Getting ready to post the following, I noted that the discussion has gone on apace. I just ran across THIS:

"Why, then, does Don repeatedly accuse me of his own sins when mine are but a pale reflection of the intemperate example that he sets? ;-)

For instance, he said to Akenaton:

"You throw your body on the wheel, and the rest of us will stay here on earth to try to improve matters. Tell us what day you plan to do it and we'll celebrate St. Ake's Day, the day of labor's most recent holy martyr. Exactly which bits of your purple prose would you like on your memorial?   There's quite an array to choose from. "

You throw your body on the wheel, and the rest of us will stay here on earth to try to improve matters. Tell us what day you plan to do it and we'll celebrate St. Ake's Day, the day of labor's most recent holy martyr. Exactly which bits of your purple prose would you like on your memorial?   There's quite an array to choose from. "

When in the hell did I post THAT, Little Hawk!!???

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Now. On with what I had prepared before I encountered the above canard.

Okay, Ake, first this:

"You or I or Little Hawk.....couldn't fight our way out of the proverbial wet paper bag Don! We need unity to fight anything—"

Please excuse me for shouting, but THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG!

Then this:

". . . you and the Party System you support, promote disunity."

I do not SUPPORT the Party System. But as it stands, it's the only system we've got. To try to work OUTSIDE it has, so far, proven futile. The best you can do with a third party or an independent candidate is to garner a small percentage of the votes, and more often than not, this causes the acceptable but not perfect candidate to lose by a narrow margin. For recent example, I cite the Bush vs. Gore election. Ralph Nader pulled enough votes away from Al Gore to throw the election into a situation where it was decided in Bush's favor by hanky-panky in Florida (where the governor is Bush's brother) and the outcome was determined by a conservatively biased Supreme Court. In the actual popular vote, Gore won by a narrow margin

And way back, Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican—and a Progressive, back in the days when the Republican Party meant things like "trust busting" and breaking up monopolies (which it now opposes) didn't like the direction that Taft and the Republican Party were going, so he tried another run at the presidency himself. He couldn't get the Republican Party nomination over a run for second term for Taft, so he and others started the Progressive "Bull Moose Party." The result was that it split the Republican Party vote and Woodrow Wilson—a Democrat—won the election.

That has been the history of third parties and independent candidates in this country.

I DO NOT LIKE IT ONE BIT, but like it or not, that is the REALITY of the situation. And if you are to have a ghost of a chance to have things go the way you would like to see them go, it is the deeply flawed system you have to work within.

Quite a number of elections have been influenced negatively by people with high (and, indeed, admirable) ideals who, in their idealism, insist on "making the perfect become the enemy of the good." Simply put, you have two prominent candidates. One is a guy you don't like much, but at least some of his policies you find acceptable. The other is a total skunk, and if he were elected, it would be a disaster for the whole country.

But wait! There is a third candidate. He has an excellent reputation for honesty and integrity and his ideas very closely match your own. But he has little or no actual political experience. Maybe he was the mayor of some mid-west city and did a great job. But until he announces his candidacy, the vast majority of the country has never heard of him. And he doesn't have much of a campaign chest. And the media only gives him a casual nod, while concentrating on where the news is, the two major candidates.

Comes the election. The third candidate pulls 5% of the vote from the guy whose sort of okay but you don't really like that much, and the Skunk gets elected by a margin of less than a percentage point.

You do the math.

That's been the history of third parties and independent candidates in this country. And NO, I DON'T LIKE IT!

But THAT, sports fans, is the system we are STUCK with.

So what are you going to do? Work for and vote for that semi-acceptable guy in an effort to keep the Skunk from screwing the country, or vote for your Third Party Hero, so you can sit back and feel all idealistic and smug, while the Skunk lets Wall Street go mad, allows regulatory agencies to be dissolved, and starts a half-dozen wars around the world?

That's the price of ignoring reality, even if you don't like it!

And don't try to tell me that's not the way it works. I think I can cite a number of fairly blatant examples within recent years.

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And Little Hawk, perhaps it would help to understand what you are really trying to say if you would express yourself a bit more like you did in your last post instead of banging on about how all-powerful and corrupt the system is—and not saying anything about taking action. And perhaps making a few suggestions on what kind of actions might be workable, or at least worth trying.

I mean (and I am not the only one who has made note of this) you really do come on like you're sitting cross-legged on some mountain top, looking at the situation far below your august height, and remarking on the views people express, especially in these Mudcat discussions, and go "tsk tsk tsk," as if you were observing an ant farm.

That can really get up people's noses ("Yup! There goes Little Hawk again!") and induce them to skip your posts entirely.

Think on it.

Don Firth