America would benefit from a new political party in power.

I would like to re-establish my argument and I think Con will agree with my reasoning for doing this. On reviewing my 1st point. .. ( The creation of a new political party and why it is beneficial to America. ) And reviewing my 3rd point. .. (How a completely new vision for America's future is beneficial and why a new political party that supports this vision is crucial. ) I found that these two points fall hand in hand, so I have combined my 3rd point into my 1st and 2nd points. My points are now as follows. .. . Point 1 - Why a new political party is needed and why this party would be beneficial to America. Point 2 - How the two political parties in power right now (Republicans and Democrats) are inefficient in accomplishing the most important needs of the population majority, and why a new vision for America's future is needed. Now that I have cleared that up, I will move on with starting the debate. Thank you Con for your patience and understanding. Point 1 - Why a new political party is needed and why this party would be beneficial to America. Overall, the two-party system has served us well, but there have been times in American history where neither of the two political parties were able to solve the nation's problems. At that point, great pressures emerge to form a third political party. Americans often form a third party in times such as these, and if successful, either one or both of the existing political parties adopt their issues. This happens because new issues force themselves onto the existing political process by third political parties and demand to be heard. This has been the fate of third political parties for the last 140 years. Many third parties deeply impacted public policy, but they did not become institutionalized. Their issues endured, but their party disappeared. Only twice in our history such a movement has brought forth a whole new political party to replace one of the existing parties. The last third political party to become one of the two major parties was the Republican Party in the 1850s. It is once again time for a political realignment. I am not arguing for changing the two-party system into a three-party system. .. I am arguing that America needs a new political party that would eclipse one of the existing major parties and itself become one of the major parties in power. We fear that neither political party can do politically what we need to do economically to remain a great country, and that a third party built around a personality cannot force change—something just proven by Ross Perot. Bringing America's expectations in balance with our revenue will be a terribly painful and monumental task. We shall have to substantially downsize some of our most popular programs. We have ourselves in a Catch 22—where the best politics is the worst long-term public policy. Neither party can afford to take the steps in campaign reform and entitlement reform required to solve these politically volatile problems. Short-term political considerations eclipse long-term public interest considerations. We judge it to be substantially beyond the ability of either political party in the present political climate to deal successfully with these structural problems. Point 2 - How the two political parties in power right now (Republicans and Democrats) are inefficient in accomplishing the most important needs of the population majority, and why a new vision for America's future is needed. Right now, both parties are failing the American people. Most followers of the two current political parties in power don't seem to expect results and most leaders of the two political parties in power focus their energy, time, and resources on bashing the opposition. So far, neither Republicans or Democrats have any "wins" on their resume and our deficit continues to grow. When are we going to start holding all of our elected officials accountable and stop making excuses for them? If politics was known as the political "game" in times past, then it has been refined to an artform today. The focus now is simply on winning the 24-hour media cycle or, increasingly, cycles within that cycle. Players, now mostly political apparatchiks, still say or do whatever it takes to win. But now policies are little more than ephemeral utterances created from focus groups and polling, summarised in a media grab. It has become a race to the bottom as they contest to be even smaller political targets. Promises and commitments too are ephemeral, to be subsequently and easily dispensed with as 'non-core' or semantics. Personalities and their foibles now dominate. Much news is little better than Hollywood gossip. Fear and misrepresentation are fundamental to the political weaponry. Genuine policy debate is virtually non-existent. Problems remain unsolved, and are left to fester. Basic service delivery wanes. The low point, for now anyway, was the last federal election, where the electorate didn't really like either leader, in part for the way they each got there, or their policies. The lowest common denominator, an unintended, ungovernable hung parliament, was the result. The tragedy is that the policy challenges have rarely been greater, both economically and socially. We are essentially in uncharted waters as the developed economies struggle to recover from the GFC and to avoid deflation, with many aftershocks yet to come, while the emerging nations grapple with food and other inflation. The global imperative is to transition to a low-debt, low-carbon world. In Australia, the gap in the two speeds of our economy is widening, with resources enjoying an unprecedented boom in commodity prices, while the rest largely teeter on the brink of recession, and the majority find the increased cost of living crippling and the quality and availability of basic services in decline. Much of our infrastructure is suffering from neglect. None of this is being managed well. And we now have the overlay of natural disasters. Unfortunately, it seems that neither the Republican party nor the Democratic Party is capable of giving America what it needs right now. So, America is in need of a new political party. It needs a party with a strong leader and a new fresh vision for America's future. A party that is capable of transforming America and bringing our beloved country into it's full potential. - Justin Chains -