Libertarian Party Suit Could Mean A 3-Party Debate

I seriously doubt the courts will allow this by Dh2000 · 2004-10-11 11:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

They'll just put off the judegement until after the debate

Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this by gl4ss · 2004-10-11 12:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

if they did that, wouldn't it put the election itself in questionable position of being 'fair' or not?

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this by Shakrai · 2004-10-11 12:57 · Score: 1, Insightful

I, for one, welcome our new Libertarian overlord to the debates.

Look, this would be one issue where I would disagree with most of /. Do we really want every little minor party involved in our national debate? Do we really want a system like Europe or Israel where the mainstream parties need to make alliances with the little ones in order to govern effectively? Where if somebody blinks the wrong way they dissolve the Government and hold new elections every few weeks?

The United States is not a Parliamentary Democracy. We are a Republic. If you take issue with that then I suggest you start lobbying for a Constitutional Convention to change it -- or perhaps get a time machine and go back to talk to the Founding Fathers. Until then I don't see why we need to make time to include a party that can't even capture 5% of the vote -- let alone the more then fair 15% threshold to be included in the debate.

Ross Perot wasn't excluded from the debates when he actually stood a chance of winning. Or should we run our most important election like a California recall and give the porn kingpins and "Bob the mailman" types a national forum?

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this by SandiConoverJones · 2004-10-11 14:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

Would you really want 3rd party candidates, the candidates who clearly state their positions on the issues to mess with the Democrats and Republicans with their meaningless, but well rehearsed sound bites? What would happen, if in a a debate, a candidate took a stand? {gasp} Would our entire country fall to ruin? Or, might it force the other candidates to answer a question?
Just where in the constitution does it say that we have a 2 party system, and that those two parties should be the Democrats and Republicans?
As for the wasted vote argument, so you should choose your lesser of evils candidate, remember, if you choose the lesser of evils, you have still chosen evil. Vote your mind, and your conscience. If you always settle for a lesser of evils, how do they know that you are dissatisfied with the status-quo? Or are you happy with the lack of choice that we are suffering with if you only consider Kerry and Bush to be the only valid, viable candidates?
How many people are on the ballot in your state? http://www.politics1.com/p2004-ballots.htm this site should list who has ballot access in your state. In my state, Ohio, there were 8 names to choose from on the 2000 ballot. (If you don't believe me, I'll make it easy for you to check my facts: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos//results/index.html ) Why should the choice only come down to 2 candidates with 8 people who went to the effort to gain ballot access?
The mainstream press actively avoids reporting on 3rd party candidates. When a presidetial candidate passes though a city 6 times during the campaign, and 2 daily newspapers, and 4 local television channels completely ignore the visits? People were there to greet the candidate, but not a press member to be found, hmm... this smacks of collusion with the press and the Democrats and Republicans.
What we need to fight for is better coverage of the other people who will appear on the ballots of our respective states. If airing the news is an FCC required service of broadcasters, how about equal time for all of the eligible candidates? Oh Horrors! What a concept! Let the people hear of the people on the ballot before they draw the curtain? This would hardly be fair to the powers that be! People might consider voting for someone other than a Democrat or Republican.
We complain about crooked elections in other countries. They can't get much more closed, and crooked than our own.
Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this by Shakrai · 2004-10-12 00:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

Just where in the constitution does it say that we have a 2 party system, and that those two parties should be the Democrats and Republicans?

Just where in the constitution does it say that we need to have a Presidential debate at all -- let alone that every little party needs to be included in said debate?

As for the wasted vote argument, so you should choose your lesser of evils candidate, remember, if you choose the lesser of evils, you have still chosen evil. Vote your mind, and your conscience.

I don't consider Kerry to be the "lesser of two evils" vote. Perhaps you disagree with me. I genuinely like and support the guy but I suppose YMMV. As for the argument of "There's no real difference between the parties" I'm sick and tired of hearing it. I suppose it's good for a cheap +5 on Slashdot but if you bothered to read any major newspaper you'd see that there are huge differences between Democrats and Republicans on any number of issues including foreign policy, abortion, stem cell research, tax policy, the direction of our Federal judiciary, economic policy, military posture, missile defense, homeland security, religion in government, environmental policy, social security etc etc.

