The Tyranny of the Two Party System

Rarely is there someone out there bold enough to speak out against the two party system. Conventional wisdom would have us believe that a two party system is the best way to allow competing ideas and values to be represented for in the government. Some good examples of this are as follows:

Generally speaking there is always one party that is in favor of some kind of tax increase for the purpose of redistributing the wealth and balancing the budget while there is generally a party that is in favor of cutting taxes and spending less.
Generally speaking one party is in favor of gun registration, and create laws that, they would argue, make it harder for criminals to deadly weapons in their hands, while another party is in fights for the right of law abiding citizens to bear arms.
One party is generally in favor of building a strong military and using that military to maintain and establish peace while another party is in favor of more diplomatic means.

The examples could go on and on. Note that in none of these ideals is there necessarily a “wrong” side or “right side.” I would be willing to bet that most who will read this sight would be in favor of some kind of gun safety laws of registration while at the same time they would not be in favor of stripping Americans of their constitutional right to bear arms.

Now where do we draw the line of compromise or how can the perfect balance be made in which all sides walk away totally satisfied. The answer is you really can’t otherwise we would have a long time ago. However, when two different ideas are constantly battling each other the hope is that though unsound policy may be adopted from time to time, 1) That policy would not be too radical as to destroy constitutional rights or cause utter chaos and 2) if unsound policy is put into place to remove it as fast as possible.

However, with these advantages acknowledged, we must also look at the dark side of the two party system. First, parties destroy intellectual honesty in many ways. When President Bush proposes any piece of legislation of course Republicans will be pressured if not obligated by their party whip to vote for it, even if they think it is unsound policy. Voting against the bill could result is reduction of funds for reelection and so many on both sides of the aisle are bullied into voting for bills that they don’t even really believe will work.

The other problem is sometimes politicians will vote against sound policy just because of who proposed it. It should be made clear that everyone will always have their own personal opinion as to what sound policy is. I am focusing on what a specific politician believed or believes to be sound policy and whether or not his vote follows what he says he believes. Because either he states that which he doesn’t believe and vote what he does, or he states what he does believe and does not vote for it because of party pressure.

A prime example of this problem was very recently modeled by Harry Reid. Harry Reid was asked in mid-December if he would support a troop escalation in Iraq. Senator Reid said he would favor a temporary troop increase. Two weeks later when Bush announced his plan to increase troops, Senator Reid all the sudden claimed he was never in favor of a troop increase and that in fact he was in favor of a speedy troop withdrawal.

The point of this example is not to debate Iraq policy but to point out a problem which exists in both parties and I believe will always be an inherent problem in a two party system and that is this; people become more committed to their party than to their actual moral convictions. And people who are more committed to their moral convictions than they are to their parties usually are not supported by their parties and eventually go nowhere.