Political Parties

Take this political quiz (http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html), noting that it is created by the Libertarian party, but that it is supported by other sources. Read the party description below the quiz. Based on this and other quality sources you find, answer the following question in 1 to 2 paragraphs: What political party (does not have to be one of the two largest parties) do you believe would best serve this country and what would be the positive and negative implications for this country if ONLY members of that party were consistently elected. (Assume we still had free and fair elections with viable other parties, but that because the majority always shared your opinion the party of your choice always won every election, not just the presidency.)

Let me start off this blog with a bit of anger (assuming that I properly understand the question at hand), stating that these supposed ‘parties’ aren’t parties at all, but ideologies. For instance, a member of the Republican Party doesn’t necessarily have to be Conservative, though that is the general trend. Nevertheless, I will write this blog referring to the ideologies of Centrism, Conservatism, Liberalism, Statism, and Libertarianism as parties, though they technically aren’t.

Of the five parties, Centrism would be the best party to consistently run the country because they look at all sides of an issue. Since they are in the center, they tend not to vote according to their party, but instead they make a decision based upon the most viable solution. They can choose to act with respect to whichever view would best suit the people of the country. Also, more people would be benefited from this, as they would act in favor of the majority of people every time. This is shown by the mass movement towards centrism, which is in contrast to before where people generally picked a party and stuck with it.

Though Centrism has its many pros, it has its potential downfalls, as one would presume. Since Centrists don’t have specific ideologic views, there is a chance that they may not agree on all topics and therefore be unable to get anything done. This lack of unification can be disputed, however, with the argument that if this was the case, it would happen in modern political parties. For instance, in the Democratic Party, there are the left wing radicals and the more central liberals. These two don’t agree on all subjects, but the Democratic Party is still able to get things done. The Centrist views might fall through if the country comes to a point where major change is needed. Since centrists tend to stay centered, major change might be hard to come by since a centrist, by definition, wouldn’t want to be radical in any direction. A true centrist, however, would want to do what’s best for the country and the people. If major change was needed it would be obvious to those in office and therefore they would do what needs to be done.

If a political party were needed to run the country, the best choice would be Centrists. To be honest, though, I don’t believe this at all. For the country to truly prosper, the political party in power needs to be dynamic to keep the politicians in check. Having to always compete with another party causes politicians to stay with the majority of the people, keeping them away from only relying on their personal views. Also, issues change all the time and if the same political party had majority, the best solution wouldn’t be chosen even if it were centrists.

Sources used:

http://www.centrists.org/

http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/8/3/1/9/pages83192/p83192-3.php