“The reason for the two-party problem in American politics is related more to the mathematical realities of our voting system than to rampant logical fallacy. In the plurality system we have now, voting for a third party candidate will almost invariably help one of the two major parties; generally the one furthest from the voter’s sympathies. This “spoiler effect” is why Republicans gave money to Ralph Nader: it’s a smart, economical, and legal (if borderline-unethical) way to guarantee fewer votes for their party’s opponent.

Don’t take my word for it; ask a mathematician. Better still, read William Poundstone’s “Gaming the Vote”. As long as we use the plurality voting system, third parties–and beyond–will never be viable in the U.S. Alternatives do exist, and it is time we all became aware of them. ”

It isn’t the voting system itself, it’s what brought about the two party setup and why are there no alternatives allowed. Plurality voting or other voting systems are all prey to what I lay out below. The answer is the question.

The debates right now are owned by a corporation co-owned by the two major parties and they set the rules, the set the questions, and they didn’t allow equal time to Ron Paul. All major media outlets are owned by 4 individuals with vested interests in getting obama or mcain voted in. This is how free trade was passed in spite of overwhelming evidence of the harm it would do to the country, the system is rigged for the corps. to get their guy in. Also voting fraud is as big a barrier as all of these others combined. We need paper ballots only again for starters.

But the question is why vote at all? If the system is so rigged that Ron Paul never has a chance literally, then why not skip voting altogether, but make very sure Ron Paul or Kucinich or whoever is talking real stuff gets into the debates and figure out how he can get equal time.

Because the fact is the NWO has all sorts of plans but they won’t “pull the trigger” until the population is too dumbed and flourided up with their water supplies and too willing to give up their guns; and too poor too. Then hell will truly be unleashed. The solution is to make sure the top 5% of the population is fully informed, and Alex Jones does a very good job at that. Look him up. 5% fully informed and willing to fight is all this country will ever need to remain the land of the free.

The A or B is only remotely equivalent to democrat or republican. Why? Because of numbers. In the current two party system, it IS an either/or scenario. One must be true. It isn’t a great way to run a country, but more presidential candidates will only advance publicity for agendas, not increase voting power.

But to limit the 3rd or multiple party debate to the presidential election misses the point. Other countries with more than one party gets more done with multiple party coalitions (even some that wouldn’t normally work, like Green and Conservative working together for a wildlife preserve, for example). No party has a significant enough majority, so they must work together to get stuff done. If they didn’t no one would get anything. To me, that’s more of a true democracy.

So, I think one needs to look at it more at the local level then not.

err, I meant the economy and the war on terror.

Look at the huge amount of diverse opinions that are expressed in comments just on this site. Two people do not come even close to really representing what all 300,000,000 Americans really think about even major issues, not to mention the hundreds of smaller issues. The two major candidates essentially debated about two things in the ‘08 Presidential election, the election and the war on terror.

Throwing in a third or even a fourth significant candidate into the debates, even if they were only polling 10%, would ensure that more issues were debated. Let’s pretend that Ron Paul magically ran as an independent and received enough support to allow him to be in the debates. All of a sudden instead of an argument for or against the war in Iraq, there would be an argument being raised that every war we have been in since WWII was unnecessary and that a policy of non-interventionism is best.

Instead of talking merely about whether to increase social security or to stop pork barrel spending (a joke, it wouldn’t put a dent in federal spending), there would be a real debate on whether or not to repeal the income tax and DRASTICALLY cut federal services and giving states more power.

Can you imagine that? That would be absolutely amazing, just having the debate on a national level would be so awesome.

Stacy and Ed: I understand some of the strategical ideas out there in politics. The problem is we’ve become too mathematical about politics. Politics isn’t a 1 or 0 issue, which I’ve tried to make apparent with this article. Politics is about securing our freedom; something we must fight vigilantly for. At the end of the day, neither of the major parties works for our freedom. They are working together to further enslave us and our children’s children to a vice-grip of debt. Bush has spent us into oblivion and Obama is promising more of the same. Whether they spend the money on bombs or bailouts, we, the American people, pay for it dearly. They measure the national debt against Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the sum of everything produced in our country. The U.S. government rulers are mortgaging YOUR hard work for their benefit and they continue because the American public has never told them where to stick it, because they keep lying to us to get us to vote for “their way”, which is the same as the “other way.” Pick your poison; they’re two sides of the same coin.

Rob: You are correct. I am a Libertarian in principle and I was (am?) a big Ron Paul supporter. I agree with your points. I would add that education and action must be continuous. We can never stop working to change the parties and to restore our freedom because the fight never ends. It requires eternal vigilance. We could elect the best people, and they could restore all our freedom, but even then we can’t let our guard down. There will always be a power-hungry politician waiting on the side-lines for his moment to bring us back down to slavery.

Give me liberty or give me death!

From a libertarian perspective this would have the greatest effect on the Republican party. If the Republican party is consistently losing elections by 3-5% and they are seeing that the Libertarian party is garnering 3-5% of the vote, they immediately know the people that really need to go after and work for.

Another option of course is to change the major political party from within, and this can be done, albeit quite slowly. But is is already happening all over the country with Ron Paul supporters being elected to precinct delegate positions, a position that actually has a fair amount of power. A few thousand people elected to those positions nationwide can really change party policy as a whole.

The best way to go would be to have a preference system of voting, where the voter puts his favorite candidate as his number 1 choice and his least at the bottom, with everybody else filling in the middle. If this were to be put in place nationwide I am certain that things would be shaken up significantly, but for just that reason I do not ever see it happening. So for the time being I think those of us who actually vote on principle should do our best to either change the major party from within (and then make it easier for third parties!) or to educate voters on fallacy of a wasted vote.

Neither ways are easy, but both would have incredible payoffs.