I stopped replying after #3, Dave, but I hope you see with the three replies where I am coming from.
For me, it is very obvious that you have a concept in mind and that you are working from that concept. Nothing wrong here, except that your concept is half-matured.
You are including a form of democracy that you do not understand very well because you have not lived it.
In plain English: Your concept is not based solidly on the ground; it is partially hanging in the air. That weakens your arguments.
Naturally, some good parts of what you discuss are found on the ground indeed, but you are not staying on the ground.
Voter empowerment is the foundation of democracy. A party is a vehicle. A party is the overarching reality surrounding voter empowerment.
If you are trying to fix the winner-take-all democracy, then is all fine.
But in your concept you go one level higher, including proportional voting, and you actually are not well-versed in it.
Because you work with a concept instead of having your feet on the ground (i.e. parties v. voter empowerment), you end up speaking half truths.
Don't say parties and then not talk about the fundamental differences if a nation has 2 parties, if a nation has 5 parties, if a nation has 10 parties, if a nation has winner-take-all, if a nation has proportional voting, if a nation has one Chamber, if a nation has two Chambers, if a nation has an empowered President.
Walk you concept down to reality and we can probably agree, Dave. But you have lot of work to do before you reached the ground level of your concept.
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In an analogy, you are mixing letters with numbers. And then you talk how all of them are symbols and how symbols are not the actual truth.
All that is fine, except you must always make a distinction between the system of letters (26 in total) and the system of numbers (infinite). You cannot make them one and the same, even though we can agree that all are symbols.
Good luck figuring this out better, Dave. If you have questions, I can show you my views, which may or may not do the trick, but I guarantee you that they will be informative.
