Debate in the assembly of the country can often be adversarial and not constructive, sometimes revolving around narrowly perceived policy ideas, rather than larger political issues. Sometimes adversarial politics can lead to the opposition disagreeing with everything the government proposes (and vice versa) for the sake of disagreeing. This can lead to important legislation, especially reforms, being blocked that may be beneficial for the country.
That is right, since most of the third party are narrow minded, focusing on a specific issue, they will less likely to create girdlock with the other 2 big parties, and more importantly, certain amount of gridlock is vital against tyranny.
I do agree that it is bad, but opposing views should be presented.
The real problem is integrity and the system where, at leat in presidential elections a large majority in theory could loose because of the electoral college, and how the loser in each state is not taken account of.
There is no such thing as the "two party system". This system has been directly created from our winner-take-all voting method. first past the post should be replaced by proportional or approval voting methods.
Candidates are motivated to run negative campaigns, pointing out the flaws in the "other person" (usually the leader of the other party) and staking out only those positions that are necessary to differentiate themselves from their primary opponent and not constructive or beneficial to citizens.
two-party systems are not intrinsically any more stable, citing such examples of stable democracies as Germany, which has a multi-party system through proportional representation.
I disagree that coalition is highly unlikely. As long as a given party controls the executive branch and has a solid majority in both houses of Congress, they essentially have achieved coalition.
This weak argument can be further taken to say facism/dictatorships are even more stable, and thus, everyone should be ruled by one man, for coalitions sake.
This is a ridiculous argument. The more people discussing points the better. It may take longer, but agreements reached will have greter support, unlike the "democratic" US, who would go against the majority, and applaud others for going aginst the majority of their peoples.
Example, Turkey, who was criticised for following the democratic beliefs of its people, inn not helping the US illegally invade a country. At the same time, the US applauded people who joined them despite democratic agreement of less than 10%
The US and its two party system care nothing about democracy or fairness, but in its unilateral self-serving hegemon.
In an effort to attract voters, each party will adopt planks of the other party's platform, leading to the appearance in some skeptics' minds of a one-party system. Examples include the American notion of a "Republicrat."
-Two parties can more easily collude to ensure a result that is desirable to them but undesirable to the voters. Since no other party is an option, neither is the classic recourse of democracy-"vote the bums out", as in this scenario both parties "in power" are the bums. This also reduces recourse for the wrongdoing to be exposed (as there is no one in power with the clout and wish to do so), and creates a cycle that feeds on itself.
-Bribes (campaign contributions) go further when there are only two sets of palms to grease.
-Makes it likely that the "check and balance" system integral to constitutional democracy will be corrupted by having large numbers of representatives of a single party at all levels.
-Proportional representation would better reflect the "will of all the people", including the minorities, and prevent current problems such as gerrymandering and total exclusion of third parties.
During the 1992 Presidential elections, Ross Perot received 17% of the national vote; a major rebellion of U.S. voters against the two party system. However, when all was said and done that 17% was left with no voice in congress whatsoever. A constitutional amendment instituting a proportional element to our democratic system would a good thing, and would break down the two party system.
Major differences are usually yes or no, pro and con. There are two sides to an argument. Therefore it makes sense to have two political parties for two clearly seperate schools of thought.
Within the political party there will be a broad spectrum of views, not about the issue itself, but with how to deal with it. What better way to come up with a solution that the party has identified than to have debate within the party about what to do.