Pierce on the two-party system

Post #379,011 by rcareaga 8/9/13 12:47:10 PM Reply	Pierce on the two-party system I'm not going to consider getting a tattoo until they're available in some kind of dynamic e-ink that can do automatic updates, and when that happens I'm going to have Charlie Pierce's blog applied to the back of my hand. It is not a good thing in a country that allows itself only two political parties to have one of those parties lose its mind. When that happens, it is the responsibility of the other major political institutions to whack the party in question around until it regains its balance. As a nation, we have failed to do this with the Republicans. http://www.esquire.c...Of_Reince_Priebus cordially,
Post #379,030 by static 8/9/13 8:27:43 PM Reply	Seems to be happening Down Under, too. Our Liberal/National coalition, both of whom are anything but liberal are slowly getting more and more detached from reality. Wade. Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/
Post #379,032 by rcareaga 8/9/13 9:18:25 PM 8/10/13 12:54:21 PM Reply	Growing up in the fifties/sixties we were taught... that the American Two-Party System™was quite the wisest political arrangement ever devised by the mind of man (it was discreetly passed over that the men who drafted the US Constitution for the most part despised the notion of political parties), and that the American Two-Party System™ was superior both to the Godless Soviet One-Party System™ (no further discussion required) and to the weak and decadent European multi-party system, which was damned as both unstable and subject to paralysis. It seems to me that our American ingenuity has addressed the paralysis gap, and that a system with multiple pillars probably proves more resilient against the loss of any given support than one that has just two.. I say again, bring on the Rapture, motherfuckers. Stick a fork in the Constitution. Grasp it in tongs, rather, and take it out to the swill-bin: it's done, and has begun to stink. cordially, Edited by rcareaga Aug. 10, 2013, 12:54:21 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #379,041 by boxley 8/10/13 12:16:46 AM Reply	took a while for the whigs to become irrelevant as well the current republican party consists of democrats from the 60's who couldn't impose their race religion and knavery after the civil rights act was passed. Remember Johnson's paraphrase "We have lost the Presidency for a generation" except for a last hurrah via carter thanks to an ill advised pardon by ford the democrats cleaned their ranks of those folks. Unfortunately the replaced them with the carpet bagging thieves that reminisce of post war between the states reconstruction. Note to democrats that run local systems, there is nothing left to steal, get over it. It will either transform into something else or be replaced. Personally I would like to have a party that promised to stay both out of my wallet and my bedroom Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #379,044 by rcareaga 8/10/13 12:49:17 AM Reply	current republicans consist "the current republican party consists of democrats from the 60's who couldn't impose their race religion and knavery" *Really?* Gosh, box, tell me how many of those racist sixties Democrats are still out there reincarnated as activist or even voting Republicans. Tell me what percentage of Romney voters last year were ex-Democrats from the 1960s. Tell me. Support the premise so boldly advanced. Let me save you the trouble: Not. Very. Fucking. Many. You have simply pulled that statement out of your asshole. Why do you do this? You're not stupid. Why do you so routinely assert obvious falsehoods? What the fuck is the matter with you?
Post #379,045 by boxley 8/10/13 1:16:32 AM Reply	so you don't think the dixicrat mentality is alive and well in the current republican party? Those folks used to reliably vote democrat. Every single elected official from the mason dixon line south, and most border areas were absolutely blue states until 1964. Al Gore senior and KKK Byrd were democrats and leaders against the civil rights act of 1964. Fucking Lott was a democrat back in the day. Do you really miss him? When the Democratic Party abandoned the fucked up rural south the republicans under Nixon embraced them. So what party did MLK dad vote reliably for? It wasn't the democrats sparky. So Esse, when did you start pretending that it wasn't the democratic party that owned segregation until 1964, party of Lestor Maddox, George Wallace, Ronnie Lott etc. Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #379,049 by Another Scott 8/10/13 8:59:47 AM Reply	You're mixing up at least 2 things, I think. 1) Republicans today are more than sons and daughters of Dixiecrats. The Koch brothers weren't Dixiecrats. The "Libertarian" types weren't Dixiecrats. 2) Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, Cornyn weren't Dixiecrats. They've always been Republicans. Dixiecrats who became Republicans have pretty-much died out. 3) The racist people and groups that support the Teabagger candidates might or might not have supported Dixiecrats in the past. But there aren't any Dixiecrats now, so it's kinda irrelevant, isn't it? HTH. Cheers, Scott.
Post #379,054 by hnick 8/10/13 11:04:57 AM Reply	You're talking data points and not mechanics. During the civil rights dust up, there WAS a major switcheroo. The southern crazies went to the Republicans and embraced the southern policy, which was, and still is, massively successful. The more sane Republicans migrated to the Democrats. Over time, policies shifted and later additions to the party followed the changing policies. The "over time" is important. The Koch brothers aren't Dixiecrats; they're good old fashioned fascists. They will co-op anybody on either side of the aisle who is for sale(pretty much all of them.) Libertarians have been many things over the years; now they're pretty much just Republican shock troops. Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, Cornyn are just corrupt politicians. They could be any party; they're in it for the money and the power. They don't give a shit about anybody or anyone but themselves. They're good at it, so whatever happens, they will retire very wealthy and unprosecuted. The Dixiecrat label went away; the Dixiecrats are still there in abundance. The labels just changed; a rose by any other name...
Post #379,058 by rcareaga 8/10/13 12:03:58 PM Reply	I'm perfectly well aware what southern dems used to be in the 1960s. And I'm also perfectly well aware, as you apparently are not, that seventy-five percent of that cohort of voters are dead. To hear today's GOP say "We marched with Martin Luther King" is to guffaw. Today's GOP voters would have stood with Bull Conner, and turned the dogs and firehoses on the marchers.
Post #379,061 by boxley 8/10/13 1:02:33 PM Reply	their decendants are alive and well and voting Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #379,064 by rcareaga 8/10/13 1:20:55 PM Reply	in that case your original assertion should have read "the current republican party consists of the descendants of Democrats from the 60's..." which would have made it in equal parts true, trite and uninformative rather than merely wrongheaded. curdlingly,
Post #379,096 by folkert 8/10/13 9:11:16 PM Reply	ROFL! -- greg@gregfolkert.net PGP key 1024D/B524687C 2003-08-05 Fingerprint: E1D3 E3D7 5850 957E FED0 2B3A ED66 6971 B524 687C
Post #379,046 by static 8/10/13 5:53:55 AM Reply	I didn't have any teaching about politics. May be partly why I'm so bad at it. As for the political parties... the Political Compass has added a page for our next Federal election, which is in about a month. http://www.politicalcompass.org/aus2013 Unsurprisingly, the two main players, Labor and Liberal, are awfully similar. Helps explain why people have trouble choosing between them - and why the role of Opposition seems to be nothing more than shouting "I disagree with you!" without necessarily imparting in quite what way. :-/ When I last took that test, I came out the other side the centre cross. Much nearer to the Greens, in fact. The way the representation works, though, is strongly tied to a two-party system. Add a third with similar proportion and it rather falls apart. I'm sure you know this! Wade. Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/

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