Why a two Party Government is Detrimental to Apolytonia.

Libertarian2004 · July 24, 2002, 02:23

Why a two Party Government is Detrimental to Apolytonia.

First off I would like to say that this is not an article about bashing the two current standing parties or party politics in general. It is an article based on what a two party system could do to our great nation.
Two party systems lead to deadlocks, stifles innovative thought, citizens following blindly the cause of their party because they do not like the other party ideals or agree with an idea(s) of their selected party, a us vs. them mentality, and ultimately corruption in the courts.
Corruption in the courts is quite possible in a two party system where members of parties are allowed to be seated as a justice. Political favors can be hidden behind the words of a final verdict and justice nominations, the law of the land can be interpreted with a hint of political flavor. In any system with political parties, political judges are bad. In a two party system where the parties are at each others necks, the prospect of corruption grows even worse
However party politics are not inherently evil. They create a culture of thought and are a great way for ideas to be broadcasted. The power of the masses get things done. I am not calling to the end of political parties as many people have in other democracy games.
If a government were to have many political parties with a range of ideas and philosophies, we would all benefit. Debates ring louder with more intuitive and diverse ideas. Polls have more than the political party #1 option and the political party #2 option. Citizens have more choices to best pursue their own personal and political interests.
The current two party system of the United Front Coalition (UFC) and the Democratic Industrialists of Apolytonia (DIA) so far have not begun the ultimate spiral down of the 2 party system. I believe that active citizenship and a decent number of independents running for office have kept us from this downward spiral. I also believe that we have fairly honest people at the head of these parties now and at the head of our government. Right now they are working together to forge our nation in these early ages. However this is not guaranteed forever. We have yet to face our greatest challenges as a nation. Challenges that are sure to make or break this nation.
This is a call to all independents and dissatisfied members of the 2 party system. Create a political party, run for office, post in forums, vote in polls, and let your unique ideas be heard. Together we will prevent a two party system from stagnating our country.

Robber Baron · July 24, 2002, 08:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Libertarian2004
Two party systems lead to deadlocks, stifles innovative thought, citizens following blindly the cause of their party because they do not like the other party ideals or agree with an idea(s) of their selected party, a us vs. them mentality, and ultimately corruption in the courts.

But NONE of these things have happened or are happening in our game. This complaint might describe the impact of two-party systems in RL. It simply doesn't apply here. Apolytonians have voted flexibly, each of the two "parties" have allowed wide internal ranges of ideas and philosophies, and our government shows absolutely no sign of gridlock. In fact, we have demonstrated the opposite.

civman2000 · July 24, 2002, 09:02

Quote:

Together we will prevent a two party system from stagnating our country

And create the chaos of having 10 tiny disorganized parties, which will eventually merge back into 2 or 3 anyways

.

WHat I think we need is some non-partisan yet political organizations. ALl organizations so far are for debate but do not promote any one side of any debates.

Harovan · July 24, 2002, 09:27

The best action to be done with these parties is, disband them. They do absolutely nothing useful. With good reason parties are banned in Phoenatica, so let's learn from them.

civman2000 · July 24, 2002, 09:35

*Gets out copy of Bill of Rights which will soon be passed*

Ahem. "Clause 5: THe right to associate into any form of organization shall not be denied."

By the way, clause 5 is passing with 82%

July 24, 2002, 10:00

They've banned parties in the CFC Demo Game. Few people have complained or tried to change it, and those who have are newbies. Their government is doing fine. Perhaps we can adopt some of their methods...
Of course, they are much more advanced than us. They have tanks and we have archers. Can't argue with evidence.

Epistax · July 24, 2002, 10:08

Well he is right. Look at examples. The US political system is very much in a downward spiral battle betweens Dems and Reps. However in various european nations there are many more equally popular parties. And just because there are more than two, it doesn't mean they are any more disorganized-- maybe more so. The way it is in the US now is that the parties are organized as against eachother. If one party disappeared, the other one would fall over.

True, we do not have this problem in our game right now, but the second someone votes for someone because of their party, we have a problem.

Jon Shafer · July 24, 2002, 10:25

The only way to get rid of parties would be to ban them from the start. That didn't happen, and now they're too intertwined, and many people don't want to give them up for whatever reason they might have.

mtgillespie · July 24, 2002, 10:34

I don't think we should ban parties. However, i don't think people can comment on whether they are divisive or not until we have a stronger position. At the moment, there is no problem because our options are war or die. When our options are war or build, we'll find out the true nature of our parties, and how well they can work together.

Harovan · July 24, 2002, 10:35

Quote:

Originally posted by civman2000
*Gets out copy of Bill of Rights which will soon be passed*

Ahem. "Clause 5: THe right to associate into any form of organization shall not be denied."

By the way, clause 5 is passing with 82%

I do not acknowledge your so-called bill of rights. It is pointless, and most posters see it so. The prove is, that at this point only 39 of far over 200 people have voted (look at the elections, where voted more than 100 people). Geez, I attracted more voters with the question, if we should open embassies. Hence, the vast majority is not interested in your bill of rights, it's pretty unpopular. If you are unable to attract more voters with your stuff, I don't recommend you to call it "official", even if it got 100% approval.

