Political Musings (I want your two cents!)

[knights_say_nih]

So. I've been thinking (uh oh) about politics, and I have some questions/musings for Americans on my f-list about extremism in politics.

Someone said to me today that they thought having two parties in America made things extreme. That you were left wing or right wing. Someone else answered that this wasn't set in law, that this was just the nature of the game. The only way to win an election was to have two parties.

THIS IS NOT TRUE.
Enter Canada, who has three main parties;

Conservatives (right wing)
Liberals (middle to left)
New Democratic Party (NDP) (left)

But then there's ALSO the Bloc Quebequois (a seperatist party for the province of Quebec)
The Green Party (environment)
The Independants (candidates who run for whatever the fuck they feel like)
The Rhinoceros Party ("a promise to keep none of our promises" satire party who yes, you can actually vote for and who are about cutting bullshit in politics.)
The Marijuana Party (juuuuuuuuuuust what it sounds like)
The Communist Party (Marxist communists, not Stalinist, it's different)
The Yogic Flyers (believe Yoga is the answer, should be mandatory for all and that the way to the answer for the nation is through meditation.)

No, I'm not kidding about ANY of the above. Wikipedia them, they're up there.

Needless to say, it's usually a race between the Liberals and the Conservatives. Right now, the Conservatives are in power with a minority government, which means that all their bids to cut funding to healthcare and de-legalize gay marriage are being STOPPED by the combined efforts of the NDP and the Liberals (GOOOOOOOO NDP WOOHWOOHWOOH)

And we're not polarized at all. Aside from being a generally left-leaning nation. But we, unlike the states, have no major religious background so there really aren't those undercurrents in the voting population. We don't teach abstinence in schools, we're 'CONDOMS ALL THE WAY, BAYBEE' that sort of thing.



HOWEVER, historically speaking, the most extreme political parties have risen as Fascist takeovers of multi-tier systems. They will get the largest number of votes and take ABSOLUTE POWER!!!!!

This strikes me as... confusing. And bemusing. But mostly I'm just telling everyone about the Marijuana Party, the Parti Rinoceros and the Yogic Flyers. :D

Comments

Platforms of the Parti Rinoceros (established in 1963

[knights-say-nih.livejournal.com]

-repealing the law of gravity,
-reducing the speed of light because it's much too fast,
-paving Manitoba to create the world's largest parking lot,
-providing higher education by building taller schools,
-instituting English, French and illiteracy as Canada's three official languages,
-tearing down the Rocky Mountains so that Albertans could see the Pacific sunset, or moving them one metre west as a make-work project,
-legalising pot. And pans. And spatulas. And other kitchen utensils,
-making all sidewalks out of rubber to prevent inebriated people from hurting themselves when they fall down
-abolishing the environment because it's too hard to keep clean and it takes up so much space,
-annexing the United States, which would take its place as the third territory, after the Yukon and the Northwest Territories (Nunavut did not yet exist) in Canada's backyard, in order to raise the mean temperature of Canada by one degree Celsius,
-replacing the Canadian Armed Forces with clones of Vladislav Tretiak,
-end crime by abolishing all laws
-making bubble gum the national currency, so that it could be inflated or deflated at will,
-breeding a mosquito that would only hatch in January so that "the little buggers will freeze to death",
-adopting the British system of driving on the left; this was to be gradually phased in over five years with large trucks first, then buses, eventually including small cars and bicycles last,
-selling the Canadian Senate at an antique auction in California,
-putting the national debt on Visa,
-declaring war on Belgium because a Belgian cartoon character, Tintin, killed a rhinoceros in one of the cartoons,
-offering to call off the proposed Belgium-Canada war if Belgium delivered a case of mussels and a case of Belgian beer to Rhinoceros "Hindquarters" in Montréal (the Belgian Embassy in Ottawa did, in fact, do this),
-painting Canada's coastal sea limits so that Canadian fish would know where they were at all times,
-running Penny Hoar on a safe sex platform in Toronto,
-exploiting acid rain as an electrical energy source by placing dissimilar-metal electrodes in Canadian swimming pools in order to use them as batteries,
-making Canadians stronger by putting steroids in the water,
-banning lousy Canadian winters,
-moving the Vatican to Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Quebec to promote tourism,
-putting the West Edmonton Mall on wheels and rolling it to areas of the country suffering from economic depression,
-turning the Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine tunnel in Montreal into a free carwash by poking holes in the ceiling,
-transforming the Montreal Olympic Stadium into a gigantic beluga aquarium,
-drafting the Queen mother to sew up the hole in the ozone layer
-building giant domes over several conservative neighbourhoods to keep the dinosaurs, both real and political, in.
-annexing Greenland and creating a cartel with other northern nations in order to sell icebergs to the Saudis; the cartel would be called "Snopec",
-digging a canal from coast to coast, by hand, to reduce unemployment; and then, leveling the Rocky Mountains and using the canal to transport the material east to fill in the Great Lakes, in order to expand Canada's landmass.

[canadabear.livejournal.com]

There's also the Parti Québecois. I think they're the non-separatists, but who knows. It's so hard to keep track, especially since I don't pay attention to our wonderful politics.

[knights-say-nih.livejournal.com]

I always confuse the Parti and the Bloc. *sighs* One of them has Giles Duseppe (Dusette?) and he's always over dramatic, though. Fun to watch.


Man, do I miss the days when This Hour has Twenty Two Minutes was actually good.