Two party system, flawed?

Most people are familiar with our current form of government. The high and mighty democracy, power to the people, the only fair government, etc. But is our current system the best? Democracy's roots can be traced back in history to the Greeks. It is common for people to associate our form of democracy with the Greeks. But is that politically correct?(no pun intended.)

The Greek form of democracy was different, and in my opinion better. We all know, and most affiliate themselves with either of the two parties, Republicans or Democrats. Our form of government can be called a two-party system. Of course, this isn't entirely true with the appearances of the independents and green party, but for the most part it is. Now the Greeks ran a, in my opinion, superior form which one can call a non-partisan democracy. This form of government is very similar, minus the parties.

What is the problem with parties? Well, I don't want to be stereotypical, and I'm not saying this for all citizens of our country, but most people vote for their party in any election. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as, obviously, candidates running in certain parties will share views with most other members of their party. The flaw in this system can be seen in the less educated. People, again not saying all, not stereotyping, sometimes vote only within their party. Neglecting to read their positions on issues, sometimes not knowing issues, just voting because they are a republican and the candidate is republican or vice versa for democrats. Now this is not true in many circumstances. There are, I have talked to many, well informed and well researched voters. But, I have also personally experience many close minded people. A few friends from my school who I like very much, share extremely opposite "political views." I put that in quotes because it's a bit of a stretch to call them that. Now myself, I like the idea of a non-partisan democracy, but I'll get into that later. I would not classify myself as a Democrat, although I tend to have very liberal ideals. I would classify myself as my history teacher puts himself(he refused to vote in the last election because when he registered they wouldn't accept his party) as a Free Thinker. My friend, on the other hand, comes from a very rich, white, conservative family. As you could've guessed, both parents were republicans. Not very active republicans i might add, their main issues, if they had one, were monetary and finacial. Now their son, who is a very likeable person, inherited this conservative stance. Yet all he really knows is that he is republican. When we get into a political "discussion" I ask him about the Iraq war. He responds with, we're fighting terrorism, or destroying weapons of mass destruction. What is terrorism? Who exactly are we fighting? Why is Iraq terrorism? How many weapons of mass destructiong have we found? How many weapons of mass destruction do we have, and what right do we have going into other countries and telling them they can't have them? These questions are always diverted, never answered. His rebuddles almost always involved, you may have guessed it, money. Do you like high taxes? Why would you want to be taxed? My answer, alright we'll cut taxes and let all the roads crumble, not pay the soldiers risking their lives for a retarted war, and not pay our government officials. Those pay cuts will do wonders for the state of our country.

But enough with the ranting on conservatives, that small tangent shows that many people are ill informed. I even elect to not bring up other issues that he may have no idea about and may cause him to be embarressed. Yet whenever I ask him who he would vote for(we are too young to vote) he says the republican candidate. Bush, Bush, McCain, etc. Again I will stress I'm not going to stereotype, but their are many other people in the world like this. How fair is an election when half the people are voting for a candidate because they are in the same party, not because of their stances on important issues.

A non-partisan democracy would remove this. People would not be aloud to be lazy and vote for someone because they are a democrat or republican. There would be candidates, and when it came time to vote, the only way to chose one would be to look at the stances on issues and to chose the one that one feels is the most similar to ones. What really is point of parties? Sure it provides some backing for poorer candidates or help for people wishing to start up in the world of politics, but I believe if someone is truly qualified for being president, they will get it. Their are many people in this world who aren't dumb, and that person is bound to get notice sooner or later, no matter if they are born to a small family in the middle of California who struggles from month to month to pull up enough money to pay bills, or a person born to an estate house in the woods of New England.

-Leonard

P.S.(Don't know what to put after a blog)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-partisan_democracy Down in the disadvantages.

Voters may find voting on a party basis more convenient than learning the platforms of innumerable candidates. It may be easier for voters to simply learn a broad, philosophical agenda (ie: a party platform) towards governance / politics and support candidates who share it. Time and effort may be wasted trying to learn the individual opinions of each separate candidate for each separate office when it would be simpler for them to just identify on a common platform. Critics will argue that during contentious elections parties will de facto emerge on this basis anyway. For example, if a community's most pressing public debate was over whether or not to build a new library, it would be expected that some candidates would support the idea, and others not. Voters may thus make their decisions bases solely on who is willing to identify as being on "their side" of the issue, even for officials whose office is not directly related to the decision, solely on the basis that "they think like me."