If you posted another "official amendment" and would be the only voter, that would make a 100% approval.

But would it be legal? I say no.

Apocalypse · July 24, 2002, 10:59

I don't believe political parties will do too much harm. Enough Independents run to at least force the party candidates to make independent decisions.

Papa Chubby · July 24, 2002, 11:16

I have to agree with Sir Ralph in that there must be some minimum of voters before a poll is considered valid. There must be some minimum turnout value of voters that vote, whether it is 50% or 66%, that must be debated.

Whether having two political parties is bad or not, i dont know. Besides the UFC is a coalition of two parties, that have different views on warfare and its value in our society. Looking back at the postings that have been, I don´t think that we have in any way been narrow-minded.

Sheik · July 24, 2002, 11:42

Quote:

WHat I think we need is some non-partisan yet political organizations. ALl organizations so far are for debate but do not promote any one side of any debates.

jdjdjd · July 24, 2002, 12:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Papa Chubby
I have to agree with Sir Ralph in that there must be some minimum of voters before a poll is considered valid. There must be some minimum turnout value of voters that vote, whether it is 50% or 66%, that must be debated.

Whether having two political parties is bad or not, i dont know. Besides the UFC is a coalition of two parties, that have different views on warfare and its value in our society. Looking back at the postings that have been, I don´t think that we have in any way been narrow-minded.

This is a good idea, but how do we determine the number? And if we do this, it should probably be added to the code of laws, since its a significant difference between this and the current way.

As for parties, I am not in one and probably never will. Do they have a purpose, sure to some extent. Is this really a two party system, probably not given the vast amount of independents we have? Should we disband them, its not worth the effort, nor is it proper to tell members of a democracy that they can not organize, meet, plan, etc., so long as they do not violate the code of laws.

Libertarian2004 · July 24, 2002, 12:49

I am not saying that right now we are experiancing this stagnation of the 2 party system. What I am saying is that it is enitrely possible that it could happen in the future.

As people above have stated we have had little to disagree on as far as the civ3 game goes, the only debate has been on how our goverment is structured. We will have real decisions to make soon. then we will see if this tranquil productive goverment continues.

Basically my article calls to independents to form more political parties if we are going to be a party based system.

Also no one has touched on my idea that justices should not be POLITICALLY aligned, if they are, it should be an elected position.

kring · July 24, 2002, 13:15

I see the division, and so does anyone else that looks for it. When someone is put down because of their party, or their party is, then there is division.

I see some of the DIA and UFC both putting down each other. I would request we stop bashing the parties, and I am not talking about the beginning post here, either. I support having either no parties or more parties. Yet, when someone tries to start a new party, they get ridiculed for doing so. Several attempts have been made. I am glad more IND are running.

I can think of one extreme case without even trying. Many of his posts have put downs of the other party. And I don't even read most of the campaign/election posts. I vote for the person, based on their posts in other areas, or what they say during chats/turnchats.

FrustratedPoet · July 24, 2002, 13:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

I do not acknowledge your so-called bill of rights. It is pointless, and most posters see it so. The prove is, that at this point only 39 of far over 200 people have voted (look at the elections, where voted more than 100 people). Geez, I attracted more voters with the question, if we should open embassies. Hence, the vast majority is not interested in your bill of rights, it's pretty unpopular. If you are unable to attract more voters with your stuff, I don't recommend you to call it "official", even if it got 100% approval.

If you posted another "official amendment" and would be the only voter, that would make a 100% approval.

But would it be legal? I say no.

Yeah ... what he said.

Jon Shafer · July 24, 2002, 14:08

Another good issue brought up. How many people make an 'official' poll really 'official'? Maybe we should set up a thread for this issue.

GodKing · July 24, 2002, 14:21

Eik Gads men. How nuts is this all getting. Don't worry about what people are calling themselves. It don't mean nuthin.

GePap · July 24, 2002, 14:47

Quote:

Originally posted by GodKing
Eik Gads men. How nuts is this all getting. Don't worry about what people are calling themselves. It don't mean nuthin.

Thank you. Parites in this game are almost simply a sort of roleplaying. BUt even if anyone thinks here they are more than that, we need to be honest:

In all sorts political there are factions, even probably in the CivFanatics game. Political parties are simply one expression of factionalism, one of the least violent an desructive out there. We do have general disagreements about which path should lead to the end: I mean, we havent even begun to discuss the endgame, or which type of victory, diplomatic, space, cultural, dominance, or total conquest, we want to head for. That wil cause real devides, I think. To try to ban parties, either from the start or now simply drives underground a basic piece of politics.

Inverse Icarus · July 24, 2002, 14:59

a libertarian.

a pole

i dont know how to feel!

ThePlagueRat · July 24, 2002, 15:06

What GePap says is true... Factioning appear in most organizations.
As a matter of fact(ioning),
I belong to the culture-faction of DIA, because The Culture Party, TCP, merged into the DIA by some reason.
Well, I just have to remember that I must vote what I,
myself believe. Not what the DIA representatives tell me!

