# Modern Whigs-A Party of Sanity **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 18, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884 "2011-04-18T22:00:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/21 "2011-04-19T18:21:40Z")
Yeah, stage an internet-cafe putsch. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/22 "2011-04-19T18:59:38Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > There’s something to be said for a party that governs rather than focusing on ideology . . . In principle, we could have that if we scrapped elections, and the POTUS were there soley by virtue of civil-service seniority. Well, no, we couldn’t, not even then. Every mode of governing is driven by some form of ideology, conscious or not. A career bureaucrat’s ideology, his/her idea of just what the government is supposed to be doing or not doing and why, will be shaped by, if not made up of, all the mission statements and objective descriptions he/she has ever been expected to read or write in his/her career (many of these coming from Congress). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/23 "2011-04-19T19:01:23Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Yeah, stage an internet-cafe putsch. Internet [Entryism!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism)🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/24 "2011-04-19T19:02:45Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That’s just what America needs, another party that thinks a stronger military is the answer to your problems. No, my foreign friend, our stronger military is the answer to **your** problems! 🙂 (All living things have problems, you know.) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/25 "2011-04-20T10:38:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, my foreign friend, our stronger military is the answer to **your** problems! 🙂 (All living things have problems, you know.) like… living:) ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/26 "2011-04-20T11:02:42Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Yeah, stage an internet-cafe putsch. Slogan: “Don’t blame me - I voted for [Mister Splashy Pants](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Splashy_Pants).” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/27 "2011-04-20T12:14:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Every mode of governing is driven by some form of ideology, conscious or not. That’s a fair point. But the level of partisanship and hardline behavior we are seeing these days is not a necessary part of the system or of governing in general. So I’m saying a party that focuses less on ideological conflict and more on creating a functional government would have something in its favor. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/28 "2011-04-20T12:42:37Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Check “Whig solutions”. They seem to want the following: > > 1. Fed grants to states be given in a lump sum based on population. > 2. Pulling forces out of Iraq except of Kurdistan, with a force there to protect the Kurds, paid for by Kurdish oil revenue. > 3. Further dialog with Pakistan to end the “terrorist safe haven in their country, but if they don’t act we will”. > 4. More funding for green technology and research > 5. Banning oil companies from owning other energy resources > 6. More funding for clean coal technology > 7. Adopt the Pickens Plan > 8. Allow citizenship to illegal immigrants if they serve in the military > 9. Establishing ad-hoc immigration courts to relieve the backlog in our current immigration court. > 10. Offer tax breaks and subsidies to companies that move their plants out of China, and into either the US or other poor countries that need an economic boost. Along with that, cut direct foreign aid funding > 11. Government shouldn’t fund religious activities, but it also shouldn’t prevent private religious symbols on city hall property. > 12. Same sex marriage recognition to be left up to the states. A federal hate crimes law dealing with sexual orientation > 13. Birth control should be covered by health care plans > 14. States can regulate firearms, but such regulation should be reasonable, and not too costly or otherwise prohibitive. > 15. Abortion policy should be left up to the states. States should provide additional funding for adoption, safe haven laws and other abortion alternatives. > 16. End race based affirmative action. Replace it with an economically based system > 17 Increase space and ocean exploration, and also open such exploration to private businesses. > > I agree with some of their ideas, and not others, but they do have positions on issues. True, but it’s such a grab-bag that it’s hard to tell what their raison d’etre is. There has to be some core set of issues and positions that are of particular importance, otherwise you have no idea which of the above they’re willing to concede, in order to get another item on the list. There’s certainly no overarching philosophy that jumps out at me from that grab-bag. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/29 "2011-04-20T12:54:54Z")
Regardless of the merits of this particular third party, the structure of American politics is extremely unfriendly to third parties in general. As long as it only takes a plurality rather than a majority to win most elections (AKA ‘first past the post’ voting), the main effect of a third party is to reduce the voting strength of one of the existing major parties, thereby increasing the chances that the major party less friendly to the third party’s agenda will win. (_See_ Nader, 2000.) It’s possible that a third party of the center would pull more or less equally from both parties (AFAICT, it’s not a settled question which party Perot pulled more votes from in 1992, or Anderson in 1980), but in this era where the two major parties have fundamentally different views of reality, it’s hard to see how this could work today. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/30 "2011-04-20T14:04:33Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > That’s a fair point. But the level of partisanship and hardline behavior we are seeing these days is not a necessary part of the system or of governing in general. So I’m saying a party that focuses less on ideological conflict and more on creating a functional government would have something in its favor. We **have** a functional government, if by “government” you mean the institutional organization, the “permanent government” of career civil servants who stay on the job while elected officials and presidential appointees come and go. It is actually amazingly efficient, for an organization of its size, complexity, and scope of functions. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/31 "2011-04-20T14:08:13Z")
