Re: Apparently, he did not get the Memo...

On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 1:28 PM, Karl <[email protected]> wrote:
> But would it make any effective difference?  The D R or I labels are a
> convenience, but take them away and guess what?  Nothing changes.

I can't speak for Lance, but...

The convenience labels are fine and dandy.  The freedom of association
is essential and important.  The joint fundraising and marketing
efforts don't bother me.  The groupthink, institutional bias, and
"punishment" or ridicule of those who don't toe the line (e.g.
Lieberman, Tea Party vs "Establishment" GOP, etc) is regrettable and
potentially corrosive but nearly unavoidable in any social setting,
let alone a political one.

Our first-pass-the-poll voting system further demonizes any
potential spoilers (merely by allowing their existence), thus
artificially limiting our choices to a lesser-of-two-evils scenarios.
If that were the only way that third parties were marginalized it
would be enough, but at least the big two parties would be toppled and
replaced with another big two more frequently.

It's the laws and institutional rules concerning parties that most
concern me.  E.g. the campaign finance regulations and public campaign
financing that has onerous requirements which only the big two can
really profit from.  The petty but significant blockade disallowing a
candidate to run under nominations from multiple parties.  That I need
to "register" as affiliated to a particular party[0], and then I can
only vote in the primary for said party (and each party can only
proffer one candidate per position in the general election).

These are merely the first things that come to mind.  All of them are
written into my federal or state law, and all of them profit the big
two parties at the expense of allowing a third party to get a foot in
the door.  IMHO, any law or rule that explicitly regulates political
parties or affiliations should probably be stricken.

And it is in the best interest of the party faithful (from both
parties) to keep it this way.

-- 
Nick

[0] I haven't been able to bring myself to register as anything but
"Independent" though.  Pragmatically, in MD, I should register as a
Democrat so that I can vote in their primaries, which are really the
only ones that matter for my district.  But I just can't stomach any
sort of interpretation of support that might imply.

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