Even if the US escapes from the two party local maximum, it'd probably land in a three party local maximum like many modern democracies (Germany is a good example). Then, a middle-ground party works with the election winner to maintain government stability. It is not a much better model.
The conclusion we are reaching is that representative democracy has very serious limits. Voting for the whole ideologic package does not allow my voice to be heard on stuff that: a) I really care about, or b) I really know inside and out. I'd prefer to relinquish my opinion on some stuff (agricultural policy, for example), and really be heard on other matters (there's absolutely no excuse for torture).
In this day and age, especially with such a strong emphasis on advertising and consumerism, the people governed on the whole do not deserve a say in how things are done. We had a thread not a day ago where mass numbers of HN folks earnestly pleaded that we couldn't reasonably expect normal people to learn to use computers beyond knowing how to app store a thing, how to socializeauth their twitterscapes--people who routinely bemoan how bad politicians are on tech policy issues.
Fuck it. If we want to progress as a race, we need to stop pretending that the 'common man' ought to have a say in long-term priorities, or in how we should govern their fellow citizens.
I think you've got it exactly backwards. We need to rely much more on the "common man" being able to take care of his own day-to-day needs, and take the attitude that the government is what is harmful, incompetent, corrupt, and does not deserve a say in how many things are done.
These are not mutually exclusive--let the marching morons manage their own affairs as well as they can, and don't let them intervene in politics and create perverse incentives for "democratically elected leaders" to do the wrong things to get votes.
I can completely get behind the idea that the government ought to function like a microkernel operating system, doing as little as it can get away with while providing services for all. Part of that, though, is that userland stays well the fuck over in userland.
No, quite the opposite. Allow people to vote on stuff they are interested in, and only on those subjects. Do not interpose a proxy between citizens' opinions and the deciding vote. In essence: give the common man more power.
People do only vote on stuff they're interested in--see also "single-issue voters".
The trend is very much that politicians will make a big to-do about shit that doesn't affect most people but is really polarizing (gay marriage, abortion, gun control, nuclear power, terrorism, whatever) and people will vote on that, and ignore the issues that they personally don't understand/care about (entitlements spending, education spending, electronic surveillance of all communications, etc.).
If the common man deserved more power, I'd advocate for it, but the fact is they've remained willfully deaf, dumb, and blind to the essentials of civic process and liberties, and are by necessity driven by their stomachs and whatever the latest little drama in their lives is.
The common man of America today is hardly able to govern himself, much less contribute in a meaningful way to a system which enforces its laws onto others. If that changes, maybe we can do more.
The conclusion we are reaching is that representative democracy has very serious limits. Voting for the whole ideologic package does not allow my voice to be heard on stuff that: a) I really care about, or b) I really know inside and out. I'd prefer to relinquish my opinion on some stuff (agricultural policy, for example), and really be heard on other matters (there's absolutely no excuse for torture).