And, dammit...I had a couple drinks and I'm going to respond. @Bozo_Casanova @Brisketexan
"Factionalism"...well, shit. You, me, and Brisket don't agree 100% on how government (at any level) should function/perform their duties. Welp...there's 3 factions.
I suppose that each one of us could expend a lot of energy and money to try to get our ideas to adopted by ourselves. But, and stay with me now, what if we each found another person that agreed with most of what we wanted the government to do and then we worked together to lobby the government to implement our ideas (you know, the basis of republicanism). Hmmm...is there any way that could be extended? Yeah...political parties. Is it ideal? Maybe not, but it's what we have, so don't hate the player, hate the game. Hell, even George Washington succumbed to it.
Now, I suppose we could live in the United States of Idealistan, where we all sing kumbaya and agree on everything, but we don't. We live here in the United States of Realitystan, where you have to work with people to achieve goals, and that means assembling "factions" of people that can work together to get things done. Democrats and Republicans both do this. Perhaps more parties would be better, although then you can often get the clusterfucks of parliamentary systems. But...it will happen that "factions" group together to get policies enacted. Shit, "factionalism" has been around for all recorded history. Utopia isn't coming anytime soon...
BTW, I'm not a 100% party guy. I have problems with politicians from every party, as well as the "independents".
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