These are huge policy differences but all people around here (and the third-party candidates) can focus on are the glaringly obvious mistakes that they both supported (DCMA) without even considering the fact that this is symptomatic of lazy Congressman who don't read bills or understand the issues more then any vast DNC/RNC plan to slice up the country.

Now I've never suggested that a vote for a third-party is a wasted vote. I have suggested that if you are a Green and you truly care about your platform this might not be the best election in the World in which to cast that vote. Even the Green Party itself has said as much. If you happen to be a Libertarian then I suppose you won't like Bush (he isn't a true conservative by any means) and you certainly aren't going to like Kerry -- so by all means vote for your guy.

We complain about crooked elections in other countries. They can't get much more closed, and crooked than our own.

Really? Anyone with the right organization and name recognition stands as good a chance as anybody else of being elected. Ross Parot stood a very good shot until he foolishly dropped out the race only to toss his hat back in later. He wasn't excluded from the debates. He shot himself in the foot -- his was the best third-party campaign since Teddy Roosevelt.

It would also be fair to point out that in American Politics (at least where the Presidency is concerned) the maverick usually loses. It doesn't even need to be a third-party person. Ask the John McCains and Howard Deans of the World how their Presidential campaigns worked out. McCain's loss you might be able to blame on the party establishment (not to mention the oh so lovely tactics Karl Rove used against him) -- but Dean had the effective support of large portions of the Democratic establishment and the primary voters still overwhelmingly picked Kerry. The mavericks and third parties do serve a purpose -- they set the tone of the debate and ensure that important issues (campaign finance in McCains case) aren't swept under the rug. But when push comes to shove the American people usually go with the mainstream and/or more experienced candidate.

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this by Shakrai · 2004-10-12 00:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

some more direct democracy in our government might do wonders

We don't need direct democracy. Direct democracy is scary and ineffective. Ever hear of the tyranny of the majority?

What we need is people interested in politics again. Especially local and state politics. You advocate direct democracy -- can you name your Assemblyman or even Mayor? Can you name a local school board member? Can you name your County Executive or the legislator from your district?

I'd bet money that most of the people on /. can't name a majority of those people -- and a good portion of the /. readership couldn't name any of them. I'd dare say that most of the /. readership is more into politics then the average American -- so what does that say about most other Americans?

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this by SandiConoverJones · 2004-10-12 01:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

Ask the John McCains and Howard Deans of the World how their Presidential campaigns worked out. McCain's loss you might be able to blame on the party establishment (not to mention the oh so lovely tactics Karl Rove used against him) -- but Dean had the effective support of large portions of the Democratic establishment and the primary voters still overwhelmingly picked Kerry.
The primaries are not exactly a good cross section of the population. A few states decide who the candidates will be. By the time that Super Tuesday, and the even later primaries roll around, it is mere formality. If they had national primaries, in which all of the registered voters of a particular party were allowed to cast their ballots for their choice of candidate, then it could be said that he who won the primary had the overwhelming support of his party behind him, but as it stands, that is rarely true. A question, out of curiosity, are you in a state that actually gets a voice in the primary elections? I am not.
Many parts of our system are due for overhaul, the primary system, and the electoral college are two glaring examples.

Re:I know one reason to exclude him. by dh003i · 2004-10-11 11:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

firstly, the libertarian party is the largest 3rd party. And your suggestion is ridiculous hysteria. If we let a third person in the debate, why not just have a 400 person debate is a ludacrous leap. Maybe the top 4 contendors, or whatever.

Locking out third parties permanently prevents them from getting elected, as they can't even bring up the issues which our two Socialist parties -- the communists on the left and the fascists on the right -- won't bother with or are in agreement with eachother on. There is very little significant difference between a Dem and a Rep.: both don't think that people are capable of running their own lives, and think that they're better fit to run everyone's lives than everyone else is fit to run their own lives.

The importance here is it allows for a real debate, and for topics to be brought up that may start eroding at the cartel Dems and Republicans have created to systematically keep third parties out of contention.