> [@SeldomSeen](#): > > If the Modern Whigs can flesh out their platform satisfactorily, they might stand a chance of becoming contender. There will never be a meaningful long-term third party under our winner-take-all (first-past-the-post) system. The most that will ever happen is a party able to act as a spoiler in the short term, like Perot in 1992 and 1996 and Nader in 2000. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/32 "2011-04-20T14:13:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > We **have** a functional government, if by “government” you mean the institutional organization, the “permanent government” of career civil servants who stay on the job while elected officials and presidential appointees come and go. It is actually amazingly efficient, for an organization of its size, complexity, and scope of functions. What if by “government” I mean a body that doesn’t nearly shut down over the funding of Planned Parenthood or the National Endowment for the Arts? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/33 "2011-04-20T15:09:23Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > There’s certainly no overarching philosophy that jumps out at me from that grab-bag. Limited federal power/more power to the states, maybe? 1, 11, 12,14, 15, and 17 all seem to lean that way. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/34 "2011-04-20T15:40:17Z")
But, in thinking about it, it’s not surprising that a party that eschews ideology and seeks practical solutions to problems doesn’t have an overarching philosophy. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/35 "2011-04-20T16:47:18Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > But, in thinking about it, it’s not surprising that a party that eschews ideology and seeks practical solutions to problems doesn’t have an overarching philosophy. But you need enough of a philosophy to decide what constitutes a problem (and beyond that, whether it’s one that government ought to address). Is climate change a problem? How about persistently high unemployment? Is the widespread absence of alternatives to petroleum-based transportation a problem, in an era where, peak oil or no peak oil, world oil demand seems to be increasing much faster than new oilfields can come online? Is illegal immigration a problem, and if so, exactly what is the nature of that problem? And so on. A Perot-style ‘look under the hood and fix the problems with the engine’ centrist approach made some sense in 1992 when there was wider agreement on what the problems are. But now the two parties largely can’t agree on what’s a problem that needs to be addressed. So whatever desire there may be for such a party is, AFAIAC, based on wishful thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/36 "2011-04-20T17:23:48Z")
They do seem to agree that climate change, oil shortages and illegal immigration are problems, though. But I don’t know that that’s unusual. Don’t most people agree that climate change, oil shortages and illegal immigration are problems? The two parties just disagree what the best solution to those problems are. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/37 "2011-04-20T17:39:41Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > What if by “government” I mean a body that doesn’t nearly shut down over the funding of Planned Parenthood or the National Endowment for the Arts? 😉 Rock Candy Mountain is over that way. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/38 "2011-04-20T17:41:12Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Limited federal power/more power to the states, maybe? 1, 11, 12,14, 15, and 17 all seem to lean that way. Seems to me the Tea Party movement already has that covered. See their [“Contract from America.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement#.22Contract_from_America.22) Who needs the Whigs? ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/39 "2011-04-20T20:04:38Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Slogan: “Don’t blame me - I voted for [Mister Splashy Pants](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Splashy_Pants).” Oh, this makes me wish I knew what happened to my 1984-ish Bloom County “Don’t Blame Me - I Voted for Bill and Opus” tee. ---
**Author:** ![Scot\_Dutch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Scot\_Dutch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scot_Dutch)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884/40 "2011-04-21T00:54:08Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > That’s a fair point. But the level of partisanship and hardline behavior we are seeing these days is not a necessary part of the system or of governing in general. So I’m saying a party that focuses less on ideological conflict and more on creating a functional government would have something in its favor. This would be wonderful. The trouble with this is that neither party accepts that they are driven by ideology. Both parties are convinced that they are the party of practicality, and only their opponents are ideological robots. So neither a devout Repub or Dem sees a need for a new party. The last thing America needs is a third party to create a third dimension of conflict. We need people to abandon the two parties that already exist and start thinking for themselves. The current system is divide-and-conquer, and we are doing it to ourselves. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-whigs-a-party-of-sanity/578884.md?page=3)