Is anyone else disenchanted about the idea of political parties?

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It's like religion. It creates a template of values for lazy people to fall on. In a society like ours (generally anywhere where the internet is accessible) where information is freely available, there should be no need for parties to act as templates for peoples' political values.

Yet I still see most people voting for a party, or a race, or a religion, not the actual values that the politician holds.

People should analyze and constructively criticize the individual, not the party as a whole. It's impossible for all people in a political party to agree. You see democrats who are more conservative than some Republicans, and Republicans who are more liberal than some democrats.

If everyone just stopped playing follow-the-leader and created their own set of morals and values based on their observations, politics would be a lot less complicated, self-contradictory, and generally retarded.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, vote for the person, not the party. Observe the world on your own, don't just follow traditions.

Of course this is probably just my own liberal bias showing.

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@The Dude phil phil,

Hi dude

i think disenchanted is the world. When was the last time politics was enchanting? It isn't, because it is now a beaurocratic media machine and we are losing our wow factor even in the face of high tech cgi and how low can you go reality shows.

But political structures do give real security. Most voters still have a sense that if we undermine the structures of the system we will bring a great deal more than disenchantment down upon our heads. In the end there are too many of us on this planet not to be organised by some form of beaurocracy. Without one the lights would go out. Literally and worse.

Actually there are i think much more hopeful alternatives beginning to rise than voting for individual politicians. Voting on trust of presentation seems to me to be well scary, unless it is homogenised into a double speak political party. The saving grace being that any in fighting is done back stage and the winner gets to pretend they know what they are doing with the support of the party. Really mesmerising political figures have a tendency towards extremism.

The new techno alternative is to bypass politicians and indeed any so called ruling 'experts'. Loans, information, company management, education, manufacturing .... anything that we classically see as requiring ownership and/or management in the hands of a small decision making team, can actually be replaced by risk spreading private contracts and decision making based upon direct demand rather than central opinion.

Us Now - YouTube - Us Now - Part 1 of 7

what do you think?

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@The Dude phil phil,

The original conception was that people would temporarily leave their normal vocations and "temporarily" serve for the good of the people. The idea of life long professional politicians and political parties was not part of the founding fathers vision of a republic.

George Washington abhorred the notion of political parties.

Furthermore it was expected that men of character, vision, experience, and education would be elected to public office and then would vote their conscence and judgement in resolving the problems and issues of the day. After a time of service they would return to their local communities and their primary vocation.

It was not expected that party wonks would tell everyone how to vote on every issue and threaten to pull party support and party funding for their next election if they did not toe the party line.

Of what use is it to elect intelligent principled men if they are going to be told how to vote by the party leadership.
What person of integrity and principle would even want the job?

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@The Dude phil phil,

The_Dude;95781 wrote:

It's like religion. It creates a template of values for lazy people to fall on. In a society like ours (generally anywhere where the internet is accessible) where information is freely available, there should be no need for parties to act as templates for peoples' political values.

Yet I still see most people voting for a party, or a race, or a religion, not the actual values that the politician holds.

People should analyze and constructively criticize the individual, not the party as a whole. It's impossible for all people in a political party to agree. You see democrats who are more conservative than some Republicans, and Republicans who are more liberal than some democrats.

If everyone just stopped playing follow-the-leader and created their own set of morals and values based on their observations, politics would be a lot less complicated, self-contradictory, and generally retarded.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, vote for the person, not the party. Observe the world on your own, don't just follow traditions.

Of course this is probably just my own liberal bias showing.

The more interconnected we become,,the more we will be a part of the status quo. There's no such thing as an original set of morals and values. everything has already been said. I only know of one person who had an original thought and even he,,attributed it to another.

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@The Dude phil phil,

The_Dude;95781 wrote:

It's like religion. It creates a template of values for lazy people to fall on. In a society like ours (generally anywhere where the internet is accessible) where information is freely available, there should be no need for parties to act as templates for peoples' political values.

Yet I still see most people voting for a party, or a race, or a religion, not the actual values that the politician holds.

People should analyze and constructively criticize the individual, not the party as a whole. It's impossible for all people in a political party to agree. You see democrats who are more conservative than some Republicans, and Republicans who are more liberal than some democrats.

