Alex's recent article about politics struck home for me. I've never lived in Europe so I'll take his description of European-style multi-party politics as accurate. Being a Swede, he also managed to nail the US-style dual-party model.

People in the US vote for platitudes, not action. In fact, most voters would probably admit that they don't expect their vote to result in action if they vote for the winning candidate. They just want a guy in office who will "get the job done", meaning work toward a stated goal, or platform. If he doesn't get it done, it was the fault of those damn Dems (or Republicans).

As I recall, when Clinton had a Republican Congress he got more done and drifted toward the middle, though people ended up criticizing his foreign policy after he left office. Obama will likely end up with a similar legacy, only his will be worse as the country goes broke and he's voted out of office after one term (my prediction, at least). People got scared when Bush had a Republican Congress so they started voting in more Dems during the next elections.

This tells me that Americans don't trust one party to run the whole show. We choose to have both sides fighting it out in faraway Washington, DC. The majority of voters are middle class folks who want to cut their grass, watch TV, and not worry that one party is overtaking our government.

If one party had full control of both Houses of Congress and the presidency for a great length of time, the charade Ron Paul mentions would be exposed. That one party would likely muck things up badly enough that we'd need to consider replacing that one party, or placing control of the country in the hands of the other. And that's no good, because that means only one party remains and our options are limited.

Coke needs Pepsi, McDonalds needs Burger King, and Democrats and Republicans need each other in this regard. Things have been too good for too long in the States, so people want to continue living that illusion even when it's not true anymore, and damn the consequences. And we wonder why we've allowed the already-powerful centralized government to become more powerful in recent years. This is what happens when no one is guarding the cookie jar; people help themselves.

This is indicative of a population scared of action and satisfied with the status quo. Sure, let's pay the nice men in suits money and occasionally flip on CNN to see who is saying what. Let's see which Senator is caught soliciting gay sex in a public restroom today. The show goes on, the stage matters not; the audience would sit there clapping even as the theater burns down.

One good thing we can take from our ever more dire political situation in the States is that other parties and grassroots movements are finally getting some good press. One hopes this exposes a few facts:

• Different people in different regions have different needs and agendas, and this is okay. The US is a huge place. People in Vermont do not want their tax money going to help fund a bankrupt California government which has, for too long, sucked its populace dry of funds for corrupt energy pricing games and illegal immigration benefits. Nor should they want their tax money going all the way to California. There are dire emergencies which require States band together to help one another, and then there's just piss-poor organization and corrupt State government, for which no one outside that State should be forced to pay.
• From the point above, we can gather that it's not in our interests to have many government functions fully centralized. Health care is a great example. The needs in Wyoming may be different than those in New York State. Of course, there should always be an affordable option, but health care is a scarce good, and the government should be careful not to tread on that good - not because we fear a government takeover of health care (ahem), but rather it's our tradition to allow pricing to occur as freely as possible, with limited government action only when a dire need exists.
• Most grassroots movements are generally conservative in nature. As a result, we can gather that politically active people not involved in these grassroots movements are satisfied with the dog and pony show, or else they'd join up with a cause, maybe picket on Washington, DC. Which further tells us that if there's a problem, it's the passive-aggressive voting of people who are more interested in entitlements and benefits than rewarding hard work and the individuals who make the gears turn in our society. The reason we're seeing these smaller, localized movements toward something different is because the people who would work hard toward a more self-sustaining and future-oriented model are at odds with the current system.

Alex is correct in that we'll likely see the end of this two-party system sometime in the next century or so. If not, it will only prolong the decline of our once great nation of thinkers and doers.

Rip the band-aid off quickly; don't pull it off slowly thinking you'll avoid the pain!