The Democrats should hope the Tea party movment gains enough strength to want to form a new party. Here in Canada the Conservative party split in two and held it on the fringe for years until it came back together.

Mike, you have every right to be angry. It shows you have a passion for what you think is happening or could happen in the future. Hopefully you use that anger to get positive change.

It is a careful road that one has to tread to get the floaters to his or her side.

I will play Devils advocate here. The Republicans used fear of what could happen if the Democrats came to power arn't Democrats using a bit of that too?

I do agree the Republicans are being childish and are not playing the game because it's now a Democrat's ball

I was hinting at Perot and Nader, as third party candidates, possiblily being a factor in the elections of Clinton and Bush.

Nowadays, if you speak to the press with out the PM's approval you can be sent to the back benches.

Is it possible that bills, that are introduced, are too all encompassing. Could healthcare have been stronger and more popular if broken into smaller bills focused on different areas of reform? I am nowhere near as informed, as many of the people that comment on this thread are, on the topic and am curious what people think. Healthcare was just an example other bills are just as good to use as examples for me.

Breaking large legislation into smaller portions leads to inefficiencies in the overlap, where the smaller portions don't quite fit together or work together with cohesion.  Duplication of services.  Loopholes.  Wasted money.

Then there is the problem of prioritizing the small portions.  Which has to pass first?  Which can be relegated to next year's (or next decade's) budget?  Who decides, you or your opponent?

Then there is the problem of incompleteness.  What if you break your large bill into ten smaller ones and are only able to pass four of them?  Will those four work at all without the six you lost?  Will they work sometimes but not others, or only for some people?  More inefficiency.  More lost money.

Of all the laws that exist that are unfair, contradictory, un-Constitutional, or just plain bad, how many do you think were designed to be that way?  Even as cynical as I am, I can't believe legislators are intentionally writing bad laws.  I think they are forced to accept second-best (and often second-rate) compromises that lead to problems.

Exceptthat ain't the case. That's decades of propaganda that has sunk in -the "game" again. While Democrats were sitting on their asses trying todo the right thing, Republicans were winning the battle by lying overand over again until the lies became the truth.

If we take awaythe social safety net, we'll be back where we were before it was put up- people starving to death in the streets.

Let me repeat that: People starving to death in the streets.

Now- let me be more clear - I grew up in a city - I know that even withthe safety net, people still starve to death in the streets, or die ofexposure, but I also know, as a student of history, that far lesspeople do these days.

I will not sit down for letting a bunch ofignorant terrified rubes tear down that safety net because they believethat some woman is shitting out babies for a fat welfare check.

It'san ugly misunderstanding of the way the system works. It's an uglymisunderstanding of the way insurance works. And it's an ugly andfrequently bigoted lie         &nb sp;         &nb sp;    

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Thank you Mike. Thats the real stuff right there. The bottom line is "Are the poor better off now than they were before Welfare?"

Michael wrote:

The American Democratic and Republican parties are very much ran "top down" and anyone who doesn't think they are is very misinformed. 

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Matthew was comparing US politics to Canadian politics, and went on to give very specific punishments that could be expected of Canadian Members of Parliament who voted against the party line.  Punishments that would not be expected for US Congressmen who did the same.  He did not say that US party politics isn't run top-down, he said that Canadian system is moreso.

Liberal MP John Nunziata was expelled from caucus in 1996 for voting against his party's budget on moral grounds (his party leadership had promised to rescind the Goods and Services Tax and didn't). 

Conservative MP Bill Casey was expelled from caucus in 2007 for voting against his party's budget on moral grounds (his party leadership had made promises in the Atlantic Accord, and broke those promises). 

Both went on to sit as independants, and Nunziata went on to defeat in the 2000 election by the Liberal nominee, which goes to show what maintaining the moral high ground can do for your political career.

Perhaps you could give me examples of how US politicians are kicked out of their parties for not voting along party lines.  If not, perhaps you are the one who is very misinformed.