When you listen to people talk about their political opinions, one thing that becomes immediately apparent is that they don’t fit neatly with the two major political parties (here in America). That’s to be expected, but is it reasonable to expect that, on average, people’s political values will cluster around these parties? I’m not so sure.
Furthermore, I see the important kernel of political value to be what one sees as important, relative to other things, not so much what one sees as the best solution to these problems. I see people’s jobs as voting in their own best interest. People’s ideas about how best to achieve whatever their value goals are (economic stability, social justice, etc.) are quite often wrong - most people don’t understand economics or sociology or whatever. Furthermore, it’s a good idea to separate ideology from implementation so that political activists don’t get caught up with a pet solution when what really matters is their problem, regardless of solution. This is (in theory!) what politicians are for - to be experts.
So, given that political parties should be based on political values and based on what the political values of the people really are, I propose polling people on a series of questions, allowing them to rank what they see as most important. Then, use mathematical techniques to find loci (not too much unlike those used to distinguish populations, etc.) and let these be the true political parties! This data can be used to discover the right type of voting for our nation and further to justify something other than our current system!
Is anyone aware of someone having tried this before? Anyone who could point me in the right direction for what statistical techniques to use? I’m sure I couldn’t be the first person to have come up with this idea, yet it may well be quite important in determining the future of our country. It may well stem the tide of people voting against their own interests, but then again, in the wise words of ‘tater salad, “you can’t fix stupid.”
Tags: america, idea, political party, politics