Letters: Two-party system a mixed blessing

I tune in to multiple media sources to at least have a chance at objective understanding political issues. Two-party politics is rabidly adversarial, patently dysfunctional and viscerally stressful to observe.

During the Democratic National Convention, I switched to PBS as two presidential historians were discussing some folks from the past who thought a system of two parties with widely divergent philosophies would get more citizens to vote. They did not calculate how ugly it would get.

I have to force myself to watch and endure the hype and bombast of the Republican and Democratic conventions, relentless stream of speakers, many eloquent and uplifting but more seemingly bent on waxing negative beyond civil, objective, principled disagreement.

Washington demagogues indulge in obvious exaggeration to insult, demean and vilify fellow Americans to divide and manipulate us. When I hear obedient delegates laugh, whoop and applaud, I think of the Roman Coliseum without actual blood. I believe there is good and bad in every person and group. If you are all in for either party, you have likely been beguiled, managed or indoctrinated by rhetoric.

Stan Rynott

forensic social worker

Lafayette

Comments

1) Comment by DMJ - 11/09/2012

How can both parties be alike when they're diametrically opposed to just about everything the other party is for? Another false equivolence argument. No, both parties are not the same. They have different policies, priorities, goals and constituencies. The problem isn't that they're the same. The problem is they're so different that they can't work together on anything. Well....that's not exactly true either. The parties are bi-partisan when it comes to bending over for Israel, for war-mongering, for low taxes and high spending, for the continued war on drugs, for non-action on the federal level when it comes to climate change, immigration and tax reform. Heck, maybe they are the same! Ha! I take back everything I wrote!!

2) Comment by tradewinns - 11/09/2012

the biggest problem with our two party system is both parties are alike with different names.

3) Comment by [e-mail] - 11/09/2012

Looking for peace and harmony among partisans might be Quixotic.

4) Comment by bourbon-soda - 11/09/2012

Anyone who tunes in to multiple medias sources in a search for objectivity, needs an intellectual retread. The whole idea of representative government is to have the coliseum (and civil wars) without blood. Conventions in totalitarian countries are, characteristically, quite harmonious. ", Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time., Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (1947-11-11)."