Since you claim to encounter so much "stupid bullshit" in the views of minor party candidates, you should have very little trouble finding examples of said bullshit, and making a half-decent case that it trumps corporate servitude in being unhealthy for the country. Care to start with Nader?
No, I don't care enough about convincing some guy in Virginia that a lot of third party candidates are batshit crazy and the good (or at least somewhat respectable one) are few and far between. It's not worth my time to sit here and google fucking articles illustrating my points when it's not even going to convince "guy in Virginia." If you actually have done as much research as you claim to have done on third party candidates, you would know that most of them are no better than the major party candidates. I would take Kucinich or even Ron Paul over the vast majority of third party candidates. This sounds nearly like blind support of the "next guy" phenomenon, most common in sports. If the guy in front is not doing his job, everybody calls for his head and urges for the next guy to be brought in, not because the next guy is good, but because he's not the other guy. I do not support the "next guy" merely because I don't support the guy who's up to bat right now.
Firstly, what on earth does it matter if his views are popular with Congress? If your concern is that governance will somehow enter a gridlock in which nothing is accomplished, I have two points in response: (1) Congress can override the President's vetos, thus still "getting shit done" without the President's support, and (2) it may be best that "shit" not get done inasmuch as the "shit" involves screwing over the American people to appease corporate interests. EDIT: (3) Remember that the President is the commander-in-chief of the military, so if nothing else a minor party President could still reign in our ridiculous number of overseas military deployments, which in and of itself could save us hundreds of each year he's in office.
What on earth does it matter if the presidential candidate whom you voted for's view are popular with Congress? Did you really just ask this question? If the president's views are not popular with Congress, then he's not going to be able to get anything accomplished. This was, however, not even my point. I was not referring to views, per se, but rather the status quo. Party lines are strictly divided. There are no joint coalitions. Congresspeople from the two major parties have little incentive to support the agenda of some president that is outside of their party, whether it is Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Socialist, or Lizard People.
Another significant issue hindering the success of third party candidates is their unfamiliarity with the legislative process. I do not think that I have to lay out an argument detailing how a Democratic or Republican candidate is all but guaranteed to have a better understanding of how to "work" Congress into their favor than a third party candidate. This can even be seen in major parties. John F. Kennedy had minimal success at best in passing the sweeping legislations that he was elected for. Lyndon Johnson, however, as a former member of the Congress, knew how to get things done within that political culture and was able to enact many of the same things that JFK was unable to. The success of third party candidates hinges just as much on breaking down this political culture as it does changing the "unelectable" mentality that people have toward third parties.
As to your bullet points:
(1) We're talking about the president's platform, not Congress. Your mentioning of the Congress' power to render the president's efforts futile is in contrast to the point you're attempting to raise. Say a Libertarian was in office now, and vetoed the upcoming healthcare bill, and it's overridden by a supermajority vote. That renders the third party candidate in office a moot point. Also, a Democratic Congressperson is far more likely to override a third party president's agenda than he or she is a Democrat's, and the same can be said for the Republican side of things.
(2) Well, if the president gets vetoed, then it's not much use, is it?
Sure, there are plenty of bills that are passed that it can be argued it would have been better if it wasn't passed, but the president has only so much say in that.
(3) So could a Democrat, or even a Republican. There are people from both parties who ran on the platform of withdrawing the troops. But who is to say that a third party candidate elected would not have had the same response as Obama had, which was, namely, coming to an evident realization that it was not feasible to induce a hasty withdrawal? There's a substantial difference between running for president and being the president, not the least of which being sources of knowledge only the president is privvy to. Perhaps an even greater difference between running for president and being some guy behind a computer.
Secondly, if you really think electing third party candidates is going to hinder their success, do you mind explaining how
not electing them is going to help them?
Well, if you think about what I said, if, taking a specific example of a third party candidate being elected and that election hindering the future election of other third party candidates, then the better option in this scenarios would be to not get elected. Not getting elected would help them in that instance. For centuries, the primary function of third parties was to get issues across, not to get candidates elected, and if one getting elected hinders that function, then it's obviously a negative thing. And I merely said that I can see it being
as likely that the election of a third party candidate would hinder the success of future third party candidates as contribute to. I did not say it was inevitable.
just ramping up the competition against the major parties will do a lot of good for our political environment.
I'm not utterly convinced of this. It seems intuitive enough, but like I said earlier, it is conceivable that there are some instances in which sacrificing pragmatic immediacy for long-term idealism ultimately hinders the ideal.
If people are shown that minor parties can actually have a chance at winning elections, it will not only pressure the major parties to clean up their act but also make it easier for less "fringey" politicians to join the underdogs (as you can well imagine, many good politicians still work within the major parties just because of the power of their brands).
Can you provide evidence of your first claim? I do not recall any notable examples in history of major parties "shaping up" in the advent of the rise of a third party candidate, such as Ross Perot. He was a pretty damn viable candidate, yet neither major party made any significant alterations to their strategies. The second claim seems likely to be true and I agree that it would be a good thing. But your very raising this point indicates to me that you recognize the dubious nature of many current and past third party candidates, which you seemed to have been calling me out on before.
Finally, let me just emphasise a few things about our present state of affairs: Our budget deficit right now is around 1.5 trillion dollars. Our defense spending was around $900 billion in 2008 and is still on the rise, perhaps to as much as $1.15 trillion for 2009. The War on Terror is complete bullshit as we both know, yet it is being invoked continually to justify many laws that clearly violate our Constitutional rights. The Republicans and Democrats have let this all happen.
Yep, that's some pretty bad shit, dude.
What is it you find so worrisome about minor parties that it outstrips all THIS shit in severity?
A bit of a loaded question, no? Wouldn't a better question be whether or not I believe a third party candidate can make all of that go away? My answer to
that question would be that no, I don't believe any third party candidate without Congressional backing would be able to achieve that. I think the fringe party's best route is to stick with issue-based politics at the time-being while strengthening their legitimacy in the public eye in an effort to garner more "electable" candidates that would be more likely to work with Congress. If they can't pull the strings there, they will be ineffective.
