And yet somehow our Green party managed to overcome that same hurdle (it was not in any way easy for them, but they did) So did the Reform party years ago (though they have since merged with the PC party to form the Conservatives) Our media isn't all that different, they have their biases too. But it is possible to get past that.
The green party is not regional, they are national, in fact that is what's been holding them back. They historically have about the same amount of the popular vote as the Bloc Quebecois, however the Bloc being a regional party, has had enough votes to form the official opposition in the past. In many ridings only 2 candidates really fight, but sometimes it's a 3 way race, and the 4 main parties (Conservative, NDP, Liberal, and Green) all field a candidate in every riding in the country.
Our system seems to be the same way you elect congressmen, so I don't understand why a third party has no chance at getting seats there.
You misunderstand how we vote. We suffer from the exact same mess of voting for a single person in each region. We have a party in power right now with a majority of the seats in parliament that had only about 30% of the popular vote.
To be fair, I understand the difference in how you elect a President from how we elect (or rather don't elect) a Prime Minister, but we elect our members of parliament almost exactly the same way you elect your congressmen.
So while I understand why a third party can't yet be seen as a viable Presidential candidate, I can't see why they can't get anyone elected to Congress, which would seem to be the first step in making inroads in to the whole system.
Go back an election or two. It's not that long ago that the Bloc Quebecois was the official opposition. And the Green party had approximately the same amount of the popular vote as the Bloc (though because it was more spread out they didn't get any seats) Quebec has so many seats that if every riding goes Bloc (which isn't that much of a stretch) and the other seats get split up between the three parties, the Bloc could conceivably form a (minority) government.
The reason only the Liberals and Conservatives have senators is because the party in power at the time appoints the senators, and only those 2 parties have been in power, (our senate is BADLY broken)
But the NDP, despite never having formed a government is a still a large force of influence in the government. I also do not see them merging with the liberals any time soon as their party is a lot further ideologically from the liberals than the liberals are from the conservatives.
First past the post is obviously hurting Canada, but it has not turned it in to the two party system that exists in the USA.
The media, for one. Remember, we have a free market, ratings-driven media system. Unless a candidate has more than a few percentage in the polls, he/she will rarely be mentioned in the news. The viewers/listeners/readers aren't interested, so the media isn't interested, which lowers interest even further. It's a positive-feedback loop. Net result: most Americans don't even know who Buddy Roemer and Gary Johnson are.
I'm not sure that this is really any different from Canada. When the green party formed, and even after they had a significant share of the popular vote, the media still refused to let their leader join in any of the televised debates, several weird, and ever changing "rules" were invented, but eventually after a few elections, popular support was such that the media could no longer ignore them. (The green party is actually a really interesting case, I can't really stand their policies or platform, but I am still proud to see our system work in that a party like that can come from nothing to being a real contender)
The government itself, for another. I learned this as a lad. My father was Chairman of the Board of Elections in our little county, and was a good Democrat from a long line of Democrats. The rules state that the local board must have a majority of the same party as the Governor, so when the first Republican governor in decades was elected, the board became Republican and my father lost his position. Not a big deal, and I'm not whining (neither did my father), but that type of thing indicates why a two-party system is sort of hard-coded into things here in the States.
But to illustrate the point: after that Republican governor won, there were magically and suddenly lots and lots of folks who changed their registration from Dem to Repub. In fact, the secretary at the Board of Elections office was one of them!:)
It's not "de jure," it's "de facto." One thing that Dems and Repubs can agree on -- vehemently -- is that they will do nothing whatsoever to permit new political parties to prosper.
Wow... ok, now I'm learning something about the American system... and I'm not impressed! How on earth can you have even the pretense of fair elections if the people running the election are declared members of a specific political party? That would be a huge scandal here and would never be tolerated by the general public. (In fact there have been several such scandals when the party in power appoint someone they are close to to a post like that, and every time they stress how impartial they are and how they have no ties whatsoever with the party that appointed them)
The Pirate Party already exists in Canada, and has fielded candidates in our last two elections I believe. Though unfortunately they aren't big enough yet to even field a full slate of candidates, nor do they have enough money to run a real campaign. So far they are marginalized along with the Libertarians, Marxist-Leninists, Communists, and a few other parties which have no real chance at the moment.
