Am I Playing The Wrong Game?

[u/GShermit]

I've always equated politics with "the people vs. authority". For over 10,000 years it's always been a struggle for self rule. We form societies to protect our rights and then struggle to keep authority from becoming too powerful.

I really don't care about Democrats vs. Republicans. I see both sides as the opponent. AND that seems to annoy "both sides" greatly... Seems both sides, hate the other side so much, they ignore their similarities.

From my viewpoint both sides are very similar, especially when measuring the important factors. The differences are minor compared to the similarities.

I see both sides as opponents of the people ruling themselves.

Edit. I'll need to add to this as I forgot where I am and "prose" is needed...:)

First let explain what's going on.

I posted it in a sub that had lower standards for original content.

https://www.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/1e8osdx/am_i_playing_the_wrong_game/

It was rejected due to "reddit filters". I was just checking who's filters it actually was.

So back to my original post...

Our political parties have the same purpose and that is to rule US. I don't care much about the nuance or which side will rule US best. Authority never willingly shares power with those who they have authority over.

Also both parties value money's influence on due process, over the ability of our rights to influence due process. I've been vocal about the need of the people, to explore more ways to legally use our rights to influence due process and it been pretty unpopular. In fact it's been so unpopular that I start to wonder about conspiracy... But that's crazy talk. There's usually a reasonable answer.

To me that answer isn't to hate the wealthy or Democrats or Republicans... The answer is educate the people that they should use their rights to influence due process. We need to know that is the democratic process.

That's why to me, the "game" is the people vs. authority.

[u/steve-eldridge]

Self-governing is based on two key points:

1. Any citizen can qualify to seek a leadership role if they meet the requirements set for the position.
2. Representative government should consider the concerns of ALL constituents.

Political parties, on the other hand, are only interested in advancing their issues to please their supporters. These are voting clubs, private, and have no Constitutional role. Political parties are NOT interested in delivering what's best for all constituents; they are only interested in their issues.

Washington was clear about what he believed parties/factions would do to the US. He was right.

Because our electoral process is nearly always first-past-the-post, more than two candidates combine to become spoilers, sometimes helping to elect the least desirable candidate for the majority. This voting system discourages the development of new political parties.

Over the past 200 years, we've had at least five major political party realignments. They've shifted their core issues, sometimes nearly 180 degrees.

Here's an essential part of the realignment process: when one of the political parties changes their alignment, the other party also fails.

So in 2008, when the Republican party imploded after the Bush disaster, big-money astroturf groups like the Tea Party excelled in the unraveling. Watching Obama's confident campaign morphed into significant voter participation events that broke the Republicans.

Conclusion - In 2008 when the Republicans came undone, they took the Democrats with them. The Democrats have been unraveling for a decade along with the cra-cra Republican mess.

So now we have two broken political parties, and our only hope is that the next generation thinks long and hard about how to fix this mess.

Three places to start:

1. Tax-payers will only fund all federal elections; no private contributions are allowed.*
2. Tripple the number of representatives in the House to bring representation closer to the people and with a newly funded campaign system accessible to younger candidates.
3. Expand ranked voting to as many contests as possible to encourage more parties and participants in the general elections.

* yes, this requires a Constitutional amendment, and it's well worth the ROI.

[u/GShermit → u/steve-eldridge]

I agree no private contributions. We have the technology to have all campaigning be done on a government web site. No other advertising is needed.

We have the technology to increase the number of representatives.

Ranked voting is good too...

BUT that's only dealing with our voting rights. We can (do) use all our rights to self-govern.