SimpleDon
Veteran Member
I wouldn't put too much into what Mahler says, he is an entertainer first and foremost.
It is naive to think that either party will give up their jointly held stranglehold on the US's political system.
I personally feel punished when I have to vote for the least worse option. But the main problem that we have right now isn't in the way that we vote, it is that we have a dynamic, complex economy and society that the majority of the electorate has been convinced that we can run with a government from the 1950's or even worse from the 19th century. That government is the only problem. That if we got the government out of the economy and society in general that everything will be better. A position with no support even in theory or that we can see at any time in history. A position supported only by faith. Faith and fantasies. More a religion than a coherent way to govern.
They complain about the ever increasing number of regulations as an example of the smothering effect of the government. But when pressed they can't list any examples of useless regulations written by faceless bureaucrats intent on suppressing growth. There are bad regulations written. It is done by fallible people after all. But the regulations are written to solve real problems, not just to assert the government needlessly into society. And yes, there are regulations that are written to favor one side over another. But this is an argument for more participation in the process of writing of regulations, not to abandon the process completely.
I don't see where we gain much by encouraging third parties, which seems to be the accepted conclusion of the majority here. The third parties mentioned so far are outiers. They don't add much to the conversation. The greens are a single issue party with no real understanding of their single issue. Yes, the biggest problem facing us is climate change. But the only realistic solution is completely off the table for them, nuclear power. We need a low preferably zero carbon solution for the generation of central base power to replace the large base power coal fired plants. This is from a person who has solar panels on their roof. There is nothing on the technical horizon that will allow solar or wind power to reliably provide base power. Nuclear fission is the only off the shelf, available technology to replace coal. Nuclear fusion is the technology in the future that can make the current problems with the current high pressure, uranium fueled reactors go away, the increasing scarcity of fuel, the waste fuel problem and to make the safest method that we have found to generate base power even safer.
The libertarians are living the fantasy. They make the Tea Partiers look levelheaded. There is nothing remotely realistic about their proposed policies. They want to return to the gold standard, the absolutely worse monetary system that we have ever had. They want to get rid of all of the government except for what they must consider to be its only redeeming part, our system of civil litigation, how we sue each other. They propose to replace regulations like building codes with after the fact civil suits. Three years after the fact a judge is going to tell you what you should have done instead of being able to read clear, consistent requirements before you bid the job. And their economics is even more insane and ungrounded in reality than their "all the government has to do is to enforce contracts" through the hyperefficient method of Iöts more civil suits and lots and lots more lawyers.
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