<story><title>Germany&apos;s Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18017064</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>More parties being bad for democracy is extremely funny.&lt;p&gt;It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties, in fact in most democratic constitutions the word &apos;party&apos; is never mentioned.&lt;p&gt;People should vote for other people, not for parties.</text></item><item><author>muuh-gnu</author><text>In other news, former German president Roman Herzog, member of the (for now) largest party, the Christian Democratical Union CDU, suggested that having new parties like the Pirates entering parliaments is bad for overall democracy because it is increasing political diversity, and should be combated by again increasing the election threshold, which is now at 5%. According to the interview he gave recently, increasing political diversity in the parliament decreases support of a goverment and the chancellor, which could destabilize a country, meaning less dissent in the parliament, more stable country.&lt;p&gt;The two big parties are basically getting threatened by the internet and are obviously ready to go nuclear by threatening to simply team up, get supermajority required for a constitutional change, and &quot;optimize&quot; the political diversity down to 2 or 3, US style, maybe even 1, by simply throwing the annoying emerging competition out of the parliaments.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>muuh-gnu</author><text>&amp;#62; It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties&lt;p&gt;Abolishing the formal definition of parties wouldnt help, because like-minded people would still team up and form de facto parties, so nothing substantial would change.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; People should vote for other people, not for parties.&lt;p&gt;In Germany, you have both. There are two votes, the first one is for people, the &quot;direct candidates&quot;. The second is for the whole party, which again is represented by a list of candidates determined by in-party elections.</text></comment>
<story><title>Germany&apos;s Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18017064</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>More parties being bad for democracy is extremely funny.&lt;p&gt;It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties, in fact in most democratic constitutions the word &apos;party&apos; is never mentioned.&lt;p&gt;People should vote for other people, not for parties.</text></item><item><author>muuh-gnu</author><text>In other news, former German president Roman Herzog, member of the (for now) largest party, the Christian Democratical Union CDU, suggested that having new parties like the Pirates entering parliaments is bad for overall democracy because it is increasing political diversity, and should be combated by again increasing the election threshold, which is now at 5%. According to the interview he gave recently, increasing political diversity in the parliament decreases support of a goverment and the chancellor, which could destabilize a country, meaning less dissent in the parliament, more stable country.&lt;p&gt;The two big parties are basically getting threatened by the internet and are obviously ready to go nuclear by threatening to simply team up, get supermajority required for a constitutional change, and &quot;optimize&quot; the political diversity down to 2 or 3, US style, maybe even 1, by simply throwing the annoying emerging competition out of the parliaments.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Riesling</author><text>&amp;#62; People should vote for other people, not for parties.&lt;p&gt;I would like to take this concept even one step further.
People should not vote for other people. They should vote for ideas and concepts.</text></comment>