I understand that there is a difference in systems, however it's not as large a difference as it seems. To be fair, I do see how a third party currently has no real chance at becoming President. However I don't see why they can't start by gaining seats in Congress. If a party makes headway in that area, eventually they should become a big enough player to field a Presidential candidate. No small party here ever honestly believes they will go from nothing to forming the government in their first election, but that doesn't stop them from fielding candidates, and it doesn't stop those candidates from having a chance.
Our problem really is the combination of a riding system and a party system. You simply can't have both. Either I elect someone who will serve the interests of my region, or I elect a party that has policies I agree with. If the former, then there should be no such thing as a whipped vote, every member should vote on behalf of their constituents. If the latter, then the seats should be divided up based on popular vote, not based on ridings. What really messes us up now is that a party with 30% or so of the popular vote has absolute authority in parliament, and each member is accountable to the party, not to the constituents. One of these two things needs to change for our system to become an actual democracy.
I am not defending first past the post as being a good system. I honestly believe that it badly needs to change. That said however, it is also obvious that this is not what is keeping the 2 party system in the USA, there is obviously something else happening there.
I'm also not sure that Canada is that much of an anomaly. it seems to me that many other countries have more than 2 main parties with first past the post systems.
You could at least read the article you linked to. Your definition is more than two decades out of date.
After the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term "First World" took on a new meaning that was more applicable to the times. Since its original definition, the term First World has come to be largely synonymous with developed countries or highly developed countries (depending on which definition is being used).
First World countries in general have very advanced economies and very high Human Development Indexes. On the other hand, the United Nations defined the First World on the wealth of the nation's gross national product (GNP). The definition of First World is now less concrete than during the Cold War.
What's the likelihood this is even a remote exploit? I bet it's a LAN admin password, (the article doesn't say) which means that 99% of the routers are no less secure because of it. (in most cases if you are connected to the LAN, you already have physical access to the router, and there's nothing much that secures it against that)
I install ADSL service for a Largish telco. I am always THRILLED when someone brings out a computer that isn't running windows. The reason? Windows machines support our company's software install, which is mandatory, can't be skipped, and takes 15 mins+ to install the first time you open a browser. However, if you are using a Mac, or Linux, or various other devices, the software install fails right away, gives you a warning telling you that your system doesn't meet our minimum requirements, and then without further ado activates the connection so everything works. Net benefit is that it saves me 15+ minutes, and the customers are happier because they don't have 4 more programs installed on their desktop!
Most residential broadband routers are factory configured with their own unique SSID/WPA key, this information is typed on the sticker on the bottom of the router, and is more or less unique to that specific router. Some companies have a habit of resetting everything to factory defaults when they do firmware upgrades, hence wiping out any custom SSID/WPA key and resetting to the one printed on the bottom of the device.
Personally I recommend to most customers that if they aren't comfortable messing with the settings on the router on a regular basis they are much better off just using the ones printed on the router. They're mostly as secure as your own settings, and you don't have to worry about what happens if the thing gets reset. It also has the added bonus that when they forget it (and yes, people do regularly forget the ones they set themselves) it is printed right on the bottom of the device.
That's a stretch... I'd say the current Conservative party is still the PCs but with a few policies from the members of the Reform party that they absorbed. Either way it's still a very "Big government"/increased laws and regulations/increased spending party... though they also cater to the religious right that was at least partly the old Reform members (though they really refuse to cater to the fiscal right)
Honestly I'm pretty disgusted with all our current political parties. I want a party that would decrease government spending, decrease government regulation, and basically stop selling the population out to big corporations and foreign governments... Unfortunately I think that's the basic platform of all our parties right now... except possibly the Greens, who wouldn't sell out to big corporations, but would instead regulate all jobs out of existence...
