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Originally Posted by Guest
Do you realize that we did not even have political parties at the beginning of the good old USA.
They are not required by the constitution.
Did you ever stop and think that if you are a
"diehard" democrat or republican that you are probably part of the problem?
What does party affiliation do to accomplish anything--other than foster the ill feelings towards the "other" political party?
How many good, worthwhile bills are submitted to congress and are "shut down" simply because one party or the other has a majority of votes?
Please reply and give me some good reasons showing that political parties accomplish anything.
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I tend to agree with this but have never seen a solution for replacing political parties.
Almost every country in the world has political parties. I don't know how people would get elected to represent us if we didn't have them. To me, they are a necessary evil.
They are going to exist and I think that we have to deal with that. Even if you were to come up with a different system, do you think that it would have any chance of replacing the party system?
Although there is nothing in the Constitution regarding parties, they have existed almost from the beginning of our government.
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The leaders of the American Revolution did not like the idea of parties and political battles between parties. Upon his retirement from public life in 1796, George Washington warned Americans against "faction" (parties). James Madison thought parties were probably necessary, although he did not entirely approve of them. Alexander Hamilton thought that faction was a vice to be guarded against at all times. Thomas Jefferson declared in 1789, "If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." Nevertheless, the men who held these views founded the first two great American political parties.
Hamilton and other leaders who wanted a strong central government banded together to put over their policies. In 1787 they began calling themselves the Federalists. This was the first United States political party. In 1796, anti-Federalists gathered around Jefferson. Members of Jefferson's group called themselves Democratic-Republicans.
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