Structural Change

Moving Beyond the Status Quo

Social, political and economic institutions exist to maintain the status quo. This is NOT necessarily a bad thing; our current living arrangement is the result of many generations of small, slow, incremental change. Progress is always resisted by those who are comfortable with the current living arrangement. A progressive is a change agent and frequently someone whose current living arrangement is in some way made uncomfortable by the institutions that maintain the status quo.

Moving Beyond Partisanship in Politics

The partisan rivalry is well known to us. The Republicans wear bright red jerseys and the Democrats wear pale blue. Politics has become, and perhaps it always has been, a kind of team sport. Everyone wants to be on the winning team.

It isn't uncommon to hear people say that the two party system is the problem and what we need is a third party. But we do have third parties, the Greens wear green jerseys and the Libertarians wear dark blue jerseys ... we even have something called the Constitution Party and they wear black jerseys. But nobody want to vote or cheer for losers so almost everyone gives their support to the candidates of the two parties with a reputation for winning even when the candidates of the other parties would better represent them.

Just as often we hear people say they are independents, they have no party preference. The largest voting block self-identifies as independent but we still elect candidates from the two teams and the partisanship continues. The teams have become mascots for their campaign contributors and are not only intolerant of the positions held by rival teams but they are even more intolerant of dissenting positions held by members of their own team.

I have an idea, maybe we should stop letting teams put their team candidates and their team letters on the ballots and start making candidates ask the voters for support instead of asking their team to let them run? Maybe it would be better if voters supported candidates based on the candidates instead of on what team the candidate was on?

Click here to explore the benefits of making elections nonpartisan.