The problem with the LibDems is the gap between what they say and what they do. The reason they are in such dire straits is that when they got a sniff of power and joined a coalition with the Tories, they abandoned a number of key election promises and royally pissed off their core vote.
(And when they were punished in the polls for this, their leader quit and got a job as Facebook's amoral bullshitter in chief.)
Plus, the LibDems support all the amoral creepy shit, anyway. Unfortunately, it's got cross-party support, as has the Online Safety Bill.
I don't get why we put up with political parties at all... is it to have somebody to blame, somebody who is not ourselves? Because, if it wasn't so, we would enact direct democracy, and the next time that a lobby group wants to pocket a politician, it would have to pocket each and every single citizen...which I guess they could do by paying voluntary taxes...
> I don't get why we put up with political parties at all...
For two reasons:
First, because politics is an ecosystem, and political parties are much stronger than unorganized political actors, so they outcompete and win. Your effectiveness is multiplied tremendously if you have an organized group which can fundraise, make small compromises among its members to reach common goals, scan membership to find compelling leaders, etc. Unorganized political actors have no chance against parties, and so they adapt (by becoming parties themselves) or die.
Second, because "political parties" are just a fact of gathering large numbers of humans: they will always have different opinions, and form tribes and cliques with like-minded people. If you don't have explicit parties, you will have hidden, implicit, internal ones, and that is much worse. See The Tyranny of Structurelessness, or alternatively one-party states like China, which still do have political factions, because having political factions is something people naturally do, but hide these behind the opacity of the CCP, leading to much less transparent decision-making.
If we had direct democracy in the UK, immigration would be banned, Brexit would have happened in the 1980s, and murderers and child molesters would be hanged.
> You basically have to choose the least bad options.
Do you? I choose not to vote because I refuse to participate in a charade of false consensus. If you pick the lesser of two evils, you are still picking evil.
The obvious -- yet never stated -- reason voter turnout is so bad in the United States is that the candidates offered are such garbage.
In the case that the greater of two evils wins, you are then complicit.
The world isn't perfect. There will always be issues with candidates, because the world is messy and complex. If you chose not to vote for the lesser of two evils, you leave more opportunity for the _greater_ to succeed.
I get entirely what you mean, I just consider it naive utopianism. Dreams without any plan are just delusions.
The system is going to continue on, for the near future at least. If you've got some plan to fix 'the current shitshow', do that, _while making the best out of the current shitshow_.
You say you are refusing to eat dog shit. You're not. You're just letting society decide which shit you eat, without putting your vote in. The better, or worse, of two evils is still going to be elected. You're still going to be part of that system unless you're entirely off grid and self sufficient.
(And when they were punished in the polls for this, their leader quit and got a job as Facebook's amoral bullshitter in chief.)
Plus, the LibDems support all the amoral creepy shit, anyway. Unfortunately, it's got cross-party support, as has the Online Safety Bill.