The Founding Fathers Warned about the Two-Party System:

[amborin]

The Founding Fathers Tried to Warn Us About the Threat From a Two-Party System


"Polls show that a majority of Americans say that both the Republicans and Democrats are doing such a poor job representing the people that a new, third party is needed.

snip

In fact, the Founding Fathers warned us about the threat from a two party system."

John Adams said:

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other.....

snip

George Washington agreed, saying in his farewell presidential speech:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. .....

snip

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/07/guest-post-the-founding-fathers-tried-to-warn-us-about-the-threat-from-a-two-party-system.html

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Those guys had it nailed.

[originalpckelly]

7. Yes, it is true, in some ways they did.

But they were only citing history.

Truthfully, we need to think for ourselves for once.

I'm tired of hearing zombie words, what do people think these days themselves?

[Bluerthanblue]

2. well, the FF's also had the runner-up become "vice-president"

some of what they thought, wasn't all that practical.

:shrug:

[originalpckelly]

5. The history of Roman Republic begs to differ, that's probably what Washington refers to.

People tried this shit before, and it ended up creating an emperor. That's what's happening now too.

[Horse with no Name]

10. Well not so sure that was a bad idea

but with the criminals in the republican party these days...no doubt that they would have a Democratic President assassinated each and every time. Although...they have been successful in killing them off and paying them off...and those that they couldn't do either...were ridiculed and marginalized.

[originalpckelly]

12. No, it was a bad idea.

Even if they are not backed up by parties, people who once opposed each other in an election cannot be trusted to work together on the same side, within a framework that does not contemplate the need for representation of the minority viewpoints in a country, to protect them from the strength of the majority.

[Horse with no Name]

13. Good point. n/t

[InvisibleTouch]

3. Who's to say that a third party won't have just as many problems?

Each with their own ideology and their own shortcomings. If you think we are gridlocked now, imagine how much worse it would be with three or more parties all arguing among themselves? Or the two "major" ones spending all their time maneuvering to bring the third into coalition with them, rather than attending to the business at hand. I know it's done in other countries, but I'm just not sure it would be better or worse, either way.

[originalpckelly]

4. It's Populares v. Optimates 2.0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populares
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimates

The Democrats are the populares, they use populism to gain power, but they themselves are not common people in many cases.
Then you've got the Republicans who are the Optimates, and they couldn't give a fuck about the common people.

Same shit, different millennium.

[PATRICK]

6. The example of

the corrupted British Empire, even or especially as it approaches its peak. America is mirroring that in very substantial ways, especially in corporate rule of money even in the supposedly "liberal" party. Of course, America already had two ruling factions and money was a big factor in keeping that going until we could be like the British, but even more "liberated" from the restrictions of law, democracy and even the Magna Carta.

[originalpckelly]

9. It's not even just that...

the Roman Empire rose from the Roman Republic because of the shit factionalism does to a system. Eventually, the gridlock causes someone to violate the laws of the country, do something that needs to be done, then use the loyalty gained from doing that, to make themselves the highest of high in power in whatever nation, in whatever time.

[PATRICK]

14. The broad nature

of Empire and all the examples admired except the uncomfortably short-lived. Unfortunately the short-lived is the nature of all regressive modern attempts and bungled lies. Shorter and shorter and the repeat button is getting worn.

[WatsonT]

8. And then they set up a system that all but guaranteed it

I think the parliamentary system may have been a better route.

You don't have to win big to have a say.

[originalpckelly]

11. Parliamentary systems have their own problems, our system is a reaction to that.

In the UK, they have and had no codified constitution, much like don't have one in this nation anymore. That's what "living document" really means.

The downside of that is that it makes it harder to say: "AHA! Look at what that douche did, that's not constitutional!"

They also lack separation of powers, because a parliament controls the executive. It means that there are no checks and balances between the branches as there are in our system. Although, one may make the argument that our system is about to fail because of these very same "checks and balances" which in the environment of partisanship do not actually allow anything to get done.

[DirkGently]

15. They were right.