The two parties in the US are almost identical. There are no two parties in Canada that are anywhere near as close together ideologically as the Democrats and the Republicans. As for "so bad that I fell compelled to vote for the other major party" you are just proving that you WANT a two party system, you are the one forcing it (you and everyone who votes like you) We have had coordinated campaigns in Canada to vote ABC (Anybody But Conservative) that turned out unsuccessful. So that's similar to what you propose. However in general I think most people here still vote for who they want to win, not against who they want to loose. That's probably the big reason we can have the vast diversity of political parties (at least by American standards). Unfortunately most of the major parties here have started running similar attack ads to those that run in the USA now at election time, and more people are voting against people rather than for people, so I do worry that we may loose a lot of our democracy that way eventually.
But they do prove the point anyway, which is that first past the post does not prevent new parties from forming and being successful, there is obviously something completely different at play in the US to force the 2 party system.
Nowhere did I say that the names of the parties had anything to do with the platforms they ran on, or the policies they implement. The Green party is "new" in that it is a lot newer than any other party, and in fact is very new to having actually elected members. The Bloc still exists, and it would be very dangerous to dismiss them as simply a "fringle party from quebec" The Conservatives were formed by the merger of the PCs and the Reform party, however it is very difficult to see them as a new party, in reality the PCs absorbed the reform party, and some policies changed, but it's not a new party.
It appears that it is not my knowledge that is lacking on this subject, and additionally, none of the above does anything to counter the only point I made which is that first past the post has not caused us to lock in to a two party system.
And this is why I believe we should have very few laws, but they should be strictly enforced. If we were to get rid of the laws where no actual harm is done, but don't let the police give out warnings or turn a blind eye to laws about actually harmful events we could eliminate this problem, while allowing a lot more freedom for the population. Get rid of all laws for insulting others, driving in a way someone else doesn't like, denying a corporation a profit, etc. and strictly enforce laws for assault, property damage, theft, and murder. An added bonus is you would clear up the huge backlog in the court system pretty quickly too.
I call BS on that one. I live in Canada, we also have a first past the post voting system, however we also have 5 major political parties, Conservative, Liberal, New Democrats, Bloc Quebecois, and Green. The Green party is in fact quite new and only won it's first seat in the past couple of elections, however they are quickly growing. This proves that even with a first past the post system, it is possible for new parties to form and be successful. I'm not sure what it is about the US that makes it impossible to have more than 2 parties, but first past the post isn't it.
You can't stop them from using the dollar, only on having input in to policy decisions surrounding it. There are actually quite a few small countries that use the US dollar pretty much exclusively (even if they do have their own official currency too) There really isn't any way to stop them.
You can however stop them from using your passports, millitary, and any and all other federal programs.
I'm Canadian, and this topic keeps coming up in relation to Quebec, a small portion of them want out of Canada, unfortunately that small portion has a very large voice and sponsors a rather successful provincial political party, and an amazingly successful federal political party. Their separatist politicians told them last time there was a referendum that even if they left Canada they could still use Canadian Passports, Canadian currency, and still be defended by the Canadian military... obviously this is not so much the case. Never mind that they seem to think they'd still receive federal transfer payments from the other provinces...
ummm... and how does windows do any of this better?
ctrl+shift+cursor in windows does something different in every application,
I'm not even sure what a keyboard accelerator is?
Focus is one thing that Windows does worse than any other OS on the planet. I hate random apps gaining or loosing focus of their own accord all the time. As for on Android, it's rare to have more than one app or dialog box on the screen at a time, however on those rare occasions, clicking seems to set focus where it should be every time.
Clicking and dragging to select text works beautifully in Android with a mouse, I use that feature extensively, in fact it works better than on any other OS I've ever seen because if you missed the starting point by a couple letters you can just go back and fix it instead of having to re-select the whole thing.
Mouse and keyboard in Android has been working extremely well for me. about the only one of those complaints that seems valid is mouse over...
As someone who frequently uses both a keyboard and mouse with his android tablet, I'm curious in what way you think Android screwed that up and Microsoft got it right?
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And yet somehow our Green party managed to overcome that same hurdle (it was not in any way easy for them, but they did) So did the Reform party years ago (though they have since merged with the PC party to form the Conservatives)
Our media isn't all that different, they have their biases too. But it is possible to get past that.
