ubernoir wrote:
i missed him arguing that you should join a party

The article is titled "against independent voters." The alternative is to join a party. He asserts that people who aren't part of a party don't beleive in anything (paragraph 6), are self obsessed (paragraph 7), and possibly stupid (paragraph 8). He then argues that I should join a party:

If you feel strongly about these and other matters, it is incumbent upon you to take into consideration the positions of the two major parties... If you are really interested in the way things should go in the country, come off the high pedestal and join the rest of us in the nurturing (and, yes, dirty) soil of the partisan free-for-all.

this is not something which I am clear on in my own mind as to whether a proportional or first past the post system is better

Does anyone run a proportional system? When I consider this the first issue that comes to my mind, possibly more stark in America than in the UK, is that representation in our system of government is in accordance to geography, which is actually an antiquated idea in some respects.

RE: Against Independent Voters - Stanley Fish - Think Again - Opinion - New York Times Blog