugwarfacts.org] solely for drug related offenses (something like half of all federal prisoners plus about 20% of state level prisoners). In addition there's a lot of people on parole for such offenses.
In addition to prison time, there are other fines (assets used in commission of drug related offenses are routinely seized and sold off by police departments and governments) and punishments (such as being unable to vote, if you commit a felony).
It's worth noting that certain ethic groups, particularly, African Americans make up an inordinately large portion of this population.
I don't think it's fair to them that they should suffer from the various heavy criminal or social penalties for getting caught when so many others do not. It's a sort of bizarre anti-lottery where those caught lose out on many opportunities in life for the sole reason that they were the ones who got caught and couldn't get out of it.
It's not throwing away your vote! (Score:3, Interesting)
I do not understand why people think that voting for a third party is throwing away your vote. I don't understand why third party candidates don't point out that even if they do not get enough electoral voters to win, that if they get enough electoral voters to swing the vote they could make a huge difference.
With the way the electoral college is set up if Obama wins 250 electors, Romney wins 249 electors, and Johnson wins 39 electors, guess what? Johnson's not going to win, but he could ask his electors to cast their votes for one of the other two guys. That's quite a bit of power and influence. Not a bad method of actually representing the will of the people either. Of course the problem here is that with the exception of Maine and Nebraska the electors in other states are picked in a winner-take-all fashion. Also, about half of the states impose some minor penalty for electors voting for anyone other than who they were chosen to vote for.
Personally, I would hate to see election by popular vote. I would hate to see the country being run by someone that only 51% of us chose. I'd much rather see the country run by the guy that 40% of chose and who had to make concessions to the guy that the other 20% of us voted for. It really is a much better representation of a larger portion of the population. but I guess we haven't really had a representative government for some time now. :P
Re:Why bother without IRV (Score:4, Interesting)
All voting systems, in which more than two choices are present, suffer from spoilers and strategic voting. It is mathematically provable [wikipedia.org]. In approval voting, for example, if candidates A, B, and C are running and are all very close, and I really like A, sorta like B, and hate C, should I vote for B? If I do, I risk B beating A, but if I don't, I risk C beating B with A in third.
That being said, almost anything would be better than our current system, but good luck changing it.
One thing that might actually be attainable would be proportional representation with regard to House elections. Most states are gerrymandered to hell and back. Why not use proportional voting for those elections? It could be done at the state level for a few states that are more open to change, and could probably garner support from the current out-party (to get away from the problem of gerrymandering). Plus state level politicians are easier to affect with grass roots movements. It would let us get some 3rd party candidates into Congress, who could then push for further reform. The Senate would block it for many years, of course, but if we had a few dozen 3rd party representatives in the House, it could open more people up to third parties.