The green party is not regional, they are national, in fact that is what's been holding them back. They historically have about the same amount of the popular vote as the Bloc Quebecois, however the Bloc being a regional party, has had enough votes to form the official opposition in the past. In many ridings only 2 candidates really fight, but sometimes it's a 3 way race, and the 4 main parties (Conservative, NDP, Liberal, and Green) all field a candidate in every riding in the country.
Our system seems to be the same way you elect congressmen, so I don't understand why a third party has no chance at getting seats there.
You misunderstand how we vote. We suffer from the exact same mess of voting for a single person in each region. We have a party in power right now with a majority of the seats in parliament that had only about 30% of the popular vote.
To be fair, I understand the difference in how you elect a President from how we elect (or rather don't elect) a Prime Minister, but we elect our members of parliament almost exactly the same way you elect your congressmen.
So while I understand why a third party can't yet be seen as a viable Presidential candidate, I can't see why they can't get anyone elected to Congress, which would seem to be the first step in making inroads in to the whole system.
Go back an election or two. It's not that long ago that the Bloc Quebecois was the official opposition. And the Green party had approximately the same amount of the popular vote as the Bloc (though because it was more spread out they didn't get any seats) Quebec has so many seats that if every riding goes Bloc (which isn't that much of a stretch) and the other seats get split up between the three parties, the Bloc could conceivably form a (minority) government.
The reason only the Liberals and Conservatives have senators is because the party in power at the time appoints the senators, and only those 2 parties have been in power, (our senate is BADLY broken)
But the NDP, despite never having formed a government is a still a large force of influence in the government. I also do not see them merging with the liberals any time soon as their party is a lot further ideologically from the liberals than the liberals are from the conservatives.
First past the post is obviously hurting Canada, but it has not turned it in to the two party system that exists in the USA.
The media, for one. Remember, we have a free market, ratings-driven media system. Unless a candidate has more than a few percentage in the polls, he/she will rarely be mentioned in the news. The viewers/listeners/readers aren't interested, so the media isn't interested, which lowers interest even further. It's a positive-feedback loop. Net result: most Americans don't even know who Buddy Roemer and Gary Johnson are.
I'm not sure that this is really any different from Canada. When the green party formed, and even after they had a significant share of the popular vote, the media still refused to let their leader join in any of the televised debates, several weird, and ever changing "rules" were invented, but eventually after a few elections, popular support was such that the media could no longer ignore them. (The green party is actually a really interesting case, I can't really stand their policies or platform, but I am still proud to see our system work in that a party like that can come from nothing to being a real contender)
The government itself, for another. I learned this as a lad. My father was Chairman of the Board of Elections in our little county, and was a good Democrat from a long line of Democrats. The rules state that the local board must have a majority of the same party as the Governor, so when the first Republican governor in decades was elected, the board became Republican and my father lost his position. Not a big deal, and I'm not whining (neither did my father), but that type of thing indicates why a two-party system is sort of hard-coded into things here in the States.
But to illustrate the point: after that Republican governor won, there were magically and suddenly lots and lots of folks who changed their registration from Dem to Repub. In fact, the secretary at the Board of Elections office was one of them! :)
It's not "de jure," it's "de facto." One thing that Dems and Repubs can agree on -- vehemently -- is that they will do nothing whatsoever to permit new political parties to prosper.
Wow... ok, now I'm learning something about the American system... and I'm not impressed! How on earth can you have even the pretense of fair elections if the people running the election are declared members of a specific political party? That would be a huge scandal here and would never be tolerated by the general public. (In fact there have been several such scandals when the party in power appoint someone they are close to to a post like that, and every time they stress how impartial they are and how they have no ties whatsoever with the party that appointed them)
The Pirate Party already exists in Canada, and has fielded candidates in our last two elections I believe. Though unfortunately they aren't big enough yet to even field a full slate of candidates, nor do they have enough money to run a real campaign. So far they are marginalized along with the Libertarians, Marxist-Leninists, Communists, and a few other parties which have no real chance at the moment.