If everyone just stopped playing follow-the-leader and created their own set of morals and values based on their observations, politics would be a lot less complicated, self-contradictory, and generally retarded.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, vote for the person, not the party. Observe the world on your own, don't just follow traditions.

Of course this is probably just my own liberal bias showing.

I agree, but what do you propose we do about this problem?

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@The Dude phil phil,

the function or a PP is to coalesce like-minded individuals into one body and represent their socio-economic interests, if society relied on a body of individual bodies, who would be sumpreme to one anmother, noone. Thus nothing in politics would ever be achieved. This very argument damages the very principle of a representative democracy, the only viable form of democracy

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@The Dude phil phil,

Yeah, parties are natural and unavoidable, whatever their faults. Strength in numbers and faith in consensus.

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@The Dude phil phil,

The_Dude;95781 wrote:

It's like religion. It creates a template of values for lazy people to fall on. In a society like ours (generally anywhere where the internet is accessible) where information is freely available, there should be no need for parties to act as templates for peoples' political values.

Yet I still see most people voting for a party, or a race, or a religion, not the actual values that the politician holds.

People should analyze and constructively criticize the individual, not the party as a whole. It's impossible for all people in a political party to agree. You see democrats who are more conservative than some Republicans, and Republicans who are more liberal than some democrats.

If everyone just stopped playing follow-the-leader and created their own set of morals and values based on their observations, politics would be a lot less complicated, self-contradictory, and generally retarded.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, vote for the person, not the party. Observe the world on your own, don't just follow traditions.

Of course this is probably just my own liberal bias showing.

Well put, i even like that political incorrectness. However, that is the practical reality of politics. Values are imposed and reinforced by the media. They are so deeply entrenched, that a revolution would be necessary to upend them. Great points, but little direction, any ideas?

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@The Dude phil phil,

So many voters. Does anyone else ever feel like a flea on the back of an elephant?

I agree the media douses us in crap, but the people don't have to watch it. Market forces at play and all. The power is always with the people, I think, so it's safe to assume that in general, this is what the people want -- or at least as much as they are willing to work for....(same thing?)

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@Reconstructo,

the only way to negotiate past the political parties and the media is to negotiate around beaurocracy. Beaurocracy is many things ordered by rules and files, and that includes democracy on even a medium scale let alone a national one. Depersonalisation. Thus it is only through the small scale that deliberately tries to live outside beaurocracy that 'the people' could possibly bring back support for individual leadership. Qualities of leadership supported out of personal experience of being with such a 'candidate', and being with others who have the same personal type of experience with the candidate. ie Tribe.

Move outside that and we move into beaurocracy. From that comes scale, from that comes media, and from that media presentation, whether by political parties or political personalities. Even local politics then becomes tainted from the top down. Political parties muscle in on the small scale, with money and media presentation and public apathy ....... and the dissolution of the people from people politics itself. Beaurocracy is here to stay, the medium is the message. How are we to fight it ...... with revolution??? lol yeh right. more of the same, different name. Even when we dream of revolution, the beaurocracy tricks us into dreaming of a new beaurocracy. And how could we dream of anything else? We have lived it for thousands of years for one thing. We would be at each others throats without it for another. The scale of our social groups, our physical presence upon this earth has made us utterly dependant upon beaurocracy to feed and protect us. To keep the lights on. Thus to even comtemplate living outside the beaurocracy is not only illegal ..... it is heresy. If the converted and dependant catch you doing it they may do a lot worse than turn you in. Best to keep your head down and believe what mummy beaurocracy tells you. Any creed that advocates the end of beaurocracy is advocating chaos because deep down we know we cannot live together without it on this scale of population.

Vote for the dope party Smile

stay stoned. Its better than rape, starvation and war.

eg. Vote for the beaurocratic solution to global warming. Carbon credits. (taxation to the dyslexic). The o so new 'green' parties. (its nice to have something new..... it feels like change.)

Don't mention that world poverty, man made global warming (if any), pollution, fighting over resources ...... would all pale to insignificance if we reduced the worlds population to 1 tenth of what it is now. Imagine the uk with 7 million people in it. Imagine the US with 25 million in it. Imagine what our natural surroundings would look like. Imagine the resources and land available to all.

