Nader Drops By Kansas City. Does Anyone Care?

[KCK]

Ralph Nader was at the Jack Reardon Civic Center in KCK on Thursday, but I noticed that his visit didn't garner much attention, and with Nader off the ballot in Missouri and several other states, its hard to even consider him a real candidate. I voted for Nader back in 2000, and I might vote for him again this year. Here is an article


http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascit ... 507592.htm
[quote]
In KCK, Nader promotes plan to withdraw from Iraq

By ROBERT A. CRONKLETON The Kansas City Star

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader on Thursday called for a six-month “responsible withdrawalâ€

[trailerkid]

buried on page 3 of the Metro section...

[chrizow]

no, no one cares.

but they should.

Nader knows that he'll never be elected president. he is just using the relatively high-profile act of a Prez campaign to drive home a very important message: (1) the republicans are going to ruin this country, (2) the weak, diluted democratic party, with little cohesion and no real strong central message, isn't going to eclipse the efficient Republican machine anytime soon (nor would it necessarily be much better), and (3) therefore, the 2-party system as it stands will never solve the most pressing problems the US faces today, which comes not from Al Qaida but from lack of good jobs, underfunded and impotent schools, lack of access to healthcare, tragic tax policy, buccaneer-style foreign policy, and the corporate monster (which should be considered a 4th branch of the government these days).

so yeah, i dont take NAder's CANDIDACY seriously....but i take his message very seriously.

[KCK]

i never believed in the 2 party system. They turned america black and white, with no shades of gray in the middle. That just sucks.

[ComandanteCero]

If this is a true democracy then we should see the wide range of interests and issues represented in our political body, a two party system implies there are only two fundamental positions that we as Americans choose, which seems more than a little disingenous. Democrats and Republicans are basically two faces of the same moderately right of center coin. So yeah, Nader is definitely a positive symbol (even if i don't agree with his policies per se).
The counter argument may be that if you have too many cooks in the kitchen you might not get anywhere....but, nah, i think having a politically diverse legislature would lead to more compromise and to a better representation of the action that will provide the greatest good for the greatest amount of people, (which if you ask me this system does not do...)
So go Nader and every other person who wants to open up the political game in this country to a wider cast of players.

[bahua]

I find that the real purpose of third parties is to change the general direction of politics in this country. Enough people push for something that a third party is after, and it becomes a mainstream political issue, addressed by the major parties.

While I despise both of the major parties, I still believe that a two-party system is the best we can do. It insures that no candidate can get elected without at least a majority of the votes. Otherwise, we'd have a country like France, where politics change dramatically at each change of the guard, as extremists take turns running the government after winning an election with only 23% of the vote.

[ComandanteCero]

well with voter turnouts in this country as they are i don't know if we're much better

[bahua]

What does that have to do with a two-party system?

[ComandanteCero]

just saying that if you have low voter turnout you have a minority of the population determining an election, so in real numbers it would end up kind of like the French example where a virtual minority acts as a majority (neither is all that representative of the true majority) regardless of number of parties.
of course low voter turnout is more of a bad civic duty while the french example woule be more reflective of a systematic blunder. (i'm not acquainted with how the Frenchies do their thing but it seems like they would have safeguards against the metaphorical 23 percent situation, but who knows, they are pretty crazy over there)

[KCK]

Suggesting that a two part system represents a majority would be silly. Truth is already 20-30% of the population chooses a president. If voter turnout increased, the two party system would become even weaker.

[ComandanteCero]

which brings up the question of "Why is voter turn out so low?". I think the possible answers would include problems with how our political system is set up. According to some study i read, the ideal maximum scale of government is one that encompasses a region between 2-10 million. After that the burocracy overwhelms the democratic ideal (in other words, at that scale legislation and politics are still very visible in terms of their local impact, which usually encourages people to be aware of what is going on politically and thus be active about it. It is also a scale where you can sill have the possibility of directly interacting with the different ministers and office holders. In other words you still feel like your vote matters, and has a very real and palpable impact (this is all "supposedly", since they had a lot of equations explaining why this was true, but i didn't quite follow that...). They (the authors of that study) argued for a reorganization of the entire world into regions of 2-10 million who all had equal representatives in a world legislative body (like the UN).
Anyway, i'm not for all that, but i think there is a certain truth about the scale of politics. It feels to me that unless i'm out in some grassroots organization i don't have much influence on local issues except for when elections come around, while the scale of national politics is so massive and abstract that my vote isn't that important in the large scheme of it (i do vote by the way, just saying, that i don't feel that directly connected with national politics, mostly cause i don't have a feeling of control over it, and when i do at election time it is so infinitessimaly small and compromised ((as i don't agree with everything either candidate is for))that it doesn't mean that much to me)

[zlohban]

According to some study i read, the ideal maximum scale of government is one that encompasses a region between 2-10 million. After that the burocracy overwhelms the democratic ideal

Yes it is called a "State" a smaller sovereign constitutional government.

I.E. The United States of America

[zlohban]

I find that the real purpose of third parties is to change the general direction of politics in this country. Enough people push for something that a third party is after, and it becomes a mainstream political issue, addressed by the major parties.

Yes I agree. The third party element is why the republicans and democrats have both traded issues over the years. California, New York and all of the Northeast states were once very republican "Rockerfellow Republican" and the south was entirely "Scoop Jackson Democrat" including TEXAS that ofcourse has all changed.

Our system works.

[QueSi2Opie]

Nader = Throwing Your Vote in the Trash

Especially in a swing state like Missouri!

Nice to see him in KCK though.

[trailerkid]

Nader = Throwing Your Vote in the Trash

Especially in a swing state like Missouri!

Nice to see him in KCK though.

I believe he's not on the ballot in Missouri.

[ComandanteCero]

According to some study i read, the ideal maximum scale of government is one that encompasses a region between 2-10 million. After that the burocracy overwhelms the democratic ideal

Yes it is called a "State" a smaller sovereign constitutional government.

I.E. The United States of America

if states were reorganized it might reflect the idea i mentioned. The point is that the 2-10 million region a government serves shares very specific cultural, economic (this is key) and historical ties (as in the KC metro region). It's silly to think that KCMO and Branson are more closely linked than KCMO and KCK, however because of basically arbitrary lines set centuries/decades ago the metro region operates within different sets of laws and taxes (for the most part). Which isn't good for the general efficiency and effectiveness of the government and how it serves us. Either way, the ultimate point is whether we as citizens are really offered a democratic experience and whether this may be a problem due to scale and organization of the political system....