Sorry @newtboy, gotta downvote this one on the basis that Cenk is making a big deal out of nothing.

Michigan didn't make sodomy and oral sex illegal, it's ALREADY illegal in Michigan. (Hell, it was illegal to swear in front of women and children until 2002, when they were forced to repeal the law after a man fell out of a canoe, swore, got arrested, and then was represented by the ACLU.)

But here's the thing, the ban is unconstitutional and therefore, unenforceable.

Now, should it be removed? Of course.

However, the idea behind this bill was an amendment to the existing bill to create an animal abuser database, and the guy who proposed the bill (Republican Senator Rick Jones) decided that it simply wasn't worth the effort to fight to get this removed when it's already unconstitutional anyway.

In other words, he took a pragmatic approach to fixing an important issue (animal abuse) by ignoring something that doesn't matter (an unenforceable law).

To his credit, he actually suggested another bill that would automatically strike unconstitutional laws from the state (which kinda seems like something that should be happening anyway).

"The minute I cross that line and I start talking about the other stuff, I won’t even get another hearing. It’ll be done....
Nobody wants to touch it. I would rather not even bring up the topic, because I know what would happen. You’d get both sides screaming and you end up with a big fight that’s not needed because it’s unconstitutional." Rick Jones

http://www.inquisitr.com/2775741/michigan-was-not-trying-to-ban-sodomy-with-logans-law-it-was-simply-not-un-banning-it/

Yes, it's fucking stupid, but "fucking stupid" seems to be the defining trait of most of the US system of government (two party system, electoral college, tacking on stupid amendments, etc)

They will loose with a Trump nomination, they will loose with an independent Trump. They will even loose when Trump suddenly vanishes, because they NEED the Tea Party votes to even have a fighting chance. Its a loose-loose situation. Good for the Dems, bad for the States. Having only a Two Party System is not good, but having only one valid political party left is not something i would call a democracy. Sane republicans have to finally get their shit together!

@enoch @Asmo

I don't fully agree that the new system is as fear-free as the video suggests. One could easily argue that there is a valid fear of losing privileges.

I'm honestly wondering if it will create a two party system of haves vs have-nots at different levels where association with lower numbered people becomes something to avoid but all the plebeians will associate with each other.

Think of it like this:

I wonder further if the people at the bottom of the heap would end up saying "fuck this" because they're being stuck with a bad lot in life and now have companions (the only people who will associate with them) who feel similar. It's not THAT dire in as much as I think it has a very real potential to backfire.

Don't get me wrong, I still think that this kind of system is far BEYOND amoral. Lets discuss some realistic things that we can do here in the states to help our fellow Earthicans.

I'm sorry, but I hate that contention. That a vote cast for someone that doesn't win the election is pointless. I think that's why we are stuck with a 2 party system even though both party's favorability rating is in the teens. People seem to vote against someone rather than for someone they want in office.
I say the only pointless/wasted vote is one for a candidate you don't really support.

My experience has been that my candidate almost never wins....but I don't think my vote is pointless in the least. I look at it this way, if all democrats in Kansas voted, it would turn blue. Because so many believe it's pointless, they just don't vote, and it stays red.

How are you going to implement a multi party system in the US with the current voting system; one person, one vote, majority wins?

*promote

I agree with his point about Brand's position being rubbish. Voting matters even when the decision is between a lesser evil.

@Jerykk

But the thing is, the number of people with radical or highly partisan positions is quite low, just like the number of people who watch Fox News is relatively low. Many (probably most) do have fairly divided opinions or on the whole are too politically apathetic to be able to toe a party line.

I do kinda agree. If there were no parties there would be presumably more candidates and therefore more positions. A good comparison would be say Israel where parties emerge and die out, and where most governments are large coalitions with generally very varied positions.

Thing is, you still naturally get fairly stable coalitions and coalescing of view points into conservative or liberal positions (usually 2 or 3 distinct groups) simply because you still need majorities to win, and coalitions are much easier than trying to grow a minor party into an absolute majority winner. Even if the 2 party system weren't so entrenched in the US and there was preferential voting, you would still likely have that kind of result.

The problem with expecting apathetic people to vote is that they would just toe the party line. Hell, people toe the line even when they do care. What really needs to happen is the banishment of the party system. Force voters to actually think about the candidates rather than automatically voting Democrat or Republican. That way, the people who do care enough to vote will actually do some research and put some real thought into who they're supporting.

Thanks for the information and the link to the article.

Sadly no they hold no national level positions in the legislature and i'd be very surprised if there were than a couple even at the state level. It is a relatively young party here in the US and i believe their focus is very much on the local level, such as town councils and mayors office.

The two party system you've heard about is largely the reality, though there are hundreds of parties. None hold any meaningful power on the national level, and even locally politics are dominated by the two.

It was 10pm, in Canberra, and there was one other senator present as well as the speaker. I've put a link to a newspaper report on the speech back in the video comments.

I didn't know there was an American Green Party... do they hold many seats? I've only ever heard the U.S. described as a two party system.

you can make a non-tea party case for fiscal conservatism.

but you really can't make a huge case these days for social conservatism and that's where they really lose. You can't tell gays to go back into the closet, you can't tell minorities to be quiet, you can't tell women to accept lower pay and forfeit reproductive rights and health. You can't tell poor people to fuck off and die in an alley.

I don't know this guy, so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he might even agree with all these things. This illustrates the problem with using vague binary terms like liberal and conservative to describe political views. Depending on the person "conservative" can mean completely different things.

This is the problem with the two party system. You can't sum up nuanced , complex political views into two parties. It's stupid.