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social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen

Re:Bad Idea by v4mpyr · 2004-10-11 11:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually, all you need to have a chance of winning is to be on enough ballots to potentially win 270 electoral votes. There are six candidates who meet that qualification this year:

# Badnarik
# Bush
# Cobb
# Kerry
# Nader
# Peroutka

IMHO they should all be allowed to debate if they can rustle up enough support to make it on the ballots. The second requirement, high polling, is irrelevant because of it does not accurately represent the will of the people. That part should be eliminated.

Re:Bad Idea by nocomment · 2004-10-11 11:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

wouldn't the debate actually give the 3rd parties a greater chance at this? I think most people havn't even heard of this guy, or any of his issues...perhaps if they did it would give a bigger rise to the 3rd party candidates.

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/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
/* http://allyourbasearebelongto.us */

A bit about third parties by RzUpAnmsCwrds · 2004-10-11 12:10 · Score: 1, Insightful

A lot of comments will invariably be about how "broken" the two party system is here in the US.

Did you ever stop and think that maybe we have a two party system for a reason?

A lot of people complain that the two party system gives us a choice between two similar canidates. Well, of course it does. That's the point.

Ww have a two party system because voters are uninformed and can be easily mislead. Combined with the checks and balances system, the federalist system, and the overall difficulty of passing legislation, it is relativly certain that changes are moderate and slow.

The two party system ensures that extremeists like Hitler cannot successfully be elected. Since both parties must field relatively mainstream canidates to have any chance of victory, whoever the public votes for is unlikely to vary substantially from the "norm".

That's why we have a two party system. It is one of many measures designed to prevent radical political change.

Re:A bit about third parties by Dachannien · 2004-10-11 12:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

The two-party system wasn't designed at all. It's an emergent part of the electoral system combined with increased national communication of news.

In the Presidential electoral system we have today, a person has to have (in most states) the greatest number of votes of any candidate in order to claim the electoral votes for that state. Naturally falling out of this is the tendency for as few parties as possible to be represented. Since there is at least a variety of views expressed by U.S. voters, there will always be more than one party, so the system will tend to support two parties in most cases.

In the old days, politics were sometimes separated by geographic boundaries, and so a fringe-party candidate representing the interests of the South, for example, might carry a few states in the South. But the population of the U.S. has become homogeneous enough - and improved communication technologies have reduced the boundaries between political ideas enough - that third-party candidates have almost no chance of gaining a foothold anywhere.

This has nothing to do with preventing "extremists like Hitler" from being elected. If anything, the resistance of the government against changing the system is due to an unwillingness to give third parties a chance to gain a foothold.
Re:A bit about third parties by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-11 13:40 · Score: 1, Insightful

The current system of two predominant parties was never 'designed,' it has emerged as a de-facto standard if anything, but there is no law or regulation supporting or promoting it, officially, as well there should not be. What your argument fails wholly to address is what happens when both parties become equivalently corrupt, or when they both agree to agree on certain issues, or refuse to fight each other, and any questioning of those issues is censored, such as has happened with the so-called War on Drugs and many other ill-fated policies which have been endorsed by both of two parties.

I think you'll find as you look around the world that a number of other countries have been doing well to have more than two parties competing for public office. A two-party system is not the default for most of the world, and I suspect it will not last much longer in the USA, either, unless the parties change their tune dramatically, as voters are getting more and more disenchanted with the Republicrats as years go on.

Perhaps a two-party system wouldn't even be evil for America if the Republicans and Democrats would just go ahead and officially merge into one, as their platforms are already 99% similar anyway, and let a real choice run as the second party. I for one hope that choice would be the Libertarians, as they are the only party running in America in 2004 whose platform even remotely resembles my personal beliefs (and the beliefs of those who founded this country in the first place) in small government and individual freedoms. What use is freedom of religion when we don't even have freedom to choose what we put into our bodies, or whether or not we wear safety belts, and any number of other 'victimless crimes' that the Republicans and Democrats are shoving down our throats from both sides.

Why does Slashdot... by flyingsquid · 2004-10-11 12:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

...seem to favor stories about parties whose chances of winning are statistically indistinguishable from zero?

I'm not complaining about airing a diversity of views- particularly when the mainstream media won't- but the chance is >99% that a Democrat or Republican will control the White House for the next four years- so why haven't there been any discussions concerning the VP debates or the second presidential debate?

