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I need to know something here so would you be so kind as to answer a couple of questions for me? If you live in the US and are old enough to vote, do you typically vote for:
A) Democrats and/or Republicans
B) Not Democrats or Republicans
If the answer is A, answer the following.
C) My ideals match the political party that I vote for better than any others (counting less popular third parties).
D) I split my votes between Republican and Democrats pretty evenly.
E) I pretty much vote for the lesser of two evils. [whichever side that may be for you]
F) I would support a third party but then I'd just be throwing my vote away.
And finally ...
G) I believe our elected officials are doing a great job or at least the best that we can hope anyone to do.
H) I wonder if they actually do anything in Washington?
This is a serious question. I'm not just trying to start a political flame war. Please keep it civil.
B.
A, B, E, F
Black Mass Final 3 avatar
I need to know something here so would you be so kind as to answer a couple of questions for me? If you live in the US and are old enough to vote, do you typically vote for:
A) Democrats and/or Republicans
C) My ideals match the political party that I vote for better than any others (counting less popular third parties).
E) I pretty much vote for the lesser of two evils. [whichever side that may be for you]
F) I would support a third party but then I'd just be throwing my vote away.
H) I wonder if they actually do anything in Washington?
Black Mass Final 3 avatar
I need to know something here so would you be so kind as to answer a couple of questions for me? If you live in the US and are old enough to vote, do you typically vote for:
A) Democrats and/or Republicans
C) My ideals match the political party that I vote for better than any others (counting less popular third parties).
E) I pretty much vote for the lesser of two evils. [whichever side that may be for you]
F) I would support a third party but then I'd just be throwing my vote away.
H) I wonder if they actually do anything in Washington?
I don't understand this. C, D, E and F were supposed to be mutually exclusive answers (although I do realize that some of them aren't now). But how can you (C) Have ideals that match your political party of choice, (E) vote primarily for one side mostly to oppose the other and (F) would prefer to vote for a third party but don't because they have no chance of winning?
Could you please explain your rationale behind these answers? Or was the wording of my lettered options misleading or unclear? I apologize if that is the case.
A, D.
I would vote for a third party candidate (and occasionally have), but the positions of the third parties line up even less to my beliefs than the Dems/Reps.
I would really like for you to elaborate on this if you wouldn't mind. Which beliefs are you referring to?
C, D, E and F were supposed to be mutually exclusive answers (although I do realize that some of them aren't now).
Don't feel bad. My company used to give training with an end quiz that had the directions "select all that apply," and choice D was "all of the above." So no one knew whether to select D; or to select A, B, C, and D; or to select A, B, and C...? The computer would only accept one of those, but which one? The fact that it was a "gimme" question and 67% of the employees got it wrong eventually tipped them off to the problem.
Could you please explain your rationale behind these answers? Or was the wording of my lettered options misleading or unclear? I apologize if that is the case.
I am voting for the lesser of two evils. Democrats more closely resemble my ideals , making them the lesser of two evils in my opinion. If a third party came along that was closer to what i wanted i wouldn't vote for it, because my vote would be thrown away, i may as well stay home. I'm a realist, not an idealist. A vote may not change much but it still changes more than a purely symbolic gesture.
A) Democrats and/or Republicans
E) I pretty much vote for the lesser of two evils. [whichever side that may be for you]
F) I would support a third party but then I'd just be throwing my vote away.
G) I believe our elected officials are doing a great job or at least the best that we can hope anyone to do. (sorta)
H) I wonder if they actually do anything in Washington?
The sorta for G being that, while they're doing far less than I think they should, at least they're keeping the other side from completely ruining everything...
A) Democrats and/or Republicans and/or Independents
C) My ideals match the political party that I vote for better than any others (counting less popular third parties).
F) I would support a third party but then I'd just be throwing my vote away.
H) I wonder if they actually do anything in Washington?
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I would really like for you to elaborate on this if you wouldn't mind. Which beliefs are you referring to?A, D.
I would vote for a third party candidate (and occasionally have), but the positions of the third parties line up even less to my beliefs than the Dems/Reps.
I can probably give you a more salient answer if you could please first state what is the "something" you need to know.
A
E
H
Please explain what you are trying to discover.
It is essential to vote. Not because "one vote makes a difference," but because voting - like messageboards - involves a very loud minority with strong opinions, and a very apathetic majority. It's quite possible for huge and unpopular societal changes (such as Prohibition) to pass with a mere 20% approval rating - all it takes is for 20% to vote Yes, 19% to vote No, and 61% not to vote. The 61% may strongly support one side or the other, but what they want isn't relevant because they didn't say so.
That said, I understand disenchantment with voting. To the non-voter, voters all seem to have fallen into the Kodos Fallacy so famously voiced by Homer Simpson (who, of course, misses the irony) in Treehouse of Horror VII.
Y'know, I wrote three more paragraphs, big ones, before I decided to delete 'em and let everybody else get worked up about this subject on their own time. The answers the OP wanted from me are: A and E. No others apply.
+1 to all of this, including the choices of A and E. And add in H.
I can probably give you a more salient answer if you could please first state what is the "something" you need to know.
Please explain what you are trying to discover.
I believe that most people vote either Democrat, Republican or split between the two primarily because they feel they have to. I also feel that most people don't even like the people they vote for (or the job they're doing) but do so mainly as opposition to "the other candidate". I didn't directly ask it but I think most people believe that our politicians, particularly in higher office, are corrupt and not looking out for their (the American people's) best interests.
Yes, I realize that this isn't anything groundbreaking here. I was mostly just confirming my basic assumptions (only one person has picked G so far and most have picked E) before launching an initiative that I'm working on. Don't worry, it's nothing violent. I'll post a link to it when I'm finished. Maybe some of you will want to help me get the ball rolling.
