>>What does the system provide for free forming and growth of other parties (apart from security detail for any party which may be in danger of being labeled as pink)? What are the chances of a third party ever becoming viable here? Fourth, fifth?
>
>No doubt it is a smelly business - but are more parties really better ?
Parties per se are not good. You, as a voter, want certain problems solved, but the possible solutions come bundled in parties. Any party you vote for will possibly promise to solve four of your ten problems the way you'd like, and will promise six other things that you don't care about. When they come to power, they'll, in all likelihood, forget three out of your four, solve the remaining one the way you don't like, and go ahead with the six you didn't agree upon from the outset.
>You have in the US a system oriented strongly on the president, whereas in europe the general trend is more on a parliament based decision making. There are quite a few points making the "limited time dictator" of a president more effective.
But since it's the way system is built, you get an "unlimited series of short-time dictators", and you put too much upon the choice of a single person. The leader cult, as it were. Then you have the wrong person in just a couple of powerful countries, and you realize that prayer doesn't actually work.
>But if you look at the european trend of "italianizing" by needing to always form a coalition government, does it really look better to your eyes? Never a clear majority, even "big coalitions" having to compromize and just because they have a safe margin in seats be supposed to make a difference?
At least that better reflects the sentiment of the voters. If they are split, so is the country's policy. If the ruling coalition is too bad, it should lose the next election, or get a vote of no confidence, you have a little government crisis, and maybe premature elections, but at least you aren't saddled with the same couple of parties forever.
Two interesting details about Italy. IIRC, during the second half of the previous century, Italy usually had a government 11 months a year, the rest of the time there was a lame duck government, i.e. just holding on until the next one is made. Yet looking at the works of the state, you could never tell whether the country does have a government at the moment, it just worked as usual.
The other thing is mid-seventies, when Italy was pretty much a two party state, and all of a sudden the US didn't like that, there was a lot of pressure, NATO maneuvers, CIA activity, diplomacy in full swing, despite the fact that two-party system was highly recommended from across the pond as the solution to the chronic instability of Italian governments. Both parties seem to have vanished from the limelights since then. Anyone remembers what happened with Demochristians and Communists there?
>Couple that with the trend to give even more power to the EU where there is NO clear leadership (many countries sending a few people from their parties to EU parliament) but
mainly bureocrats.
The difference between an administration and bureaucracy is that the purpose of an administration is to do a job, while the one of bureaucracy is to expand as far as available resources will allow.
>Not if you look at budget deficits - and by failing in this area the current american prez shows his failings more clearly to me than in the Iraq debacle.
I think the guy has achieved a perfect balance by both reducing income and expanding the spending in(de)finitely, by simply mortgaging the farm a few times over. If you owe some, you are in debt; if you owe a lot, you're your creditor's business partner.
>P.S. In "my" system you as as taxpayer would have at least a partial vote in one house<bg>.
Here I have a full vote in our house, just like my wife and daughters have :).