Last time, the differences between the two main candidates weren't so obvious, but the choice is pretty stark here. In the second debate, Bush and Kerry came down on different sides of almost every single issue. The only exception was that they both said they were against the draft. Given their differing views on foreign policy, taxation, gay marriage, and abortion, it's clear that they are laying out two very different ideas of what the next four years should look like. I'm not denying that the third-party candidates have something to bring to the table, but it would be worth having some discussion of the debates between the democrats and republicans.

Re:Why does Slashdot... by v4mpyr · 2004-10-11 12:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

One of my favourite 'wasted vote' arguments is as follows:

Pretend you are in jail on death row. You find that you have a 50% chance of lethal injection, 45% chance of the electric chair, or 5% chance of escape... which would you vote for?

Statistics has nothing to do with it. People need to realize that you don't have to vote based on who is most popular or who has the highest chance of winning. The point of voting is to vote for the person you think is right for the job, regardless of what your neighbor says.
Re:Why does Slashdot... by Danse · 2004-10-11 15:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

The main problem here is that the voting system itself induces people to vote based on the popularity polls. They vote for the candidate they see as the lesser of two evils rather than voting for the candidate that they really want because they fear that they could end up splitting the vote between the two candidate that they prefer and thus the least-preferred candidate will win. If we would adopt a sensible voting system, then this wouldn't be a problem.

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It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Re:Why does Slashdot... by Politburo · 2004-10-12 03:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

foreign policy - bush invaded afghanistan and iraq, kerry supported invading and iraq

Kerry supported giving the President power to persuade Iraq to give in to inspections, which was working until W blew it and went to war. Kerry did not support the war as it was executed by Bush.

gay marriage - both against it

True, but there's more to the story, as usual. Bush supports modifying the Constitution of the United States to specifically exclude a class of people from a right. This is unprecedented in the history of the nation, where amendments have generally been used to expand rights to classes of people previously uncovered. Kerry does not support gay marriage by name, but supports equal benefits for gay couples.

abortion - yep, i guess they're different here, although i had difficulty deciphering kerry response in the debate

It's because you clearly have a problem with issues more complex than (Black|White). Kerry is personally against abortion. However, Kerry understands that it is not the government's place to regulate how a woman will carry out her life. Bush does not understand this and wants to force women to carry to term children that are undesired. This is despite the fact that he claims to want to keep government out of our private lives.

patriot act - bush proposed it, kerry voted for it

Only one candidate wants the PATRIOT Act amended to fix the problems: Kerry. Bush wants the PATRIOT Act as enacted to be made permanent. See the difference?

Re:Bad Idea by Dachannien · 2004-10-11 12:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

Isn't that a catch-22? A third party candidate can't get in the debate until he has a chance of winning. A third party candidate can't reasonably be expected to win unless he is able to participate in the debate. The current debate system is designed to leverage that catch-22 against third party candidates and to keep the RNC and DNC in firm control.

Re:What? by SandiConoverJones · 2004-10-11 16:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

The university is taking political sides by alowing the Dems and Repubs to express their views, on the campus, on gov't funds, while denying another valid candidates the same right. In effect, the university is ENDORSING Kerry and Bush, at the expense of the other 4 candidates on the ballot.

Re:What? by Quixotic137 · 2004-10-11 16:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

The whole question is whether or not they are using public funds. The complaint quotes a statement that they will attempt to find private donors to cover the costs. If they have the donors, it is not a problem. Badnarik or anyone else could legally have an overtly partisan event at a public university as well, as long as he covers the costs.

Re:For a moment by pocopoco · 2004-10-11 16:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

>prevent discussion on the subject of which
>of the two major-party candidates

Have you even been watching the debates? The candidates pretty much have pre-worked out spiels and just go through them when a question is even close. Sometimes you'll notice they completely miss answering the question or end up repeating one of them and trying to hide it. There's no discussion going on here.

Adding an "unplanned random factor" as you call it might get some decent telling responses from candidates instead of having us sit through more of the same "say what they want to hear and hide the rest" spiels as we've been getting in speeches.

