Shaddup MG!
I'm currently experiencing the same level of intellectual debate that you demonstrate, from my 7 year old highly intelligent god-daugher....

Don,

Another problem is the 'first past the post' voting system which also encourages 'winner take all'. In Australia, I may not like the current party in power, or even 'the opposition', but I do have a chance to vote first for someone else, then give a second preference to one of the major parties. This tends to keep the big boys in line, cause if the minority parties get too many primary votes and exchange preferences the right way, the big parties lose that seat, then need to chase after the little guys to stay in power. This discourages complacency. As was evidenced with the 'Pauline Hanson' phenomena, it cause the Liberal Party to veer hard to the Right to stop it's so called 'Conservative Voters' deserting them in droves.

In Australia
'Labour' = just right of centre,
'Liberal' = Hard Right Wing,
'Conservative' = somewhere in between.
'Democrat' & 'Green' = somewhere approaching the old Labour Party Left position...
'Independent' is genuinely anywhere from Hard Right to somewhere left of centre...

:-)