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I can probably give you a more salient answer if you could please first state what is the "something" you need to know.
Please explain what you are trying to discover.I believe that most people vote either Democrat, Republican or split between the two primarily because they feel they have to. I also feel that most people don't even like the people they vote for (or the job they're doing) but do so mainly as opposition to "the other candidate". I didn't directly ask it but I think most people believe that our politicians, particularly in higher office, are corrupt and not looking out for their (the American people's) best interests.
Thanks. To further explain my beliefs, I find that while both Democrats and Republicans are more interested in gathering power for themselves instead of governing the body politic, they both wish for a generalized continuation of society as we know it, and are willing to maintain--for the most part--institutions in place.
When I learn about what the various third parties stand for, however, I see much more iconoclasm than I think healthy. For example, most Libertarians who have asked for my vote have also pushed for much more home education--in my opinion, a HUGE mistake because most parents won't know what is best for their children to learn, and will limit exposure to things like multivariate calculus, or how the classics have affected our present-day culture. Similarly, the Greens' position has most often involved a rollback of economic strength through reduction of energy availability. Although the description I hear from them involves improving the environment, many times it seems secondary to simply punishing rich people--and the economic fallout on the poor, be damned. Reduce the energy supply, and it will be the poor that are first frozen out, not the rich.
What we have in this country is great. It's damaged, far more now than in recent history, but it is still GREAT. It is great because of the institutions we have created, and the care in the back and forth that we have. This needs to be maintained. If things are bad here, is there anywhere that you'd rather be? If so, what's keeping you here?
I believe that in the past, we have managed to maintain the best policies for this country while the Democrats and Republicans have been at loggerheads. By maintaining that balance, most of the bad has been avoided, and only those policies that are good can easily get through. Now, however, both parties have been ceding greater power to the banks, at the expense of the people. This needs to change. However, the change we don't need is one that whips out the foundation of the country in the process. We need a highly educated workforce to compete globally. We need high levels of productivity to produce what we need to improve the general welfare for ourselves.
Gridlock used to be a good solution. It no longer is. However, I have yet to see any third party ask for more than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so they haven't been a solution, either.
As of right now, the best solution appears to be the following:
- Primary involvement. Work hard to uncover who in each party is running for what, and what they stand for. Find out if any of them are possibly good candidates, and work hard to get them chosen to run for their party.
- Civic involvement. Get out there, yourself. Many of us think that voting isn't effective. In truth, voting isn't enough. Get involved with the running of your neighborhood, your town, your county. Know who the people who make decisions for you are, and work with them. Become a useful and helpful member of your community, and effect the change you desire by being that change. Heck, if it means getting on town council yourself, do that.
Thank you! That's exactly the kind of argument that I wanted to hear from someone with your viewpoint. Here's mine.
Every great nation or civilization in the history of humanity has fallen almost exclusively due either their own greed (corruption of its leaders) or from others' greed (foreign invaders). If there's one thing that humanity should have learned by now is that greed is _not_ good (much to the dismay of Michael Douglas' character in Wall Street.
If left unchecked, the United States of America will share this same fate. I have no idea when but sooner or later, it will happen if we keep electing politicians that aren't looking out for our, and even more importantly, our countries best interest instead of their own.
Yes, the major third parties have a few unconventional ideals. They kind of have to in order to even get noticed. Just like Obama realized after taking office that he couldn't just immediately bring all of the troupes home without very bad things happening overseas, I'm sure these alternate political parties would face similar situations if they were given the privilege of serving our country. What I admire is that they continue to pursue their and our goals even though they have pretty much zero chance of reaching higher office and very little of even getting in lower office. I believe we stand a better chance with people who may actually care about doing what is right. Even if I'm wrong about this, they still would be forced to get along, do a good job and make us happy in order to have any hope of remaining in power. It would also force the Democrats and Republicans to revamp themselves to have any chance at making a comeback. The Republicans came to power in 1854 when we elected the president we affectionately call Honest Abe. We need to return to these ideals instead of remaining jaded.
The problem I have with finding good Republican and Democratic candidates is that no matter how good someone may appear, it doesn't seem to help once they reach higher office. Almost all of them just seem to fall into like with whatever their party desires them be while blindly opposing the other side even if it would be beneficial to us. I personally can't support this.
I don't deny that America is still great. But it could be better and it's not heading in that direction (and hasn't been for quite some time now). What's keeping me here? I grew up here. I am generally happy with most things, the exception being our corrupt politics and the damage that it's doing to our country. I'd rather try to help fix this as opposed to just abandoning ship.
I do agree with your stance at getting involved on the community level. I really wish I could in town I live in. It's a small community that doesn't really desire anything beyond what we have now.
Thank you again for your response.
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I do agree with your stance at getting involved on the community level. I really wish I could in town I live in. It's a small community that doesn't really desire anything beyond what we have now.
In my experience, it's easier to get involved when the community is small--they are usually starved for civic involvement, so it's easy to become an important force for the community. The trick here is that you must appear, before you have the chance to make your effort, to be someone in line with the community ideals. If you seem to be trying to move the community in directions the community doesn't want to move, then you'll never be given the opportunity to make your mark on town to begin with. Start small, start humble, build your relationships, and then leverage them.
Incidentally, that also applies to third parties, and is why the ones we have right now fail to make an impact time and again.
I'm an officer in my town's civic committee. Our group goes out and finds qualified candidates for mayor, town council, and the Board of Education. Sometimes, it's tough to find people who are willing to serve. However, by making sure that we work with qualified individuals and can assist them with being able to perform the duties of service, it is rewarding for us all.
You can get involved.