re: #58 Unabogie

There is a basic question I pose to people who argue that complex problems have simple solutions: where has this ever worked in practice?

Sometimes, it works. There are dozens of places with universal health care, so that has been proven to work. Ditto for gun bans. Countries have done it, it works, and murders are a fraction of what they are here.

But voting 3rd party to “heighten the contradictions?”

Nope. Nonsense. Pure nonsense.

Even things like universal health care and gun bans can be complicated/complex. Complex issues require complex solutions.

As someone who has voted third party more than once, I get the desire to vote for the person most inline with your world view and/or ideology. And I always find it interesting that Republicans and Democrats say the same thing about voting third party - that you’re throwing your vote away or essentially voting for the other major party nominee (this is, by the way, a terrible argument because as a voter it’s my vote, so I’m not throwing it away, and I’m not “voting for the other guy”, I’m voting for the person most aligned with my beliefs - all it does is make you sound like a condescending jackass who isn’t actually listening to the person you’re “debating”).

But unfortunately, we don’t have viable third parties in our system at present. And the system is set up in a way to quash them, which in turns leads to most third parties being generally unserious entities unable to actually deal with the complex issues facing the country and the world.