Why America needs more than two political parties

For so long now, it has just been Republicans and Democrats and I'm quite sick of both. While Democrats nauseate me with the constant need for more government and more gun control laws every time someone commits a sensational crime, Republicans completely sicken me with their mantra of less government and less spending, as long as we keep spending money on their projects and enforcing their moral beliefs.

People like to point to the Tea Party as an alternative but really, they're no more than a disorganized collection of a few old Dixiecrats, some independents, some Libertarians and the hard right wing of the Republicans. While the talk of financial responsibility and deficit reduction are their main shtick, they are generally all social conservatives who believe that everything that ails America is the fault of liberals, government and what ever other enemy du jour they've been told about. These are all people who probably would have voted for a candidate with an "R" after their name anyhow rather than let anyone who had a "D" after their name win.

That's basically what it comes down to is that both parties have us programmed to be so afraid of the opposite voting bloc that we will take whatever they have just to avoid having the "enemy" win. You turn on any news commentary and over and over, you will see a pundit pointing to the extreme views of a group on the other side, telling us how afraid we should be of them. The extremists are usually the minority in a party but they control the dialogue and they are usually the ones who end up choosing the candidates the party nominates. I truly believe that the majority of voters cast ballots in fear of the other side and not out of admiration for the candidate who gets their vote. As long as we continue to allow ourselves to be tricked into being afraid of others with different ideas, we cannot move forward.