Sheik · July 24, 2002, 15:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

I do not acknowledge your so-called bill of rights. It is pointless, and most posters see it so. The prove is, that at this point only 39 of far over 200 people have voted (look at the elections, where voted more than 100 people). Geez, I attracted more voters with the question, if we should open embassies. Hence, the vast majority is not interested in your bill of rights, it's pretty unpopular. If you are unable to attract more voters with your stuff, I don't recommend you to call it "official", even if it got 100% approval.

If you posted another "official amendment" and would be the only voter, that would make a 100% approval.

But would it be legal? I say no.

This is what the court must decide.

I am going to disagree with Sir Ralph and say that if he was the only voter and his poll fit all the standards then yes it would be legal. Sure not many people said yes but no one cared enough to say no.
Should we get better standards? Probably.

What we need is a way to remove people who are not active from the game. We need standards to determine who is active in the game and which votes count.

Epistax · July 24, 2002, 15:24

No offense to the original poster, but could we please let this topic die off?

We wont get any legislation that mentions party politics
We wont ever ban them
For now, they aren't being abused, and I don't think they will be

Things are good

Libertarian2004 · July 24, 2002, 15:40

Let the topic die off?

Just because things are not messed up now doesnt mean they wont be ever.

I do not know why people are taking offence to this topic. It was just my personal call for the creation of more political parties and non-political justices. As i have stated before both parties are working together right now with minimal partisanship. That does mean everything will always be hunky dory.

It just disturbs me that there are no other parties.

Epistax · July 24, 2002, 15:49

Explained further:

We are about to declare war on America. Which thread has talks about this? Where are our discussions of which way to expand, what units to put on a gally, where to send it, etc?

Everything is buried by governmental issues and polls. Other things such as this give us zero breathing room for the game itself.

This particular debate might seem popular at the moment, but it wont lead us anywhere, as it isn't a problem yet. I frankly don't see it as a pressing issue since there is no problem, and even if we were 100% sure of a future problem, there is nothing we can now do about it.

*sigh* You can keep trying, and we can start more threads and more threads about this, or we can play the game.

Epistax has left the thread.

MrWhereItsAt · July 24, 2002, 16:30

Lib - just to support this thread for a moment (it seems that it is the bashing thread for the week

), your points in the first post are legitimate concerns and many have brought such issues up for debate before, However, as you admit, no problems have been seen to have arisen as of yet, and from what I can see, the party politics have actually died somewhat in the forum. I haven't looked at either party thread for ages, but in no other thread (the important ones

)have I seen it become a competition between parties as of late.

It would be best if there were multiple parties with agenda ranging across the political spectrum, but in Rl it is nearly impossible to find countries with such representations. In fact, we DID seem to have a decent number of small parties, until for some reason when I was away a week BANG! they had all coalesced into the UFC.

I am still a little confused how that happened. However, after a few weeks of insult-hurling across party lines, I don't think I could tell you the names of more than 5 posters in any party at all. And I don't believe the average participant could either unless the parties were signposted next to the poster's name at the top of an election thread!

In essence, party politics seem to have faded, in the face of people getting tired with them, and a completely unorganized groundswell of support against such ideas earlier on, featuring not just independents, but members from both parties as well.

These people, as well as myself, see parties as merely a bit of fun - it's a comforting thing somehow to be a member of a group rather than face the sometimes hostile forum with no more backup than yourself. Some are proud of their party membership, some join because they like to know which posters have their outlook on issues, and maybe there are some who are in just to bring the whole edifice crashing down around them.

So, to conclude, perhaps we should share your concerns, Lib, but there is less evidence now than ever before in this forum's history for the detrimental effect of party politics. For this reason, and the fact that there will be some still getting a kick out of the presence of parties, we should not attempt to ban them, just stay vigilant as you are to any possibility that parties become more burden than bonus. In this way I applaud your post

for bringin this to our attention again, and I am glad to see you do not even seriously consider the idea of banning them - and thus killing some of the fun.

Libertarian2004 · July 24, 2002, 18:12

Yeah pehaps i should be focusing my efforts elsewhere. Pointing our problems with our system's future seems to be fairly unpopular.

Perhaps ill start my own political party since my bid as a justice didnt pan out.

Spiffor · July 24, 2002, 18:48

When we achieve a new level of roleplaying (with ethics and such), then we can have more parties, based on the party allegiance. But something isn't near to happen, until we ecome a stable power.

Another thing to help the emergence of parties is to officially require a candidate to have a 50% majority to win, even if there are more than 2 candidates (I don't think it's official now), with a runoff poll among the 2 candidates who had the most votes.
I'll take a RL example : there is a striking difference between France and Britiain about this. In Britain, there is only one round for the elections, and when you vote, your vote MUST count, and you have to vote for either tories or labour. In France, there is a runoff election when the candidate didn't get 50% (every presidential election). In Britain, you have 2 major parties and a small middle-party. In France, there are no major parties (the best candidate got 20% votes at the first round of last election), and several middle-sized ones.
The way elections are held could help to get more diversity to the political landscape.