I understand that there is a difference in systems, however it's not as large a difference as it seems. To be fair, I do see how a third party currently has no real chance at becoming President. However I don't see why they can't start by gaining seats in Congress. If a party makes headway in that area, eventually they should become a big enough player to field a Presidential candidate. No small party here ever honestly believes they will go from nothing to forming the government in their first election, but that doesn't stop them from fielding candidates, and it doesn't stop those candidates from having a chance.
Our problem really is the combination of a riding system and a party system. You simply can't have both. Either I elect someone who will serve the interests of my region, or I elect a party that has policies I agree with. If the former, then there should be no such thing as a whipped vote, every member should vote on behalf of their constituents. If the latter, then the seats should be divided up based on popular vote, not based on ridings. What really messes us up now is that a party with 30% or so of the popular vote has absolute authority in parliament, and each member is accountable to the party, not to the constituents. One of these two things needs to change for our system to become an actual democracy.
I am not defending first past the post as being a good system. I honestly believe that it badly needs to change. That said however, it is also obvious that this is not what is keeping the 2 party system in the USA, there is obviously something else happening there.
I'm also not sure that Canada is that much of an anomaly. it seems to me that many other countries have more than 2 main parties with first past the post systems.
You could at least read the article you linked to. Your definition is more than two decades out of date.
After the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term "First World" took on a new meaning that was more applicable to the times. Since its original definition, the term First World has come to be largely synonymous with developed countries or highly developed countries (depending on which definition is being used).
First World countries in general have very advanced economies and very high Human Development Indexes. On the other hand, the United Nations defined the First World on the wealth of the nation's gross national product (GNP). The definition of First World is now less concrete than during the Cold War.
What's the likelihood this is even a remote exploit? I bet it's a LAN admin password, (the article doesn't say) which means that 99% of the routers are no less secure because of it. (in most cases if you are connected to the LAN, you already have physical access to the router, and there's nothing much that secures it against that)
I install ADSL service for a Largish telco. I am always THRILLED when someone brings out a computer that isn't running windows. The reason? Windows machines support our company's software install, which is mandatory, can't be skipped, and takes 15 mins+ to install the first time you open a browser. However, if you are using a Mac, or Linux, or various other devices, the software install fails right away, gives you a warning telling you that your system doesn't meet our minimum requirements, and then without further ado activates the connection so everything works. Net benefit is that it saves me 15+ minutes, and the customers are happier because they don't have 4 more programs installed on their desktop!
Most residential broadband routers are factory configured with their own unique SSID/WPA key, this information is typed on the sticker on the bottom of the router, and is more or less unique to that specific router. Some companies have a habit of resetting everything to factory defaults when they do firmware upgrades, hence wiping out any custom SSID/WPA key and resetting to the one printed on the bottom of the device.
Personally I recommend to most customers that if they aren't comfortable messing with the settings on the router on a regular basis they are much better off just using the ones printed on the router. They're mostly as secure as your own settings, and you don't have to worry about what happens if the thing gets reset. It also has the added bonus that when they forget it (and yes, people do regularly forget the ones they set themselves) it is printed right on the bottom of the device.
That's a stretch... I'd say the current Conservative party is still the PCs but with a few policies from the members of the Reform party that they absorbed. Either way it's still a very "Big government"/increased laws and regulations/increased spending party... though they also cater to the religious right that was at least partly the old Reform members (though they really refuse to cater to the fiscal right)
Honestly I'm pretty disgusted with all our current political parties. I want a party that would decrease government spending, decrease government regulation, and basically stop selling the population out to big corporations and foreign governments... Unfortunately I think that's the basic platform of all our parties right now... except possibly the Greens, who wouldn't sell out to big corporations, but would instead regulate all jobs out of existence...
While Australia is an American ally, and Australia is also a first world country, it should be noted that the two facts are not in any way linked.
America is allies with several countries which are not first world countries, and several first world countries are not listed as American allies.
The two parties in the US are almost identical. There are no two parties in Canada that are anywhere near as close together ideologically as the Democrats and the Republicans.
