Political parties encourage mindless group thinking

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Although this topic is somewhat political it goes beyond a regular political debate. What we need for a more enlightened world where people with disabilities and others who don't fit in the "normal" box can belong is to ban political parties altogether. Each politician should stand as an individual. Vote based on the individual's policies and trustworthiness rather than their party affiliation.

That's the best hope for making a better society. Almost all evil is done in groups. Few individuals have done terrible atrocities alone, you will find in almost every case the group overcoming the rights of the individual is the problem.

Right wingers today place the rights of "hardworking, ordinary citizens" and "local people, not immigrants" over whatever people actually are. Left wingers place the rights of "struggling families and left behind workers" over the myriad of individuals that make up a real society.

All politicians lie because they have to follow an ideology and ideologies are false. They are never real. The truth is grey, it isn't black and white. There are no convenient answers anyone has, only different perspectives.

That's why we need a political system that recognises the complexity of life. When people live in a system where politicians are divided along party lines it encourages tribal thinking in other ways. Throughout our society we see people forming allegiances with groups in a kind of way where they go to war with other groups. Rational debate and politeness are thrown out of the window. If politics demands politicians be individuals, then the ripple effect will be that people in wider society will realize it's who we are as individuals that matters, not what group we belong to.

Bullying exists in political parties as it does in all groups. Sometimes bad laws are passed for no other reason than a culture of conformity can exist in political parties where many of the politicians toe the line of whatever is proposed to make sure they don't get pressured to leave the party or harassed by other members - and since their regular paycheck depends on it, they're likely to not be too brave in challenging this system. So I think until we ban political parties the chances of rooting out corruption and widespread bullying and injustices in society are not too great. Individuals are our greatest asset, not groups.

Ban all heuristics while you're at it? Life will get complicated. I think that the current problems with political parties come from gerrymandering.

I want to see some choice voting. That's the kind of voting where you rank your choices. Then you can have more ways to express your true opinions with your vote.

Centralized government was not designed to benefit or represent the masses; it was designed to protect the selfish interests of the wealthy and powerful few at the expense of the many. Rearranging centralized government will not significantly change this core facet; it will only change the details of the ways in which the few maintain power over the many.

You must realize that nothing is forcing citizens to be thoughtlessly partisan; they choose that behavior themselves. Removing partisanship from government may remove conditions that are favorable to citizen's blind partisanship, but it won't remove whatever core psychological issue—stupidity, immaturity, xenophobia, or whatever—led to citizen's partisan behavior.

Yeah, but I personally think that those who make the most noise about "progressive" election reform, at least in the states here, are mostly SJW-types or strong liberals. I don't feel very safe at these times just because I'm not a progressive, militant, atheist hippie type. Even if you abolish all partisanship, you'd still have the same people throwing around "bigot" or "xenophobe".

We're probably screwed any way.

And that is why I refrain from succumbing to ideological collectivism altogether, but it's not just political parties that exhort tribalism; communal reinforcement, collective group mentalities and divide and conquer Hegelian dialectics to subvert the divine individual consciousness and independent spirit, think about all of the multifarious groups that are proliferated nationwide like activist groups; think tanks, isms/ologies/doctrines/ocracies (including identity politics & discoursed scientific theorizations), new social movements (NSM's), modern "conventional" economic paradigms, organized religions (including new religious movements (NRM's)) and self proclaimed "non-conformist alternative lifestyle" subcultures.

Not a very rational nor peaceful world if you ask me, and libertarian individualists (I was one over a year ago); neurodiversity activists (inc their opponents) and the so-called "skeptic/freethought" movement (oh and don't forget so-called "truthers" ) are not impregnable to the logical fallacies and cognitive biases that any of these groups are always propensified to exhibiting, as they are very much apportioned with them in terms of their collective perception (inc exegesis) of "truth".