: The fantasy of politics without parties
: is inimical to the represenative system, we cannot vote on issues, on specific
: policies, we can only vote on the sort of people we want to represent, i.e.
: vote and decide on our behalf, us in Parliament. When I spoke of partisanship and democracy, I was referring to voting along party guidelines at a local level where individual measures are approved / disapproved by the public.
Partisanship seems a way of further destroying the individual right to choose, though. While I could never consider questioning that representative government inadequately represents the wishes of the populace... what they wish is made even more unimportant by a bipartisan system that conditions them to endorse only one or the other.
I still advise people to be free of thought-constraining party identifications in order to avoid the temptation of wasting one's vote on an agenda they had no part in creating.
I enjoyed your post and the quote, thank you.
None.