As for "so bad that I fell compelled to vote for the other major party" you are just proving that you WANT a two party system, you are the one forcing it (you and everyone who votes like you)
We have had coordinated campaigns in Canada to vote ABC (Anybody But Conservative) that turned out unsuccessful. So that's similar to what you propose. However in general I think most people here still vote for who they want to win, not against who they want to loose. That's probably the big reason we can have the vast diversity of political parties (at least by American standards). Unfortunately most of the major parties here have started running similar attack ads to those that run in the USA now at election time, and more people are voting against people rather than for people, so I do worry that we may loose a lot of our democracy that way eventually.
And no longer exists.
But they do prove the point anyway, which is that first past the post does not prevent new parties from forming and being successful, there is obviously something completely different at play in the US to force the 2 party system.
Nowhere did I say that the names of the parties had anything to do with the platforms they ran on, or the policies they implement.
The Green party is "new" in that it is a lot newer than any other party, and in fact is very new to having actually elected members.
The Bloc still exists, and it would be very dangerous to dismiss them as simply a "fringle party from quebec"
The Conservatives were formed by the merger of the PCs and the Reform party, however it is very difficult to see them as a new party, in reality the PCs absorbed the reform party, and some policies changed, but it's not a new party.
It appears that it is not my knowledge that is lacking on this subject, and additionally, none of the above does anything to counter the only point I made which is that first past the post has not caused us to lock in to a two party system.
Not likely, the US makes sure most of their extradition treaties are firmly one sided.
Better yet, get rid of fines for speeding altogether, but increase the penalties for being at-fault in a collision...
And this is why I believe we should have very few laws, but they should be strictly enforced. If we were to get rid of the laws where no actual harm is done, but don't let the police give out warnings or turn a blind eye to laws about actually harmful events we could eliminate this problem, while allowing a lot more freedom for the population.
Get rid of all laws for insulting others, driving in a way someone else doesn't like, denying a corporation a profit, etc. and strictly enforce laws for assault, property damage, theft, and murder.
An added bonus is you would clear up the huge backlog in the court system pretty quickly too.
I call BS on that one. I live in Canada, we also have a first past the post voting system, however we also have 5 major political parties, Conservative, Liberal, New Democrats, Bloc Quebecois, and Green. The Green party is in fact quite new and only won it's first seat in the past couple of elections, however they are quickly growing. This proves that even with a first past the post system, it is possible for new parties to form and be successful.
I'm not sure what it is about the US that makes it impossible to have more than 2 parties, but first past the post isn't it.
You can't stop them from using the dollar, only on having input in to policy decisions surrounding it. There are actually quite a few small countries that use the US dollar pretty much exclusively (even if they do have their own official currency too) There really isn't any way to stop them.
You can however stop them from using your passports, millitary, and any and all other federal programs.
I'm Canadian, and this topic keeps coming up in relation to Quebec, a small portion of them want out of Canada, unfortunately that small portion has a very large voice and sponsors a rather successful provincial political party, and an amazingly successful federal political party. Their separatist politicians told them last time there was a referendum that even if they left Canada they could still use Canadian Passports, Canadian currency, and still be defended by the Canadian military... obviously this is not so much the case. Never mind that they seem to think they'd still receive federal transfer payments from the other provinces...
ummm... and how does windows do any of this better?
ctrl+shift+cursor in windows does something different in every application,
I'm not even sure what a keyboard accelerator is?
Focus is one thing that Windows does worse than any other OS on the planet. I hate random apps gaining or loosing focus of their own accord all the time. As for on Android, it's rare to have more than one app or dialog box on the screen at a time, however on those rare occasions, clicking seems to set focus where it should be every time.
Clicking and dragging to select text works beautifully in Android with a mouse, I use that feature extensively, in fact it works better than on any other OS I've ever seen because if you missed the starting point by a couple letters you can just go back and fix it instead of having to re-select the whole thing.
Mouse and keyboard in Android has been working extremely well for me. about the only one of those complaints that seems valid is mouse over...
As someone who frequently uses both a keyboard and mouse with his android tablet, I'm curious in what way you think Android screwed that up and Microsoft got it right?