Originally posted by Greadius
Ya think if we just cut & pasted one of our previous discussions about this, posting in order post by post, anyone would notice?
That's pretty likely to be the case.
But first I'm too lazy to search for them, and second you showed up too late and even had the boldness to reply to my argumentation, so here we go:
I think the biggest drawback is that parties are forced to be more ideological and uncompromising in their stances, and therefore elected representatives are less of individuals and more of the party mold.
I don't see that as a drawback, assuming it is like that at all. What is bad about being more uncompromising in your stance, if you are a political party? After all I don't want to vote for some compromise but rather for my view, which should then (represented by MPs who should indeed follow that view) find a compromise with other views, based on their relative weight, and not on a predetermined (by just a few people) one.
"Maverick" representatives don't last, where on the contrary in the U.S. you can be a member of a party only in name and they'll still back you.
Again it's questionable if that's the case, after all even the two parties themselves don't really have much ideological difference (compared to a
real political spectrum), so within a single party it's most likely even less.
But assuming you're right the answer to this could be a mixed system like we have it here. That offers the possiblity for fringe (really fringe) candidates, independants and "Mavericks" within a party.
Christian Ströbele is an example for that as are the two PDS MPs.
but you can still determine why people voted through exit polls without much room for questioning (based on the 'big' issues)
That's something I can't agree with at all. If you look at the actual exit poll results, even for the simple question of "what did you vote", you notice a significant difference to the real result.
A probability is a nice thing, but still just a relative one.
You still can't tell if people voted for the Green party over Social Democrats because they thought their social program was better, or if people voted SD because they thought the Green parties environmental stances were too extreme. Political analysts will answer those questions in both systems with equally efficiency, so the benefit is moot to anything but the most casual political observer.
You're right that the exact reasons for their decision doesn't become obvious in both systems. But that's probably not even bad, considering how many people vote on the candidates' hairdo.
Even if you ask someone about political ideas that doesn't say too much because most don't even know them and will just agree with the one that's of "their" party, the party that they choose for other reasons.
And of course there's still a big difference between a multi-party Democracy and a direct democracy, where you would get exact results on issues. But the multi-party Democracy at least offers a more differentiated result than the two party system. It's so to speak a step in the right direction, which of course implies that direct Democracy would be the right direction, and you know my view on that...
And sacrifice the flexibility that I can be a democrat and hold differing views on many points, it is concerting to know that the Florida Democratic party is closer to my views, and the parties stances can be shifted & influenced on the issues I feel intensely about. Basically, I can draw a compromise with the majority on my important issues if I aquiesce to their will on issues I don't care as much about.
Again I disagree.
I don't think that a German party has less variability in their views and wings than any of the two big American parties. For example there's a very long way from the radical pacifists in the Green party to those who send the Bundeswehr to Kosovo and Afghanistan, as you can imagine.
Equally there's a huge difference between the classic worker's rights activists in the Social Democratic Party and those who happily subsidize the industry.
What I think is that your flexibility is not bigger than mine would be if I'd join any party here (okay most
).
I could be a Green party member and could still choose if I support Socialist ideas or a free market economy.
I could be member of the conservative party and could still choose between women's rights and "christian values".
