A former professor of mine once told me that you can identify an honest politician by looking at his tie but the problem is it’s not the tie that’s looked at it’s the name of the party. I can not tell you how many times I have come across voters that only vote for their own party. I spoke to a voter like this a few weeks ago and they asked why that was wrong, the point is to get as many democrats into office so we can vote on the bills that we want passed. The problem is that the opinions aren’t balanced, if too many politicians of one party are in office whether it is Republican or Democrat the government’s political actions and opinions become to weighted on one side without the consideration of the other.
When a group of identical thinking people become to strong or to isolated they will become narrow-mind towards opposite views, to determinate of what they observe to be right and wrong, corrupted, and many times become radical. Evidence of this is the KKK, religious groups such as Muslim terrorists and Christian extremists that protest at military funerals, Nazis, and other radical groups.
One reason why government politics was broken into multiple parties was to ensure that the policies and bills will be argued to find the best solution and to limit the power of a party as the constitution did for the different branches. The parties are a categorization of similar opinions not the answer to solve a problem. A man who calls himself a Democrat is not certain to make a good or honest politician as is the same for a man who calls him self a Republican. To find the best candidate possible for a position we must research and study the individual not the party. A thorough research of a candidate acts as a filter. A good filter blocks bad and unqualified candidates or politicians and filters in good potential candidates (or at least a better one). A good filter does not discriminate against a party, religious beliefs, ethnicity, etc. If discrimination should occur, then poor filtering will result in blocking potentially great candidates and letting potential bad, unqualified, and corrupt candidates in without examining them first.
All of this is not to say that claiming to be in a party is a bad thing because it is not. Separate parties are very good to have. Not only is it a method of organizing voters and categorizing candidates but it organizes and builds common thought. In researching candidates, considering the runners in your party and then researching the others is a good way to start. Our vision is a lot like how think; straighten your hands and close your fingers. Place your hands on the sides of your face so it blocks your eyes from seeing left and right without turning your head. Your view has decreased into tunnel vision which is like the view-point of a narrow-minded person. Now remove your hands from your face and your vision is much wider like the views of an open-minded person. More open we are to policies and views the better judgment we will have. However, being an open-minded person does not mean that you should except every opposite view that you come across but it means to give every opinion an equal chance on being heard and giving every opinion an equal consideration. Many times this might mean that we alter ours opinions in some ways and not necessarily completely change our views.
Voting is like buying a car, if you only buy a car because it is a Ford without checking its mechanical condition you’re going to run into problems.

4 comments
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May 11, 2008 at 6:21 am
dan simmons
good thoughts for sure.
May 15, 2008 at 9:11 am
undergroundnetwork
Good post Andrew,
This is something is that has interested me for sometime. Not just the folly of dogmatic political allegiances, but of the political system that ensures that politics are polarised. As you are likely aware the American form of “democracy” ensures that there really are only two political parties with any chance of gaining power or influence. To all those that claim America is the “brightest beacon of freedom and democracy”, do you really believe that all Americans political believes can be summed up in two very similar political parties? Surely many citizens are disenfranchised by this two party system.
New Zealand changed from first past the post (similar to the US system) to the MMP system in 1996. This has ensured that many more political parties are represented in parliament, and therefore more voters are represented in politics. Surely this is more democratic. However this system is not without it problems. The system in Australia is different again, and in my opinion, perhaps a better option than MMP, as far as being more democratic and giving more voice to voters.
Me on US democracy:
http://undergroundnetwork.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/for-what-its-worth-heres-my-2-cents/
Me on NZ democracy:
http://undergroundnetwork.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/in-defence-of-mmp/
May 15, 2008 at 8:11 pm
andrewbreece
You are very right in the fact that you said that two parties are not enough to match the views which is why there was so much controversy on McCain not being conservitive and then he suppenly switch his views to get their support (1 reason why Im not voteing for him- he’s lieing). I have not done much thought about if there should be more than two, because obviously there are reasons why there should be more than two but there are also good reasons why there should only be two. Before I leave my opinion on that I would have to think about it untill I have a good opinion.
June 3, 2008 at 1:43 am
shellacking
Shellacking says : I absolutely agree with this !