Personally, I think many political problems would be solved if there were no political parties at all. In my mind, all they really seem to be are control mechanisms that try to enforce their views on a wide portion of the populace. Furthermore, in the end they all seem to only want control, at least here in the US. If you were to see the Obama administration you'd see Republicans fighting him tooth and nail over virtually everything he tried to do and that hurt his administration severely, where if he didn't have such opposition, he'd probably get a lot more done then he has now. Perhaps. Personally I think they spend so much time and money vying for control that they actually do more bad than good. And if they didn't exist, more of the populaces' mindset could be expressed through various ideas instead of cookie cutter "all in one" packages of ideas that political parties embody.

Something that goes along with this is, they are fighting for control, to destroy the opposing parties. However, only one time in the US's history has that occurred, and it was disastrous. The "Era of Good Feelings" was a time where only one political party existed and they pretty much ran everything into the ground because there were no variances in opinion. Thus, whatever the party thought, everyone thought and it did a lot of damage. So the antics of political parties and their ultimate goal of dominance, is something we really shouldn't want happening.

(To be safe I hope I didn't offend anyone in this post. I just feel that political parties themselves seem to be a big part of the problem. If this post is a problem, I'll delete it.)

Quote from: BlakPilar on September 17, 2011, 11:51:59 pm

Apparently we need to be 18 for a month before we vote if not, then woot because my birthday is October 19th so I'd have plenty of time

That is partially true because the application process does take about a month in most states but I know here in California and probably many others, you can register to vote before your 18th birthday as long as by the time the next election day comes you will have already turned 18. Checking the schedule there is a city wide election in my district in early October so I will be able to register after that and that will leave me with plenty of time before the general election.

In Québec, the health department notices you're about to be 18 and automatically registers you to the elections director for you, while sending you a nice letter saying you got automatically registered and some flyers about STDs.

I registered last month... I am registered as undecided and my fiancée is registered as republican

@Qwerty, I can't "prove" it, per se, but I think it would work a lot better. Give money to the mom-and-pop businesses. They buy goods/services from other companies, who in turn do the same with larger companies, so on so forth. That, to me, sounds a lot better than giving money to banks and car dealerships who ended laying people off and giving their CEOs benefits

You mean the same people who have a well known history of bailing out and saving like there's no tomorrow every time the stock market takes a dip?

The point that I was trying to make (and that Xeda pointed out) is that hindsight is basically 20/20. You can always say "oh that didn't work because the group over here should have gotten the money." Also, it is *incredibly* difficult to predict any change in economics. Even the economists have no idea what they're doing, sometimes. The fact that you had economists saying that what the administration did was the right choice and other economists saying it would do nothing just serves to demonstrate the general uncertainty of any large scale economic action.

The mom-and-pops

Republican, but I have some things I agree/disagree with from both parties.

Instead, Obama plays golf...

Well, look for a moment at who's BLOCKING all Obama tries to do...
You guessed right, the GOP...
Obama tried to pass plenty of stuff, but the republicans tend to negotiate and negotiate until the proposed plan has shifted right

Quote from: flyingfisch on September 19, 2011, 11:51:42 am

Instead, Obama plays golf...

Well, look for a moment at who's BLOCKING all Obama tries to do...
You guessed right, the GOP...
Obama tried to pass plenty of stuff, but the republicans tend to negotiate and negotiate until the proposed plan has shifted right

But now how did the GOP block Obama prior to the 2010 elections? If you remember prior to then, liberals controlled both the house and senate with overwhelming majorities while having a democratic president. Obama and congress had nothing blocking their policy and all the opportunity to fix the economy for 2 years but instead things got worse and a result the American people decided to put the GOP back in congress. Also I'm very tired of Obama blaming all our issues on Bush and the wealthy. For once could he ever take responsibility and try to solve our issues instead of chasing opinion polls.