Republicans have a huge perception problem they need to solve. Many people view them as old, white, racist, plutocrats. I know for a fact that they are not all this way. But the problem is, there are plenty of people who identify as Republican who DO fall completely into that view.

Fortunately, old people do have a habit of dying. so that solves part of the problem. But some people have to be dragged into the future kicking and screaming the entire way. If the Republican party wishes to survive, they need to decide pretty quick how they're going to deal with that.

I think there are too many people who identify as Republican for romantic reasons only. They're obsessed with the idea that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican even though the Republican party of then is completely different from the way it is now and it is due largely to racism. (google Southern Strategy)

As i've said before. All parties and lobbying need to be abolished. You can't stop people from assembling into voting blocs, but at the very least we can refuse to officially acknowledge them and do away with the RNC and DNC and remove money from our elections and force the person, not the party to run for office.

He sounds so surprised that Democrats are just as hypocritical as Republicans. They are two sides of the same coin. The party system is inherently broken and should be abolished. There should be no party line to toe, only independent and critical thought.

Gotta love those cloaked-ad-hom comment down-votes-

The United States two-party systems' a joke.
A gang of criminals provide the show and no blog-banter will fix the hijack. Full-on police state within 20 years, total surveillance, criminals made of complainers (shooting the bird, illegal...stuff like that)

While people are talking about which republican or that democrat, the shits gonna turn ugly, controlled, regimented, rights become privileges, etc. etc. etc.-Sorry, bout as optimistic as I can be reading the comments.

Also see the Terminator scenario happening before hover cars, free energy, or everyone being fed and clothed.

I despise the two party system, but one side, (or to be more specific, one subfaction of one side) is demonstrably more harmful than the other.

I'm all in favor of abolishing parties in this nation, this "but they're equally bad" argument is bull.

Government was actually designed that way though, sure we don't like shutdowns (but then again, here's the problem, some people DO want the gov't to be shut down so that corporations can run everything) but government WAS designed to be slow and not easy to change laws. It has the side benefit of being very resistant to tyranny since it requires so many people and multiple branches to agree

It's one thing to not like how government works, but its quite another to be willing to shutdown gov't over ONE piece of legislation that has the support of the people and the branches of gov't. It's quite another to have a faction completely and utterly oppose the president purely on the basis of the color of his skin.

The big tent GOP is being left behind and that tent is getting smaller and smaller. Gerrymandered districts are pretty much the only reason they are still retaining control. And typically when a company isn't doing so hot, they tend to not actually change tactics, but they do change their name so people with short memories get fooled, so then they called themselves the Tea Party, well that's not working out so well since again, they haven't really changed at all, so now they're rebranding themselves again and calling themselves Libertarians, but it's the same bullshit, just a different name.

No one ever said the ACA is perfect...no one. It was a compromise, What the public WANTED was single payer, but this was the compromise. You want to tweak it? change it? improve it? I'd agree with getting rid of all the exceptions people of talked about,

but you don't threaten to shutdown the gov't over it. especially when you've already failed to repeal it 40+ times in the past. Shutting down the gov't and waging message warfare trying to blame it on the president when it's 100% a congress issue is deranged behavior and basically counts on people being stupid enough to not know how the gov't works (like @lantern53) to believe the message.

People are dumb, but they're not quite THAT stupid, most people do know that it's the Tea Party holding the gov't hostage and not the President. This little stunt is really not helping their chances in the next election so in a weird way, I'm glad they're doing this because it just hastens them getting kicked out in 2014

Anecdotally speaking, a lot of my coworkers are conservatives and every single one of them is saying "fuck the Tea Party"

no no the US just gets corporate take over of journalists, and then intimidate anyone who doesn't tow the line, and anyone who dares to be show what the government is actually responsible for gets thrown into prison, or has their car conveniently wrap around a telephone pole... unless of course, it's the government themselves doing the "whistleblowing", then its fine, and not a hostile act against a nation that values openness and transparency... so much so that more documents have been declared SECRET since Obama came into power than ever before in US history...

let alone straight face lying about spying on their own citizens

let alone a President who decides he doesn't require congress's approval for declaring war/military action, and then decides to show what a humble president that he is, he'll let congress in on what he knows... unlike the NSA programs that most of Congress wouldn't have known about unless for guys like Snowden

and social issues, important as they are, are smokes screens to deflect people's attention from what the two party system's true goal is... serving big business needs and securing personal future wealth/comfort as payment... they really don't care about those issues as anything more as misdirection, unless they are wingnuts like alot of the tea party movement were (they were the reverse, social issues jaded with personal prejudices with no economic sense/ability)... they use social issues to turn people against each other so that they don't see that Democrat and Republican within the last 30yrs have really only accomplished the exact same goals... deregulation of banks/big business, reduction in personal liberties, establishment of a police/surveillance state, the destruction of the middle class, and the fortifying of corporations

If i'm mistaken, The two in power have made it so that there is no possibility to have a third party in the USA. Unless majority of people is behind this third party, it will not gain those privileges that are granted in almost every other democratic country to all parties. As it is now, you are forced to campaign without any visibility and you are not allowed to enter debates.

IMHO, it is not democratic if you have only two options. Yea, it beats the dreaded one-option million-to-one but it's still just one step towards democratia. Without a third option what you see in the USA is exactly what was to be expected.

With three or more parties, the changes of reaching optimal solutions increase and the changes of corruption decreases. With two, it seems that corruption is as high as it would be with one-party systems.

Solutions: make campaigns funded from the public funds and outlaw any kind of private funding. Make this option available to ALL parties and give all of them equal chances. Dismantle "lobbyism" and stop revolving door completely.