Next US Presidential Election: The Fallacy of too few choices.

With the next US presidential election looming in the fall, we should look to practical short term solutions rather than the long range utopian solutions.

Ever hear of the fallacy of too few choices?  This fallacy is also called the fallacy of the false dilemma?  It would be a fallacy of too few choices if one party gave the choice of having a huge military budget and the other party gave the choice of having a tiny military budget.  The given options are too few.  Most people would prefer options that allowed for a military budget that was slightly stronger or slightly less strong.

The fallacy of too few choices also applies to clustered choices or packaged choices.  Having to choose between the cluster of proposals preferred by the Democratic Party or the cluster of choices preferred by the Republican Party is a logical fallacy; it gives the voter too few options.  The real choices are infinite in any choice between packages with several options.

I will not give the long range utopian solution for this problem in this post.  I will, however, suggest the shorter range solution is that the USA should have more viable political parties.

That solution creates an enigma.  How does the government create more viable political parties?  Ultimately the solution will require changes to the voting laws.

A short term solution to the problem of having more political parties would be instantaneous and not too painful.  The solution would neither be a complete solution or a final solution.  A solution that could put the USA on the path to having more political parties and thus more choices would be to require that each candidate belong to two different political parties.  A candidate would have to belong to a major party and a minor party.  A Republican or Democratic candidate might belong also to the Tea Party or the Libertarian party, for example.  Two totally independent parties would support each candidate.

Once there are four or more political parties sharing the political responsibilities in Washington, further changes could be made.  This solution would be an interim solution and should be automatically retired after a short trial – perhaps five years.

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