47 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 15 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
Exclusive to OpEd News:
OpEdNews Op Eds   

Political parties must go in order to bring back democracy

By       (Page 1 of 2 pages)   2 comments
Message Roland Michel Tremblay
Become a Fan
  (10 fans)
Even the best government and political system has flaws; we have to work on an imperfect system and may be able to enact only limited change. I will avoid talking about rigged or fake elections, though I feel that it is a growing concern. However, I will stop short of saying that I believe democracy is truly dead at the time I'm writing these lines.

I have observed politics in United Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and now in the United States of Europe. Most often, it was not democracy because there was an almighty leader following a vision no one could agree with.

DYSFUNCTIONAL POLITICS

From an early age, I have thought politics didn't work. For some reason, even though the process looked entirely democratic, we always ended up voting for parties instead of people, and hence, always seemed to elect the wrong people. It has been my observation that once in power, leaders rarely do what the people actually want. It always ends up in disaster, and sometimes we even re-elect the same horrible people, and no one can understand why.

It is really a question of transparency about who we do elect to power. Who are they truly deep down, do we even get to really know, considering all the lies we are being fed all the time?

I have never bought into anything about communism or socialism; for some reason when they came to my universities to recruit new fresh minds, I never got on the boat.

I remember "The Social Contract" of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Hobbes and Locke and most especially, "The Prince" of Machiavelli. I know that the American political structure was inspired by Charles de Montesquieu who lived in France from 1689 to 1755, and who also inspired the French political system. Unfortunately, his famous theory of the separation of powers no longer works. It is obvious to anyone that this separation of powers no longer exists, or at least can easily be circumvented.

I simply want to talk about politics at its most basic function and structure; because this is what I feel does not work and ultimately fails us all. This is what can give the power to anyone to start a world war or destroy an entire economy for the wrong reasons.

PARTIES MUST GO

A radical change in the structure itself is required. Basically, the
The idea of political parties needs to go. It is the most outdated and impractical concept in politics. More so because in this day and age, the line is so blurred between party lines, there is not much difference if you vote for one or the other.

The only difference is a few main "wedge issues" such as being for or against gay marriage, abortion, women's rights; should we give more money to big corporations; should we give more money to the poor; and finally, the big argument that cannot fail to win you an election: should we have tax cuts and who for and continue a tax code that is punitive to the powerless and gives a pass to the powerful.

Now, these few issues truly have nothing to do with any political party, for most of the time they will be no more than attempts to garner votes of special interests. These can be debated anyway by all the elected representatives. If you paid more attention to the personal beliefs and ideas of local representatives instead of the political party you will vote for, you would know if the person you're about to elect will be a little tyrant and betray you completely or not.

That little group of local politicians is really all you need to study in order to vote, nothing else. By electing a political party, you most likely vote for the representative of that party without knowing anything about who that person truly is and what that person can truly do for you (or to you). Most of the time these people are so powerless anyway, their elections are more like a formality for a party to get into power, and then the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, or the President and his appointees take over the show.

So in essence, you will be ruled by a very small group of people. And your local representatives, you will know very little about, and they will be powerless anyway, without a voice of any kind. You see the problem?

THE PRICE OF POWER

By getting rid of political parties and coming back to basics, we will also eliminate another growing concern in actual politics. Now parties are spending so much money on their elections, it goes into the millions if not billions. What does this tell you? That only rich candidates can now get into power. Where do they get the money? This invites bribery, corruption, conflict of interests, and now we're destroying Iraq to take over their natural resources, because who paid for the American Elections? Petroleum companies.

Next Page  1  |  2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Rate It | View Ratings

Roland Michel Tremblay Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Roland Michel Tremblay is an author. More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Michel_Tremblay
Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Expansion Theory - Our Best Candidate for a Final Theory of Everything?

Is money the root to all evil?

Strauss-Kahn's plot thickens with the identical charges of Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar

Breakthrough in Faster-Than-Light Travel and Communication, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

Gravity Breakthrough: Springing into a Gravitational Revolution

Before the Delusion by William Gleeson, a bombshell rewriting 12,000 years of history

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend