Would we be better off without political parties?

[lucifer]

or even with more than just two main ones... i mean for ex. this time around a lot of people including me felt that both the candidates sucked ass. anyways, no political parties would mean that people would actually think about what each candidate stands for and not just vote blindly along party lines without having a decent knowledge of the issues.

or even if you are going to have parties, make sure that there just aren't two of 'em. i think with more parties, it's likely that more people would be interested in politics because the chance of them finding a party which would defend each person's interest would be greater. it's likely people will have to compromise and vote for the 'lesser of the two evils'. there would also be more debate and that potentially means improvement.

both having no or having more parties would promote democracy as people's views will be more accurately represented in the government and that's the basic idea behind indirect democracy.

 

[fourier jr]

i think that would be good. two territories in Canada don't have any parties (nunavut & NWT); all the people in the legislature are elected as independents. the premier is elected by the members of the legislative assembly. i think that's a much better system than the current "party line" system where people can't really vote the way they want all the time, and they're labelled as one thing or another.

 

[Andromeda321]

I think there are two main reasons political parties exist.
1. They provide a good deal of stability to the government.
2. They help a voter find a canidate whose platform they agree with.
I like political parties but I don't particularly like the two party system that exists in the United States (I am a registered Independent). Basically the problem is the two parties just try to appeal to the most number of voters and whichever one who appeals to the most will get the most votes. This is something that I find to be something that can become very contradictory and hypocritical very quickly.
Then there's the whole can of worms regarding third parties in the US but that deserves another thread probably...

 

[the number 42]

...it's likely people will have to compromise and vote for the 'lesser of the two evils'.

Am I tripping? Is this a thread by lucifer encouraging us to vote for the lesser of two evils? Which edition of the bible did John fortell this in?