Re:Yay! by bullitB · 2004-10-11 17:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

I wonder if you would be so happy if it were Nader who wanted to be number three in the debates.

Most democrats weren't so happy about it last time.

Re:Badnarik doesn't have the votes anyway by Guppy06 · 2004-10-11 17:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

"I believe you need a certain percentage of the popular vote to be able to debate."

And you need a certain percentage of the popular vote to be recognized as a political party by the State of Arizona. I'd imagine this is a different number used by the CPD. This would be moot except that the corporation in question is accepting money from the State of Arizona in an effort that excludes a political party recognized by said state. You're supposed to meet the state's standards before they're allowed to spend money on you.

"Unless this isn't part of federal law,"

Federal, shmederal. You seem to have forgotten what the word "federal" implies: consituent states are free to operate with a degree of indepencence from the rest of the federation. Unless the Arizona law encroaches on the explicitly delineated powers of the national government, there's nothing anybody in Washington can do about it.

After all, don't forget that the states are still the ones who decide who is an eligible voter and who is not, even in elections for the national government.

Re:For a moment by mcc · 2004-10-11 19:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

As for the "don't tax, don't spend," THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT! When people have the cash in their pocket and it doesn't go to the IRS, then THEY have economic control. What sane person doesn't want that?

Supporters of the welfare system, supporters of state-sponsored education, supporters of the freeway system, people who believe the U.S. military does some degree of good in the world, people who believe U.S. foreign aid does some degree of good in the world, and some other people. I could probably go on if you'd like.

There is, in fact, a middle ground between anarchocapitalist libertarianism and "insane" "statist"s, as you put it, and most of America is in this middle ground. The idea that the government performing functions rather than the public sector is inherently bad all the time is something which perhaps is sound as political theory, but it is not something which is a plurality political viewpoint within the united states.

The ideoloigical left is not as you think. In 2000 their issues were environmentalism and anti-globalism. In 2004 their issues are anti-war and anti-globalism, both of which put them into the ABB camp, but also makes them mistakenly support Kerry instead when he is no better, and most of them haven't figured that out yet. Badnaik is what they want on both counts, and he wants to make sure the sovereignty of the US is not compromised militarily nor economically. Neither Bush not Kerry can truthfully make that claim. But since they are both liars I expect them to.

No, having followed the ideological left very closely for the last four years I can tell you that this is definitely not the case. There has been a certain degree of issues shift within the ideological left but on all of the ideological left's issues except personal liberty there is definitely a consensus that Kerry is better than Bush, if only slightly. The only question within this group is whether Kerry is better enough on these issues to justify supporting him. This is a question that has been debated fiercely for about the last six months straight. If you believe that it just hasn't occurred to the far left that Kerry might be a flawed candidate and Badnarik is going to wake them up to this, you are deeply mistaken. No one in the ideological left is viewing Kerry through rose-colored glasses. At best (best for Kerry, I mean, of course) they are realistically facing the idea that either Kerry or Bush is going to win this election and they can help either one or the other.

Again, in 2000 the ideological left was faced with a democratic candidate who from their viewpoint could not be differentiated from the republican candidate, and so they abandoned in great numbers. The entire focus of the 2000 Green Party Nader campaign was on pointing out that the two parties were too close and that Gore was no better than Bush, and the left needed to split off and vote third party in order to remind the democrats not to ignore their base. This was a line the ideological left bought at the time. Since then Bush has proven no, he is in fact worse than Gore would have been, and the Democratic party did not as hoped freak out and start recognizing its base-- in fact if anything it's shifted further to the right, seemingly mistaking losses caused by a disillusioned base for losses caused by a national trend toward conservatism. Pretty much all of the people who supported the Greens in 2000-- which is pretty much all potential far-left voters in 2004-- recognize this has happened, and they are not interested in repeating 2000 again this year. The Greens could very certainly make a serious contention as a third party candidate this year if they desired. They are not trying. There is a reason for this.

Meanwhile, personal liberty, the war in Iraq, and reform of the electoral system are virtually the only areas in which the ideological left agrees with Badnarik. The ideological left has been loudest about the wars against Iraq and personal freedom in the last four years,

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Libertarian Party Suit Could Mean A 3-Party Debate

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