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A comment on Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight. Parent comment

Re:Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance prog... by pessimizer on Saturday April 20, 2024 @02:26PM (#40099586)
Other countries don't institutionalize the two-party system by law. Because it would be insane and antidemocratic to create a complicated network of laws that would have to be eliminated state by state in order to ordain that an entire country must be ruled by two intimately-linked private clubs in turn.
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Re:Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance prog... by cryptonector on Saturday April 20, 2024 @06:54PM (#40101723)
The two-party system isn't so heavily institutionalized "by law". The law generally gives advantages to parties that pull in more than x% of the vote, and it so happens that the first-past-the-post system of electing representatives makes it very difficult for a third party to take root.
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Re:Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance prog... by dartos on Saturday April 20, 2024 @08:19PM (#40102202)
The first past the post system is encoding a two party system into law. If it makes to hard enough for a third party to take hold, there might as well not be one.

Not everything is spelled in ink.

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Re:Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance prog... by bigstrat2003 on Saturday April 20, 2024 @10:50PM (#40102812)
That's not "encoded into the law". The outcomes of the law are not the same as the law itself.
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Re:Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance prog... by dartos on Sunday April 21, 2024 @02:42AM (#40103643)
Practically speaking, they are.

The effect of a law is at least as important as the literal words on the page.

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Re:Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance prog... by int_19h on Sunday April 21, 2024 @03:03AM (#40103728)
Except our law is nothing like that. You can have a party take 45% of each district across the whole country and end up with zero seats in the House (because the other party took 55% of each).
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