Now ask why you have never heard a major democratic beaurocrat ever suggest such a thing. Because when it comes to beaurocracy it is safety in numbers. Safety in numbers right up to the breaking point of the beaurocratic system itself. That way everyone becomes dependant. Everyone fears it will break. That is how beaurocracy stays alive. All beaurocrats know that the numbers should never be reduced to the level where the people don't need the beaurocracy. It is the fear of what would happen if we don't vote for beaurocrats that keeps us voting for them.

And what is a party politician if not a beaurocrat? How can millions upon millions vote for them if not through the media? The fear is real, we are stuck with them by evidence of our huge numbers. Thank the media for giving us the dream that maybe just maybe ....... the next 'leader' ain't a beaurocrat? (Obama).

They are doing their best. And if that doesn't feel real enough for you? Well join a political party of course!

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@pagan,

Would you like to hear something real scary?

I personally don' have much faith in bureaucracies or those who place their blind faith in them. From the data that I've seen, the two major political parties combined make up 70% - 75% of the population in America.

President Obama's approval rating has droped 20% in the polls (This isn't a jab at the president...I'm just making a point). Thus it would seem that these individuals cannot do their homework on responsibly vote for someone that they believe in.

So around 90% (70% + 20%) of Americans either don't know what they are voting for or blindly follow others. We are left with only 10% of Americans who actually know what is going on in America. :brickwall:

I'm starting to think that people should have to take some kind of IQ test or at least be able to demonstrate that they know what they are doing before they are allowed to vote :a-ok:

Does that make you feel better about the world we live in?

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@The Dude phil phil,

That's a different issue (qualification for voting) but in general those we might wish to disqualify, never vote anyway.

Back to parties - well, ideally we wouldn't have professional legislators at all as we would all take part in decision making directly. Failing that - we could vote for individuals. However in order to pass legislation you would at least have to have temporary alliances between individuals in order to get enough support to frame and pass the legislation. In time you would find that a section of the legislators would agree most of the time and would wish to present a coherent program to the voters - and hence parties would form whether you liked it or not. A no-party state would be in essence a one-party state.

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@The Dude phil phil,

I personally do not like any thing that would come between free voting, because it can be easily altered and manipulated. For example if you wanted to silence an opposition all you would have to do is ask the person what their party affiliation was and then mark all of them as being unfit to vote. Trying to control voters will only open up another method of corruption.

People generally don't care if the are under the impression everything is okay. The media is controlled by the government and people blindly accept what the media is telling them. The education system is failing in the US as well, which only makes less informed people who will make bad decisions.

The only real way to solve this problem is by education. You have to reform education on some level to get the younger generation to think more broadminded and not just blindly accept everything because the media tells you or some politician tells you. The current education system is pro government. So anything that would reflect poorly against government actions is quickly squashed. It shouldn't be that way and until things change we will continue to have bad leaders.

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@The Dude phil phil,

The_Dude;95781 wrote:

Yet I still see most people voting for a party, or a race, or a religion, not the actual values that the politician holds.

People should analyze and constructively criticize the individual, not the party as a whole. It's impossible for all people in a political party to agree. You see democrats who are more conservative than some Republicans, and Republicans who are more liberal than some democrats.

If everyone just stopped playing follow-the-leader and created their own set of morals and values based on their observations, politics would be a lot less complicated, self-contradictory, and generally retarded.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, vote for the person, not the party. Observe the world on your own, don't just follow traditions.

Are you talking about voting for independents? That was one of my reasons for not voting for Obama...strategy. I said that voting for Obama would not be wise because of the majorities in congress and that the country would be jerked to far to the left since there would be no balance.

As we've just seen, if someone votes for a person in a party, then given certain circumstances, they have voted for that party to rein. For example: Lets say that I like Evan Bayh (or some other moderate democrat that I have more in common with). Lets also assume that I deplore government health care. But since Bayh is a Democrat, then he will vote with other Democrats whether he agrees with them or not. He is a democrat and 1) will be castigated by the other democrats if he does not go along and 2) will vote with them out of party loyalty at times.

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Is anyone else disenchanted about the idea of political parties?

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