When was the last time you voted? Were you happy with the caliber of candidates available to you? Did you vote because you honestly thought that Candidate A was the one with all the right answers, or simply because he or she was more tolerable than Candidate B?

“Lesser evil” syndrome has been rampant in this country for longer than the average voter would like to admit — and that’s if this voter’s been paying attention!

Too often, voters are inundated with horror stories from the lame-stream media and scared into voting for the candidate least likely to erode their concept of freedom. In practice, what we have is a sensationalist news press and a political system institutionalized to polarize people against each other and erode everyone’s liberty.

The fact is, the United States is the only developed country that has but two major political parties. Every other comparable nation on Earth has at least three to choose from. For example, Britain’s three main parties (Conservative, Labour, and Liberal) often team up with another minor party in order to win in a “first-past-the-post” system; the coalition with the highest number of votes, but not necessarily more than 50 percent. Canada and Germany both have five parties represented in their national legislatures, not equally of course, but it does show that their political discourse is allowed to diversify more than our rigid American structure.

Not only do other first world countries have more options, but their spectrum of debate is much wider than ours, too. For example, the healthcare debate in the 2012 presidential election was not between the universal healthcare and a free market approach, but between Obamacare and Romneycare, variations of the other.

Why does this rigidness matter? Voters with a contrary opinion are confined to only two options that do not differ too much and end up having little to no accurate representation. If a government is to exist, should it not at least actually stand for the will of the people?

One way I am challenging this institutional marginalization is by not only registering with a third party, but becoming actively involved with it to fight back against the two party duopoly that has dominated mainstream politics for too long. I encourage students especially to research other parties, find the one that best fits them and to get involved. No more Republicans. No more Democrats. Let’s have a REAL discussion.