At 22:29 4-11-00 -0600, Dan Minette wrote:
>>That's highly unlikely. Such a thing can only happen if support for >all
>>their proposals is the price for forming a coalition with that >party.
>>However, if a party wants to form a coalition with a smaller >party, it
>>will not do so if the price is too high (like having to >support some
>>extremely radical proposals). It is therefore highly >unlikely that a
>>small group will ever be able to dictate its will to >the rest of the
>>population.
>
>I have given experimental evidence for this, which you dismiss.
I don't *dismiss* your evidence, but you claim that your theory is correct,
based on this one example. Come on Dan, you're a scientist, you *know* a
single example isn't enough to prove that a theory is correct.
>Why else should a party on one extreme or the other need to have an
>elected representative that is opposed by the vast majority of the
>people? With proportional representation, we can have congressmen and
>senators that represent viewpoints that are abhorrent to almost all of the
>people.
I agree that such a thing can (and does) happen, but not every minority
party is by definition an *extremist* party. European parliaments are proof
of that.
>>Not really. Forming a coalition does not mean that all parties >involved
>>fully support everything on each other's agendas. Rather, >they are
>>agreements to work together on certain issues. For >instance, Social
>>Democrats may vote with the Greens on raising >Ecology Taxes for heavy
>>industries, but vote differently on the >issue of raising minimum wages.
>
>You miss US politics completely, here. The Greens and the Social
>Democrats are _all together_ less than 10% of the population. To get a
>real feel, you need to think of the Moral Majority Party.
I wasn't referring to the American Greens and Social Democrats -- this was
a strictly hypothetical situation. My mistake -- I should have made that
clear in my post.
>Finally, one of the problems with a system that encourages multiple small
>parties is that it would enhance one-issue parties and one-issue
>votes. It would undermine the sense of commonality that occurs when
>people forge alliances before the elections. It would break down the
>sense of "we're all in this together."
>
>This is, perhaps more important for the U.S. than other countries because
>we are a conceptual nation.
Probably, since I don't know of any European one-issue parties and
one-issue votes. The only possible exception to this might be the
Neo-Nazi's, who somehow manage to relate each and every issue to the
"problem" of immigrants and ethnic minorities.
Jeroen
_________________________________________________________________________
Wonderful World of Brin-L Website: http://go.to/brin-l
Brin-L Party Page: http://www.geocities.com/jeroenvb.geo/party.html
