Gary Johnson Gary Johnson and the 2-party stranglehold on presidential debates

[stu2002]

As the presidential election approaches, the emails in my in-box can be divided into three basically equal categories:
1) "I canot beleeve you have fallin for Obologna's trix."
2) "How cum U cant see thru Mitwit Romney's dum republikkan dumness. "
3) "Have you heard how Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate for president, is getting rolled?"
The first two categories I answer quickly and politely, because they are mostly from family. The Gary Johnson stuff I've just been chewing on, though, and getting disgusted.

We are a two-party system -- not by law, but because the Democrats and the Republicans have seized the mechanisms of government. They use their control to maintain power, and other parties can't compete. This causes a bunch of self-perpetuating, corrosive behaviors, like government-funded primaries for these major parties, which are really nothing but private organizations. Withholding the money for a Republican primary out of a libertarian's paycheck makes as much sense as taxing Jews to pay for KKK dance parties (now that's an idea for a reality show).

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/colu...tranglehold-on-presidential-debates-1.4076943

 

[AFPVet]

As others have mentioned, you have to pretty much be a billionaire in order to put a dent in the vote. It's set up like this purposefully. The two parties are in bed with each other while appearing as opponents. Yes, you can argue that the people are the ones who keep this a two party system because they can't break out of the mentality of "voting third is going to give my vote to the other person". I laugh at that... what are they going to say next... that abstaining from voting is going to give your vote to the other candidate? Come on... voting for the lesser evil is still evil.

Another issue is that people won't vote third party because the third party or Independent candidates are not included in the debate, therefore they have lost the chance even before they have it. As another member said, the 15% vote rule needed to enter the debates was to prevent another Perot. They keep changing the rules in order to secure power. This is what criminals do. They wouldn't let Ron take over the party... they changed the rules and committed fraud so that he couldn't.

So is it truly the People who are to blame, or the criminals who manipulate the system in order to secure their false left/right paradigm?

 

[jbauer]

I've got some GJ stuff. No one has heard of any of the 3rd party people.

 

[Lowkey]

The two party system means you need to influence one party to adopt your views. Much like socialists have in the democrat party.